Thanks to President Bush and his advocacy of expanded "faith-based" welfare programs, the 200-year-old debate over the proper role of religion in American politics has never been hotter. For that reason alone, "Religion in American Public Life," by Azizah Y. al-Hibri, Jean Bethke Elshtain and Charles C. Haynes, seems to be hot-wired to the headlines.
"This book begins with the recognition that, whatever some of the pious and more of the secular-minded might prefer, faith, spirituality and religion are not only private affairs," Martin E. Marty says in the book's introduction. "As America grows ever more pluralist in fact and outlook, paradoxically the sight and voice of religion is more evident."
"Religion in American Public Life" is published by the American Assembly, an affiliate of Columbia University that was founded in 1950 to study various public policy issues. The assembly's current project, a series of studies of race, religion, family and other topics, falls under the theme "Uniting America: Toward a Common Purpose" and is intended to promote candid but civil debate on controversies that are "some of the most difficult and divisive forces in our society."
"Religion in American Public Life" is aimed at engendering "an atmosphere of mutual respect in public life in which . . . religious differences could be discussed in a less divisive way."
The chapter "Faith of Our Fathers and Mothers" points out a crucial but sometimes overlooked idea: The Bill of Rights may require the separation of church and state, but religion is an unavoidable fact of American life. Ninety-five percent of Americans claim to believe in God, one learns here, and 70% say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. "By diminishing the official power of religion," says Elshtain, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, "Americans appeared to have enhanced its social strength."
Al-Hibri, founder of "Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights," takes a decisive step away from strict separation of church and state by questioning its ideological underpinnings, including what she calls the "secular assumptions of modern science" and "[t]he mechanistic model of the Industrial Revolution." For al-Hibri, the old ideal of "compartmentalizing religion" has outlived its usefulness in the American democracy.
