The Next Religious Establishment: National Identity and Political Theology in Post-Protestant America(American Intellectual Culture)

America cannot survive without a common faith. History has taught us that our national identity and our political order require voluntary religious and civic organizations. Following the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Americans are now engaged in a struggle to determine the future of our nation's character and destiny. So argues prominent political theorist Eldon J. Eisenach in this brilliant and controversial new book. Contentious debates over multiculturalism, church-state relations, and immigration illustrate America's current identity crisis. Creating a common vision for America is no easy task but Eisenach describes how the moral and spiritual foundations of a new, coherent, American identity and faith are already emerging. As in the past, the next religious establishment's primary expression will be a political and cultural order that mediates and integrates personal, ethnic, religious, and civic identities. The Next Religious Establishment alerts readers to the changing landscape of America's identity and invites us to participate in its redefinition. This book will profoundly alter the way political theorists, intellectual historians, and theologians conceptualize America's past, present, and future.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Identities: Personal, Religious and National Chapter 3 Regimes, Religious Establishments, and Political Orders Chapter 4 Theologies/Ideologies: National, Political, and Religious Chapter 5 Institutions: Theocracies and Clericies Chapter 6 Alternatives: Universalism, Restoration, and Nationalism Chapter 7 Signs: The Past and Future Establishment Chapter 8 Conclusion: Pragmatic Nationalism and the Rebirth of Toleration

About the Author :
Eldon Eisenach is professor and department chair of political science at the University of Tulsa.

Review :
A keen observer of history. . . . This book is a rebuttal to those writers and politicians who see the U.S.'s demise in multiculturalism, revisionist history, and a lack of respect for the canon in American universities. Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above. An engaging book. This is a wide-ranging, heady, and provocative book. Its novel interpretations and insights succeed in leading the reader to rethink just about everything she or he knows about American history. The book is indisputably rich in its use of history and tight in its argument. Its powerful thesis makes it perhaps the most convincing recent interpretation of the history and present condition of what is now being called 'religion and American public life.' I hardly need to add that it should be carefully read by those interested in the religious criticism of U.S. Culture. Offers interesting insights into the dilemmas posed by the relationship between politics and religion in the USA. A grand jeremiad. America's multicultural moral discourse, argues Eldon Eisenach, has become incomprehensible and dangerous. It threatens our common future. Even readers who disagree will find much to ponder in this learned, powerful, passionate, dazzling call for a shared American identity. Few political philosophers have analyzed the significance of religion in the nation's self-understanding as well as Eldon Eisenach does in this work. This book initiates a significant discussion among philosophers, theologians, ethicists, historians, and others concerning the necessary place of religion in national political identity. This is a novel book that greatly advances the current discourse about public religion and national identity. Eisenach's jeremiad is both provocative and useful for our time and may well stir the fruitful controversy he admittedly seeks.