Christianity and American Democracy Paperback / softback

by Hugh Heclo

Part of the The Alexis de Tocqueville Lectures on American Politics series

Paperback / softback

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Description

Christianity, not religion in general, has been important for American democracy.

With this bold thesis, Hugh Heclo offers a panoramic view of how Christianity and democracy have shaped each other. Heclo shows that amid deeply felt religious differences, a Protestant colonial society gradually convinced itself of the truly Christian reasons for, as well as the enlightened political advantages of, religious liberty.

By the mid-twentieth century, American democracy and Christianity appeared locked in a mutual embrace.

But it was a problematic union vulnerable to fundamental challenge in the Sixties.

Despite the subsequent rise of the religious right and glib talk of a conservative Republican theocracy, Heclo sees a longer-term, reciprocal estrangement between Christianity and American democracy. Responding to his challenging argument, Mary Jo Bane, Michael Kazin, and Alan Wolfe criticize, qualify, and amend it.

Hecloâ€™s rejoinder suggests why both secularists and Christians should worry about a coming rupture between the Christian and democratic faiths.

The result is a lively debate about a momentous tension in American public life.