The religion of democracy : seven liberals and the American moral tradition

Author

Amy Kittelstrom

Call Number

• 261.7 K626 (CEN)

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Publication Information

New York : Penguin Press, 2015.

Physical Description

432 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Summary

"Today we associate liberal thought and politics with secularism. When we argue over whether the nation's founders meant to keep religion out of politics, the godless side is said to be liberal. But the role of religion in American politics has always been far more nuanced and complex than today's debates would suggest and closer to the heart of American intellectual life than is commonly understood. American democracy was intended by its creators to be more than just a political system, and in [this book], historian Amy Kittelstrom shows how religion and democracy have worked together as universal ideals in American culture--and as guides to moral action and the social practice of treating one another as equals who deserve to be free"--

Contents

• An American Reformation
• John Adams, Reformation Christian : the Protestant moral ethic and the spirit of independence
• Mary Moody Emerson, natural Christian : the culture of lived virtue and the fight against bigotry
• William Ellery Channing, practical Christian : universal inner divinity and self-culture
• William James, practical idealist : the man of the world and the method of nature
• Thomas Davidson, liberal : freedom, fellowship, and the socialization of self-culture
• William Mackintire Salter, new liberal : ethical culture and social progress
• Jane Addams, social Democrat : universal needs and the cooperative road to international peace
• An American century?