Social Science Research Council

The recent visit of Benedict XVI to the U.S. demonstrates once again the uncanny ability of the most influential popes to embody the prospects as well as highlight the contradictions of the Roman Catholic Church in the world. The Pope’s visit conversely afforded an opportunity for U.S. Catholics, other people of faith, and the media to project onto Benedict their hopes and fears regarding the Church’s global role as a moral leader in public life. [...]

When people hear the words “progressive” and “evangelical” together, a sort of cognitive dissonance occurs. Meshing the notions of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson with ideas of social justice is not something most people easily understand. [...]

How far has the Catholic Church traveled in its almost 43 years as an advocate of religious freedom? Apparently, the journey has brought the Vatican to the brink of allying itself, however cautiously, with all believers whose search for the Truth of God has led them, or may be leading them, to endorse human dignity and human freedom as the basis for world order and cross-cultural, transnational peace.

“During their meeting, the Holy Father and the President discussed a number of topics of common interest to the Holy See and the United States of America, including moral and religious considerations to which both parties are committed…” The United States committed to “moral and religious considerations”? Considerations shared with a particular religious organization, the Roman Catholic Church? This was news, or seemed to be. [...]

In his ill-chosen remarks to an April 6, 2008 San Francisco fundraiser, Barack Obama showed the danger bad social science poses to progressive politics. Commenting on jobless communities in rural America, Obama argued that “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” As an Obama supporter and a sociologist, I was disappointed to see my candidate draw on an outdated and reductionist approach to religion and culture. [...]

On Sunday evening at Messiah College, the two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination agreed to talk in a “deeply personal” way about “issues of faith and compassion and how a president’s faith can affect us all.” [...]

A funny thing happened on the way to last Sunday’s Compassion Forum: the politics of religion gave way to the politics of confession.

Over the past few days, Barack Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech has been accessed millions of times on YouTube and dissected in dozens of articles. Understandably, most of the analyses have focused on race. That, after all, was its central theme. Or was it? [...]

The contested question of whether in a liberal democracy religion – religious rationales – may serve as a basis of coercive lawmaking must be disaggregated into two distinct questions: First, is religion a morally legitimate basis of (coercive) lawmaking in a liberal democracy? Second, is religion a constitutionally legitimate basis of lawmaking in the United States?

Who are evangelical voters supporting in the 2008 primary season? The facile assumption is to look for them in the Huckabee camp. No doubt many are to be found there. Consensus has it that conservative Protestants got Huckabee his win in the Iowa caucuses. And since then the choice between Huckabee and Romney sure went Huckabee’s way more often than not. But the research on conservative Protestant politics makes me doubt that the story ends with Huckabee. [...]