People’s Peace lays a solid foundation for the argument that global peace is possible because ordinary people are its architects. Saikia and Haines offer a unique and imaginative perspective on people’s daily lives across the world as they struggle to create peace despite escalating political violence. The volume’s focus on local and ordinary efforts highlights peace as a lived experience that goes beyond national and international peace efforts. In addition, the contributors’ emp...

Religiously influenced social movements tend to be characterized as products of the conservative turn in Protestant and Catholic life in the latter part of the twentieth century, with women's mobilizations centering on defense of the “traditional” family. In Liberal Christianity and Women’s Global Activism, Amanda L. Izzo argues that, contrary to this view, liberal wings of Christian churches have remained an instrumental presence in U.S. and transnational politics. Women have bee...

Part of the Hero Classics seriesUtopia is a distant island where the inhabitants are thriving and justice and reason prevail, in contrast to the realities of sixteenth-century Europe, where greed, superstition and unenlightened tradition reign. Using the framework of a traveller’s account to a fictional land, Thomas More created an ingenious treatise which envisioned a more humanist approach to laws and social structures, and coined the now common term “ut...

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive--and provocative--answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the mos...

Why secularism isn't the same thing as atheism—and why it's crucial for preserving liberty and democracy for all Americans, regardless of their beliefs.Founding father Thomas Jefferson believed that "religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God," but these days many people seem to have forgotten this ideal. Conservatives claim America is a "Christian nation" and urge that laws be structured around religious convictions. Hardcore atheists, meanwhile...

"What if God has his own ways that are not always our ways? What if God acts in public affairs in ways that can, of course, be ignored from day to day but at a price for individuals and whole societies? If God is an actor, how is it possible to trace his action? . . . Can we discover God’s actions in the part of human experience that is public in our day?" —Francis Cardinal GeorgeIn this bracing manifesto, His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, one of the leading Ca...

Winning the Culture War is an exposé on America’s gradual but steady secular and socialist drift. It serves as a treatise that unashamedly reinforces our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage while sounding the alarm at where we as Americans are heading unless Christians and concerned citizens take a firm stand.In 1989, the Berlin wall, the very wall that symbolized oppression for so many indeed came down, and the Iron Curtain of Soviet communism suffered the ...

Conflicts involving religion have returned to the forefront of international relations. And yet political scientists and policymakers have continued to assume that religion has long been privatized in the West. This secularist assumption ignores the contestation surrounding the category of the "secular" in international politics. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations shows why this thinking is flawed, and provides a powerful alternative.Elizabeth Shakman Hu...

The relationship between religion and human rights is both complex and inextricable. While most of the world's religions have supported violence, repression, and prejudice, each has also played a crucial role in the modern struggle for universal human rights. Most importantly, religions provide the essential sources and scales of dignity and responsibility, shame and respect, restraint and regret, restitution and reconciliation that a human rights regime needs to survive and flourish in an...

What role does religion play in the Canadian Forces today? Examining the changing functions of the official religious leaders in the chaplaincy as well as the place and purpose of religion in the lives of regular military personnel, Religion in the Ranks explores this question in the context of late modernity and the Canadian secular state.In-depth interviews with chaplains and with personnel of differing spiritual beliefs offer insight into how religion affects the real l...

2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist—ReligionEvangelicalism in America has cracked, split on the shoals of the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, leaving many wondering if they wantto be in or out of the evangelical tribe. The contentiousness brought to the fore surrounds what it means to affirm and demonstrate evangelical Christian faith amidst the messy and polarized realities gripping our country and world. Who or what is defi...

Haitian Modernity and Liberative Interruptions investigates the intersections of history, literature, race, religion, decolonization, and freedom that led to the founding of the postcolonial state of Haiti in 1804. Particular attention is given to the place of religion in the Haitian Revolution, as well as to the interpretation and representation of this singular event in the work of Frederick Douglass and Langston Hughes. This book not only examines the multiple legacies and the problems ...