Religion and Liberalism

Beginning of article

Religion and Liberalism. Edited by Paul ). Weithman. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. 315 pages. n.p.

"It is a shibboleth of contemporary American political analysis that religion and liberalism are mutually antagonistic," so begins Paul Weithman in the introduction of this volume. Philosopher Richard Rorty attributes to contemporary liberal philosophers the view that keeping a democratic political community going requires religious believers to trade privatization of religious belief for a guarantee of religious liberty. This general topic was the subject of a conference at the University of Notre Dame in 1995 which Weithman, social and political …