Journal of Church and State articles from January 1998

Journal of Church and State archives from January 1998

Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Michael J. Perry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 168 pp. $29.95. Michael J. Perry's latest book concerns the political issues that bedevil modern American politics: prayer in public schools, government display of religious...

Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion and Government.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Edited by Kevin Avruch and Walter P. Zenner Books on Israel, IV. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997. 229 pp. $49.50 cloth; $17.95 paper. Of the review essays in this volume, two treat the peace process: Ofira Seliktar...

Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Edited by Scott Appleby. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1997. 438 pp. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper. A plethora of rather similar books have appeared over the past decade recounting the ideas of various religionists in the Middle...

The Making of Iran's Islamic Revolution: From Monarchy to Islamic Republic.
January 1, 1998... By Moshen Milani. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994. 268 pp. $62.00 cloth; $21.95 paper. The Iranian Revolution gave us more than Nightline. It gave us a ream of books written by sociologists, anthropologists, linguists, and political...

Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic Movements in North Africa.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Emad Eldin Shahin. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997. 275 pp. $55.00. Emad Eldin Shahin's seven-chapter book is an impressive historical analysis of the rise of Islamic protest movements (political Islam) in the North African...

God's Wrathful Children: Political Oppression and Christian Ethics.
January 1, 1998... By Willa Boesak. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. 264 pp. $16.99. The African continent is almost oversupplied with the abundance of nature. Early Europeans were first attracted to Africa because of the...

Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement.
January 1, 1998... By Lise McKean. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 361 pp. $47.95. This is a carefully researched and timely book. The Hindu Nationalist Movement is today a leading political, religious, and economic force in India and in the...

Japanese Christians and Society.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Alan Suggate (with the assistance of Yamano Shigeko.) Bern: Peter Lang, 1996. 285 pp. $39.95 paper. Japanese Christians and Society by Alan Suggate is a compelling book telling of the struggles of modern Japanese Christians for justice...

Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm.
January 1, 1998... By Robert B. Ekelund, Robert F. Hebert, Robert D. Tollison, Gary M. Anderson, and Audrey B. Davidson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 210 pp. $29.95. Only occasionally do we encounter books that break new ground and truly force us...

Peter Des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205-1238.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Nicholas Vincent. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 543 pp. $79.95. Nicholas Vincent has provided a thoroughly researched reinterpretation of the early thirteenth century in a biography of one of its most reviled characters. In...

History and the Shaping of Irish Protestantism.
January 1, 1998... History and the Shaping of Irish Protestantism. By Desmond Bowen. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995. 718 pp. $39.95 paper. Desmond Bowen's book is an ambitious and impressive survey of the history of Ireland presented through the...

Patrons and Defenders: The Saints in the Italian City-States.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Diana Webb. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1996. 343 pp. $55.00. In this dense volume, Diana Webb tells the story of "how the urban community, considered primarily as a political entity ruled by laymen, came to employ the saints for its...

Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Richard H. Weisberg. New York: New York University Press, 1996. 447 pp. $45.00. Implementation of antisemitic legislation was one of the earliest goals of Marshall Henri Petain's Vichy government. Laws in October 1940 defined Jews by...

Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Nathan Stoltzfus. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996. 386 pp. $30.00. The centerpiece of this gripping study is the protest against the deportation of approximately two thousand Jews who were locked up in the temporary collection...

Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Edited by Christian Smith. New York: Routledge, 1996. 236 pp. $55.00 cloth; $17.95 paper. This is an excellent book that deserves to be widely read. All ten chapters were written to illustrate a side of religion that tends to be neglected...

Let Justice Roll: Prophetic Changes in Religion, Politics and Society.
January 1, 1998... Edited by Neal Riemer. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996. 231 pp. $62.50 cloth; $23.95 paper. As a Jesuit priest living the past nine years in the inner city (Camden, N.J.), who has attempted in various small ways to...

Welfare in America: Christian Perspectives on a Policy in Crisis.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Edited by Stanley W. Carlson-Thies and James W. Skillen. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996. 604 pp. $24.00 paper. This is a book whose time has come. It not only addresses the failed welfare system of our...

Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Robert Wuthnow. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996. 97 pp. $15.00. Princeton University sociologist and director of the Center for the Study of American Religion, Robert Wuthnow, wades into the civil society debate in...

Poor Richard's Principle: Recovering the American Dream Through the Moral Dimension of Work, Business, and Money.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Robert Wuthnow. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. 429 pp. $24.95. The author argues that throughout much of U.S. history the American Dream provided not just a vision of material success but also a moral perspective to...

Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents.
January 1, 1998... By Guenter Lewy. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996. 160 pp. $18.00 paper. If the argument of this book were made by a believer, it would be interesting only if done with utmost originality. What is most fascinating here is...

The Beginning and the End of "Religion."(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Nicholas Lash. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 284 pp. $54.95. Lash presents a compelling argument for re-evaluating the definition and scope of those things called "religion" in the modern world. The use of the word...

At the Limits of Political Philosophy: From "Brilliant Errors" to Things of Uncommon Importance.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By James V. Schall, S.J. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. 272 pp. $44.95. George Santayana once observed that those who cannot remember past events are condemned to repeat them--be they good, bad, or...

Models for Christian Higher Education: Strategies for Success in the Twenty-first Century.
January 1, 1998... Edited by Richard T. Hughes and William B. Adrian. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997. 461 pp. $30.00. The product of a generous research grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., this book makes a valuable...

Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt.
January 1, 1998... By Christine Leigh Heyrman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. 336 pp. $27.50. The term "the Solid South" in the context of American history conjures up at least two images. The first is political. The other image is religious--specifically,...

Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities Among Southern Baptists, 1865-1925.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Paul Harvey. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997. 384 pp. $49.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. Thoroughly researched and clearly written, this excellent study traces the interaction of white and black southern (the...

God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... By Barry Hankins. Lexington, Ky. The University Press of Kentucky, 1996. 220 pp. $24.95. In 1976, C. Allyn Russell wrote of J. Frank Norris that the controversial Southern Baptist fundamentalist minister was "colorful but irascible," "a...

Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip Schaff's Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century American Religion.
January 1, 1998... By Stephen R. Graham. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. 266 pp. $22.00 paper. In recent years there have appeared several fine studies of Philip Schaff (1819-93), the Swiss-born and German-educated immigrant...

Resurgent Evangelicalism in the United States: Mapping Cultural Change Since 1970.
January 1, 1998... By Mark A. Shibley. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. 156 pp. $24.95. While there is little in this book that deals directly with church-state relations or religion's political role, it is a "must-read" for anyone...

Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America.
January 1, 1998... By James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995. 255 pp. $27.50. This book was inspired by the tragic burning of the Branch Davidian center near Waco, Texas, in 1993. Tabor and Gallagher write...

Friendly Fire: The ACLU in Utah.
January 1, 1998... By Linda Sillitoe. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996. 263 pp. $24.95. The history of the American Civil Liberties Union in the more than seventy-five years since its founding has been continually influenced by the cultures of the...

Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State.
January 1, 1998... A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State. By Stephen M. Feldman. New York: New York University Press, 1997. 395 pp. $29.95. This is a curious book indeed. It begins and ends with poignant personal stories about the author's...

Civil religion as a judicial doctrine.(Editorial)
January 1, 1998... Since 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified, disagreements over the framers' intended meaning of the religion clauses have persisted. The debate has been especially heated since the early 1980s as a more conservative Supreme Court...

The West's modern encounter with Islam: from discourse to reality.
January 1, 1998... During the last quarter of the twentieth century, two interrelated developments have dramatically influenced Western scholarly debate on the Muslim world. First, the rise of Islamic consciousness and political activism has persuaded many...

The rule of faith over reason: the role of the Inquisition in Iberia and New Spain.
January 1, 1998... "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." Job 5.7 The Inquisition has long been held over Spain's head as an indication of her barbarity. The ecclesiastical use of garrotes and racks, particularly with respect to the...

Carl F.H. Henry's moral arguments for evangelical political activism.
January 1, 1998... The rising tide of evangelical political activism refuses to subside. In the late 1980s, several commentators suggested that the wave of evangelical political involvement had crested and was coming to an end.(1) They pointed to the poor...

Church-state relations in Sri Lanka: historical process and contemporary options.
January 1, 1998... When, as recently occurred, a group of radical, priest-led British Christians met at the gate of an English nuclear base to conduct a rite of exorcism, they believed themselves to be confronting the powers of the state which held sway in that...

The effect of O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz on the free exercise rights of prisoners.
January 1, 1998... Historically, the concept of prisoners' rights was virtually nonexistent in the United States.(1) In the 1800s, prisoners were seen as "`slaves of the State' thereby providing prison administrators with virtual immunity from judicial...

Public opinion for peace: tactics of peace activists at the Washington Conference on Naval Armament (1921-1922).
January 1, 1998... Peace activists know this: theirs is often an uphill struggle. Traditionally they have faced "realist" indictments of the peace and disarmament movement. Thus, they are often charged with representing an impractical pious agenda, of pursuing a...