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Christianity and Democratisation: From Pious Subjects to Critical Participants (Perspectives on Democratic Practice)
Christianity and Democratisation From Pious Subjects to Critical Participants - Perspectives on Democratic Practice Author:John Anderson This book examines the contribution of different Christian traditions to the waves of democratization that have swept various parts of the world in recent decades. It offers an historical overview of Christianity’s engagement with the development of democracy, before focusing in detail on the period since the 1970s. Successive chapters deal wi... more »th: the Roman Catholic conversion to democracy and the contribution of that church to democratization; the Eastern Orthodox "hesitation" about democracy; the alleged threat to American democracy posed by the politicisation of conservative Protestantism; and the likely impact on democratic development of the global expansion of Pentecostalism. The author draws out several common themes from the analysis of these case studies, the most important of which is the "liberal-democracy paradox." This ensures that there will always be tensions between faiths that proclaim some notion of absolute truth and political orders that are rooted in the idea of compromise, negotiation and bargaining. Written in an accessible style, this book will appeal to students of politics, sociology and religion, and prove useful on a range of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses.« less