- Paperback: 328 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group; Anchor Books ed edition (1 Jan 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385474989
- ISBN-13: 978-0385474986
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 1.9 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,223,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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The Culture Of Disbelief has been the subject of an enormous amount of media attention from the first moment it was published. Hugely successful in hardcover, the Anchor paperback is sure to find a large audience as the ever-increasing, enduring debate about the relationship of church and state in America continues. In The Culture Of Disbelief, Stephen Carter explains how we can preserve the vital separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or treating religious believers with disdain. What makes Carter's work so intriguing is that he uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends. Explaining how preserving a special role for religious communities can strengthen our democracy, The Culture Of Disbelief recovers the long tradition of liberal religious witness (for example, the antislavery, antisegregation, and Vietnam-era antiwar movements). Carter argues that the problem with the 1992 Republican convention was not the fact of open religious advocacy, but the political positions being advocated.
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CONTEMPORARY American politics faces few greater dilemmas than deciding how to deal with the resurgence of religious belief. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
CONTEMPORARY American politics faces few greater dilemmas than deciding how to deal with the resurgence of religious belief. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this to be an especially thought-provoking, at times unsettling book to read. Carter has obviously given a great deal of careful thought to the important issues he addresses. For example, he is deeply concerned about what he views as a deterioration of spirituality in American society. Ours is perhaps the most democratic of all capitalistic cultures, ensuring strict separation of church and state as well as the right to embrace any religion (or none). Carter fully supports that separation and indicates zero-tolerance of threats to that right. However, he repudiates efforts by those among the national media with a strong liberal bias who trivialize basic values which are, in fact, common to all of the world's major religions. He asserts that these values should guide and inform national policy (not the other way around), just as they once did when thirteen colonies declared war on the most powerful nation in the world and then reaffirmed the same values 12 years later in the new nation's Constitution and Bill of Rights.
In Christianity on Trial, Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett provide both a broad overview and a close analysis of various accusations against the Christian church over the centuries. Many of these accusations were valid; others were not. However, undeniably, the Hellenic-Hebraic values of Christianity are inextricably bound up in the fabric of American legal as well as political and social history. It's hard for me to believe but it has been more 40 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his associates began their efforts to achieve full and unqualified human rights for all Americans. Carter is hardly alone when asking "What has been accomplished since then? What remains to be done?" Not all readers will agree with the answers he has formulated, at least thus far, but I think everyone who reads this book will be much better prepared to consider basic issues which transcend legality in pursuit of justice, which transcend consensus in pursuit of fundamental human decency.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Interesting Polemic
20 April 2000
Format:Paperback
This is a well written attack on the treatment of religion in American political and legal life. Carter attempts to show that religous motivations are disparaged in many aspects of American public life. He is particularly concerned with convincing individuals with liberal political views that religious motivations, per se, are not harmful or irrational. Carter's points are not, however, aimed solely at a liberal audience. He attacks our legal system, including the Supreme Court, for inadequate defense of minor religions, and excoriates conservative Christians for justifying a highly partisan political agenda. To Carter, religons function best as mediators between individuals and government and he sees them as essential components of civil society. He sees religions as carrying forward this function best when acting in a dissenting mode, such as abolitionism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the anti-abortion movement. One difficulty with this book is that it is relatively brief. This allows Carter to make a number of points in a relatively short text and Carter's writing is never curt. The defect is that a number of important issues receive somewhat unsatisfactory treatment. I was unconvinced, for example, by some of his treatment of creationism as an "alternative hermeneutic". Several of the topics in this book really deserve longer discussion. Still, this book was written to provoke thought and it is very successful in that respect. It is important to note that this is not a defense of conservative Christian views a al Pat Robertson. Carter is deeply religous (Episcopalian, not Catholic as stated in one of the reviews below) and rather liberal in his political beliefs.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Society, Religion, and Spiritual Ambiguity
12 Jun 2002
Format:Paperback
I found this to be an especially thought-provoking, at times unsettling book to read. Carter has obviously given a great deal of careful thought to the important issues he addresses. For example, he is deeply concerned about what he views as a deterioration of spirituality in American society. Ours is perhaps the most democratic of all capitalistic cultures, ensuring strict separation of church and state as well as the right to embrace any religion (or none). Carter fully supports that separation and indicates zero-tolerance of threats to that right. However, he repudiates efforts by those among the national media with a strong liberal bias who trivialize basic values which are, in fact, common to all of the world's major religions. He asserts that these values should guide and inform national policy (not the other way around), just as they once did when thirteen colonies declared war on the most powerful nation in the world and then reaffirmed the same values 12 years later in the new nation's Constitution and Bill of Rights.
In Christianity on Trial, Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett provide both a broad overview and a close analysis of various accusations against the Christian church over the centuries. Many of these accusations were valid; others were not. However, undeniably, the Hellenic-Hebraic values of Christianity are inextricably bound up in the fabric of American legal as well as political and social history. It's hard for me to believe but it has been more 40 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his associates began their efforts to achieve full and unqualified human rights for all Americans. Carter is hardly alone when asking "What has been accomplished since then? What remains to be done?" Not all readers will agree with the answers he has formulated, at least thus far, but I think everyone who reads this book will be much better prepared to consider basic issues which transcend legality in pursuit of justice, which transcend consensus in pursuit of fundamental human decency.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
An excellent read from cover to cover.
23 Sep 1999
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
While not possessing the wonderful immediacy of his masterpiece, "Civility", Dr. Carter's "The Culture of Disbelief" very artfully highlights an often latent national sentiment. Characteristically referenced meticulously, Carter cites specific instances, modern and historical, of the trivialization of religiousness to support virtually every statement he makes. At the same time, he maintains an easy and accessible style that transitions smoothly from the casual to the sobering. Carter attempts to inject an urgent tone at some points, and while reading one may find oneself nodding along in agreement, but the galvanic effect of "Civility" was not present. Nonetheless, an excellent read from cover to cover.
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