Why politics needs religion: the place of religious arguments in the public square

Introduction: a new perspective on religion and politics

Understanding worldviews

Worldviews : the center and the outer edges

Two major worldviews in contemporary America

The formal structure of a worldview

Worldviews and faith

The rationality of worldviews

Worldviews and religion

Foundational and nonfoundational beliefs

Lower-order and higher-order beliefs

Promoting our worldview : belief, action and ritual

The worldview of secularism

Secularism today

Secularism, politics and seculocracy

The influence of secularism on religion

Secularism as a worldview

Secularism as a religion

Religious beliefs and reason

What does it mean to describe a belief as "religious"?

Reason as a source of religious beliefs

The rationality of religious belief

Introducing reasonable religious beliefs into politics

How should we handle reasonable disagreements?

Keeping religion out of politics I

Religious beliefs should be excluded because they are "religious"

Traditional religious beliefs cannot be based on reason and evidence

"Secular reason" does not imply secularism

Secularism can better achieve overall agreement among worldviews

Keeping religion out of politics II

Most religious beliefs are higher-order beliefs, and so should be kept private

Religion is dangerous, secularism is benign

Religious beliefs should not be forced by law on those who do not think they are true

Religious views should be excluded according to the U.S. constitution

Rawls, religion and democracy

Arguing from within our worldview

John Rawls's political liberalism

Problems with Rawls's theory

Religion and democracy

The principle of religious freedom

Religion in politics

Introducing lower-order, rational beliefs into public arguments

A seculocracy for a secularist people?

Some practical applications

The relationship between church and state

A fictional example : form and content

Looking at the world upside down : on revising our terminology

Pluralism, relativism and religious debates : American style

American pluralism

School prayer

Display of traditional religious symbols in public places

Religion and moral issues : the euthanasia debate in Oregon

Moral relativism in American culture

The problems with relativism

The rhetoric of relativism

Tolerance : traditional and contemporary meanings.