Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom


Book Description

Understanding the role of religion in global politics is crucial for effective diplomacy. Many American policy makers are squeamish about religion’s role in diplomacy. Nevertheless, religion plays a crucial and complex part in global affairs, such as in sustainable development, various human rights issues, and fomenting and mitigating conflict. Shaun A. Casey, the founding director of the US Department of State’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs, makes a compelling case for the necessity of understanding global religion in Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom. In this fresh and provocative narrative, Casey writes frankly about his work integrating sophisticated, research-driven policy into the State Department under Secretary of State John Kerry. Their new strategy went beyond older paradigms that focused myopically on religious freedom or countering violent extremism. Such reductive approaches, Casey insists, cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in the US’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003. Witty and astute, Casey recounts his team’s challenges in DC politics as well as in the major global events of his tenure, including climate change, the rise of ISIL, and the refugee crisis. On a global stage with higher stakes than ever, effective diplomacy is imperative. Yet in this critical moment, the United States’s reputation has faltered. Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom offers a path forward to better foreign policy.




When Politics Meets Religion


Book Description

When Politics Meets Religion presents a fresh exploration of the relationship between religion and politics worldwide. The volume includes topics covering Europe, such as the European far right, the contours of "European identity", and how religious cleavages affect value orientation of Europeans. It also covers country-focused issues and events, such as the influence of Orthodox Christianity in Russia, Christian nationalism in the United States, the influence of religion on Turkish foreign policy, the political role of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, Chinese attitudes towards religious deprivatization, and how liberation theology found its way from Latin America to the Holy Land. The volume is supplemented with several analyses on the intersection between law, society, and religion. It deals with religious mediation and political conflicts, how the current religious governance in France affects the Orthodox Jewish community, as well as how taxing the church’s economic activities can be a contributor to the common good, and why Muslims should treat Sharia law as only a moral code in the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Through rigorous research, case studies, and critical analysis, this volume explains how religion and politics mix in different settings, and why it is important for us to study this complex relationship. The volume will appeal to scholars and graduate students of political science and religious studies, as well as interested professionals working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or governments.




Blessing America First


Book Description

How did the Trump administration change the place of religion in U.S. foreign policy? How did the guardrails of America’s foreign policy bureaucracy respond to a populist president? Drawing on firsthand experience in the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs during the Obama-Trump transition, David T. Buckley traces how the Trump administration’s populism affected the foreign policy bureaucracy, with significant implications for U.S. domestic and international politics. Blessing America First argues that under Trump, religion in U.S. foreign policy shifted from an implement of statecraft to a tool of populist political strategy. Populism constructs ideological bounds between “the people” and threatening outsiders, and embraces personalist governance while rejecting bureaucratic constraint. This domestic political logic, Buckley demonstrates, influenced foreign policy decisions and reshaped bureaucratic offices in the State Department and USAID. Populism also promoted international religious ties in a surprising range of settings, from Poland to India, Brazil to Russia. Buckley shows that the possibility of curbing these changes was limited by conditions in American democracy that predated the 2016 election, including norms of nonpartisanship among career officials, malleable legal institutions, and polarization in public opinion. A groundbreaking examination of Trump’s State Department, blending insider experience with original quantitative and qualitative data analysis, Blessing America First draws broader lessons for understanding the relationship between religion and democracy under populist rule.




Ending Persecution


Book Description

Building on his extensive experience in the U.S. government and as an international human rights lawyer, H. Knox Thames provides fresh, decisive strategies to advance religious freedom for all. Today, a scourge of religious persecution is impacting every faith community around the globe. In Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, author H. Knox Thames takes readers to some of the world's most repressive countries in the Middle East and Asia, exposing the harsh reality of religious repression. Thames breaks down the devastating litany of human rights abuses faced by religious groups in these countries into four major types of persecution: terrorism in the Middle East, government-sponsored genocides in China and Burma, cultural changes due to extremism in Pakistan, and tyrannical democracy in Nepal and India. Ending Persecution recounts the range of tools and policies that the U.S. government has used to encourage reform in repressive governments, leverage U.S. influence for the oppressed, and to reflect the best of American values of diversity, minority rights, and religious freedom. To help the persecuted in the twenty-first century, Thames argues, the United States must revitalize its approach and recommit to ending oppression by supporting coalition building and interfaith tolerance.




Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam


Book Description

Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam examines the variety of strategic peacebuilding and conflict resolution activities conducted by Muslim practitioners and nongovernmental organizations in Muslim-majority communities. Qamar-ul Huda explores ways that Muslim scholars, civil society members, and communities interpret violence and nonviolence, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution in an interconnected globalized age, focusing on methods, practices, and strategies. He shows how a faith-based commitment can empower effective social, political, and intellectual action that results in meaningful change. The book sheds light on a variety of vital topics, including how the state utilizes hard and soft power in global, religious diplomacy; ways in which civil society organizations and NGOs maximize networks to engage in peacebuilding and conflict resolution; the role of civil society in soft power politics; and how some peacebuilding organizations are out of step with local Muslim cultures & religious customs, and why that matters. Qamar-ul Huda charts a vision of contemporary ethics of peacebuilding, pluralism, reconciliation, and dialogue.




Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies


Book Description

American democracy is in danger. How do we protect it from authoritarian reactionary Christianity? On January 6, 2021, hundreds of Americans stormed the Capitol to prevent the certification of their political opponent’s election. At the forefront were Christians claiming to act in the name of Jesus Christ and his supposed representative on earth, Donald Trump. How can this have happened? David P. Gushee tackles the question in this timely work of Christian political ethics. Gushee calls us to preserve democratic norms, including constitutional government, the rule of law, and equal rights for all, even as many Christians take a reactionary and antidemocratic stance. Surveying global politics and modern history, he analyzes how Christians have discarded their commitment to democracy and bought into authoritarianism. He urges us to fight back by reviving our hard-won traditions of congregational democracy, dissident Black Christian politics, and covenantal theology. Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies makes a robust case for a renewed commitment to democracy on the part of Christians—not by succumbing to secular liberalism, but by drawing on our own best traditions. Any concerned Christian will leave its pages with eyes wide open to the dangers of our current form of political engagement. Readers will gain insight into what democracy is truly meant to be and why Christians once supported it wholeheartedly—and should do so again.




The Making of a Catholic President


Book Description

The 1960 presidential election, won ultimately by John F. Kennedy, was one of the closest and most contentious in American history. The country had never elected a Roman Catholic president, and the last time a Catholic had been nominated--New York Governor Al Smith in 1928--he was routed in the general election. From the outset, Kennedy saw the religion issue as the single most important obstacle on his road to the White House. He was acutely aware of, and deeply frustrated by, the possibility that his personal religious beliefs could keep him out of the White House. In The Making of a Catholic President, Shaun Casey tells the fascinating story of how the Kennedy campaign transformed the "religion question" from a liability into an asset, making him the first (and still only) Catholic president. Drawing on extensive archival research, including many never-before-seen documents, Casey takes us inside the campaign to show Kennedy's chief advisors--Ted Sorensen, John Kenneth Galbraith, Archibald Cox--grappling with the staunch opposition to the candidate's Catholicism. Casey also reveals, for the first time, many of the Nixon campaign's efforts to tap in to anti-Catholic sentiment, with the aid of Billy Graham and the National Association of Evangelicals, among others. The alliance between conservative Protestants and the Nixon campaign, he shows, laid the groundwork for the rise of the Religious Right. This book will shed light on one of the most talked-about elections in American history, as well as on the vexed relationship between religion and politics more generally. With clear relevance to our own political situation--where politicians' religious beliefs seem more important and more volatile than ever--The Making of a Catholic President offers rare insights into one of the most extraordinary presidential campaigns in American history.




Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson


Book Description

In the summer of 1930, Lorenzo Johnston Greene, a graduate of Howard University and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, became a book agent for the man with the undisputed title of "Father of Negro History," Carter G. Woodson. With little more than determination, Greene, along with four Howard University students, traveled throughout the South and Southeast selling books published by Woodson's Associated Publishers. Their dual purpose was to provide needed funds for the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and to promote the study of African American history. Greene returned east by way of Chicago, and, for a time, he settled in Philadelphia, selling books there and in the nearby cities of Delaware and New Jersey. He left Philadelphia in 1931 to conduct a survey in Washington, D.C., of firms employing and not employing black workers. From 1930 until 1933, when Greene began teaching at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson provides a unique firsthand account of conditions in African American communities during the Great Depression. Greene describes in the diary, often in lyrical terms, the places and people he visited. He provides poignant descriptions of what was happening to black professional and business people, plus working-class people, along with details of high school facilities, churches, black business enterprises, housing, and general conditions in communities. Greene also gives revealing accounts of how the black colleges were faring in 1930. Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson offers important glimpses into the private thoughts of a young man of the 1930s, a developing intellectual and scholar. Greene's diary also provides invaluable insights into the personality of Carter Woodson that are not otherwise available. This fascinating and comprehensive view of black America during the early thirties will be a welcome addition to African American studies.




The Twelve Disciples


Book Description

This bestselling glossy, full-color, quick-reference pamphlet is an excellent tool for teaching new and longtime believers about those who walked with Jesus and what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus today. Jesus called twelve ordinary men and turned their weaknesses into strengths, their faults into testimonies, and their doubts into faith. Who were these men who walked with Jesus? What can we learn from their lives? This bestselling glossy, full-color, quick-reference pamphlet is an excellent tool for teaching new and longtime believers about those who walked with Jesus and what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus today. Get Fresh Insights & a Simple Overview of the Twelve Disciples What do you know about the disciples who learned at Jesus’ feet? The Twelve Disciples pamphlet offers a close-up look at the twelve ordinary men whom Jesus trained to care for his church: Peter, James (son of Zebedee), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), John, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot. This quick-reference pamphlet presents the life and ministry of Jesus’ twelve disciples in a convenient and easy-to-use, side-by-side comparison chart. The Twelve Disciples pamphlet takes believers inside this circle to learn more about these men as well as:Backgrounds and personalitiesKey events in their lives and lessons learnedStrengths and weaknessesPurposes and missionsEncounters with JesusAnd much more!Glossy and full-color, every pamphlet fact has a Scripture reference. Size: 8.5”x 5.5” unfolds to 33” long. Fits inside most Bible covers. Packed with Fascinating Facts and History What were the backgrounds of the disciples? What was their collective purpose and mission? Here are a few of the facts people will find at a glance in The Twelve Disciples:Each of the disciples were from the Galilee region except for JudasThe disciples were Jesus’ main focus of instructionJesus knew their strengths and their weaknessesJesus trusted them to carry God’s message of redemption to the ends of the earthSee Characteristics and Key Events in the Lives of the Twelve Disciples This bestselling pamphlet reveals the personalities and characteristics of the disciples. For example, Peter was impulsive and courageous whereas John was vengeful and bold. Each disciple had unique and personal encounters with Jesus that speak to the roles of disciples today.Peter was called to be a fisher of men (Matthew 4:19)James was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46)Andrew told Jesus about the boy with five loaves of bread and two fish (John 20:19-25)Thomas affirmed that Jesus was Lord and God (John 21:2-7)Bonus Features of the Twelve Disciples Pamphlet In addition to this concise overview of the twelve disciples, this quick-reference pamphlet also contains:A chart of the 39 other followers of Jesus mentioned by name in the New Testament: Cleopas, Joanna, Judas (brother of Jesus), Mary Magdalene, and dozens of othersA list of 10 ways Jesus and his disciples demonstrated discipleshipTeachers will appreciate the thoroughness of this easy-to-use resource. Students will gain a new insight into the men whose lives and faiths were shaped by walking with Jesus. Pastors or discipleship leaders may want to purchase one of these pamphlets for each church member.




Project Beta


Book Description

The shocking true story of the United States government’s quest to hide the reality of extraterrestrial contact, even at the cost of its citizens. In 1978, Paul Bennewitz, an electrical physicist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, became convinced that the strange lights he saw hovering in the night sky were extraterrestrial. He reached out to newspapers, senators, and even the president before anyone responded. Air Force investigators listened to his story, as did Bill Moore, the author of the first book on the infamous Roswell UFO incident. Unbeknownst to Bennewitz, Moore was hired by a group of intelligence agents to keep tabs on Bennewitz while the Air Force ran a psychological profile and disinformation campaign on the unsuspecting physicist. In return, Air Force Intelligence would let Moore in on classified UFO material. What follows is a scandalous true tale of disinformation, corruption, and exploitation, all at the hands of the United States intelligence community.