What is the proper role of religion in public life? To what extent should religious belief shape our political discourse? How should religious leaders approach politics? How should political leaders approach religion? These questions have only gained salience in recent history.  Religion and politics seem deeply intertwined in our current political moment, with religion defining the contours of many political and social debates in the U.S. today. 

This two-week course will introduce students to the perennial and contemporary political, philosophical, and moral issues that bear on the topic of religion and politics. For the first week, students will consider the Biblical stories as philosophical texts, which address important questions for moral and political life. They will assess the impact and influence of Biblical ideas, and reflect on the relevance of those insights to our own lives and world today.

The second week will examine the ways in which religion and politics intersect in a liberal democracy. Among the questions students will ask are: What is the role of religion in a liberal democracy? How has the American experience been exceptional, and is the decline in religious affiliation, especially among younger generations, a cause for concern? What are the limits of religious tolerance and liberty in a diverse society?

Image: Thomas Cole, Cross at Sunset, 1848

This two-week course will take place in Washington, DC. It is a full-time commitment for Monday–Friday, with required sessions in the morning, afternoon, and some evenings.

Faculty

Laurence Cooper

Laurence Cooper is Professor of Political Science at Carleton College. Most of his research has addressed the question of human flourishing—what it is, how we can know what it is, what it requires from education and politics, and the risks that arise from misunderstanding it.

Bryan Garsten

Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He writes on questions about political rhetoric and deliberation, the meaning of representative government, the relationship of politics and religion, and the place of emotions in political life.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Books:

 

Readings:

  • Genesis, Chapters 1–5

 

Questions:

  1. Is there a logical order to Chapter 1’s account of the six days of Creation? What patterns and principles do you perceive, and what might they mean? Are there any “slips” or anomalies in the account of Creation, and what might they mean?
  2. Chapter 1 describes the Creation of the heavens and the earth and all therein, including the first human being. Chapter 2 retells the creation of human beings—and retells it differently. How do these two accounts differ, both empirically and in spirit? Are the differences matters of emphasis or do the two accounts conflict with one another?
  3. How should we understand what many have called “The Fall” of man—and woman? Why did Eve eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and why did Adam follow suit? How should we judge this act? How does God judge this act? And how should we understand the ensuing expulsion from Eden? Or to state these matters more provocatively, did Adam and Eve sin, and did God punish them? Was The Fall really a fall?

Readings:

  • Genesis, Chapters 6–11

 

Questions:

  1. In Chapter 6 “the LORD saw that the evil of the human creature was great on the earth and that every scheme of his heart’s devising was only perpetually evil. And the LORD regretted having made the human on earth” and decided to “wipe out the human race [He] created from the face of the earth.” In Chapter 8, following the Flood and then Noah’s unsolicited sacrifice of burnt offerings on an altar he had built, “the LORD said in His heart, ‘I will not again damn the soil on humankind’s score. For the devisings of the human heart are evil from youth.’” Is God’s reason for resolving not to destroy humanity the same reason for which he had originally determined to wipe out humanity? How should we understand this?
  2. What was Noah’s distinction such that he and his family were spared the ravages of Flood? Was he virtuous? Good? Innocent? Is there any reason to think that this new beginning promises a better outcome than the first one?
  3. The God of Genesis “regrets” and revises. What does this say about Him and about humanity’s relation to Him?

Readings:

  • Genesis, Chapters 12–24

 

Questions:

  1. What was Abram’s distinction such that God should choose him to father a covenantal people?
  2. What is the covenant? What is the task given to this people?
  3. Prior to his election of Abram, God’s injunctions had concerned humanity altogether. Now he singles out one man—one couple—to begin a family that will slowly develop into a particular people. Why would God have decided to focus his efforts so narrowly?
  4. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” (18:26) What gives Abraham the confidence to challenge God? When he “negotiates” with God, why does Abraham stop where he does: after challenging God to spare Sodom if only ten innocent should be found there, why doesn’t he ask God to spare the city if there should be only five innocent, or only one?
  5. The same Abraham who challenged God to spare the city for the sake of the innocent does not protest when God commands him to sacrifice as a burnt offering “your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac.” (22:2–3) Or is it the same Abraham? How should we understand these decisions?

 

Readings:

  • Genesis, Chapters 25–35

 

Questions:

  1. How would you describe Isaac’s character? And Rebekah’s? What is Isaac’s task as a patriarch? Does he complete it? What is Rebekah’s role in this?
  2. In these chapters we follow Jacob from his days as an ambitious and clever young man into his prime as an ambitious and clever older man—but an older man who has been touched and even broken open by God, by the love of a woman, and by hard experience. Is he transformed by these experiences, or does he remain essentially the same person? Does he rise to a height of nobility or holiness or any other kind of character excellence?

Readings:

  • Genesis, Chapters 36–50

 

Questions:

  1. Joseph: a gifted if spoiled young man who becomes powerful and beneficent, or a spoiled if gifted young man who becomes the architect of a new Egyptian totalitarianism—or both?
  2. Judah: neither the oldest of Jacob’s sons nor Jacob’s favorite, and hardly without blemish (see his condemnation of Tamar in Chapter 38); yet he rises to leadership of the family and successfully navigates a very treacherous political landscape. What are Judah’s natural gifts, and how do these gifts and his character develop over the course of the years?
  3. Rachel and Leah are wives of the same man but very differently so. Do their different situations, and the way they respond to these situations, perhaps account for the differences in character and educability between Joseph and Judah?
  4. Jacob—again: a visionary or a canny survivor? A man of exalted spirituality or a man with an eye for the main chance? Flawed father or progenitor and educator of a people chosen by God to carry into the world a new and better way of being? Is he not all of these things?
  5. Finally, a question about brothers: We speak of brotherhood as synonymous with closeness and loyalty. (“I love him like a brother.” Or more grandly, as imagined by Schiller in his “Ode to Joy,” “All men become brothers” [Alle Menschen werden Brüder].) And yet Genesis also highlights the rivalry and strife that so often bedevil brothers.  Think of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and of course Cain and Abel. What does the text teach us about this peculiarly intense relationship and how to govern it for the good?

Readings:

 

Questions:

  1. According to Locke, why is the care of souls not the business of civil society?
  2. In what does the act of tolerating consist? Is it only a negative “action”?
  3. What is Locke’s argument against theocracy?
  4. What goes into Locke’s distinction between practical and speculative articles of faith?
  5. According to Madison, why is the exercise of religion a natural right? What is the relationship between the religious person’s right and duties?
  6. What are Madison’s principled or deductive arguments against religious tests? What are his empirical or inductive arguments against them? Why does he use both?

Readings:

 

Questions:

  1.  Livy describes fear of the gods as “a principle of the greatest efficacy with the multitude, in that rude and ignorant age.” How did Numa use that principle for political ends? What political functions did religious rituals serve under Numa?
  2. Why was Numa unconcerned with the dangers of theocracy? Should he have been concerned?
  3. In this chapter, Rousseau argues that theological and civil intolerance are the same. What is his argument for this claim? Is it effective?
  4. According to Rousseau, what are the three kinds of religion and how do they fit (or not fit) with civil society?
  5. Why does Rousseau claim that religious and civil obligations are necessarily incompatible? Is he correct?

Readings:

 

Questions:

  1. How—both in practice and in theory—does the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom combine in early New England? Where the combination falters, is there a solution that does not require diluting either spirit?
  2. How does the separation of church and state contribute to the co-reign of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom? How does it contribute to the individual benefit of each?
  3. What is the utility of religion? What is its special utility among democratic peoples?
  4. What did Tocqueville mean by “pantheism,” and why did he think democratic citizens were likely to find it attractive?

Other Courses You Might Be Interested In

Foundations of Political Philosophy

Explore the differences between ancient and modern political philosophy, with a focus on texts by Aristotle and Machiavelli.

Traditions of Freedom

Study the intellectual roots of conservative thought, focusing on the works of Adam Smith and Edmund Burke.

American Political Thought

Engage key texts that have helped shape the political idea – and political ideals – of America.

Nationalism & Liberal Democracy

Understand the rise of nationalism and the crisis of liberal democracy.

Varieties of American Conservatism

Explore the intellectual roots of modern conservatism.

Biography Image

Ryan P. Hanley

Ryan Patrick Hanley is the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity and Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue.

Biography Image

James W. Ceaser

James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.  He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection and Liberal Democracy and Political Science.

Biography Image

Richard M. Reinsch II

Richard M. Reinsch II is the founding editor of Liberty Fund’s online journal Law and Liberty and the host of LibertyLawTalk. He writes frequently for such publications as National Affairs, Modern Age, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, and The University Bookman, among other publications.