Souled out : reclaiming faith and politics after the religious right / E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [205]-225) and index.

Introduction: Is God's work our work? : faith, doubt, and radical amazement -- Is religion conservative or progressive? (or both?) -- Why the culture war is the wrong war : religion, values, and American politics -- What are the "values" issues? : economics, social justice, and the struggle over morality -- Selling religion short : when ideology is not enough -- John Paul, Benedict, and the Catholic future -- What happened to the seamless garment? : the agony of liberal Catholicism -- Solidarity, liberty, and religion's true calling.

The religious and political winds are changing. Religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. Here, journalist E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right--and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage--is over. He shows that the end of the Religious Right signals the of disentanglement of evangelical Christianity from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda. He also argues that the new atheist writers should be seen as a gift to believers, a demand that they live up to their proclaimed values and embrace scientific and philosophical inquiry in a spirit of "intellectual solidarity."--From publisher description.