Most research on the social gospel, a religious interpretation that obliges people to care for the less fortunate and correct social inequalities, has focused on elite rhetoric. However, it is not clear the extent to which members of the public also adhere to this socioreligious philosophy. The moralistic tone of the 2010 health care reform debate has led many to argue that there is a revival of the social gospel. To what extent has this debate gained traction among citizens writ large? Which individuals will be most likely to be influenced by elite discourse that draws social gospel? Using two unique surveys and an experiment, we demonstrate that Social Gospel adherents have distinctive political attitudes. Specifically, they are more attentive to social policy issues and are more supportive of expanding the social safety net. Second, we demonstrate that elite rhetoric that draws from the Social Gospel tradition can influence policy preferences.

How does Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) act as an instrument of foreign policy (FP)? What are the factors that allow such an instrumentalization of Islam in Turkish FP? In addressing these questions, this paper uses semi-structured expert interviews from Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Although both countries host a sizeable Muslim minority, these populations differ in their characteristics and historical ties with Turkey. Comparing Diyanet’s role in the Netherlands with its recent Turkish-Muslim diaspora, and in Bulgaria with its centuries-old Muslim minority allows us to reveal variation in the practical engagement strategies that Diyanet adopts in different country contexts. Thus, this paper advances two main claims; first, Diyanet serves as a primary FP tool of Turkey in countries with a significant Turkish-Muslim minority. Secondly, this instrumentalization destabilizes secularization projects both at home and abroad.

How do nonsecular democracies govern religion? Despite two decades of research on the many ways that church and state overlap in modern democracies, scholars lack an adequate answer to this question. Many consolidated democracies have a soft separation between church and state rather than a wall. These are not defective versions of democracy, but rather poorly understood institutional arrangements. To remedy this lacuna, this paper investigates institutional arrangements in six consolidated democracies with a soft separation between church and state: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, India, Indonesia, and Switzerland. After describing the institutional workings of these states, the paper develops hypotheses for the origins of soft separation democracy as well as addressing the challenges of this form of government. The paper concludes by suggesting three other potentially fruitful lines of analysis as well as elucidating the implications of soft separation democracy for U.S. foreign policy.

Abraham Kuyper, Dutch Prime Minister (1901–1905) and modern Calvinist, was a controversial figure, not least in his foreign affairs. Yet while Kuyper's legacy has been felt in the world of religious, especially Christian, political, and social theory, very little has been made of Kuyper's actual record as a foreign policy maker and a Prime Minister. So, what was Kuyper's “Christian” perspective and policy on foreign affairs? Using newly available English translations, this article outlines Kuyper's “overseas manifesto” made most plain in Our Program, and compares it against Kuyper's commentary and policy in three major foreign crises: the Boer Cause, in South Africa; the “pacification” of Aceh, in modern-day Indonesia; and finally, the calamity of the Great War in Europe. From these I will paint an introductory, if general, picture of a serious, religious foreign policy maker, and a commentator on world affairs; a complex picture of religiously inflected policy in the early 20th century, with lessons and warnings for scholars of religion and foreign policy today.

Nationalism theory has long acknowledged that in its relation to nationalism, “religion” can refer both to a reflexive identity attached to a people group, and to a reasoned value-based position articulated by an élite. Even this bifurcation remains insufficiently precise. Religio-nationalisms reasoned ex patria—that is, beginning with the nationalist and proceeding from there to incorporate religion—tend toward values of exclusivity and animosity toward “the other”. They have been charged with hijacking religion as an identity while being at odds with those who actively practice that religion or lead its practicing community. The exploratory case of the relationship between Russian Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism allows a comparison of ex patria religio-nationalism with its ex religio counterpart. It supports the hypothesis that when reasoned religio-nationalism begins with the religious and proceeds to the nationalist, emphases such as inclusivity and benevolence—rather than exclusivity and animosity—are to the fore.

This paper seeks to explain Austria's Islam-related politics by first suggesting that it can be best understood in terms of neo-institutionalist path-dependency and consociationalist policy-making. This is due to the fact that Austria gave Islam full legal recognition in 1912. Important institutional patterns and policies grew out of this law in the Second Republic, whose persistence we want to examine. The Islamic Religious Community constituted itself under public law as a neo-corporatist interest group for Muslims in Austria in 1979. More recently, the government's approach toward Islam has shifted. This change can be best accounted for by party competition in which the far-right Freedom Party of Austria has sought to monopolize this issue. Consequently, this paper explores the contradictions between, on the one hand, the long-established principle of state neutrality and evenhandedness when dealing with various legally recognized religious communities and, on the other hand, discriminatory Islam-related politics.

Researchers have posited a bifurcated discursive field with regard to United States politics, with secular progressives at one pole and religious conservatives at the other. This division is typically understood to be both ideological and stylistic, with secular liberals possessing a robust language for speaking about structural inequality but lacking transcendent rhetoric about morality, and conservatives having the opposite discourses available to them. Yet this view steers us away from groups that complicate this picture, such as progressive religious communities. This article uses qualitative data collected among progressive religious groups to demonstrate that, through their ability to integrate discussions of structural inequality and personal morality, these communities create a rhetorical style that blends critical discourses with calls for righteousness. To understand different rhetorical positions, we have to examine the on-the-ground meaning making represented by politicized talk within communities that provide actors with the categories of identification which make social action possible.