Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne will be at the TPMCafe Book Club this week discussing his new book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.
Dionne lays out his premise in his first Cafe post:
Souled Out insists that religious faith does not lead ineluctably to conservative political convictions. It argues that the era of the religious Right is over. Its collapse is part of a larger decline of a certain style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 but suffered a series of decisive and I believe fatal setbacks during George W. Bushâs second term. The end of the religious Right does not signal a decline in evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, it is a sign of a new reformation among Christians who are disentangling their great movement from a political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who religious Americans are and what they believe.
We’ve got a great line-up for this week’s discussion, including Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, J. Peter Scoblic of The New Republic and the Carnegie Endowment, Richard Parker of Harvard University, Brian McClaren of Emergent Village and Sojourners, and Garance Franke-Ruta, lately of washingtonpost.com. Please join in.
