The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies [Paperback]

Stephen V. Monsma (Author), J. Christophen Soper (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742554171 | ISBN-13: 978-0742554177 | Publication Date: September 5, 2008 | Edition: 2nd Edition

Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, this essential text offers a rigorous, systematic comparison of church-state relations in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, and England. As successful and stable political democracies, these five countries share a commitment to protecting the religious rights of their citizens. Yet as the book demonstrates, each has taken substantially different approaches to resolving basic church-state questions. Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper examine the historical roots of those differences and explain how each state addresses contemporary church-state issues. The authors judge each government's success in protecting the religious rights of its citizens using a framework based on the ideal of governmental neutrality or evenhandedness toward people of all faiths and of none.

Providing clarity on the little-understood, evolving relationship between church and state in the West, this book provides an invaluable comparative analysis of a topic that is increasingly a source of profound political and social conflict. Monsma and Soper conclude that the American conception of church-state separation, with its traditional emphasis on avoiding government establishment of religion, actually discriminates against religious groups by denying access to government services provided to other organizations. The authors persuasively argue that the United States can learn a great deal from other Western nations in promoting religious neutrality and the free exercise of religion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of my favorite books on religion in public life. On a subject especially in need of light, insight, and balance, its very readable historical, legal, and comparative analyses are most enlightening and fair. I recommend it for college classes and as good reading for ordinary citizens. (Christian Smith )

Praise for the First Edition A useful comparative study....This survey can help Americans appreciate the peculiarities, both good and bad, of our church-state arrangements..... (First Things )

Praise for the First Edition Monsma and Soper's project opens up the possibility and vitality of constructive religion in American public life..... (Tokunbo Adelekan Journal For The Social Scientific Study Of Religion )

Praise for the First Edition The argument of the book is not why America is right, but on the contrary, why the other democracies do it better. The methodology is comparative only after the historical evolution of church-state relationships in each society has been examined with some subtlety. It is a model of a worthwhile comparative study.... (Michael Hogan Australian Journal Of Political Science )

Praise for the First Edition An eye-opener..... (Hans-Martien ten Napel Acta Politica )

Praise for the First Edition The book concludes that state financial aid may actually encourage religious freedom by making it more widely available. Upper-division undergraduates and above. (Choice )

Praise for the First Edition An eye-opener. (Hans-Martien ten Napel Acta Politica )

Praise for the First Edition A useful comparative study....This survey can help Americans appreciate the peculiarities, both good and bad, of our church-state arrangements. (First Things )

Praise for the First Edition Monsma and Soper's project opens up the possibility and vitality of constructive religion in American public life. (Tokunbo Adelekan Journal For The Social Scientific Study Of Religion )

Praise for the First Edition The argument of the book is not why America is right, but on the contrary, why the other democracies do it better. The methodology is comparative only after the historical evolution of church-state relationships in each society has been examined with some subtlety. It is a model of a worthwhile comparative study. (Michael Hogan Australian Journal Of Political Science )

Praise for the First Edition The Challenge of Pluralism is a genuine comparative study undertaken by two political scientists surveying church-state relations and it brings together a great deal of valuable historical, legal, and other information…relevant to its subject. (John T. S. Madeley West European Politics )

Praise for the First Edition Monsma and Soper provide one of the most detailed and best studies of the range of church-state relations in different liberal democracies. They explode the myth of church-state separation in several countries of Europe and make a persuasive case for allowing religion greater space in the public arena than exists in America. (Anthony Gill, author ofRendering Unto Caesar: The Catholi )

Praise for the First Edition An exceptionally illuminating book...this volume is, in short, an excellent piece of scholarship and deserves a wide readership. (George Moyser Journal Of Church And State )

Praise for the First Edition Marvelous. The authors perform the rare and difficult feat of generating a genuinely cross-national analysis, while paying strict, detailed attention to the nuances of each country. This book will change the manner in which church-state relations are contested in the United States and is required reading for anyone, at any level. (Jelen, Ted G. )

Praise for the First Edition As a sourcebook, this volume is without peer. The authors have donea fine job of assembling a remarkable array of material and fashioning it into a coherent whole. The Challenge of Pluralism offers a series of well-executed portraits of five nations that attempt to harmonize the religious sentiments of their citizens with the demands of public policy. (Wald, Kenneth D. Public Policy )

Readers of Pro Rege may be surprised to find such insightful and articulate authros writing to such a broad audience with pleasingly familiar insights and arguments....The authors are to be commended for articulating an orthodox Reformed vision of justice for a broken world, and doing so within the parameters of inferences based upon comparative research....Without burdening the text with Reformed terminology, Monsma and Soper have seriously challenged governing elites and their intellectual supporters to actually redeem fallen and sinful structures of contemporary democratic governments. This is exemplary reformational scholarship. (Jack R. Van Der Slik Pro Rege )

About the Author

Stephen V. Monsma is research fellow in the Paul Henry Institute at Calvin College and emeritus professor of political science at Pepperdine University. J. Christopher Soper is Blanche E. Seaver Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 2nd Edition edition (September 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742554171
• ISBN-13: 978-0742554177
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Monsma is a senior research fellow at the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College and professor emeritus of political science at Pepperdine University. He has published widely in the fields of church-state relations and faith-based nonprofit organizations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transcending liberalist ideology: the church-state case, December 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Challenge of Pluralism (Hardcover)

I give this book more exactly 4,5 stars. I am glad I acquired the book and included it in my personal library of political science. The authors build on a solid framework of different church-state regimes. They analyse neither too many nor two few countries. However, extension by others to cover more countries would be welcome. One can also ask if a similar approach could not be used for studying relations of the state to other organisations than churches. In all cases, the hypothesis is that explicit separation of the state from certain values leads to implicit support to those who are the strongest in pushing the values of their own.

1.0 out of 5 stars Despicable Insidious attack on Separation of Church and State, April 7, 2011

By 

Jake M. DiVeronica (The University at Buffalo) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies (Paperback)

If the book's warm cozy cover, pressing Christianity, Judaism and Islam together doesn't give you a clue, the ridiculous association of the word Secularist with atheist and agnostic should. (See title of review) Secularism and Secularists advocate the separation of church and state. The original Secularists were in fact religious, and were pleading for protection by the government from different religions. (The Danbury Baptists, for instance).

I would expect better prose from a 5th Grader, and the book is so entirely banal that I, and any literate individual living in the 21st century would also feel, insulted.

The book is in essence, a critique of secularism- stating that it is an antiquated policy that best be tossed away in order to make everyone feel yet again, pleasant happy and cozy. This however is not the nature of religion, and the Founding Fathers knew this to be the case. Religion thrives on opposition and WILL NEVER BE HAPPY until everyone is of the same mind AT WHICH POINT reformations and schisms occur, naturally creating a divide where there once was none.

Shame on the authors and anyone who buys into this pseudo-liberal intellectual travesty.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, May 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Challenge of Pluralism (Hardcover)

this was a required text in a college political science class. the book gave concise examples of concepts and read easily. plus, dr. hertzke was one of the book's editors.