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The Religious Test: Why We Must Question the Beliefs of Our Leaders First Edition

by Damon Linker (Author)
2.8 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
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A manifesto seeking to exhort both believers and atheists to behave better in the public sphere.

The Constitution states that “no religious test” may keep a candidate from aspiring to political office. Yet, since John F. Kennedy used the phrase to deflect concerns about his Catholicism, the public has largely avoided probing candidates’ religious beliefs. Is it true, however, that a candidate’s religious convictions should be off-limits to public scrutiny?

Damon Linker doesn’t think so, and in this book he outlines the various elements of religious belief―including radical atheism―that are simply incompatible with high office, and sometimes even active citizenship, in a democracy. In six forceful chapters he enlightens us to the complicated interrelations between churches and states, consistently applying a political litmus test to a range of theological views. Along the way, he clearly explains, among other topics, why the government in a religiously tolerant society must not promote a uniform, absolute code of ethics and behavior; why the conviction that America is worthy of divine attention is dangerous; and why the liberal position on the political deregulation of sex is our nation’s only hope for conciliation.

In this provocative, hard-hitting manifesto, Linker exhorts both believers and atheists to behave better in the public sphere, and he offers a carefully charted road map for doing so.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0393067955
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0393067958
  3. Edition
    First Edition
  4. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    September 27, 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 1 x 8.6 inches
  8. Print length
    256 pages
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Linker is concerned our liberal democracy—defined as one that emphasizes individual freedom, limits the power of the state, and the like—is threatened by traditionalist believers and radical atheists. They are unfit for public life or office because of the illiberal demands their ideologies place upon them. Saints, for example, cannot be statesmen, as their first loyalty is to their god, not the Constitution or the liberal institutions that serve democracy. Believing there is a right way to behave in the political arena, Linker articulates six political commandments, including placing no authority above the Constitution. Yet political views informed by religious beliefs or atheistic sensibilities were not something the framers of the Constitution saw fit to enjoin. By excluding those with whom he disagrees from political life in order to safeguard liberal democracy, Linker’s six-point test ironically becomes not only unconstitutional but also as illiberal as the ideologies he decries. Nevertheless, this is a thought-provoking book about the tension between politics and religion in the public square. --Christopher McConnell

Review

"‘Our saints will not be statesmen and our statesmen will not be saints.’ In this lapidary sentence Damon Linker concludes his literate and stirring defense of pluralism as a prerequisite of decent politics. His deeply thoughtful alternative to both know-nothing and know-everything politics will instruct readers who remain open to persuasion―whatever their persuasion."
― Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties and coauthor of The Chosen Peoples

"God made all men equal. But men make religions, and they are not all equal. Some beliefs―and arguments against belief―are simply incompatible with life in a liberal democratic society. So argues Damon Linker in the freshest and most intellectually stimulating book on church and state to be published in some time."
― Mark Lilla, author of The Stillborn God

"A sensitive, thoughtful, and important new vision of the place of belief in an open and tolerant public square. Would that Linker’s Religious Test catches on!"
― Isaac Kramnick, author of The Godless Constitution

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 27, 2010
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393067955
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393067958
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 8.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    2.8 out of 5 stars 8 ratings

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Damon Linker

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Michael Austin
    5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Take on What Should Be a Settled Issue
    Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2010
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    More than 200 years after the United States of America was founded as a religiously neutral state guaranteeing religious freedom to all, one might suspect that Damon Linker's main argument in _The Religious Test_--that the United States should be a religiously neutral state guaranteeing religious freedom to all--would be a banal truism, something comparable to, say, a defense of the Copernican model of the universe or the health benefits of handwashing.

    But alas, this is not the case. Some of the shrillest voices in our society now demand, through their votes, that our leaders demonstrate their religious devotion in the performance of their duties--and they also demand that our history be rewritten to obscure the fact, plain to anyone who reads the original texts, that our Founding Fathers thought this a very bad idea. Only slightly less shrill, and perhaps ultimately more dangerous, are the "new atheists" who advocate the use of state power to rid us of religion altogether, by, among other things, punishing parents who raise their children religiously as child abusers.

    As long as these fundamentally illiberal voices are part of our public sphere we will need books like _The Religious Test_ to remind us that the principle of religious liberty requires a religiously neutral state and that public figures can only uphold the principles of religious freedom by agreeing to take a neutral stance towards all forms of belief (including unbelief) in the performance of their official duties.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • History Lover
    1.0 out of 5 stars A Narrow-minded Bigot
    Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2020
    Format: Hardcover
    Very poorly argued attempt at trying to prevent an entire block of really good people from serving our country just because he disagrees with their views...a.k.a...a narrow-minded bigot!
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Russell Arben Fox
    4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, thoughtful, challenging book
    Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2010
    Format: Hardcover
    Linker's book is well-written, thoughtful, challenging, and absolutely worth reading. It isn't a scholarly text, though it is informed by a great deal of scholarship; nor is it, though many will assume otherwise, a polemical attack on religious believers in the public square. Rather it is a smart, even wise, book which asks hard questions about exactly how, and in what way, and to what degree, those with "traditionalist" religious beliefs can effectively present themselves as democratic participants in a secular liberal state like our own.

    By "traditionalist" believers (a term that Linker uses occasionally, but does not rely upon), the book considers those whose faith in divine authority leads them to trust in revelations and commandments not based on any other kind of publicly available reasoning (this would be certain conservative Catholics and Mormons), or whose commitment to a literal interpretation of the Bible leads them to dismiss and seal themselves off from debate over scientific and other intellectual arguments (some evangelical Protestants), or other similar examples. Linker, who has extensive experience with the arguments and ambitions of the "theoconservative" Christian right, wants to make sure that those whose beliefs align align with that and similar movements (which he sees as involving a close-mindedness and authoritarianism incompatible with a liberal society) do not unthinkingly fill up our public square with ideas and policies that will ultimately work against all our freedoms.

    As should be apparent, Linker's vision of the United States as a "secular liberal state" is not a casually assumed one; he takes the fundamentals of pluralism, incommensurability, toleration, individualism, progress, and so forth very seriously. As such, those who have complaints about this book basically fall into three camps: 1) those religious conservatives and traditionalists who are unconcerned at how their theology and their practices potentially challenge the premises of liberal democracy, and who want to be able to use the rules of liberal democracy to advance goals that are, whether they realize it or not, illiberal; 2) those religious believers, who may or may not be conservative or traditional, who do not recognize their actual beliefs and practices in the sometimes overly philosophical or ahistorical analysis arguments which Linker makes, and would like to defend their participation in liberal democratic politics accordingly; and 3) those who think his picture of the "secular liberal state" is flawed in this first place--that democracies are not, and shouldn't be, nearly as separate from authoritative moral traditions or collective religious "establishments" of one sort of another as he makes them out to be. I would count myself in the third camp (and you can read my long response to Linker[...] if you're so inclined). But that third group is bound to be the smallest; the first two types of critics will be much larger.

    Of the first one, there's probably little point in urging them to embrace the book; after all, Linker is writing primarily to his fellow liberals, not to convince illiberal folk that they're wrong. Of the second group though, Linker has something important and thought-provoking to say; even if it is true that some of his details are wrong, or his picture of certain practices and beliefs is incomplete, honest believers in traditionalist religions (and I am one myself) owe it to themselves to think about what Linker is saying--to think, in other words, about their own potential illiberality, and why that ought to make them pause when they think about voting for their co-religionists (or run for office themselves!).

    Linker makes clear throughout the book--and in particular in his final chapter, when he attacks many atheists as being just as "illiberal" as some traditionalists!--that he respects conservative, illiberal religious beliefs...at least as much as probably any secular liberal who rejects any authoritative account of the universe possibly could. He sees an important place for saints in American society, be they the sort that close themselves off and develop their own distinct communities, or the sort that engage themselves in public witnessing and works to and along our public liberal order. He just cares enough about that order as he understands it that he doesn't want to see it further compromised from within by those who wrongly important their own authoritative notions into what he sees as a necessarily neutral, pluralistic space. I think his understanding of that space is wrong--but that doesn't mean his thoughts and counsel to anyone who appreciates the virtues of living in a tolerant democratic society aren't worth listening to. They very much are.
    19 people found this helpful
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  • Truffles
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastically thought provoking.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2014
    Format: Hardcover
    Linker takes you through several trains of thought and asks uncomfortable questions about the political nature of religiosity, the quasi-religious nature of politics, and their interplay.

    Due to the nature of the content, and the way it was presented, I can only assume the 1 star reviews were due to a deep bias. There's no logical justification you could provide for saying this is a 1-star book. You don't give books 1-star ratings simply because you disagree, but perhaps that's too logical for some.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • jack ulrey
    1.0 out of 5 stars Linker
    Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2020
    Format: Kindle
    Like John Wayne once said, you can’t fix stupid.
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  • Perkin Warbeck
    1.0 out of 5 stars Softcore Tripe
    Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2014
    Format: Hardcover
    Another self-appointed genius, expounding on why we must do things Linker's way.

    Few books make me angrier, than those where I feel - after having completed the book - that I just wasted a precious part of my life (and money), wading through nonsense. This is one of those books.
    16 people found this helpful
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  • Daniel Marsh
    1.0 out of 5 stars This author lacks critical thinking
    Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2010
    Format: Hardcover
    Today, this author was on WMUZ with Bob Dutko. He could not even defend the most basic claims of his book. In fact, they decided to talk about Dinosaurs and this author was so inept that the author hung up rather then defend his views.

    So, don't waste your money on this book.
    33 people found this helpful
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