RELIGION AND CIVIC LIFE

Catalog description

This course addresses religion in Western civic life, in the United States and globally. Students will examine the perspectives of religious and political thinkers who address religion in civic life. They will develop skills to understand diverse ideas, engage respectfully with others' ideas, and articulate and defend their own ideas. In the course, students will consider how religion shapes civic values and interacts with political systems; whether religious reasoning can ground public policy decisions, especially compared to ostensibly secular reasoning; in what ways religion is considered a private or public matter in relation to public and civic life; whether religion represents a special category in the U.S. constitutional and legal system; the idea of civil religion; and the concept of religious liberty in the U.S. constitutional and legal system. Other related topics and specific case studies will be examined, as they relate to course goals and student interests. (Cross-listed with PSCI 2410 ).