A01=Lew Daly
academic
administration
advocacy
Author_Lew Daly
belief
bills
bush
calvinist
Category=JKSN1
Category=JPQB
Category=QRM
Category=QRVS2
catholic
christian
christianity
community
criticism
critique
culture
economic
economy
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
europe
faith
federal
finance
financial
government
intellectual
interpersonal
laws
moral
obama
pluralist
president
public policy
relationships
religion
religious studies
research
scholarly
sect
social justice
state
war
Product details
- ISBN 9780226134833
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 01 Dec 2009
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, though, Obama's version of the policy has generated loud criticism - from both sides of the aisle - even as the communities that stand to benefit suffer through an ailing economy. "God's Economy" reveals that virtually all of the critics, as well as many supporters, have long misunderstood both the true implications of faith-based partnerships and their unique potential for advancing social justice. Unearthing the intellectual history of the faith-based initiative, Lew Daly locates its roots in the pluralist tradition of Europe's Christian democracies, in which the state shares sovereignty with social institutions. He argues that Catholic and Dutch Calvinist ideas played a crucial role in the evolution of this tradition, as churches across nineteenth-century Europe developed philosophical and legal defenses to protect their education and social programs against ascendant governments.
Tracing the influence of this heritage on the past three decades of American social policy and church-state law, Daly finally untangles the radical beginnings of the faith-based initiative. In the process, he frees it from the narrow culture-war framework that has limited debate on the subject since Bush opened the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001. A major contribution from an important new voice at the intersection of religion and politics, "God's Economy" points the way toward policy making that combines strong social support with a new moral focus on the protection of families and communities.
Lew Daly is a senior fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy organization. He is the author, most recently, of Unjust Deserts.
