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Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Review of Why Religion is Good for American Democracy, Social Forces, Volume 100, Issue 4, June 2022, Page e20, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soac002
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While I was reading Robert Wuthnow’s new book, Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy, the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Association. Shocking many, the Court seemed poised to uphold a stringent Mississippi abortion law and overturn Roe v Wade. In their arguments, several justices suggested that religious convictions about fetal personhood could outweigh legal precedent. Meanwhile, the death count from coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) passed 800,000 persons, with clear evidence linking religion to political leanings and vaccine refusal.
In his book, Wuthnow discusses both the abortion debate and COVID-19 as examples of how religion matters in American politics. Yet while many see these current events as worrying examples of religious politicization, Wuthnow takes a different view. Rather than arguing that religion is opposed to liberal progress, or that it unifies Americans around shared democratic principles, he asserts that US religion is an arena of diverse worldviews engaged in (generally) constructive debate, or what he calls “agonistic pluralism,” that ultimately enables democratic negotiation and keeps authoritarian movements in check.
