Religion in Public Life

The question of the proper role of religion and of religiously based moral convictions within American public life has been hotly debated during the past fifteen years. The rise of the Moral Majority immediately prior to the first Reagan presidential campaign and the presidential candidacies of ordained ministers Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson directed the media spotlight to the issue of religion and politics. These years have been a time of aggressive Christian politics, as …

…own devices in seeking to resolve the many dilemmas cast up by the presence of religion in the public sphere. Unfortunately, their decisions often represent conflicting and contradictory solutions to the problem of religion in American public life, thereby contributing to our current aporia. Consider the following examples drawn from three diverse public institutions. In each of these cases, different but equally problematic solutions are offered to the dilemma of religion in American public life.