What happens when a minority religious group's beliefs run counter
to the laws and principles of the American constitution? How do
Americans reconcile the conflicting demands of church and state? In
The Americanization of Religious Minorities, Eric Michael Mazur
recounts the experiences of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and
Native Americans as cases in which minority religious groups seek
to practice their faith in a constitutional order that recognizes a
higher authority different from, and sometimes incompatible with,
their own.
Mazur identifies three basic strategies these minority religious
groups can follow: establishing a separate peace; accommodating
their theology to political realities; and engaging in sustained
conflict. He shows that, in order to practice its faith without
hindrance from the law, a member of a religious minority must
somehow buy into the principles and values of America's
constitutional government. He also concludes that the closer a
minority's beliefs are to Protestant Christianity, the easier the
accommodation. Throughout, Mazur emphasizes the experience of
religious minorities in dealing with this problem.
A fascinating investigation of religious groups' right to
practice their faith, The Americanization of Religious Minorities
will be of interest to students and scholars of American religion,
American politics, and sociology.
"[I believe] the First Amendment represents the gift with the
greatest potential to be given by this country to the world. But I
also believe it is a promise that, like the messiah, is always
coming but never here. We must understand what we have done to
others who have faced the dilemma of being religious minorities in
thisculture so that we can better understand the limits, and the
potential, of our hopes for greater religious freedom." -- from the
Preface
"It has long been accepted that no freedom is absolute, but we
do not often examine the implicit boundaries set on religious
freedom or think about the ramifications for religious communities
that -- for any number of reasons -- do not consider themselves, or
are not considered by others, part of the mainstream. Part of the
value of this analysis rests in its exploration of how minority
religious communities balance the desire to join the dominant
culture, on the one hand, with the sometimes conflicting desire to
maintain a particularistic community identity, on the other." --
from the Introduction
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