Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi PREFACE:WORSHIPING DEMOCRACY:THE PANTEON AND THE GODDESS OF DEMOCRACY xiii INTRODUCTION Dynamics of Democratic Faith 1 PART I: DEMOCRATIC FAITH AND ITS DISCONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Faith in Man 15 CHAPTER 2: Democratic Transformation 50 CHAPTER 3: Democracy as Trial: Toward a Critique of Democratic Faith 84 PART II: VOICES OF THE DEMOCRATIC FAITHFUL CHAPTER 4: Protagoras Unbound: The Democratic Mythology of Protagoras's "Great Speech" 119 CHAPTER 5: Civil Religion and the Democratic Faith of Rousseau 140 CHAPTER 6: American Faith: The Translation of Religious Faith to Democratic Faith 166 PART III: FRIENDLY CRITICS OF DEMOCRATIC FAITH CHAPTER 7: "A Pattern Laid Up in Heaven": Plato's Democratic Ideal 191 CHAPTER 8: The Only Permanent State: Tocqueville on Religion and Democracy 214 CHAPTER 9: Hope in America: The Chastened Faith of Reinhold Niebuhr and Christopher Lasch 239 CONCLUSION: A Model of Democratic Charity 270 NOTES 289 INDEX 361

About the Author

Patrick Deneen is Associate Professor of Government and the inaugural Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair of Hellenic Studies at Georgetown University. He has also taught at Princeton University. He is the author of The Odyssey of Political Theory and a number of articles on ancient and American political thought.

Reviews

"This book offers a serious philosophical and historical basis for current democratic theory. It makes a valuable contribution to the topic of religion and politics and is worthy of careful study. It is well written and immensely readable."--Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae "Following in the footsteps of Christopher Lasch, [Patrick Deneen] is concerned to expose what he perceives as the ill-placed object of the democratic faithful -- a trust in human capacities for self-government and progress so perfectionist that it entails the transformation of humans into the divine creatures they can never be... Unlike so much Christian commentary on democracy, Deneen pursues his critique not as prolegomena for the advocacy of an alternative faith but as a way of proposing a 'chastened' democratic faith, one that might count him among the faithful."--J. Ronald Engel, Journal of Religion "Whether they be 'deliberative liberals,' whose confidence in rationality, science, and technique inspires their democratic quest, or 'agonistic democrats,' those animated by a foundational belief in the citizenship-forming capacity of conflict, these true believers insist on the possibility of profound social transformation with a hope that leans far more on faith than on empirical evidence. Deneen's probing of the origins of this faith is brilliant--an exacting, at times exciting venture into pivotal texts... What we all need, Deneen implies, is not the absence of faith but a better faith, one that clarifies vision, forges better ties, forces a different reading of our past, and takes us down, down, into the depths of who we, as Americans, as Westerners, and as human beings are."--Eric Miller, Books & Culture