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IN THE KINGDOM OF KINDNESS: AMERICAN JEWS AND THE PUBLIC ROLE OF RELIGION
Unformatted Document Text:  ABSTRACT In Rediscovering America s Sacred Ground, Barbara M. McGraw offers an interpretation offoundational American thought about the role of religion in a well-ordered polity. Her centraltheme is the Lockean notion of a Sacred Ground, an anchoring point based on the assumptionthat individuals are imbued by God with the capacity and disposition to pursue a just society. Asociety that recognizes this fundamental premise will neither permit the imposition of anoverarching moral code that is not freely chosen by individuals nor preclude religious voicesfrom participation in the discourse of a democratic society. This paper asks whether the Judaictradition contributes to the Lockean reconstitution of American political thought about religionand state. I find that Judaic thinking about this question typically occupies the two positions thatMcGraw regards as incompatible with the Sacred Ground theocracy and secularism. On theother hand, American Jewry often thinks about the religious sources of its own distinctivepolitical culture in terms that exemplify what McGraw praises as a ground-up rather than top-down application of religious principles to public life. Perhaps the operative political theory ofAmerican Jewry can be adjusted to match the empirical reality of communal behavior.

Authors: Wald, Kenneth.
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ABSTRACT
In Rediscovering America s Sacred Ground, Barbara M. McGraw offers an interpretation of
foundational American thought about the role of religion in a well-ordered polity. Her central
theme is the Lockean notion of a Sacred Ground, an anchoring point based on the assumption
that individuals are imbued by God with the capacity and disposition to pursue a just society. A
society that recognizes this fundamental premise will neither permit the imposition of an
overarching moral code that is not freely chosen by individuals nor preclude religious voices
from participation in the discourse of a democratic society. This paper asks whether the Judaic
tradition contributes to the Lockean reconstitution of American political thought about religion
and state. I find that Judaic thinking about this question typically occupies the two positions that
McGraw regards as incompatible with the Sacred Ground theocracy and secularism. On the
other hand, American Jewry often thinks about the religious sources of its own distinctive
political culture in terms that exemplify what McGraw praises as a ground-up rather than top-
down application of religious principles to public life. Perhaps the operative political theory of
American Jewry can be adjusted to match the empirical reality of communal behavior.


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