Religion and the Domestication of Dissent

In its first edition Religion and the Domestication of Dissent focused on the events of 9/11 and the representation of Islam. Scholars and pundits effectively demonised a whole faith by wilfully apportioning blame and by ignoring the differences within the Islamic movement. This volume examines how the classifications we use to name and negotiate our social worlds - notably ''religion'' - are implicitly political.

This cutting-edge new edition continues to be relevant to society today. During recent US campus protests over Israel’s ongoing actions in the Gaza Strip, a Jewish student claimed that Jewish people protesting against Israel’s actions were akin to gay or black people supporting President Trump, i.e., asserting the supposedly authentic and homogenous identity of a group; that do not represent their community and therefore should not to be taken seriously. This is also the stand of scholars and pundits now using the term “Christian nationalism” to describe what they see as the operationalization of Christian symbolism for political purposes. In other words, consider that no “mainline” commentator would ever designate the onetime US President Jimmy Carter—a person whose version of Christian faith was very much part of his public persona while in and out of office—as a Christian nationalist, demonstrating that the term is being used to rank and isolate winners and losers in ongoing contests over what ought to constitute American, let alone Christian. It is therefore not a descriptive but, rather, a socially formative category that accomplishes work in liberal democracies.