American, Backsliding

American, BackslidingRebuilding Faith After Democracy Fell SidewaysWhat happens when faith becomes inseparable from political power—and democracy becomes something believers argue about rather than something they protect?American, Backsliding examines the uneasy collision of Christianity, American identity, political polarization, and democratic institutions. Drawing on publicly documented events and the modern history of American politics and religion, it explores how a nation built around constitutional democracy arrived at a moment when elections, institutions, truth, and faith itself became battlegrounds.This is not a simple story of one political party, one religious movement, or one election. It is a story about competing visions of America—and about what happens when religious conviction is recruited into political struggle.From the rise of the Religious Right and the transformation of evangelical politics to the culture wars, changing party coalitions, contested elections, political violence, and the growing distrust of democratic institutions, the book follows a complicated American journey: how faith gained political influence, how political loyalty reshaped religious communities, and how democracy began to feel strangely fragile.But American, Backsliding is not only about decline.It asks a harder question: Can faith help rebuild what political tribalism helped break?With a skeptical eye and a willingness to confront uncomfortable contradictions, this book considers whether religious communities can recover a commitment to pluralism, civic responsibility, truth, humility, and democratic participation without surrendering their deepest convictions.America's democratic crisis did not arrive overnight.Neither will its repair.