God’s Rule: The Politics of World Religions

Resisting the tendency to separate the study of religion and politics, editor Jacob Neusner pulls together a collection of ten essays in which various authors explain and explore the relationship between the world’s major religions and political power. As William Scott Green writes in the introduction, ＂Because religion is so comprehensive, it is fundamentally about power; it therefore cannot avoid politics.＂

Beginning with the classical sources and texts of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism and Hinduism, God’s Rule begins to explore the complex nature of how each religion shapes political power, and how religion shapes itself in relation to that power. The corresponding attention to differing theories of politics and views towards non-believers are important not only to studies in comparative religion, but to foreign policy, history and governance as well. From early Christianity’s relationship to the Roman Empire to Hinduism’s relationship to Gandhi and the caste system, God’s Rule provides a basis of understanding from which undergraduates, seminarians and others can begin asking questions of relationships ＂both unavoidable and systematically uneasy.＂

Jacob Neusner is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is the author of several books on Judaism, including Judaism’s Theological Voice: The Melody of the Talmud, A History of Jews in Babylonia and numerous analytical translations of Jewish texts.