Representing God in Washington -- The Role of Religious Lobbying in the U.S. Political System

Author: (American) Alan Hertzk
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-02
Features: Alan Hertzk's book Representing God in Washington is the most detailed examination to date of religious group lobbying activities in Washington. He provides fair and meticulous analyses of major right-wing and left-wing religious lobbying groups. This work has become a primary reference for anyone interested in learning more about this significant topic. It is an authoritative study on the role of religious lobbying groups in American politics. It is the doctoral dissertation of Professor Alan D. Hertzk, also his breakthrough work. Published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1988, the book received widespread acclaim and was recognized as the "most comprehensive and in-depth research" on American religious lobbying groups at the time. Prior to this book, academia had primarily studied the influence of interest groups on American politics, often overlooking religious groups as a distinct category. While some books on the relationship between religion and politics had been published, most remained at the level of religious activities themselves without in-depth theoretical analysis. This book can be said to fill this gap in research. The author conducts a meticulous examination of the activities of religious lobbying groups, not only introducing readers to the general activities of these groups but also revealing their role and relationship with American politics. As an important outcome of research on American religious interest groups, this book has the following features in its content:
(1) When discussing religious interest groups, the author uses the concepts of "representation" or "representational authority" to explain the differences between religious lobbyists and their secular counterparts. The author argues that, unlike other lobbying groups, religious lobbying groups more often represent "non-elite" social strata, which is determined by their altruistic nature.
(2) The author points out that since religious groups also represent theological traditions and fellow congregants from the same denomination internationally, they are increasingly active in influencing U.S. foreign policy.
(3) In the course of the research, the author discovers that religious lobbying groups have an interactive relationship with the congressional environment, and the nature of this interaction varies depending on the characteristics of each religious group and the specific issues at hand. The book consists of seven chapters, with the first six serving as six entry points for the author's research on religious lobbying, and the seventh chapter is a summary of the entire work. Additionally, in the appendix of this book, the author discusses the research methods of this study, which is also one of the key features of the book.
In this book, the author gathers the necessary primary data through extensive interviews with congressional aides and individual religious lobbying groups, surveys, and literature. Using these primary data, the author outlines the lobbying strategies and behind-the-scenes activities of mainstream Protestant, pacifist Protestant, evangelical, fundamentalist, Catholic, and Jewish religious lobbying groups. Although the book was published in the United States in 1988, it remains a valuable academic work for contemporary Chinese scholars studying the relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. Moreover, as the translator notes, some of its arguments have been proven to still hold up to scrutiny even today. Therefore, overall, this book remains an authoritative and time-tested academic monograph on American religious lobbying.