Joining Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change

""If I am successful,"" Roger Gottlieb writes in the introduction to Joining Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change, ""people will think twice... before presuming that religious life and progressive political movements have different goals."" Gottlieb, who came of age in the 1960s, presents this book as a rapprochement between religion and politics two fields that, he says, should have more interaction with one another than they currently do. Gottlieb examines the civil rights movement, feminism, environmentalism and disability activism to increase ""the full openness of religion and politics to each other's insights."" In a presidential era marked by much discussion of faith-based social services, this thoughtful book offers a timely perspective, even though its worldview may be more left-leaning than ""Dubya"" would likely embrace.