This is the first thorough examination of what has become an intensely relevant contemporary issue. Beginning with an account of the basic premises of liberal democracy, it moves on to a comparison between rational, secular grounds of decision and grounds based on religious convictions. The author discusses particular issues such as animal rights and abortion, showing how religious convictions can bear on an individual's decisions about them, and enquires whether reliance on such convictions is compatible with liberal democratic premises. He disputes the claim that human beings can be expected to rely exclusively on rational, secular grounds, given their limited capacities.

In Religious Convictions and Political Choice, Kent Greenawalt challenges the theories of such political thinkers as John Rawls and Bruce Ackerman, who argue that citizens and officials in a liberal democracy should eschew religiously based premises in developing political judgments and limit themselves to secular conceptions of justice and publicly accessible methods of determining facts. Beginning with an account of the basic premises of our political system, Religious Convictions and Political Choice examines the full dimensions of this issue of intense contemporary relevance, and compels a fundamental reexamination of the place of religion in the political life of a liberal democracy.

'lucid and important book ... Dr Greenawalt has a fine way of clarifying issues and staying strictly within the limits he has set himself. ... the argument of the book is impressive and important for theologians and others concerned for an effective theological contribution to public debate' Duncan B. Forrester, Journal of Theological Studies