Sanctuary and the Limits of Public Reason: A Deweyan Corrective

Abstract

AbstractThis article contributes to the debate over the appropriate place of religion in public reason by showing the limits of this framework for understanding and evaluating the real-world religious political activism of social movements. Using the 1980s Sanctuary Movement as a central case study, I show how public reason fails to appreciate the complex religious dynamics of this movement, the reasons actors employ religious reasoning, and, as a result, the very meaning of these acts. In response, I argue that a Deweyan perspective on the tasks and challenges of the democratic public offers a richer, more contextualized approach to evaluating the status of religion in the public sphere as well as other emerging publics whose modes of engagement defy prevailing notions of reasonableness and civility.