The Politics of Vulnerability How to Heal MuslimChristian Relations in a PostChristian America: Today's Threat to Religion and Religious Freedom

A religious liberty lawyer and acclaimed authorreveals the root of America's polarization inside the Muslim and evangelical Christian divide—and how it can be healed.Despite the dire consequences of America's cultural, political, and religious divisiveness, from increasing incivilityto discrimination and outright violence, few have been able to get to the core cause of this conflict. Even fewer have offered measures for reconcilliation. Now, inThe Politics ofVulnerability, Asma Uddin, American-Muslim public intellectual, religious-liberties attorney, and activist, provides a unique perspective on the complex political and social factors contributing to the Muslim-Christian divide. Unlike other analysts, Uddin asks what underlying drivers cause otherwise good people to do—or believe—bad things? Why do people who value faith supportof measures that limit others, especially of Muslims’, religious freedom and other rights?’ Uddin humanizes a contentious relationship by fully embracing both sides as individuals driven by very human fears and anxieties. Many conservative Christians fear that the Left is dismantling traditional “Christian America” to replace it with an Islamized America, a conspiratorial theory that has given rise to an “evangelical persecution complex,” a politicizedvulnerability. Uddin reveals that Islamophobia and other aspects of the conservative Christian movement are interconnected. Where does hate come from and how can it be conquered? Only by addressing the underlying factors of this politics ofvulnerabilitycan we begin to heal the divide.