Thomas Banchoff is Associate Professor of Government and Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is the author of The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy (1999) and co-editor of Legitimacy and the European Union: The Contested Polity (1999).

In this book, a group of leading scholars--including Peter Berger, John Esposito, Robert Wuthnow, Martha Nussbaum, Diana Eck, Stanley Hauerwas, and Miroslav Volf--examines the new religious pluralism and the challenges it poses for democratic societies on both sides of the Atlantic. What are
the contours of this new religious pluralism? What are its implications for the theory and practice of democracy? Does increasing religious pluralism erode the cultural and social foundations of democracy? To what extent do different religious communities embrace similar -- or at least compatible --
ethical and political commitments? By seeking answers to these questions, this book offers a revealing look at the future of religion in democratic societies.