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This chapter describes the “avoidance syndrome” that has characterized U.S. diplomacy's failure to engage religion in the international order. It surveys the evidence for what scholars call the desecularization of the world. It then identifies the two major issues—religious persecution and transnational Islamist terrorism—that ought to have forced U.S. policy makers to address the underlying religious nature of problems in the international order. Diplomats have fallen short in both areas. The chapter ends by describing two key elements of the explanation for diplomacy's ineptness: the culture wars and “secularization theory”—in particular the latter's Rawlsian assumption that religion is inherently emotive and irrational.

This chapter examines the politics of desecularization by focusing on the experience of Christian churches and North Korean migrants in Seoul. In particular, it demonstrates how Seoul has undergone desecularization in response to a changing geopolitical climate by providing both historical accounts of Korean Christianity and ethnographic vignettes of North Korean migrants' conversion to Christianity. It also considers a particular form of Christianity as it serves to promote, if not delimit, a modality of ideal liberal citizenship. Finally, it explores how religious revival, invention, and intervention have been intertwined in the processes of modernization and urbanization in Seoul, along with the changing implications of the transformative capacity of Christianity (that is, conversion) for self and society. It suggests that the conversion of North Korean migrants to Christianity is a reflection of the so-called “compressed modernity” of South Korea's rapid socioeconomic transformation.

This chapter argues that the standard models of “secularization” and “desecularization” are theoretically problematic and empirically questionable. By essentializing religion, both theories adopt a secular perspective, which ignores key sociological, anthropological, and philosophical features that can account for the specificities of different religious traditions. Moreover, modernity is not a linear process that progressively replaces the religious past with a secular future. Rather, it is a dialectical process oscillating between a dominant secularism (and a variety of denominational subcultures that are positively linked to modernization) on the one hand, and an increasingly visible revival of traditional faiths that resist and seek to transform the secular outlook of global modernity, on the other hand.

This chapter explores how the Warren and Saddleback Churches effortlessly incorporate supralocal structures, interests, symbols, and narratives without using them in the service of supralocal ambitions. Saddleback's politics are not political at all. Events such as the “Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency,” in which Barack Obama and John McCain appeared together in the 2008 presidential campaign, are rather elaborate performances meant to retell secular stories in a religious key, and religious stories in a secular key. The desired result for Saddleback and Warren is not some Falwellian desecularization—a more Christian American government—but rather an increase in saved souls in south Orange County.

Since the end of the Cold War religion has increasingly become an organized subject and object of American foreign policy. This has been notable with the emergence of four religious foreign policy regimes—International Religious Freedom, Faith-Based Foreign Aid, Muslim and Islamic Interventions, and Religious Engagement—which together constitute an American foreign policy regime complex on religion. The introduction poses the book’s three guiding questions. First, why and how did these different, yet closely related, religious foreign policy regimes emerge? Second, have the boundaries between religion and state been redefined by these regimes, and if so, how? Third, what are the global effects of the growing entanglement between faith and American foreign policy? The chapter introduces the concepts and arguments that are central to answering these questions. It also highlights the contributions made to the existing literature, discusses some definitional and methodological issues, and presents the plan of the book.

The chapter presents the book’s theoretical framework, which is grounded in a sociological approach to international relations (IR) theory. It suggests that to explain the causes and shape of the operationalization of religion in US foreign policy attention needs to be paid to the combined effects of macro-level forces represented by the emergence of a postsecular world society, and the mobilization at the micro-level of a diverse range of desecularizing actors who seek to contest the secularity of American foreign policy through the deployment of multiple desecularizing discourses. The chapter then conceptualizes four different processes of foreign policy desecularization—institutional, epistemic, ideological, and state-normative—which take place as religion increasingly becomes an organized subject and object of US foreign policy. Finally, it advances three hypotheses about the global effects of America’s religious foreign policies: they shape religious landscapes around the world in ways that reflect American values and interests; they contribute to religionizing world politics; and they promote similar policies internationally.

The chapter identifies the constellation of desecularizing actors embedded in postsecular processes responsible for the institutionalization and evolution of the International Religious Freedom regime since the late 1990s. It then investigates the main institutions and practices of the regime and their evolution over time. The chapter suggests that processes of desecularization that underpin this regime are opening up greater spaces for the organized and sustained inclusion, reification, positive essentialization, and normative accommodation of religion in US foreign policy. In terms of global effects, the IRF regime advances a radically pluralist cum Protestant particularist understanding of what constitutes religion and religious freedom; contributes to the religionization of world politics through mechanisms of elevation and categorization; and promotes the adoption of similar policies around the world. The conclusion summarizes the main findings and reflects on developments taking place under President Trump.

The chapter identifies the constellation of desecularizing actors embedded in postsecular processes responsible for the emergence of the Faith-Based Foreign Aid regime under President Bush in the early 2000s. It examines the continuation and evolution of the regime over time and shows how this has depended on the type of desecularizing actors that have had access to the Bush and Obama administrations. It argues that the regime generates considerable forms of institutional desecularization, sustained by parallel processes of ideological and state-normative desecularization. In terms of global effects, the regime is potentially shaping global religious landscapes primarily by supporting Christian organizations and communities, and contributing to processes of religionization especially through mechanisms of elevation. The conclusion summarizes the chapter’s findings, compares the regime to the International Religious Freedom regime, and considers developments occurring under President Trump.

The chapter identifies the constellation of desecularizing actors embedded in postsecular modes of thinking responsible for the emergence and evolution of the Muslim and Islamic Interventions regime in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11). It highlights the multiple desecularizing processes taking place in American foreign policy as this has sought to increasingly target, pacify, and reform Muslim politics and Islamic traditions in the context of the war on terror. In terms of global effects, the chapter argues that the regime is potentially shaping the lives and religiosity of Muslims around the world along American interests and values; that it is contributing to religionizing world politics through processes of categorization and elevation; and that it is central to wider global policy networks seeking to promote moderate Muslims and Islam. The conclusion compares the Muslim and Islamic Interventions regime with the regimes examined in previous chapters, and considers developments taking place under President Trump.

The chapter shows how two epistemic communities embedded in postsecular modes of thinking provided the intellectual impetus since the 1990s that led to the creation of the Religious Engagement regime in 2013. It identifies how both epistemic communities shaped the regime during the Obama presidency. The chapter then assesses the multiple processes of foreign policy desecularization that the regime is both a product of and contributes to. In terms of global effects, it argues that the regime has potentially shaped religious landscapes internationally by empowering what it views as “good” religion; that it has tended to religionize world politics through mechanisms of elevation; and that it has contributed to the diffusion and consolidation of similar policies across Western governments and international institutions. The conclusion summarizes the chapter’s findings and compares the Religious Engagement regime to the previous three regimes. It then considers developments taking place under the Trump administration.

The conclusion has two main objectives. The first is to show how the International Religious Freedom, Faith-Based Foreign Aid, Muslim and Islamic Interventions, and Religious Engagement regimes form a broader American foreign policy regime complex on religion. The second objective is to reflect on the book’s wider implications for the study of religion in international relations and highlight areas for further research. This includes assessing the strength of the book’s theoretical framework in light of ongoing developments under the Trump administration; understanding better the changes occurring to the religious traditions and actors that America draws from and intervenes in around the world; investigating further how the American experience with the operationalization of religion in foreign policy relates and compares to similar policy changes taking place elsewhere; and reflecting more broadly on the implications for international order of the growing systematic attempt by the United States to manage and mobilize religion in twenty-first-century world politics.