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By the dawn of the modern era, the evolution of three philosophical trends from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries had converged to form the basis of liberal democracy’s approach to the place and role of religion in society and politics. Identified in this book as a “religious axis,” the period of convergence promoted rational and empirical investigation, enabled the development of diverse religious beliefs, and affirmed religious liberty and expressions amidst pluralist politics. In Philosophical Foundations of the Religious Axis, Pottenger shows that the religious axis’ three trends?epistemic, axiological, and political?undergird the political architecture of American liberal democracy that designed a containment structure to protect a vast array of religious expressions and encourage their presence in the public square. Moreover, the structure embodied a democratic ethos that drives religious and political pluralism?but within limits. This containment structure, Pottenger argues, has paradoxically ignited frenzied fires of faith that politically threaten the structure’s own limits.