In Chains of Persuasion: A Framework for Religion in Democracy, Benjamin Hertzberg begins with a long-standing question: What is the proper role of religion in liberal democratic politics? In exploring this question, he not only examines the relationship between religion and politics; he also takes us to the offshores of a democracy anchored in religion. Hertzberg embarks on this project by arguing that religion and democracy are the same kind of entity because of their shared cognitive and cultural properties: they can both be categorized as a way of life (13).

A few questions are worth raising at the outset. Does Hertzberg's argument lead to the claim that a religious democracy is an uncontentious political regime in which religious and nonreligious citizens can have their claims and ways of life recognized, respected, and institutionally affirmed? What is this regime of religious democracy? Is it not highly problematic to bring the two together in one system of governing the society? And what concept of religion is employed in the religious part of democracy?

Although not all these questions are answered in the book, and they may not all be essential to Hertzberg's central argument, he clearly delineates the concept of religion employed in his account. This concept is compatible, he argues, with the critique offered by critical theorists of religion who argue that “religion,” as ingrained in our understanding and codified in our system of civic law, is the product of a culturally Protestant view of religion. What is fundamentally wrong with this Protestant concept of religion, these theorists argue, is that it is blind to the ritual and practice-based content of religion. In agreement with such critics, Hertzberg argues that religion should also be conceived as a way of life, and not only a system of beliefs based on a sacred text.

This critique, he argues, extends to public reason as the dominant account offered by liberal political theorists since Rawls to assess the role of religious and moral commitments in liberal democratic politics. Their concept of religion is “culturally Protestant” (61), since it is centered only on religious beliefs and leaves out religious practice, identity, and rituals. Hertzberg offers his account of democracy as a way of life as a rectification to public reason and aims at supplying what is missing from Rawls's theory of public reason, arguing that this theory excludes a consideration of civil society and background culture from the public justification of institutional designs and decisions. Yet if public reason fails in this respect, how does Hertzberg's understanding of democracy as a way of life offer a way of including religious arguments in actual situations of deliberation that could be endorsed by both religious and nonreligious citizens?

Hertzberg's answer pivots on what he calls the “chains of persuasion.” Unlike the concept of public reason, which puts conditions on introducing religious arguments in public justification—for example, that they have to be given in terms of nonreligious and secular reasons—Hertzberg places no such conditions on religious arguments and assumes a chain of persuasion that exists between citizens in their deliberative exchanges. Most simply, if citizen A can persuade citizen B directly, but cannot persuade citizen C because they do not share certain premises, citizen B can nevertheless develop an argument for A's view that appeals to an alternative set of premises that could persuade C of A's conclusion (81). He argues that religious and nonreligious arguments could be part of the chains of deliberation and persuasion even among those who do not accept the values and premises of these arguments.

Hertzberg also follows a line of argument that different scholars have taken regarding how one might reconstruct a religious argument or provide an internal reason to justify political or social claims that can persuade religious believers. He gives the example of the Quaker Anthony Benezet's argument against slavery and in support of abolition. This argument is based on an interpretation of certain passages in scripture that support the claim against slavery. This case is similar again to the contention by Muslim reformers who argue that there are certain verses in the Koran that support freedom of religion, toleration, and religious pluralism. On the basis of such arguments, Hertzberg shows, religious adherents can persuade their cobelievers that these verses should be highlighted and affirmed in the face of other verses that condemn those who abandon the faith.

One important qualification concerning the persuasiveness of such arguments on their own terms and the extent to which they contribute to the formation of democratic opinion and will is that they require also political activism, campaigning, and, in some cases, court battles. The two examples Hertzberg gives (feminism and Quakers) both have employed these methods in making their arguments heard and in persuading society of their claims. Another important qualification is that there must be a contradiction between scripture and the desired change that is internal to the religion and would function as a reason against abhorrent practices, such as slavery, gender and sexual discrimination, and Mormonism's exclusion of black priests (85).

However, Hertzberg's main line of argument shows how the chains-of-persuasion approach can function and contribute to the deliberative system. His argument is premised on the existence of a range of affiliation relationships in any given religion, which produces loose affiliates alongside strict and nonaffiliates. Hertzberg's approach then depends on the existence of loose affiliates who would contribute a great deal in persuading other citizens with different values and views of the religious argument offered by strict affiliates.

Although Hertzberg argues that his approach addresses certain weaknesses in the approach of public reason and is to be preferred to Habermas's epistemic learning processes, it does not constitute a competing view to public reason because it does not concern itself with public justification. Rather, Hertzberg is concerned with the deliberative process of decision making and aims at bringing religious and nonreligious views to an accord. The book offers a persuasive account of how religious inclusion should be dealt with in democratic politics and how it could contribute to democratic opinion and will formation. Hertzberg rigorously defends his approach by showing how certain religious principles and practices can cross the religious/political boundary and drawing inspiration, in particular, from Gandhi's practice of satyagraha, which contributes to political self-rule and has been practiced as nonviolence in many political and social movements. However, one might still ask: If Hertzberg's approach is not an alternative to a liberalism grounded in public reason, in what sense is it fundamentally different from the wide view of public reason and Rawls's proviso that religious arguments be given in terms of nonreligious and political reasons?