ABSTRACT
As a student of comparative politics, I have long been puzzled by the continued religiosity of Americans and the prominent role played by religion in U.S. electoral politics and in the public sphere more generally. I have recently had occasion to read widely on the subject, focusing on the U.S. as well as other parts of the world. I remain puzzled. In my view, there are significant and as yet unresolved questions about the complex and contingent relationships between religious politics, on the one hand, and modernization and democracy, on the other, that I think merit further attention by students of comparative politics. Here I will focus on just two sets of questions, which are by no means comprehensive.
