ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book tells a story about where this type of rhetoric about "religion and politics" comes from, how it works, what it accomplishes, and what it obscures. Religion is a private matter, so you should keep it to yourself. The first use of the phrase "using religion" presumes that religion is fundamentally apolitical, and therefore should not be "mixed" with politics. A second use of the phrase "using religion" suggests that there is a proper or orthodox use of a religious tradition, and that someone or some group improperly "uses" that tradition in an improper unorthodox manner. These two common uses of the phrase "using religion" are rather problematic and unsophisticated. Talk about religion merely as a "private matter" masks this overt public nature of these institutions.
