Fraternity versus Parochialism: On Religion and Populism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an astutely conceptualized article that offers a rigorous critique on issues of nationalism and populism in the contemporary world and how this is instilling forms of religious bigotry and racism through isolationist policies and perspectives. The paper also contextualizes these dire problems amidst the current pandemic in an existential and cultural manner that is very insightful. Argued with erudition and exacting examples that illuminate both theoretical and practical concerns.

Author Response

Many thanks for your encouraging review.

Reviewer 2 Report

There is a tendency to make at times rather sweeping statements that either lack supporting data, or which would be difficult to verify. For example, in lines 32-33 the author writes that "Trump's 'America First' that is supported by a big majority of Evangelicals and more than half of all Catholics in the United States."  I very strongly suspect two things: 1) factually this is not true, and 2) it is rather too simplisitic in a scholarly work.  For example, while it is HIGHLY debateable whether in fact "half of Catholics" voted for Trump, I would argue that the available data suggests that a considerable number of them supported Trump and the GOP NOT because of his "America First" policy, but rather because of the GOP stance towards abortion and the reversal of Roe v. Wade.  So this kind of blanket statement really detracts from the overall thrust (and merit) of the author's argument.

In the Abstract the author stats that populists "are more interested in belong than believing."  This is another example of a broad-brush statement difficult to prove, and also does not engage sufficiently what precisely is the difference between "belonging" and "believing."

In several places throughout the article it is unclear whether certain material is a direct quote or not, as the usual format of indenting ALL of a block quote is not followed.  Examples are at lines 128, 395, 406, etc.  Please address this issue.  Similarly, in line 128 IF the sentence with "Man" in it is NOT a direct quote from Bergson, then use inclusive language (as is established by now in scholarly discourse).

Line 314 has either a typographical error or a grammatical error: "where they spirit of dynamic religion..." is not acceptable English (in the view of this native speaker).

The bibliography format is rather idiosyncratic with the odd use of (( at the beginning of each entry.  I would recommend one of the standard scholarly formats.

A suggestion for the Introduction might be to re-write it very briefly using President Trump's hijacking of religious symbols on June 1 at St. John's Church in D.C., and June 2nd at the shrine to Pope John Paul II.  These examples have been strongly condemned by the respective religious authorities (the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic bishops), and would furnish an excellent example to undergird the author's over-arching thesis.

Finally, and most importantly, this article lacks a Conclusion in the usual genre.  Rather, the article simply "ends" and leads the reader wondering if a final page (or at least a paragraph) somehow went missing.  I would recommend adding a standard Conclusion in which the thesis is once again briefly stated, the main arguments briefly recapitulated, and some concluding indication of where this whole article might take the scholarly community and/or readers.

Author Response

I am grateful for your helpful review. Following most of your recommendations I revised the article accordingly. I responded to your comments in the attached file.