Introduction : religion, civil society, and the challenge of global justice -- Religion and the problem of the "social" -- Class and economic interaction : historical materialism as a theory of liberal modernity -- Legitimation versus theodicy : Weber's comparative religion -- Hegemony and democracy -- Class consciousness or ethical hegemony? -- The Confucian turn : new democracy and ethical hegemony -- Communal cults and world religions -- God's justice on earth : Sittlichkeit versus the ethical state -- Public hegemony and sectlike society.