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The writings of Albert Camus have had a decisive influence on the political convictions of many young Frenchmen. Yet he often sounds like a Christian moralist. In fact there is no better way of moving toward the center of his political convictions than by recognizing their theological dimension. "The astonishing history evoked here is the …
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One of the most startling developments in the culture war is the apparent takeover of the Republican Party by conservative evangelicals who claim that the U.S. is a Christian nation, uniquely called and blessed by God. Fearing that the nation has strayed from the founders’ Christian intentions, conservative activists have dived into politics, hoping to …
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Along with campaign rallies and whistle-stop tours, each U.S. presidential race elicits ritual laments over the decline of politics and the failure of the electoral process. The formulas are by now well known: In an age of sound bites and spin doctors, we are unable to make real choices between policy alternatives. Real issues are …
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The notion that politicians must not permit their religious sensibilities to affect political decision-making has reduced political dialogue to a seminar on pragmatism. Political leaders might benefit from reflecting on a distinction Max Weber made between the morality of saints and the morality of politicians. In his classic essay "Politics as Vocation," Weber did not …
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“For almost 50 years South Korean villagers have insisted that early in the Korean War, American soldiers machine-gunned hundreds of help less civilians under a railroad bridge near a ham-let 100 miles southeast of Seoul,” read a front-page article in the New York Times. “When survivors and victims’ relatives told their story, and sought redress, …
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Christians have in recent years thought much about political issues and rather less about politics. Abortion, the arms race, homelessness and human rights have exercised theologians’ tongues and pens, but little has been said about a fundamental theological assessment of the political order itself. Yet politics is as pervasive and determinative of human life …
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Aurora Solis is typical of the people involved in faith-based organizing. Solis, a Mexican immigrant who grew up in a low-income home, works in a staff position at a high school in San Jose, California. She has been a U.S. citizen for only four years. But she was recruited by her pastor to serve on …
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Richard Hofstadter has published a series of essays on the Radical Right entitled The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Knopf). He might just as well have called his book The Manichaean Style in American Politics, since the metaphysical and moral presuppositions of the Radical Right are Manichaean to the core. The Manichaeans, of course, were …
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As President Clinton’s press secretary from 1995 to 1998, Mike McCurry was a familiar face on the nation’s TV screens. Before serving in that post — what he calls a “dream job” — he was a spokesman at the Department of State and director of communications for the Democratic National Committee. He is now a …
Continue reading “Mike McCurry on Church, Polities and Civil Debate”
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The Soul of Politics, by Jim Wallis. Orbis Books and the New Press, 275 pp. $19.95 A few weeks ago I wound my way through the narrow alleys of a public housing project in Detroit guided by Mary Jackson in her old station wagon. Jackson, a 50-something black woman, moved into “the projects” over …
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A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government. By Garry Wills. Simon & Schuster American intellectuals worthy of the name are thin on the ground these days — hard to find amidst swarms of academics incapable of addressing wide audiences and media pundits capable of addressing them only in clichés. Garry Wills has …
Continue reading “Nullifiers and Insurrectionists: America’s Antigovernment Tradition”
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The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature, by Erwin C. Hargrove. University Press of Kansas. 240 pp. $25.00 The ancient cities of Jerusalem, Sparta and Athens can stand for three different types of leaders — charismatic, military and persuasive. The founder of Jerusalem, King David, led by charisma. David was …
Continue reading “Persuasion and Discernment: The Gifts of Leadership”
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I am using the term political economy to refer to a body of thought in which the economic order is considered to be a part of a larger order, such that the purposes it serves are values affirmed in that wider order. Modern economics initially developed as political economy, indeed, as a branch of moral …
Continue reading “Political Economy and the Economization of Politics”
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When George Bush announced his nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, he told the American people two things that almost no one believed: that race was not a factor in the selection, and that Thomas was the best-qualified person for the position. There are certain situations in which we are permitted to …
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William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas have charged that the church’s theology and ethics are atheistic (see "Embarrassed by God’s Presence," January 30, 1985) To this it can be added that the church’s approach to political life is unrelated to God — unrelated, that is, to the transcendent God of reformed Protestantism whose thoughts and …
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Walter Lippmann in The Public Philosophy grapples with an issue that has long concerned Reinhold Niebuhr in lectures and writings, namely, the problem of a relevant political ethic. There are, Mr. Lippmann argues, two realms that earlier and wiser philosophers and theologians described as the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man. The one …
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Book Review: The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love. By Matthew Miller: Public Affairs, 283 pp. “Suppose I told you that for just two cents on the national dollar we could have a country where everyone had health insurance, every full-time worker earned a living wage, every …
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The French Catholic poet Charles Péguy once remarked that politics begins in mysticism, and mysticism always ends in politics. Or as I would paraphrase it: every form of "politics in depth" begins in a religious vision, and every vision that is incarnated in history must end in politics. What we normally think of as politics, …
Continue reading “Religion and Liberty: From Vision to Politics”
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For those of you who were a little confused as to whether to come to this session or go down to something else, “prophetic voices” is something I have on my outline. This topic would take at least eight or nine hours to cover, and I have twenty minutes, so we’ll try to hit the …
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Neither of the 1984 presidential candidates has fully understood the complexity of the other’s views on the religion-in-politics issue. Reagan is no theocrat and Walter Mondale no secularist, despite what each has implied about the other. More important, neither candidate’s recent statements have made clear the complexity of his own views on this issue. If …
Continue reading “Religion and the Moral Rhetoric of Presidential Politics”
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When the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution arrived on December 15, the nation appeared more interested in the William Smith trial than in singing Happy Birthday to freedom. But celebration is very much in order, beginning with a word of gratitude to the authors of the …
Continue reading “Religious Freedom: Tensions and Contentions”
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Book Review: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy, by Sanford D. Horwitt. Knopf, 640 pp., $29.95. When Auxiliary Bishop Bernard J. Sheil of the Chicago archdiocese embraced labor leader John L. Lewis of the CIO at the founding convention of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council 50 years ago, …
Continue reading “Saul Alinsky: Homo Ludens for Urban Democracy”
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The White House initiative on faith-based social services, widely touted as ushering in a new era of partnership between governments and religious organizations, is based on several myths. Myth No. 1: Religious organizations face substantial discrimination when competing for government grants and contracts. Though occasionally some overzealous bureaucrats demand that as a condition of receiving …
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Book Review: God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. By Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, 464 pp. Walter Russell Mead was an early advocate of expanding American power in the vacuum left by the end of the cold war, and he supported the Iraq War in 2003. But his work …
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Money plays an enormous role in selecting and electing our political leaders. Many doubt that any controls can be implemented to blunt the power and influence exercised by people with wealth. Nonetheless, a significant part of the American public thinks the situation has gotten out of hand. The nearly quantum leap in campaign spending over …
Continue reading “The Case for Regulating Campaign Finances: A Religious Perspective”
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We face a new political regime in this country — one that represents, in several respects, a new cluster of political moods with religious overtones. To those who have hitched their religion to a new militant Americanism, it is a time of rejoicing. We have been saved, some say, from the brink of socialism. At …
Continue reading “The Church and Political Life: A Loss of Confidence”
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Seldom have 1,200 words of mine generated so much attention as “A Closet Capitalist Confesses (Washington Post, March 14, 1976). Bruce Douglass’s temperate and reasoned reply in the Century’s pages (“Socialism and Sin,” December 1, 1976) provides a rare opportunity for discussion. On grand themes like “capitalism” and “socialism,” much passion is generated. Arguments are …
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American political liberalism is not in a robust state of health. Not only out of power, it is also out of a program, and sometimes seems without a purpose. Unless something is done to change its present condition, it is unlikely that liberalism will soon return to power. Such judgments are hardly original; they reflect …
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In the mid-’70s a new despair permeates America, unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. "When the world was simpler but just as dark," writes columnist Max Lerner, "my earlier friends used to be pessimistic romantics. But my friends today have become despondent realists. . . . They glumly face the prospect of the …
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On what basis should we as American voters make our choices in major political races? Since the winning candidates will have to make decisions on many complex matters during their term of office, is it reasonable or right for us to choose them because of their stand on a single issue? In the aftermath of …
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“I feel strongly that it is wrong to mix political opinions with personal Christianity.” “Am I wrong in thinking that Jesus never took a political stand?” “¼ The church’s responsibility is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to induce people to . . . lead Christian lives.” These three statements from one week’s …
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For all the beauty of ethnic, religious and racial diversities, there is a troubling aspect to the current rise of ethnic consciousness — or, as it is sometimes called, the new ethnicity — and that is the fact that it has become politicized. Generally, those who talk and write about ethnicity fall into four broad …
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In religion and science there is a constant conflict between the devotees of pure endeavor after truth and the seekers after immediate, tangible results. For the latter, truth is a pragmatic device by means of which men are enabled to gain satisfactions as biological and temporal rather than as rational and eternal beings. For the …
