Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, two veterans of the George W. Bush White House, have a written a book on this topic entitled City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era. They argue that politics is a good thing for Christian to get involved in and offer some ideas about Christian political involvement that run counter to James Davison Hunter’s argument in To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.
Over at Evangel blog, Gayle Trotter interviews Peter Wehner about the book. (There is also a recorded version of the interview here). Here is a taste:
GT: In the book you quote James Davison Hunter, who says, “No real political solutions to absence of decency or to the spread of vulgarity exist.” You disagree with Professor Hunter, right?
PW: Yeah, I mean, in a broad sense he makes an argument for sabbatical from politics that Christians, because they have not executed their involvement in politics very well, have hurt their faith and not produced very much in politics. But Mike and I disagree with that. I should say I am sympathetic to much of what Hunter writes, I think his book is good and it’s an impressive book. But on that particular issue I think that he underplays the significance of politics. To simplify things, I think he is of the school that culture is upstream of politics. Culture is key and if you can fix the culture then that in fact will trickle down into politics and then politics is very limited in its capacity to change the life, including the moral life, of a country. Now, there are limitations to it but on the other hand, the law is an expression of certain moral beliefs and indeed the law itself can shape certain moral beliefs because when you have the imprimatur of law, it carries a lot of weight. Take, for example, drug use. If we were to legalize drug use, you would see an explosion in the use of drugs, not simply because they would be more available but because it would be sending a signal to people, particularly young people, which is that this society has made the determination that this is not problematic and it’s fine if you use it. In addition, the Civil Rights Era is an example of how laws, the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act in ‘64-‘65 helped change people’s moral attitudes and sentiments toward the issue of segregation. Now these things are complicated; they’re mutually reinforcing. There’s no question that culture can influence politics, and there’s no question that politics can also influence culture. And Mike and I make the argument that a lot of people who downplay the importance of politics tend to be Christians in a pretty comfortable situation but if you’re a young inner city kid in New York City in the early 1990s then public policy and politics would make a heck of a lot of difference and you would actually see examples of how the social, cultural and moral life of the nation has shifted because of public policy. Welfare is one example. Crime and the transformation of New York City by Mayor Giuliani is another. So while these things are complicated, it’s not as if one has complete dominance over the other. But Mike and I believe that Hunter, for all the virtues of his book, overshot in this particular case and underplays the importance of politics.
Ouch. that's got to hurt.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/01/jim-wallis-and-the-dangers-of-heresy/