Tomorrow is the paperback release for Dan’s book Politics of the Cross. Current will be running a Preview excerpt from the book, but today, I appreciated the chance to ask Dan some questions about the larger project and how it has aged since the hardback release in 2021.
This book first came out in 2021, but it is exciting to see the paperback now appear during this election year. I vaguely remember you writing this book, but it was when Mercy was a baby and wasn’t sleeping, so my memory is fuzzy on it all. What is the backstory for this project? What led you to write it?
Like many Christians, I was disturbed by the effects that the politics of the Trump presidency had on the church and on secular Americans’ perception of evangelical Christianity. Other Christian academics (including John Fea) had written useful books about Christians’ support for Trump, but I thought that because of my extensive research on the Christian Right and the politics of abortion, I could say something new (and useful) by placing this conversation in a larger perspective.
Many thoughtful conservative Christians who had long voted Republican – but who were disturbed by Trump and by the partisan rancor that was dividing the church – felt somewhat politically homeless and were looking for a fresh perspective on politics, but were not sure how a pro-life Christian could support the Democratic Party as long as it endorsed abortion rights and other causes that they considered immoral.
I wanted to write a book for those Christians (as well as others) that would help them think critically about the dangers that both political parties pose to Christians, and that would then help them discern a path forward that would allow them to participate in American politics without compromising their Christian witness. To do that, I combined a history of the two parties from a Christian perspective with a detailed, historically informed analysis of the particular political issues that often divide Christians.
Although the events of the Trump presidency prompted me to write the book, I actually said very little about Trump in the book itself, because the issues that I wanted to address began long before Trump and are likely to continue for some time into the future, regardless of the outcome of the next election. The book draws on nearly twenty years of historical research and reflection.
Even though I would not have imagined writing such a book when I was a graduate student, the research that I did for my dissertation on the Christian Right was the first stage in a long process that eventually culminated in this book. In essence, this book is a distillation of insights from all of the books that I’ve produced in my academic career, but now viewed through a Christian theological lens and directed toward a Christian audience.
What are the main takeaways you hope someone will get from your book in this Anno Domini 2024?
I hope that readers will come away from this book with the realization that neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party is uniquely Christian nor is either party irredeemably evil. Both parties were shaped by Christian principles, but both have distorted those principles considerably. Christians should therefore beware of the dangers of partisanship, but at the same time, they should realize that with discernment and caution, they can work within the structure of either political party in order to further biblical principles of justice and charity.
I also hope that readers will come away from this book with the realization that policy outcomes matter more than slogans and that sometimes the policies that are labeled “pro-life” or “pro-family” don’t really prevent abortions or protect families – just as policies that are labeled “anti-racist” don’t always result in racial justice. I hope that they’ll realize that concern for the poor needs to be more central to our political priorities than many white American Christians have assumed, and that they’ll also see that if we focus on empowering people to get out of poverty, we will be able to address many of the other issues that Christians have focused on, including fighting abortion and protecting marriage.
Finally, I hope that they’ll see that loving our neighbor and protecting democracy often matters more than the outcome of Christians’ single-issue campaigns. Because sin cannot be reduced to a single issue, Christians should be cautious about making any single issue a political litmus test – even when the issue is a matter of human life, as abortion is. We need a holistic approach to politics that considers the larger context for each of these issues, and that adopts a charitable attitude toward other Christians who may disagree with our particular partisan choices, but who often share common ground with us on the biblical and social justice principles that inform those choices.
Do you have an ideal reader in mind for this book? If so, how would you describe this ideal reader?
The reader that I had in mind for this book is a theologically orthodox, thoughtful Christian who respects the authority of the Bible and wants to adopt a political position that is in line with Christian principles. The reader is frustrated by contemporary politics but also open to fresh perspectives on the issue.
Since I wrote the book while I was a member of a PCA church in a small college town in Georgia, I had many of my fellow church members in mind when I wrote the book. Most of them were white conservatives who had long voted Republican, but many of them were also open to concerns about racial justice and had reservations about Donald Trump. They were uniformly pro-life and committed to biblical principles about marriage, but they also recognized that Christians should care about the poor and the marginalized.
Now that I’m living in a small conservative college town in Ohio that is just as strongly Republican as Carrollton, Georgia, I have found that people in this community and in our new church (which is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church) are even more receptive to this book’s ideas than people in Georgia were.
I think that the theologically conservative, thoughtful Christians who have enjoyed reading Russell Moore, David French, and Tim Keller and who feel politically homeless will like this book. But I have also found a ready reception for this book among some theologically conservative, equally politically homeless, thoughtful Catholics. And occasionally, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that progressive Christians on the left have enjoyed this book, even if they haven’t agreed with all of it. I don’t expect readers to embrace everything in this volume, but if they’re willing to approach these issues with an open mind and a willingness to consider evidence on all sides of contemporary debates, I think that they’ll find something of value in the book.
One obvious question with a book on politics, as it comes out now in paperback, is: how well did it age? As you look at your overall arguments and predictions now with a distance of three years (really, four years since writing it), what do you think?
Most of the book’s analysis and predictions have held up remarkably well. That is especially the case with the chapter on abortion, which was written two years before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I argued that the reversal of Roe wouldn’t change abortion rates very much and might prompt a Democratic Party backlash to expand public funding for abortion. That’s exactly what happened. And I still think that my proposals to reduce abortion rates through other policies have just as much relevance today as they did four years ago.
I also think that my historical analysis of the Republican and Democratic parties, along with my reflections on the importance of democracy and the need to pursue policies that will help the poor get out of poverty, is still as relevant as ever. The brief material that I included on immigration in my chapter on race is still needed today, I think – and if I were writing this book right now, I suspect that I would expand on this section, given the importance of the issue of immigration in 2024.
There are a few other sections that I might expand if I were writing this book this year, instead of in 2019-2020. I said almost nothing about transgender debates in my chapter on marriage and sexuality, but given the importance of this issue today, I suspect that I would need to address it. But while there’s obviously more that I could have added to this book, there’s not a whole lot that I would want to take back. I think that most of the book will still resonate with readers today, even if it was written before the events of January 6th, the political polarization over COVID restrictions, the inflationary pressures of the last three years, the changes in abortion politics, the battles over DEI and American colleges, and the partisan debates over the wars in Ukraine and Israel. While much has happened in American politics in the last four years, the fundamental arguments that I presented four years ago are still valid, which is why I think this book will still be a helpful guide to Christians as they try to make sense of our current political moment.
What fascinates you most in your reading, thinking, and writing?
I’m fascinated by the question of why people adopt particular ideas and what effect those ideas have on their moral, religious, and political commitments. The study of political changes is in some ways the study of changes in people’s thinking – and I’m interested in understanding those changes. I’m also interested in applying those insights to gain a better understanding of our current political moment.
So what is next for you? What are you working on now?
I just completed a history of American Christian apologetics that is under contract with Oxford University Press, and that will likely be released in 2025 or early 2026. I’m also writing a history of American religious attitudes toward abortion, which is under contract with the University of Notre Dame Press.