Whatever your political views, you will likely agree that these past few months have been a bit tumultuous on the political front. How might we think differently about democratic politics? How might we “love our neighbors through politics”? These are some of the questions that Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, and Micah Watson address in their timely new book, Hopeful Realism: Evangelical Natural Law and Democratic Politics.
***
Iâve heard many different terms used to describe American politics over the past couple of years, but âhopeful realismâ is a new one to meâparticularly the âhopefulâ part. Would you explain what you mean by this concept at the heart (and title!) of your new book, and how does natural law fit into this âhopeful realismâ?
Bryan T. McGraw: The term âhopeful realismâ is not, first and foremost, something we meant to apply to contemporary American politics, but rather something we think applies to politics as such. Itâs a way of framing our theory of the natural law that owes a lot to Augustine. Especially in the American context, Augustine has been thought of primarily as a political realistâand for good reason! He is no utopian, for sure, but heâs also not a cynic. Even in The City of God, where he is at pains to critique Rome, he recognizes that our ordinary, common social and political institutions do important things. Or as we put it, they secureâor attempt to secureâgoods that we all require for our flourishing. And they do it because they reflect us, our natureâthis is why we think we can be âhopeful.â But of course, they always everywhere fall short, sometimes in near-apocalyptic ways. Hence, our realism.
Micah Watson: Martin Luther was reported to have said that humanity is like a drunk who falls off one side of a horse only to get back up and fall on the other side. And so it can be with how we approach politics. We can fall off the horse on one side by being overly optimistic about what can be accomplished through politics. This approach doesnât give enough credit to the stubbornness of sin, both personal and corporate. And sadly it often leads to disillusionment when our attempts to âchange the worldâ fall flat or worse. We fall off the other side of the horse when we look at that same stubbornness and brokenness and kind of throw up our hands or retreat into our sacred spaces and leave the public square to its own devices. We think this is a mistake as well, as weâre convinced God calls us to love our neighbors and that can–and at times should–include loving our neighbors through politics. So our realism guards against a naive optimism, and our hope (not optimism!) in the God who calls us to follow him in loving our neighbors guards us against despair or quietism.
Jesse Covington: I appreciate those who describe Christian faithfulness in terms of striving for faithful inputs while trusting God for the outcomes. As Proverbs 16:9 puts it, âIn their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their stepsâ (NIV). One of the dangers in politics (though by no means is this limited to politics) is the effort to take control of outcomesâto try to use coercive power to exercise control and âestablish our own stepsâ. This is a theological and spiritual problem first, but itâs a political problem as well. Attempts to wrest sovereignty from God donât end well. But as Micah observes, the other side of the horse is a type of apathy or disengagement that is not worthy of Christiansâ calling.
Natural law fits into this framework insofar as we aspire (in our political inputs) toward real creational goods. These include physical, rational, relational, and volitional goods that are part of human flourishing as such. We can and should seek to secure these through politics! But, per Bryanâs description, this aspiration cannot translate into political perfectionism that attempts to transcend the realities of our fallen human context.
So, while âHopeful Realismâ is not at all descriptive of politics as we observe them to be, itâs pointing toward an aspirational path of faithful inputs aimed at securing real goods, paired with a posture of humility about what political powerâwielded by sinnersâcan accomplish.
I would love to hear some of the genesis of this project: When did you decide that this book was necessary, and how did this project come into its final shape in your minds?
Bryan T. McGraw: We have long thought that one of the weaknesses of evangelical politics in the U.S. (and elsewhere, for that matter) has been the relative lack of a serious and shared framework with which we can make moral and political judgments. Nineteenth and twentieth century Protestantism had been fairly skeptical of natural law but the last couple of decades have seen a resurgence of interest. As part of that, about a decade ago, we ran a conference and then published an edited volume around the question of whether evangelicals should embrace the idea of natural law, the contributors mostly arguing in favor.
This book emerged out of that project and our sense that evangelicals needed a theory of the natural law that flowed from our theological and biblical commitments on the one hand and that could help us make political judgments on the other. What we offer in the book, then, is not anything radically different than what you might find in, say, Catholic natural law theories except that it emphasizes the Scriptural basis for the natural law and the ways in which our sinfulness and finitude limit our grasp on its commands. But we think it comports well with what evangelicals will say we believe and, maybe just as importantly, gives us a way to apply it within our pluralist liberal democracy.
Jesse Covington: For a long time we had seen the need for Protestants to better account general revelation in their political thinking. But increasingly over the last decade or so, our sense of the need grew from experiential rather than just academic sources. Observing students from evangelical churches in our classrooms and watching how Protestant political engagement has unfolded in recent years have contributed to our sense of the need for increasingly coherent moral frameworks for the saints. We love the Church and want to contributeâif possibleâto her faithfulness in the world.
Writing a book is usually complete about a year before publication. This means that you all probably put the very final editing touches on this book last summer, at the latest. How did this work affect your thinking and processing of this fallâs election season? I suppose, in other words, I am asking how (if at all) your work on this project changed how you approach American politics now?
Bryan T. McGraw: I suppose for my part the 2024 election cycle just confirmed the need for the sort of thing we are offering in our book. (Whether Hopeful Realism is the thing we need will be up to readers!) Most evangelical politics seemed little more than the result of reflexive partisanship and even some of the well-meaning attempts at doing something different never really seemed to land. There is one way, indeed, that I found the whole thing deeply demoralizing. But there is another way in which the year made me a bit, well, âhopeful,â if I can put it that way. My own judgment is that both progressive and conservative evangelicals have become much less relevant than theyâor their detractorsâquite realize and that there is some real space for a reconsideration of how we ought to relate to politics.Â
Jesse Covington: While recent political events do confirm the need, theyâve left me with some questions about how the bookâs argument could be received differently, given some of the changes from the context during which we wrote it. But more to the point of your question, my own thinking and processing during the election seasonâimpacted both by the work on the book and by my own reading of Scriptureâhas highlighted the ârealismâ part of our argument. Not only do those who love God share political contexts with those who donât, but political rule is rarely idealized in Scripture. In fact, quite the opposite is more the norm. So yes, I am hopeful insofar as I see a clear need for what we are arguing in the book for the pursuit of shared goods, and at peace regarding the realities of fallen politics.
Micah Watson: We turned in the manuscript in August of 2023, so that feels in some ways like a lifetime ago, but also that the same things that motivated us in writing the book remain or are even more prevalent now. Iâd also add that while elections matter, they never quite matter as much as the ads and the speeches and the fundraising campaigns claim they do. We donât take our book to be the solution to what ails evangelicals in their political roles, but we do hope it can spark or perhaps continue a conversation about what a ânon-ad-hocâ approach to faith and politics might look like. Weâve articulated, often by borrowing, what we hope is a faithful understanding of scripture and nature and how that should inform our political lives. But this is a work of generations, not of the latest election or snap poll.
Can you give us a taste of something surprising or unexpected that you have found in your work on this project?
Jesse Covington: On the one hand, writing requires thinking, so the work of thinking through our ideas helped confirm that yes, we really think thereâs something here worth sharing. Especially on the front of operationalizing natural law in the context of liberal democracy, the work on this project helped us spell out some things that we hadnât fully articulated before. And this was fun to see!
Also, the intellectual fellowship of co-authorship has been a delight. Co-authorship is not terribly efficient (it takes a lot of time), but the process itself has been a gift to me. Working closely with Micah and Bryan has been not only enjoyable, but humbling and edifying as well.
 Bryan T. McGraw: This is really the first thing Iâve published that is fully co-authored. I learned two things from the very good experience of doing it. First, working together in person is vastly, vastly superior to collaborating on-line. Much of our work by necessity had to be on-line: shared documents, Zoom meetings, emails, texts, etc. But the times when we were able to sit around a table together and hash some argument out were so much more productive and enjoyable. Second, we also all discovered that co-authoring means finding those places where you actually disagree a bit, either in terms of the substance of the argument or the writing.
Micah Watson: I was surprised to find just how interwoven to my co-authors I felt as we went through the talking/thinking/writing process. Thatâs hard to describe, as each of us has distinct edges and quirks that are uniquely individual, but there was something transformative about working together both with the ideas and the tone to attempt to provide something helpful for the church. Something about that combination of meaning with collaboration created a kinship. Iâm grateful for it.
What are the broader questions that fascinate each of you in your reading/thinking/writing?
Jesse Covington: Itâs hard to know where to start on this question, since there are a lot of questions that Iâd like to pursue. But a couple that intersect the work weâve done here in Hopeful Realism are: 1) What are the most important responses to post-liberal movements on the right and the leftâboth theologically and theoreticallyâand how can these meet some of the deep desires that are drawing folks toward post-liberalisms? And 2) There seem to be a number of different ways of implementing religious liberty and confessional pluralism, and exploring the range of options that are compatible with objective moral norms and meaningful freedom is interesting.
Micah Watson: In the conclusion to his Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau baldly states that it is impossible for people to get along with neighbors they believe are damned. That is to say, his vision of the just society would not tolerate any religious people who (he thought) were themselves intolerant given they believe in eternal judgement. Iâve always been interested in whether or to what extent this is true, particularly in light of the American political experiment which seems, with some appropriate qualification, to have disproved Rousseauâs maxim.