Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy by Jonathan Rauch

Rauch’s new book, published earlier this year, is an extended essay on Rauch’s observation that democracy and Christianity support each other and, while they should not be allied, in a religiously pluralistic society, must be aligned. Democracy provides the legal structure and process necessary for a healthy society, while religion provides the morals and meaning that justify the laws. Going back to the founders, Rauch reads their thinking as, while government itself should be religiously neutral, “Christianity, for all intents and purposes–was important for stabilizing republican government, because it teaches virtue and thereby makes Americans more governable” (p. 20). Rauch’s argument is that a healthy politics can only rise from social conditions that religion formerly maintained in American society but have become neglected over the past several decades as society became increasingly secularized and what remains of religion has became increasingly neutered as a moral voice and devolved into politics on both the left and the right. Thus, we’re left with only one half of the religion/politics bargain and both democracy and Christianity are collapsing because of it.

While science can provide astounding descriptions of what is (or was – I just finished read Steven Weinberg’s scientific creation story The First Three Minutes), science cannot reach into the spiritual questions of why it matters or what should we do in response. Rauch, an atheist, writes, “It has become pretty evident that secularism has not been able to fill what has been called the “God-shaped hole” in American life. Because the quest for spirituality and meaning is deeply human, it is insistent. We need commitments to something larger than ourselves, community rooted in the more than transactional gains, truths which transcend time and place, and missions worth sacrificing for; and if we do not find them in institutionalized religion, we will look elsewhere” (p. 16).

The “elsewhere” we have looked has provided only poor substitutes. Within Christianity, the churches have failed in two opposite directions. One route is to accommodate secularization, which Rauch calls, “thin” Christianity. Mainline Christian churches offer a low demand faith content to reflect cultural values rather than challenge or instruct. The more problematic route Christianity has taken, though, in the last few decades, is toward political polarization. Rauch calls this “sharp” Christianity where political commitments take precedence over spiritual commitments. Rauch criticizes the liberal churches for this but his harshest criticism is for the conservative evangelical churches.

Rauch sees that the evangelical church has betrayed each of the three pillars of Christian identity as defined in 2023 by James Allison, a Catholic theologian and priest, when he was asked by Andrew Sullivan to summarize the teachings of Jesus. Allison replied: don’t be afraid, imitate Jesus, forgive each other. Yet Rauch sees in the nominally Christian evangelical church, a fear-based culture, where the peace-making Jesus is replaced by a confrontational role-model, and retribution against perceived enemies is celebrated.

As a helpful way forward, Rauch lifts up the example of the Mormon church. He tells the story of the mis-step the church took in the marriage equality movement, when it strongly supported Proposition 8 in California, badly damaging its own reputation. While the church’s support of Prop 8 promoted the church’s position on marriage, the church’s political involvement betrayed its religious principle of tolerance and its theological teaching of individuals created free to make choices for their own lives. The lesson learned led to the church’s more recent support of an Utah State bill (SB 296) “extending nondiscrimination protections to LGBT Utahns while also providing targeted exemptions for religious organizations” (p. 98) and the national Respect for Marriage Act, which established same-sex marriage in Federal law, again while preserving significant religious protections. The Mormon approach, which Ruach calls “thick” Christianity, continues to provide spiritual meaning and morality to its adherents while supporting the liberal principles of freedom and tolerance in a pluralistic society required for healthy democracy.

The book is short, only 150 pages. It reads like a long magazine article. A note at the beginning explains that the book began as a series of lectures at the University of Virginia. I learned of the book when I heard Jonathan Rauch interviewed by Andrew Sullivan on his podcast and got a copy from the library. It took several weeks to come in. I took it with me to New York a few weeks ago and read it while I was there when we had a free afternoon. I’m a fan of Rauch. His book Kindly Inquisitors was a big influence on my own thinking about free speech and democratic processes.