Public Square
Items on religion in public life and social discourse
Johnston on Speaking of Faith
Tue 06 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by TTF Staff
Senior Fellow Douglas Johnston was featured on a recent edition of the public radio program, Speaking of Faith. The greatest threat in the post-Cold War world, he says, is the prospective marriage of religious extremism with weapons of mass destruction. Yet the U.S. spends most of its time, resources, and weapons fighting the symptoms of this threat, not the cause. The diplomacy of the future, he is showing, must engage religion as part of the strategic solution to global conflicts.
What Do Evangelicals Do with Power?
Fri 01 Feb 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David W. Miller
Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, by D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press (2007).
Some books have the good fortune of being well timed and well written. Faith in the Halls of Power is one of those books. For those familiar with or maybe even a part of the American evangelical world, little in this book will surprise you, though its depth and breadth will impress you. For those who are not familiar with or a part of the American evangelical world, you might find the contents both jarring and comforting.
It is jarring, because Lindsay documents well the deep and successful engagement by evangelicals in the elite leadership ranks of virtually all strategically important spheres of modern society, including politics, the academy, the corporate world, and the arts. It is comforting, because most of the evangelicals Lindsay describes belie the negative stereotypical image of evangelicals held by many progressives, liberals, mainliners, and secularists. Lindsay’s evangelicals are not the narrow-minded, judgmental, backward, bellicose voices sometimes caricatured by today’s cultural elites. Rather, they are smart, savvy, and worldly, participating in and quietly trying to change the system from within, not withdrawing from the world or merely casting stones from the sidelines.
Professor Putnam and the City on a Hill
Thu 20 Dec 2007 by Pete Peterson
Modeling Diverse Community
Pete Peterson looks at the new report from sociologist Robert D. Putnam and sees some evidence that American churches are living out their faith in ways that will help the country learn to live with its ethnic diversity.
Judgment
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Al Sikes
By many of today’s single-issue, polemic political tests, some of the most revered figures in biblical—and even American—history would be summarily rejected.
In the summer of 1989 I was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to be Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Several weeks later, as I was making the rounds of U.S. Senators on the Commerce Committee, I learned that my confirmation would be opposed by the Rev. Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association. His testimony was sponsored by then–Senator Al Gore, who was a senior Democrat on the Committee.
The Challenge of Cultural Influence
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 5 • by John Seel
Coercion is just as harmful—and ineffective—in culture as in politics
John Seel notes a new humility among evangelical Christians who recognize the need for cultural renewal and the shortcomings of previous politics-heavy strategies. He offers some reflections that followers of Christ should keep in mind as they engage the culture, for doing the wrong thing may be worse than doing nothing.
Linking Liberties
Mon 13 Aug 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch
Economics and Religion
Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch explains recent data that show a connection between countries with good religious liberty and high economic liberty—and prosperity. Competition is a factor, but so is “spiritual capital.”
The French Presidency
Tue 05 Jun 2007 • Responses: 2 • by William Edgar
Hope for the World?
Senior Fellow—and francophone—Bill Edgar considers the new President of France and his potential impact on the future of Europe.
The Atheist Onslaught
Fri 25 May 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
David Aikman considers the “new atheists” and new prospects for civility from unexpected sources.
An interesting publishing and cultural phenomenon has been afoot in the U.S. since the fall of 2006. To a degree unprecedented in recent publishing history, to my knowledge, at least four books by self-described atheists, all of them militantly attacking religious belief, have made it to The New York Times best-seller list and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Confessions of an Agenda
Thu 24 May 2007 • Responses: 6 • by Al Sikes
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” Al Sikes looks at the confession made by the editors of the New York Times in their treatment of Christopher Hitchens’ new book attacking religion.
At the top of the page: “The New York Times Book Review, May 13, 2007.”
Just underneath “Book Review” was a large black ashtray that consumed almost half of the tabloid-size page. Inside the ashtray were a cross, a Star of David, and Islam’s crescent, all formed by cigarette butts. And below the ashtray was the bold headline: “In God, Distrust.” The headline introduced a Michael Kinsley review of Christopher Hitchens’ book, God Is Not Great—How Religion Poisons Everything.
Okaying the Bible
Tue 17 Apr 2007 by David Aikman
A cultural milestone of sorts has been passed recently. The cover story in the April 2, 2007 edition of Time Magazine is titled “Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School.”
There are several reasons why this is significant. First, a national publication of centrist-to-liberal politics has endorsed a project hitherto associated with the agenda of conservative Christians, albeit for a different set of reasons from theirs. Second, this is the first evidence that the center of American public opinion is looking beyond Left-Right culture wars towards a possible consensus on issues often at the center of those wars. Third, there is a recognition that American cultural literacy, held to be in a state of decline for years, can’t really be recovered in any meaningful way while ignoring the core documents of Western civilization that posit a belief in the transcendent.
