Public Square
Items on religion in public life and social discourse
The Renaissance and Religious Toleration
Thu 26 Jun 2008 by Joe Loconte
Erasmus of Rotterdam’s recognition that “Compulsion is incompatible with sincerity, and nothing is pleasing to Christ unless it is voluntary” is one of the foundations of Christian humanism.
Historians debate the most significant achievements of the Renaissance, the cultural revival that began in Italy and swept through Europe from roughly the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. There were scientific advances, a return to the study of the classics, and political theorizing a la Machiavelli. A visit to Florence provides an almost overwhelming sense of the artistic accomplishments of the era. Yet a crucial aspect of Renaissance history is often overlooked: its contribution to religious liberty, an ideal whose origins have implications for our own age of religious violence.
Two Kinds of Tolerance
Tue 10 Jun 2008 by Joe Loconte
Modern democracies like the Netherlands have turned the principle of religious pluralism into a pretext for moral agnosticism.
A visitor to Amsterdam, whatever his itinerary, will be greeted by a somewhat macabre mix of European Christianity and postmodern paganism. In the historic city center it is not majestic cathedrals that catch the eye. Rather, it is the ubiquitous storefront sex shops. They come in several varieties, offering merchandise, voyeurism, and intimate encounters. There are church buildings as well, to be sure, but they seem out of place. Despite the streams of tourists, they struggle to compete for attention. Some houses of worship have been converted into bars or other secular establishments. The “Old Church Coffee Shop,” for example, sits adjacent the “Sexyland Erotic Supermarket.” It is a city that seems thoroughly obsessed with sex.
The Benefits of Conflict
Fri 06 Jun 2008 by Jo Kadlecek
Learning to Listen, Ready to Talk: A Pilgrimage Toward Peacemaking
by Harold Heie
(iUniverse, 2007), $19.95
Temperature-Controlled Governments
Fri 30 May 2008 by Pete Peterson
Community and the Individual Consumer
Pete Peterson looks at California’s response to its energy crunch and the problematic nature of responses from many people on the right.
Johnston on Speaking of Faith
Tue 06 May 2008 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.”
