Closing the Religion Gap

Gary Rosen has some sensible things to say on the current intersection of faith and politics in the culture. As my book makes clear, I'm a defender of people of faith being fully engaged in political debate. Of course our religious views will influence our politics. But the crude invocation of Biblical authority or the recourse to a theologically-based "natural law" - without an attempt to translate such arguments into secular terms that non-believers can understand and engage - is dangerous to democracy. It is, in effect, an end to politics in a religiously and philosophically diverse modernity. Christians have vital things to contribute to public debate. But Christianism - the conflation of faith with politics - is a threat to such debate.