Christianity’s Crossroads: Faith, Democracy, and America’s Future

The Mona Charen Show

The Bulwark

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Mona Charen Podcast, Mona Charen speaks with author Jonathan Rauch about his new book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy. They explore the decline of Christianity in America, its impact on democracy, and whether faith can be depoliticized. Rauch, a self-described “atheistic homosexual Jew,” makes the case that Christianity has been a vital “load-bearing wall” for American democracy and argues for a return to its core principles. The conversation touches on political polarization, the role of faith in public life, and what small-l liberals and conservatives alike can learn from the evolving role of religion in society.

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REFERENCES:
Books by Jonathan Rauch:

Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (his new book)
The Constitution of Knowledge (his previous book)

Articles:

An article by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic (2003) celebrating secularization, which he later called "the dumbest thing I ever wrote."

Books and Works Referenced:

Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (referred to in discussion about the church and politics)
A quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “When people cease to believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything” (noted as possibly apocryphal).
Russell Moore's commentary on the state of the church.
The Bible (including references to Jesus’ teachings such as "forgive your enemies" and "the least of these").
A quote from John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The Book of Mormon (mentioned in the discussion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
Immanuel Kant’s ethical philosophy (used to support moral arguments).
Rabbi Hillel’s summary of the Torah: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor. All the rest is commentary. Now go and study.”

Legislation and Policies Referenced:

The 1964 Civil Rights Act (mentioning its religious exemptions).
The Utah Compromise (2015) on LGBT rights and religious freedoms.
The Respect for Marriage Act (2022), which protected same-sex marriage while also ensuring religious protections.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, everyone to the Mona Charin podcast.
0:12.4	I am Mona Charon, policy editor at the Bull Work and syndicated columnist, and I am delighted to welcome today, Jonathan Rouch, who has written a new book called Cross Purpurposes,
0:26.4	Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy.
0:30.4	Welcome, John. Good to see you.
0:32.4	Nice to be with you, Mona.
0:34.3	So your last book, I made myself silly constantly referring to it and mentioning
0:41.9	it a million times. That was a fantastic book called The Constitution of Knowledge, which readers
0:47.2	and listeners should know about. And now you've tackled a very interesting topic, namely what is happening with American Christianity
0:57.2	and the inner relationship of democracy and Christian virtues. The very end of your book, John,
1:06.7	brought tears to my eyes. And it's in the form of a letter that you wrote to an old friend.
1:14.2	And I'd like to begin there because I do think it sets the stage in a nice way for what the book is about.
1:23.3	So tell us about this friend of yours from college.
1:28.4	Before I even get that, please remind our listeners that when you were young, you weren't so well-disposed toward Christianity.
1:37.9	Right? Is that fair?
1:39.6	Yeah, that is fair.
1:42.5	Okay.
1:43.2	I was born in 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona, in the era of Goldwater, conservative town.
1:51.8	From about age five, I knew three things about myself.
1:55.4	First, I knew I was Jewish.
1:58.1	Second, I realized from a very young age that believing in God was a stretch for me.
2:04.9	And apart from one brief stint in my adolescence, when I tried to believe, I just never could.
2:10.1	Yeah. And then the third thing was that I took me another 20 years until I was 25 to put the label
	...

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