The Stillborn God

Author Q&A

Q: How would you define the term political theology?
A: A political theology describes the nature of the good society, based on a divine revelation.  It can be contrasted with political philosophy, which does without revelation.
Q: Explain the importance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the dialog of religion and politics in Western thought.
A: Rousseau’s importance lies in his argument that human beings have a defensible need for religion, and that when religion is rationally and morally reformed it ennobles us, rather than debases us.  This thought convinced many in nineteenth-century Europe that reformed religion could be reconciled with modern politics, and played a necessary role in the functioning of the state. 
Q: Tell us why you call America’s relationship to religion and politics a miracle?
A: There simply is no other example of a healthy, powerful democracy whose citizens are not only believers, but believers in messianic, ecstatic faiths.  Their faiths give them ample reason to ignore the limits of constitutional government, and even resort to violence, but somehow we remain within the bounds of our system of government.  
Q: Why were the Founding Fathers of this country so hopeful to assert that a theory such as ours could work —in your opinion does it work, will it work in the future?
A: The Founders made a wager that if Protestant sects were given a constitutional right to assemble they would not want to risk that liberty by imposing their faith on others.  They hoped for a general disarmament, and they got it.  What the Founders could not anticipate was the influx of Catholic immigrants in the 19th and 20th century, nor that eventually they, too, would accept the bargain.  Nor could they have anticipated Muslim immigration. 
Q: Do you think the events of September 11th have changed our relationship to religion in this country?  
A: It obviously has, but perhaps not enough.  We remain terribly provincial about the challenge of political theology, exaggerating the danger in the US and underestimating its power in the rest of the world.