Failing America’s Faithful
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has written a book about her political and religious vision for America, entitled Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Townsend for the Vital Voice. You can find my conversation with her on their website. She answered questions about atheists in American society, the moral grounding of the Democratic party, the role of religious reason in public debate, and the 2008 Democratic Party candidates for President.
Below are my more nuanced thoughts on her book, which she calls her “reveille.”
The focus of Failing America’s Faithful is Townsend’s own religious experience, interwoven with theological arguments about how the Catholic Church ought to emphasize social justice. She talks about her family’s political and religious experience, and how they were intertwined. These are the strongest parts of the book.
Out of Townsend’s early years, she becomes convinced that the church has the responsibility to focus on poverty, racial inequality, labor issues, etc. She thinks that theologically, this is something that the Catholic Church has room for, and that the Gospel of Jesus has repercussions which can form a better world for everyone.
This is the weakest part of the book. Townsend is not a Catholic theologian, although she does bring in some quotations and some historical anecdotes to make her case. For instance, on the topic of abortion, she argues that the church was not stringently “Pro-Life” until relatively recently. Her own stance, she says, is “pro-conscience.” However, she doesn’t really interact much further with the current stance of the church and how she squares it with her own thought.
Another problem, for me, is the accusation that without the religious left, the secular left has no moral vision (see pages 153-154 especially). It is unfair to denigrate the conscience of humanists and atheists, by claiming their motivation is “economic theories” and the religious left has the “eternal values” in the Bible. Now, I understand Townsend is sounding a rhetorical call to action. Her audience is liberal Christians. However, it doesn’t help the so-called “divorce” between these two factions to make distinctions like that.
My earlier vlog was inspired by my discussion with Townsend about the role religious reasons have to play in public rhetoric. I mentioned John Rawls to her (it isn’t in the article, but we did talk about him). Her first response was that to expect people to bracket their religious reasons was “highly intellectual” and not something most people would or could do. But she did, after a bit of talking out loud, come around to agree with him to some extent.
That’s what I have difficulty with in her book. As a story of what motivates her to do public work, it’s great. As an inspirational reveille to others who share those motivations, it will be successful. But as any kind of guidebook for the future of politics and religion in this country, it falls short. Townsend assumes we’re in a Christian nation where most people will be engaged by this kind of motivation, since nine out of ten citizens believe in god.
But is the solution to the divisions in her book (religious left/secular left, Christian right/Liberal left) more god-talk? I’m not so sure.
Click on The Vital Voice to read my article on Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Failing America’s Faithful.