Despite being an atheist, Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wants America to embrace Christian values more firmly. Appearing on “Matter of Opinion,” a podcast by The New York Times, Rauch joined columnist David French to discuss America’s need for Christianity. French, who has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, calling him “one of the most immoral and cruel men ever to run for president.” French stated he found that Rauch, despite being an atheist, seemed to have a clearer head of how Christianity has impacted politics in his book Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy. “You talk about a solution that is actually about a better version of Christianity, or Christianity living up to its ideals,” French said to Rauch.

While Rauch stated he wasn’t looking for a “better” Christianity, he stated he was looking for, “Christianity not to become more secular or more liberal, but to become more like itself, to become more truly Christian.” He outlined three fundamentals of Christianity: don’t be afraid, be like Jesus, and forgive one another. “You have to believe in traits like the basic dignity and equality and humanity of everyone, even the people you oppose. And you can’t be so judgmental that you think if you lose the next election everything is over, and that bad people win and you’ve somehow got to drive them out of the country,” he said. He called Christianity a “load-bearing wall” in democracy.

Rauch categorized Christianity into three categories: thin, sharp, and thick. Rauch described thin as “when Christianity becomes secularized and it becomes a consumer good, a commodity — people just shop for churches and they like what they hear and they’re not really challenged in church.” He stated the problem with thin Christianity is that eventually people leave it for another source of identity, usually politics. “Sharp” Christianity he defined as the “culture war” Christianity. “This is the Christianity that’s afraid that it’s losing its predominant cultural role in American society and the next election is the one that will end Christianity as we know it. And so it becomes smaller, and more and more paranoid and frightened about its future.” He cited how white Christians have essentially “merged” themselves with the Republican party as an example. The two agreed that Evangelicals’ overwhelming support of Donald Trump, after criticizing the character of Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, revealed a hypocrisy in American evangelism they hadn’t seen.

For thick Christianity, Rauch cited the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) as an example to follow. While both noted most conservative Christians would not see the LDS as a Christian group, Rauch stated that the LDS did excel in teaching its people “how would Jesus approach politics.” As the conversation began to end, French asked Rauch about his hopes for the future of America and conversations between Christians and atheists. “There’s some people who take a fatalistic attitude toward the church and say it’s too far gone. It’s lost its audience. If you look generationally, every generation seems to be less attached to organized religion and institutions generally, and it’s all over, so give up,” he said. “But here’s what I say: I think I have learned that there are teachings at the core of Christianity which are beautiful and true. You don’t have to believe in Jesus to believe them. You can believe in James Madison to believe them because they’re similar, and that’s not coincidental.”