{"id":26027,"date":"2025-01-13T12:13:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T17:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=26027"},"modified":"2025-01-13T12:13:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T17:13:29","slug":"can-democracy-survive-without-christianity-one-atheist-doesnt-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/01\/can-democracy-survive-without-christianity-one-atheist-doesnt-think-so","title":{"rendered":"Can Democracy Survive Without Christianity? One Atheist Doesn\u2019t Think So"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Adobe Stock | Inset: @jon_rauch \/ X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite being an atheist, Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wants America to embrace Christian values more firmly. Appearing on \u201cMatter of Opinion,\u201d a podcast by The New York Times<\/em>, Rauch joined columnist David French to discuss America\u2019s need for Christianity. French, who has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, calling him \u201cone of the most immoral and cruel men ever to run for president.\u201d 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. <\/em>\u201cYou talk about a solution that is actually about a better version of Christianity, or Christianity living up to its ideals,\u201d French said to Rauch.<\/p>\n

While Rauch stated he wasn\u2019t looking for a \u201cbetter\u201d Christianity, he stated he was looking for, \u201cChristianity not to become more secular or more liberal, but to become more like itself, to become more truly Christian.\u201d He outlined three fundamentals of Christianity: don\u2019t be afraid, be like Jesus, and forgive one another. \u201cYou have to believe in traits like the basic dignity and equality and humanity of everyone, even the people you oppose. And you can\u2019t be so judgmental that you think if you lose the next election everything is over, and that bad people win and you\u2019ve somehow got to drive them out of the country,\u201d he said. He called Christianity a \u201cload-bearing wall\u201d in democracy.<\/p>\n

Rauch categorized Christianity into three categories: thin, sharp, and thick. Rauch described thin as \u201cwhen Christianity becomes secularized and it becomes a consumer good, a commodity \u2014 people just shop for churches and they like what they hear and they\u2019re not really challenged in church.\u201d He stated the problem with thin Christianity is that eventually people leave it for another source of identity, usually politics. \u201cSharp\u201d Christianity he defined as the \u201cculture war\u201d Christianity. \u201cThis is the Christianity that\u2019s afraid that it\u2019s 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.\u201d He cited how white Christians have essentially \u201cmerged\u201d themselves with the Republican party as an example. The two agreed that Evangelicals\u2019 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\u2019t seen.<\/p>\n

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 \u201chow would Jesus approach politics.\u201d As the conversation began to end, French asked Rauch about his hopes for the future of America and conversations between Christians and atheists. \u201cThere\u2019s some people who take a fatalistic attitude toward the church and say it\u2019s too far gone. It\u2019s lost its audience. If you look generationally, every generation seems to be less attached to organized religion and institutions generally, and it\u2019s all over, so give up,\u201d he said. \u201cBut here\u2019s what I say: I think I have learned that there are teachings at the core of Christianity which are beautiful and true. You don\u2019t have to believe in Jesus to believe them. You can believe in James Madison to believe them because they\u2019re similar, and that\u2019s not coincidental.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Despite being an atheist, Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wants America to embrace Christian values more firmly. Appearing on \u201cMatter of Opinion,\u201d a podcast by The New York Times, Rauch joined columnist David French to discuss America\u2019s need for Christianity. French, who has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, calling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":26015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[674,32,534,55,516,54,5,573],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheist","category-christian","category-end-of-the-world","category-islam","category-israel","category-muslim","category-politics","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Democracy Survive Without Christianity? One Atheist Doesn\u2019t Think So<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/01\/can-democracy-survive-without-christianity-one-atheist-doesnt-think-so\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Democracy Survive Without Christianity? One Atheist Doesn\u2019t Think So\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Despite being an atheist, Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wants America to embrace Christian values more firmly. Appearing on \u201cMatter of Opinion,\u201d a podcast by The New York Times, Rauch joined columnist David French to discuss America\u2019s need for Christianity. 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