Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy
By Jonathan Rauch
Yale University Press, 168 Pages
Published February 4, 2025
Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy joins a slew of recent books that point to the cultural roots of America’s current democratic crisis. Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and staff writer for Atlantic Magazine, reminds us that mainline Protestantism was once “a load-bearing wall” in support of democracy. He describes it today as “thin Christianity,” a faith unable “to provide meaning and morals to the culture” or to “reliably support democratic society.” As a result, the cultural foundations of democracy are crumbling.
One sign of this disintegration is the rise of what Rauch calls “sharp Christianity.” Christian nationalists have responded to our cultural crisis with fearful, divisive and dangerously illiberal perversions of the faith. Distrustful of mainstream culture, they built alternative institutions, media outlets, and schools to spread their ideas. Unlike “thin Christians,” they are a force to be reckoned with.
Although Rauch describes himself as an atheistic, secular Jew who happily shares that miracles are unreasonable, he urges us to recover “thick Christianity” because he sees secular liberalism as too thin to support democratic society. His proposal comes close to embodying a version of what H. Richard Niebuhr called “utilitarian Christianity.” Instead of valuing faith for its intrinsic goodness, faith is deemed useful for human projects.
Rauch cites Mormonism as an example of thick Christianity. Presbyterian eyebrows will raise when he reports that they believe the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired and God’s decree for all, or when he approves of a Rabbi who has integrated core American texts into Torah study. While we have solid theological reasons to distinguish between founding documents and scripture, we might appreciate his description of Mormon toleration. For example, the Mormon church has advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in housing and employment, despite naming the behavior as sinful (and not permissible for practicing Mormons). Like Presbyterians and unlike Christian nationalists, they do not expect a free society to conform to their vision of faithfulness and provide historical and theological support for this forbearance.
Mormons offer their high schoolers a demanding curriculum and strongly suggest two years of missionary work; their “wraparound, high-touch social technology for keeping members committed and connected” has grown the church and makes followers who carry their values into the world. Conversely, Presbyterians have not seriously invested in effective Christian formation for two generations. We gutted campus ministries in the 1960s and failed to adapt Sunday school to the repeal of blue laws. We’ve been more interested in making prophetic pronouncements than building a prophetic community. The General Assembly has engaged in endless rounds of budget cuts, but never re-envisioned its core function — to use its resources to make disciples.
Deliberately pursuing a more substantive Christianity would require tough choices: invest in after-school youth programs to relate the faith to history, literature, political science, and economics? Offer an intensive curriculum for adult learners? And if there is insufficient demand, do we need a deliberate spiritual revival to create this demand? We should heed Rauch’s plea to get our act together — not to save the nation, but because the glory of God demands it.
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