Public Faith in Action
“Christian faith has an inalienable public dimension.”
That’s the fundamental claim underlying Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote with Integrity, the new book from Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz.
Public Faith in Action began as a series of Facebook posts by Volf during the 2012 election cycle, and in many ways is a follow-up to his 2011 book, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good, which I reviewed several years back.
In an election season as polarizing and emotionally-charged as this one, the fact that this “nonpartisan handbook” has endorsements from Christian thinkers and leaders as diverse as Karen Swallow Prior, Ron Sider, Stephanie Smith, and James K.A. Smith says something.
In the first part of the book, Volf and McAnnally-Linz articulate three core commitments that underpin the work, primary among which, for all Christians, is the centrality of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Next, they seek to apply Christian convictions to a range of fraught political issues that run the gamut from protection of the unborn to end-of-life issues, and, well, everything in between. The authors conclude by emphasizing it is not enough to have (or think we have) the right views on divisive issues; we must be concerned with becoming the right kinds of people as well – people whose character is marked by courage, humility, justice, respect, and compassion.
I commend Public Faith in Action first of all because for many of us, a wide-ranging inventory of our political convictions is long overdue. I mean, think about it: when was the last time you sat down and considered in a measured way why you believe what you do about economics, the environment, immigration, war, torture, the death penalty, and religious freedom? When was the last time you thought about how your views on all these issues, and so many more, fit together as a cohesive whole?
Before I go any further, let me say this: there will be parts of this book you won’t like. There will be conclusions you don’t agree with. But in my reading of it, even in the spots where I disagree with them, the authors never come across as glib or smug. They refuse to take potshots. That this is the case is a testament to the sincerity of their stated goal for the whole project: “not to end a conversation but to enrich it, not to achieve passive submission but to invite critical discussion.”
Much has been written about how for many of us, our social media feeds are echo chambers – and becoming more so all the time. For this we’ve got algorithms and ourselves to blame. So when all the news stories and friends’ posts we see serve to confirm our hunches and beliefs, our biases and fears, we lose sight of the fact that the sincerely-held views of many millions of our neighbors – and, quite possibly, crucial aspects of the truth – lie outside of our narrow feeds.
That’s why a book like Public Faith in Action will make a lot of us uncomfortable – and why it’s so important for our individual and collective civic life.