Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel From Political Captivity

By Charles Marsh

(Oxford University Press, 243 pp., $25)

Who would now deny that the political ascendancy of the religious right has been bad for the United States? Its destructive consequences are plain for all to see. It has polarized the nation. It has injected theological certainties into public life. It has led political leaders to invest their aims and their deeds with metaphysical significance. It has made America a laughingstock in the eyes of the educated of the world. And it has encouraged devout believers to think of themselves as agents of the divine, and their political opponents as enemies of God.

So much for the political damage. What about the consequences for religion itself? The strongest arguments for separating church and state--including the classic ones advanced in the writings of John Locke, accepted by America's constitutional framers, and codified in the First Amendment--have always emphasized that separation benefits religion as well as politics. The secular political order of the United States not only helps to ensure the perseverance of limited government; it also permits religion to thrive, uncorrupted by political ambition and petty partisanship.

While the shelves of our bookstores sag under the weight of tracts arguing the political case for church-state separation, surprisingly few authors have undertaken the task of reminding us, in light of the Bush administration's faith-based policies, why religious believers should think twice before plunging into partisan politics. Until recently, David Kuo's Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction was the only prominent example. A deeply pious evangelical, Kuo was brought on board by the Bush administration to oversee the implementation of the president's program in Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He quickly discovered that his high hopes for synthesizing religion and politics would be disappointed. Not only did Bush show little interest in fighting for the chronically under-funded program in Congress, but high-level White House staffers repeatedly expressed contempt for the evangelicals who were the president's strongest supporters. In Kuo's view, the faith of devout Christians had been manipulated by the Bush administration for the sake of political gain. Kuo himself was so certain--and so ashamed--of such manipulation that he concluded his book with the suggestion that evangelicals refrain from political engagement for two years as an act of penance for their recent overindulgence in power politics.

The gimmicky arbitrariness of the proposal--why not four years of penance? why not six months?--told readers all they needed to know about Kuo's intellectual and spiritual depth. Like so many of the evangelicals tapped by the Bush administration to serve in high-level positions throughout the executive branch, he was a well-intentioned nice guy, eager to do good deeds in the name of his faith. As for thoughtful reflection on the deeper questions raised by his political engagement, his sincere but mildly ridiculous book made it clear that such a reckoning was beyond him.