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God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics
Stephen L. Carter
Basic, 288 pages, $26

During the 1992 Republican Convention, Vice President Dan Quayle shouted this question to a room full of delegates: "Who do we trust?"

The assembly yelled, "Jesus!"

Quayle had expected to hear, "George Bush!"

This anecdote appears early in God's Name in Vain by Yale law professor Stephen Carter. The question, of course, is whether this is a parable about Christians (a) selling their souls for a place at a worldly table or (b) bluntly confessing that eternal authority is more important than a political endorsement. The answer seems to be—both.

In this sequel to his breakthrough book, The Culture of Disbelief, Carter argues that believers—even fundamentalists and evangelicals—have every right to raise their voices early and often in the public square. He warns, however, that they will pay a high price for their covenants with political principalities and powers.

So, yes, the Religious Right has softened its rhetoric on moral and social issues in order to dance with the Libertarians in the GOP tent.

But what goes around comes around, notes Carter, who openly identifies himself as an evangelical believer in this book. Leaders on the Religious Left have also walked this tricky path. Long ago, the clergy who led the civil rights movement surrendered many of their most prophetic goals when they married the Democratic Party. How long has it been since anyone heard the Rev. Jesse Jackson preach a prolife sermon?

This would not have surprised C. S. Lewis, whose brief essay "Meditation on the Third Commandment" provides one of the central themes of this book. In it, Lewis argued against founding a "Christian" political party. If it were truly Christian, then it would preach the whole package of the Christian faith and, thus, would be too demanding to succeed at the ballot box. But if it were truly a political party, it would be driven to make the kinds of compromises needed to win elections. Thus, it would not be truly Christian.

Carter concludes, "Religious organizations making pragmatic compromises for victory should ask themselves two simple questions: If we win, what are we winning? And at what cost?"

This wonderfully timed book hit the market just after weeks of loud debates about the sermons of Texas Gov. George W. Bush and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman. And, as is the case every four years, the pundits and politicos seem shocked—shocked!—to discover that religious faith remains a major factor in American life. God's Name in Vain is more timely still amid the wreckage of the most inconclusive and culturally divisive presidential election since the 1870s.

As always, Carter tries to be neutral. But he notes with irony that many of the church-state umpires in the media and academia seem so upset about activism on the right and not the left. For example, as of fall 1999, Americans United for Separation of Church and State had filed 30-plus complaints against religious groups backing GOP causes, but only one against a group working on behalf of Democrats. And Carter also meddles a bit, noting that few watchdog groups seem to get around to questioning the endorsements that pour out of the pulpits of black churches.

The church as a garden
While many readers will focus on the book's political themes, Carter is at his best when addressing issues close to the hearts of parents and pastors.

Adapting images from pioneer Baptist Roger Williams, Carter asks why moral and cultural conservatives are so eager to flee the "garden" of the church and to use the ballot box to tame the "wilderness" of American culture. Do today's religious activists not realize that they must touch the hearts and minds of the unconverted before they pass laws that will mean anything? It took the abolitionists decades of grassroots work—church by church, town by town, state by state—before their cause affected ballots and, in that case, bullets.

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January 8 2001, Vol. 45, No. 1