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What do you see in the future for compassionate conservatism?

I think conservatism will stay with us, and I think compassion will stay with us. I think the term is less important than the theory behind the term. Some people make the mistake of conflating compassion conservativism with big-government conservativism. That's not necessarily the case. They're distinct. One can be for compassionate conservativism and opposed to big-government conservativism. The idea behind the faith-based approach is to promote public policies that strengthen and energize the institutions in society that form character and help the poor and the dispossessed. We haven't made as much progress as we would have liked, but that's almost always the case when you're in government.

President Bush talked in July about his "theological perspective" that the Almighty's gift to humanity is freedom. Help us understand what he means.

His views and the views of this administration are anchored in part in recent human experience. We have been witnessing over the last decades a great movement toward human liberty, the swiftest advance in human freedom in history. But those policies are anchored in more than recent experience. They're grounded in a particular view of human nature. The President's belief is that there's a moral imperative to treat human beings with dignity and decency, and that liberty is the design of nature. This explains why liberty leads to human flourishing.

Most people's view of teleology is shaped by their religious convictions. That's true of President Bush. That was true of President Lincoln. Lincoln used some pretty vivid words. He said, "Nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows." Lincoln anchored the Civil War in the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We have certain rights that were given to us by a Creator. Freedom is one of them.

Now, that high-minded belief doesn't easily translate into policy. Believing in a natural law and believing in the dignity of human beings doesn't tell you when and how to act in particular situations. They don't enlighten you on when to push for one more diplomatic settlement or when an impasse has been reached and a time for war of liberation has come. And they don't provide you with wisdom on which levers to apply to which countries. But what they can do is supply public officials with a fundamental view of the human person, what rights individuals reserve and what goals are worthy of our energy and our efforts. That's the case with the President. He believes that liberty is a gift from the Creator, and ought to be treated that way. That doesn't mean it will come all at once or that it will come easily, but it's an aspiration.

Christians believe in freedom, but they also believe in original sin. Freedom is not an unequivocal good, right?

Freedom can lead to licentiousness, and freedom can lead to terrible consequences. But as a general proposition, freedom beats despotism 10 times out of 10. And the people who constantly worry about freedom might want to live in a police state for a few years and find out which is better. The debate between freedom and despotism isn't particularly complicated. The question is how you achieve that freedom during the bumps along the way. You're exactly right. Orthodox Christianity teaches us not only about natural law, and why I believe people should live in liberty, but it teaches about original sin, too. Sometimes people want liberty, and sometimes they are driven by ethnic hatreds and self-interests. The President understands that. As a person who makes and argues for public policy, the question is how do you get from where we are to where we want to be.

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October 2007, Vol. 51, No. 10