Prophets and Kings. - Review - book review

National Review, Oct 23, 2000 by Daniel P. Moloney

This asymmetry leads Carter to oppose the "poison" of statism in many forms. For example, he criticizes compulsory public education for removing a child from the family context, where religion is taught, and placing him in a new moral environment approved by the state. He also reminds us that the current public-school year, in which children spend the vast majority of time away from home, was the outcome of a 19th-century movement by "nativist Protestants" to "Americanize" the children of Catholic immigrants, which meant ridding them of their Catholicism.

Carter emerges as a passionate defender of religion in the broadest sense, vigorously refuting those who advocate the culture of disbelief. Yet in the end there is something unsatisfying about his portrayal of the culture of belief, which shows only one side of the believer's relationship with the world.

For Carter, religion is always outside of society, never inside building it up. It is always prophetic, like John the Baptist in the desert, calling those in the world to remember their duty to God. The believer is always wrong to get involved in the realm of political give-and-take. Carter never envisions him engaged in civil society, trying to change the culture by changing the people and institutions that create culture. This smacks of the separatist evangelicalism of yesteryear, before Roe v. Wade and the culture wars awakened conservative Christians to the consequences of political disengagement. Carter often forgets that in a democracy the state and the church have substantially overlapping membership-we are churchgoers and citizens, prophets and kings.

Carter follows Roger Williams in depicting religion as a thing apart, when its true nature is to be in the thick of things, preaching in the worldly cities, accommodating any custom or belief not incompatible with its transcendent vision. It would be a shame if this theological error were to lead Carter to turn down an appointment to the judiciary, for example, where he could do much good. It would be a disaster if his arguments were to persuade other religious citizens that civic engagement puts their souls at risk.

Nonetheless, such a concern is not reason enough to end on a negative note. God's Name in Vain is as intelligent and compelling a defense of faith in public life as has been written in some time. It has an edge, missing from Carter's earlier works, that makes for engaging reading; one hopes that this new Carter is here to stay.