Customer Reviews

Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future, A Former White House Official Explodes Ten Polarizing Myths about Religion and Government in America Today (Wildavsky Forum)

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As someone only superficially schooled in the issues related to the separation of Church & State, I found this to be a even-handed attempt to debunk some of the popular myths that seem to stymie intelligent debate about those issues. Impressively, DiIulio critiques the often bombastic and purposely misleading advocates on both sides of the rigidly sectarian to pro-religious spectrum. Unfortunately, many of the ideologues (both in and out of government) that DiIulio quotes or notes, and many of whom he seems to know and respect, often willfully perpetuate these myths rather than attempt to have an honest dialogue that might lead to reconcilation and resolution of important community needs and issues.

Of this book, one reviewer writes: "John DiIulio rejects the kind of Evangelical triumphalism that declares America to be a Christian nation . . ." I wish that was true, but it isn't. DiIulio is promoting evangelical triupmhalism, with the forced allegiance to a god many of us don't believe in.

If one accepts the core premise, then this book merits five stars, but the core premise is so deeply flawed that it infects the entire analysis. This is another version of American culture trying to have it both ways: freedom and slavery, property rights and displacement of Native Americans, and now religious equality "reconciled" with forced allegiance to "God."

That analogy will not be well-received. I don't like having to make it. All I can do is ask my theistic brothers and sisters to think: Just because you're not taking my land, putting me in chains, hanging me from a tree or forcing me to work for you doesn't mean you're treating me as your equal.

Why is it so hard to accept that some of us do not believe in what most people call God? Why is it impossible for so many people to see that forcing the expression of your theistic beliefs on us is profoundly disrespectful? When will the theistic majority take the equal standing of non-theists seriously?

In a country where two presidents named Bush said that an atheist is not a good American, this is not a small matter. We are told to lighten up, and yet we are called un-American by our own presidents and effectively precluded from holding public office. We are the nation's most disliked and distrusted minority, and as has so often happened in the past, America refuses to see itself. Our country and our culture are infected with religious hypocrisy - that's hardly news, yet every time we are asked to apply what we already know, we find an excuse to justify whatever we want to do.

Why are these officially sanctioned expressions of belief necessary? If we took references to "God" off our currency, out of the "Pledge" and out of official ceremonies, how would our country be harmed?

More to the point, how would it be elevated and made better? At long last, we would truly respect everyone's religious beliefs. If "e pluribus unum" isn't inspiring enough, then translate it into English. And if we don't mean it, then let's stop saying it.

Why must the majority continually insist in forcing its views on the minority? As Orwell observed in Animal Farm, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." And as always, the dominant majority doesn't want to hear it, and refuses to see it.

This is just another instance of a culture that just has to have it both ways. When are we going to stop?