The Relevance Of Religion

In an era when 75% of Americans say that they cannot trust their government, and 50% of young Americans identify as Independents, this book is a heartfelt plea for compassion and faith-based values on both sides of the political spectrum, for both sides of the political spectrum and a call to arms. Today's politics runs on partisanship, on creating combat between competing interests in order to energize supporters. The result of this divisive strategy is an extreme version of the party spirit George Washington warned against in his Farewell Address in which commitment to the common good collapses. Now, former Senator John Danforth an Episcopalian priest as well as a former Attorney General and former Ambassador to the United Nations blends the personal and the political to argue that a sense of religion can lead us out of the embittered, entrenched state of politics today. A lifelong Republican, Danforth calls his own party to task for their part in creating a political system where the loudest opinions and the most rambunctious personalities hold sway. And he suggests that such a system is not only unsustainable, but unfaithful to our essential nature. We are built to care about other people, and this inherent altruism something science says we crave because of our neurobiological wiring, and something the Bible teaches is part of our created natures is a crucial part of good government.