Phil Cooke

Why Faith Needs to Be Part of the Cultural Conversation

In this age where militant atheism is fighting to keep God out of the public square, one of the most powerful arguments for keeping faith in the cultural conversation actually came from Barack Obama two years ago when he spoke at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal Conference.  I think it’s worth writing down and using the next time someone tries to tell you to keep your faith at home:

“Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.  Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.  To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.  Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 10:00 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.