Brooks and Dionne on Christian Realism for Today

David Brooks and E.J. Dionne had a very engaging discussion Thursday night at Georgetown on the enduring relevance of Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism for American public life.  About 230 people turned out for the event, which was moderated by Krista Tippett of public radio's "Speaking of Faith" program and well organized by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown.  I had a hand in initiating the event.

Niebuhr's combination of political activism with a sense of irony, humility, and self-examination, grounded in a belief in original sin, has always been attractive to both liberals and conservatives.  Brooks saw the connection to conservatism in the fact that "the core of conservatism is epistemological modesty," the proposition that society cannot be fundamentally changed except through a long series of careful steps each attentive to unintended consequences.  Dionne answered that the main strain of American liberalism has always been a "principled pragmatism" that seeks progressive goals through careful, non-utopian means.  We can all think of recent examples of each side forgetting these necessary elements of realism.  That's why Niebuhr's writing is relevant now as much as ever.

Brooks also said something that should resonate here: that the primary "relevance of religion to politics is in the view of human nature" it sets forth.  For Niebuhr, the distinctive contribution of Christianity is that it simultaneously takes a very high view of human beings' dignity but a very somber view of their sinfulness.

Overall, it was a very engaging evening with a Catholic and a Jew speaking on the relevance of the most prominent mainline Protesant ethicist of the 20th century.

At a dinner after the event, I heard quite a bit about a new book that might interest readers, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960, by Shaun Casey, who teaches at Wesley Seminary in D.C.  If the stories that Prof. Casey told from the book are any indication, it's a great read.