Cross Purposes By Jonathan Rauch Review – Crises For Christianity And Democracy

The Atlantic contributor frets about religion, politics and America – and the questions he poses are existential

“What happens to our liberal democracy if American Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends?” Jonathan Rauch asks in the opening pages of Cross Purposes. “The alarming answer is that the crisis for Christianity has turned out to be a crisis for democracy.”

Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributor to the Atlantic. Author of more than a dozen books, he is gay, Jewish and an atheist. The questions he poses are personal, even existential. He places his own identity and experience at the fore.

Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy is published in the US by Yale University Press