Does the creation of a civil public square offer him hope? Or further dilution of Christian influence?
The civil public square, by itself, will not answer the problem. But it sets up an arena in which we are free to engage without endless controversies. If you look at Europe, the major reason for its secularity is the vehement reaction against the corrupt state churches of yesterday. America never had that problem because of the genius of the first amendment. You have a congenial hospitality to all religions, the high note of which was probably the Eisenhower era. But, since the Madalyn Murray O’Hair cases of 1961 and 1962, there’s been a mounting repudiation of religion among the educated classes. With the rise of the Religious Right and with culture warring, there’s now an American equivalent of the European repudiation of religion. It’s come to a climax in the new atheists. Many in the educated classes are hostile; they’ve dismissed the Christian faith and want it removed from public life. So the culture warring approach has been disastrous; we’ve got to go a better way. I would call
