Through the particular encounter of God with Israel, the good news that God is loving and purposeful enters into human history and becomes knowable. Apart from such a particular history, Christianity has no universal message to proclaim. The Bible is not a collection of universal ideas cloaked in a particular culture. Universal ideas cannot be the good news that the concrete testimony of a particular people at a particular time can well be, if their witness is credible. Such universal ideas are merely the product of human imagination and creativity. Christian witness is not the interpretation of philosophy but the continuation of the event of God’s self-disclosure in human history. The historical experience of God is the surprising result of God’s initiation, God’s desire to speak and be heard. That surprise continues to define the concrete history of the world, and of the mission community within the world which is called to be the witness to God’s goodness, the “gospel of God.” God’s mission is good news because it is historical: it has been historical from the beginning and continues to be the history that defines our hope. We encounter God within that same history as God makes us part of salvation history for the sake of the world he loves. (29-30)

Stout critically engages liberal secularists like John Rawls on the one hand and the New Traditionalists within Christianity like Stanley Hauerwas and Alistair MacIntyre on the other as holding positions that do not help democracy. Though his two main interlocutors see each other as opposites, Stout points out that they actually share very similar views of what democracy actually is. His main argument against the liberal secularists is that we cannot guard the public square with rigid demands of what counts as reasonable data for democratic decision-making. The social contract theory of Rawls does not accurately describe how democracy has functioned, nor does it offer a hopeful vision for a pluralistic society in that it seeks to keep religious reasoning either out of the discussion altogether, or to be seen as weaker evidence. For those who say religion should not be involved in democratic reasoning, Stout not only says that ideal is unrealistic given the passion people have for their religions—how does one cast aside their deepest commitments that shape their ethics and values?—but he also says it is inherently undemocratic to do so. American democracy has benefited largely from religious reasoning—he cites the abolitionist sermons of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, and Martin Luther King’s speeches and sermons as high points in both religious and democratic thinking in America.

As seen above, Stout agrees with many of the New Traditionalists’ critiques of the social contract theory. He thinks, however, that the New Traditionalists have bought the line that this theory encapsulates modernity, pluaralism, secularism, and democracy. The New Traditionalists see democracy as a child of modernity that emphasized the individual over and often against community. They do not see how this system can engender virtues or community and thus it can hardly be described as a tradition in a classical sense. By its nature, democracy leads us towards an atomized society, they argue. They wonder if it is in their tradition’s (i.e., Christianity’s) best interest to continue to participate in democracy given the negative affects that system has had on their community (i.e., the Church). Stout pushes back against the New Traditionalists by saying democracy, which for better or worse, is our society’s system of organization, is not made better when groups of its citizens, whether they are Christians or Black Nationalists, decide to remove themselves from it. Nor are those other traditions improved by interacting only with others in their enclave. Again, he cites the religious reasoning of Lincoln, King, and the abolitionists to show religion’s positive impact on democratic thinking.

Stout’s pragmatism does not espouse a transcendental form of democracy. Instead, he sees democracy embodied among people full of actual history. Similarly, this pragmatism does not gloss over the obvious as well as subtle failures of American democracy (e.g., slavery, glass ceilings in workplaces) to embody the vision it set for itself. Unlike some critics of democracy, Stout does not view these gross errors as evidence that the system is bankrupt. Neither does he agree with some proponents of American democracy who say that these errors are merely blemishes on an otherwise beneficent record. Rather, Stout sees the democratic ability to seriously critique its norms and ultimately reform as a part of the democratic tradition. And democracy is a tradition he argues because it has its antecedents, it agrees to certain norms, and, when seen rightly, it shapes the character of its citizens.

Stout’s pragmatism leads to very basic definitions of democratic reasoning, tradition, and community. For example, Stout writes, “A community is a group that holds something in common.” (300) These definitions are almost too simple by design because Stout wants to include as many groups as possible if they want to engage in reason-giving and decision-making. He spends a good portion of the book arguing that we can achieve values in our democratic society and we had better do so together given the challenges we face from terrorism and our responses to it. As Stout says in a lecture elsewhere, “Shall we in the West insist on surviving as democratic republics, or insist merely on surviving?”

Stout, an atheist wants to argue that we can have truth and ethics without metaphysics. I think he’s right that we can have ethics without metaphysics in the pejorative sense (his term), meaning we determine what is good, then place that trait on some metaphysical entity, and then use that metaphysical entity as the criterion for goodness. But I agree with Nicholas Wolterstorff (whom Stout uses against the New Traditionalists) in my belief that any argument of ethics and truth that does not lead back to God will ultimately fail. (That’s just my tradition speaking.)

Stout offers strong arguments against the enclave temptation any sub-group will face within a democracy—whether that sub-group be identified by religious, business, race, political, or economic markers. He believes firmly that one can embrace the fullness of their identity so long as that identity does not separate them entirely from their neighbors. For this, he contrasts the works of Ralph Ellison to the speeches of the leaders of the Nation of Islam. Ellison deeply explores matters of race and what it means to be African-American, but he does not separate himself from the democratic community, unlike the separatist speeches and writings of Elijah Muhammad and Louis Faffakhan.

Given that Stout is a religious studies professor at Princeton, I found some of his assertions of religion in America rather strange. He often puts thinkers like Hauerwas in the same boat as the Religious Right since, he argues, they both tend toward a Christian enclave. Perhaps the Religious Right of thirty or forty years ago, but few could imagine the Religious Right of the last two decades questioning whether Christians should engage in politics. Hauerwas sees democracy as driving communities apart and wonders if democratic engagement has been more harmful for the Church in the long run. The Religious Right has decided to engage in electoral politics almost by brute force. I don’t see engagement with others who think differently, just voter drives to get more of their constituency to the polls in order to enact their vision. The similarities are that neither group seems to fully appreciate the imperfect pluralistic reality of America and there may be some large dissatisfactions with how democracy in America has turned out. Still, I think that their differences are more a matter of kind and not degree, particularly when one considers the Religious Right’s and Hauerwas’ different views on the military and violence. Nor is his “benign history” of the rise of secularism all that convincing. He describes secularism as a natural outcome of religious wars in Europe when different warring groups had to ask themselves, how do we live with people who believe differently than we do? Stout’s history does not take into account the rise of the vision that religion is inherently unreasonable, nor does it explain anti-religious statements of Enlightenment thinkers like Diderot, that proclaim, “I would like the last of the kings to be strangled by the guts of the last priest.”

There are also times in the book where it is difficult to see where Stout lands on an issue. In discussing the citizen’s responsibility to the nation, he agrees with Hauerwas that “the call to sacrifice oneself for one’s country today sounds a lot ‘like being asked to die for the telephone company’” (297) if by country we mean the bureaucracy of the United States. If by nation and country, we mean the people of America, then Stout sees the call to sacrifice as valid given the right circumstances. This view, however, seems undercut in his conclusion when he writes, “The kind of community that democrats should be promoting at the local, state, and national levels of politics is the kind that involves shared commitment to the Constitution and the culture of democracy.” (303) On the one hand, we aren’t called to sacrifice for the bureaucracy of the state, but on the other hand, we are called to commit to the Constitution, the document that establishes that bureaucracy?

The book works with theological, political, and philosophical concepts. It’s no surprise I was most at home in the theological discussion and found the philosophical and political discussions went over my head at times. I am curious how those trained in these other fields would engage the work. For my part, I found the discussions of epistemology almost too dense.

In the full measure, I found Democracy and Tradition to be a helpful book and it espouses a vision of democracy that I believe can reap fruit from the best of all the traditions and cultures of its citizens. I think Stout’s pragmatism is fairly accurate in its description of how we actually live our lives and make decisions with our neighbors regarding ethics and norms. For this Christian, I see Stout’s arguments against secular liberals especially helpful. I find hope in his vision of democracy as one where all can meet in the public square, being honest about their commitments and values, and reason together in order to make a better society. I find it sobering, however, that Stout has to go back to 19th and early 20th century thinkers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman to build his tradition. This pragmatism needs a shot in the arm at best if it is to hold sway with contractarians or New Traditionalists. Also, I believe that while the New Traditionalists are growing in their influence in seminaries, I don’t think they are as influential as Stout claims. Many of the fastest growing seminaries and churches in America are of religious and political persuasions whose views would contrast significantly with Hauerwas’ critiques of American culture. Stout does take democracy’s and liberalism’s emphasis on the individual as a good given, but I share the concerns of Hauerwas and others that this could easily lead to atomization and given what I see in America today, I fear that atomization is winning. Therefore, I can share the New Traditionalists’ criticisms of democracy if this social contract model is what most mean when they speak of democracy. That is to say, perhaps it is time to give this pragmatic approach more thought.

Speaking as a Christian, I believe that Stout has put the ball in my faith community’s court. How are we to take our commitments and allegiance to the kingdom of God seriously in a democratic society? I believe that the New Traditionalists have raised important questions and criticisms of democracy and modernism and their affects on the Church’s witness. Can or should we engage in democracy? If so, how should we go about forming positions in a society where others do not agree with our deepest beliefs? What role should our faith play in our reasoning and how do we communicate that reasoning to people who do not share our faith?

Are all your announcements about things internal? While I’m a believer that discipleship and community life stuff is important for the mission of a local body, if all of the activities, programs, etc are pointed inward, this might be a good indication that the church needs to take some intentional steps outside itself.

This is a good question, in my opinion. If bulletins tell us what is happening in the life of a congregation from week to week, I think they can give us a sense of where our focus lies. This would be a challenging and life-giving experiment for many churches, I imagine.

The Quarterly: Do angry people—malcontents, in your words—make for better innovation?

Brad Bird: Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.

The Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team?

Brad Bird: I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person… I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together…

What would it look like in churches if we employed similar ideas? It might be chaotic, but there is certainly something beautiful in Bird’s sense of we are stronger together than as individuals.