GOD'S NAME IN VAIN: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics.

• Author: Soskis, Ben
• Position: Review

GOD'S NAME IN VAIN: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics by Stephen L. Carter Basic Books, $26.00

The Preacher

FOR THE LAST DECADE, YALE Law School professor Stephen L. Carter has admirably played the role of the eloquent scold, the solemn prophet in the wilderness, shaking his staff at a nation that has forgotten God. In his widely praised The Culture of Disbelief, Carter attacked a devoutly secular political and media elite that, he claimed, discounted religious conviction and openly mocked faith. But what does the prophet do when the wilderness shows signs of blooming, and when presidential candidates offer Augustinian spiritual confessions on the stump? Well, he revises his thesis. So in his new book, God's Name in Vain, Carter addresses both "the wrongs and rights of religion in politics," paying special attention to the damage done to religion by too close a proximity to the grimy, compromising dictates of the electoral machinery.

Carter now advocates a mm to a "principled and prophetic religious activism," a ministry engaged in the public sphere, but not of it. Among his several role models for this activism is the biblical prophet Nathan, who chastised King David for his indiscretions but didn't go yammering for impeachment. The biblical prophets, suggests Carter, "were not calling for new rulers--they were calling upon the current rulers to role differently." One could object, of course, that this restraint makes more sense in a theocracy than in a democracy, where it is the task of citizens, and not of God, to elect their leaders. Moreover, as the recent furor over "issue ads" has shown, it has become increasingly difficult to disentangle the positions held by various interest groups (pro-life or pro-choice organizations, for example) from an implicit partisanship.

Carter's few practical prescriptions to encourage this modern-day prophetic activism are relatively uninspiring--he suggests consumer boycotts of morally-corrupting institutions and the need for more time spent "thinking." In fact, for all his revisions, Carter still saves much of his sermonic exuberance for a detailed analysis of contemporary society's arrogant underestimation of religion. Simply put, the American political establishment does not understand faith's primary essence: its totality. The establishment believes religion can be sequestered in a "private sphere," but as Carter writes, "religion has no sphere ... it sneaks through cracks, creeps...