Retired Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmund Tutu, lights a peace candle during ceremonies launching a Peace Center honoring his struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

Columnist George F. Wills recently reported that we have to go back to the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan to find more invocations of God and Christ than there are in politics today. The irony is that recent studies show there does not seem to be a corresponding increase in active public engagement by persons of faith. I call this the "more talk, less action" incongruity. Or, to turn toward a similar and apt Texas aphorism, perhaps our situation can be described as "all hat and no cattle!"As a Christian, a feminist and an Episcopalian inheritor of the Anglican emphasis on exercising moral responsibility in the world, I believe we are currently facing a perplexing paradox and perhaps an ethical crisis.

According to Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), levels of participation are diminishing in virtually every area of civic life, whether secular or religious. Such shifts, he says, began in the 1960s and accelerated over the past two decades. Putnam also describes an ominous decline in "social capital," which is the valued accumulation of time, talent and treasure that fosters outward-looking social connections, cooperation, and trust among and beyond like-minded communities.

Participation may be too lofty a standard for measuring civic interest. Even the simple act of following media coverage of public events has suffered. A recent study of television network newscasts reveals lagging interest in domestic coverage and low market ratings for overseas news. It is estimated that more people watched television's popular "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" than tuned into coverage of the two national political conventions. Print news media, particularly newspapers, face decreasing markets as well. Some observers of public life estimate that we are, with few exceptions, on our way to becoming a country of disengaged, civil illiterates.

Disestablishment in a 'passionately Christian nation'

What does this have to do with the multifaceted relationship of religion to politics and to public life in general? A few words about history might help. Despite newspaper editorials to the contrary, the selection of Joseph Lieberman as the vice presidential Democratic candidate has not suddenly turned political attention toward religion. In large measure, such attention has been there all along. Whatever the framers of the Constitution's First Amendment exactly had in mind -- and this is still under dispute today -- they were not trying to draw distinctions between religious and irreligious persons. The spirit of this provision was to prevent the state from using religion to privilege or divide citizens. James Madison thought that the best sort of relationship between religion and the government was one of "mutual interdependence," with no one religion being "established" over others.

The question is whether the constitutional framers intended disestablishing religion as a prelude to secularizing politics. If so, they failed. As Karen Amstrong reports in her recent study of fundamentalism, The Battle for God (2000), "By the middle of the 19th century the new secularist United States had become a passionately Christian nation." Moreover, the reform movements spun off by the revivals collectively known as the Second Great Awakening were not only focused on individual conversion, they were directly aimed at changing society. Abolition, temperance, penal and educational reform and other endeavors were progressive, modernizing efforts that helped 19th-century evangelicals learn planning and organizing strategies to intervene in public life.

Another episode in which religious leaders became actively involved in societal reform occurred in the last decades of the 19th and the early decades of the 20th centuries. The social gospel movement, which attracted clergy and laity in the Episcopal and other churches, challenged notions that clergy should not engage in politics. This movement resulted in organized reform efforts to address the injustices of industrial society and to work for improved living and working conditions for laborers.

Global religious leaders gathered at the U.N. in late August to discuss their moral role in promoting world peace. The Dalai Lama (top), who did not attend, was only belatedly invited. The U.N. organizers apparently feared offending China by including him.

Mobilizing evangelicals and fundamentalists

Both Armstrong and Martin Marty ("Will Success Spoil Evangelicalism?" Christian Century July 19-26, 2000) also point toward a more recent escalation in organized religious involvement in American politics and public life. This pivotal change began in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s and 1980s with the resurgence of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians as a mobilized political force. In this period, Marty notes, evangelicalism left behind its early 20th-century quiescence and emerged as an organized participant in both the local civic and national political scene. Marty adds that this was one of several adaptations in the changing public face of evangelical commitments, including shifts from otherworldliness to worldliness, from disapproving popular culture to adopting it, and from focusing on the "dispossessed" to proclaiming "family values."

Armstrong also asserts that fundamentalism as a political force is clearly here to stay. In a new book William Fogel, a cliometric economist, describes the rise of the Christian Right as The Fourth Great Awakening (2000). He lauds the preeminence given by evangelicals to personal responsibility and individual spirituality in times that he describes as materially prosperous. Not only are the poor and working poor excluded from Fogel's viewpoint, systemic social analysis and public intervention in support of the dispossessed are replaced by private, autonomous enterprise. If Fogel is accurate, it is difficult to imagine what role this new-style evangelicalism might have in pro-actively and systemically addressing the "common good" and the work of the larger body politic.

Let me add two more historical observations about the entanglements of religion and political life. Political piety and religion have long been part of the presidential campaigns of both major parties. William Lee Miller in Piety Along the Potomac (1964) identifies religion in modern presidential campaigns with Eisenhower's Cold-War piousness, and others have traced presidential piety through Clinton's visibility as a biblically steeped Baptist. Second, it is important to name the significance of African-American Christianity as a definitive force in the national conversation and social transformation of political and civic life. The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s stands as vivid testimony to public theology at work. Informed by the prophetic vision and mobilization of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders, "public" and civic spaces like polling booths, schools and libraries were at last opened to the local community.

If anything is new these days, it is that Senator Joe Lieberman, the first Jew nominated on a national ticket, is a member of a minority faith. Political piety is no longer, although in fact it never was, exclusively a Christian, a conservative, or a Republican domain.

Public theology: an oxymoron?

Yet, for many Americans today-- especially for those in predominantly white denominations -- making connections between theological and civic obligations can be challenging, given the sharp divisions many in this society make between public and private realms of life, divisions not generally experienced by those in the African-American community. Is it the case, as poll takers note, that religious commitments are essentially seen as private, personal, spiritual beliefs that are best contained within religious services? Or are religiously affiliated Americans -- whether Jews, Christians, Muslims or others -- truly sent forth with strength, courage and with a responsibility not only to "talk the talk" but also to "walk the walk" as citizens of the church and of the world?

When I recently told a neighboring seminary colleague that I was exploring the dynamics of "public theology," he quickly declared this phrase an oxymoron. All religion, he insisted, was personal. Denominations, he assured me, have no business speaking out on political issues, although (as I pointed out) denominations and ecumenical and interreligious groups often do take public stands on wider societal concerns. What was most evident in our extremely labored conversation was that we were working out of vastly different theologies.

Feminist ethics have always held that "the personal is political." Theology is substantially a matter of public discourse and civic consequence. Apathy and disengagement from public life -- whether in local and national elections or in the wider sphere of community and civic life -- are theological issues. Accordingly, part of the solution is theological. Who we believe God is, what we affirm as the character of humanity, and how we envision the mission of our religious institutions are three questions that come first to mind.

Resisting a 'too small God' ...

Today's tendency to invest deeply in personal spirituality and problem-solving has too often left the primary protagonist, God, out of the religious picture. How can we bear witness to the intended reign of God, let alone remain faithful to the biblical witness of people at work in the world, if our central image of God is at best personal? The late Joseph Sittler, in his 1986 book, Gravity and Grace, bluntly describes this theological error: "We are tempted to regard God primarily as a God for solitude and privacy and only secondarily a God for society."

Sittler echoes for me the indictment repeatedly made by the great African-American preacher, Samuel D. Proctor, that we have settled for a "too small God." In a privatized theological imagination this "too small God" apparently has little room or sufficient power to address the purposes of humanity and of all created life.

William Temple, an influential 20th-century Anglican theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury, once acerbically remarked that it was a great mistake to think God is chiefly interested in religion. Think about it. Temple went on to argue, in his popular book Christianity and the Social Order (first published in 1942), that the doctrine of the Incarnation results in a positive attitude toward the world that was redeemed by that event. This doctrine also grounds the duty of Christians to interfere in temporal as well as spiritual matters. For Anglicans and other Christians, God's intervention in the Incarnation is a reminder of the social and ethical consequences of exercising moral responsibility in the world which God so loved (see John 3: 16). The theological failure of a "too small God" minimizes anticipation of God's continuing revelation, let alone judgment, in the affairs of this world.

... and a limited sense of mission

Passivity about participating in civic and public life, at least among Christians today, is reinforced by limited, parochial teaching about the mission of the church. Churches are accountable for informing their members' expectations. If the cause of peace and justice is not at the heart of a church's mission and witness, then we can expect empty piety and sentimental, Hallmark-card theologies with starkly limited Gospel promises. The promise of the Gospel is fuller than personal salvation, as important as this is. The biblical emphasis on forgiveness liberates Christians -- individually and collectively -- to promote justice, peace and love.

Part of the failure of many churches to preach the full promise of the Gospel is apparent in preaching. Recently, a longtime urban pastor was alarmed to hear a well-established New York City rector boast that in 20 years of preaching he had never addressed a social or political issue. This remark prompted a course that Frederick B. Williams and I are teaching at the Episcopal Divinity School entitled, "Prophecy, Advocacy and Responsible Preaching." Here we will pay specific attention to the public and pastoral role of biblical preaching on difficult topics. Our goal is similar to that advanced by Lutheran theologian James M. Childs, Jr. in Preaching Justice: The Ethical Vocation of Word and Sacrament Ministry (2000): "Preaching justice is at the core of the church's gospel proclamation." Like William Temple, Childs argues that seeking the reign of God includes community dialogue and advocacy, as well as activism.

This is but one of several steps we can take in theological schools to challenge those who persist in separating faith from political and social action. Overall, Episcopalians and other biblically informed Christians need to reexamine our theological roots lest public theology becomes a forgotten or, as for Anglicans, a discarded vocation.

Confronting a false dualism

Another is to encourage reexamination of the contemporary tendency to separate personal religious claims from political and civic responsibility. I admire the title of Barbara A. Holmes' new book about Congresswoman Barbara Jordan's ethics, A Private Woman in Public Spaces (2000). Most Americans are both/and people, seeking privacy while living in community. Moreover, for most of the world's citizenry, sustained privacy is a luxury affordable only to privileged persons. Choosing between public and private understandings of ourselves is a false dualism.

Similarly, it is a good idea to challenge visions of Christianity that insist upon apolitical religion and limit expectations about religious leadership. It was a small step, yet a public act to be applauded, when Massachusetts' Episcopal bishop, M. Thomas Shaw, spent a month this past spring in Washington, D.C. as a congressional intern learning about politics and the roles that religious leaders can play as public policy advocates. Shaw's rationale was that "our public life is very much a part of our [religious] journey." At one point, Shaw described his political internship as a "journey into the heart of God." In his words and actions, this church leader gives priority to the public good and refuses to separate the life of faith from politics and social action.

While we are examining our assumptions about politics as usual, it is also important to look to the margins of political and civic activity. Here various groups, individuals, and coalitions -- many without fanfare -- are shaping consequential responses that ethically engage the intersection of politics and religion. Sociologist Mark Chaves suggests that institutionalized habits formed a century ago are not adequate for today's challenges ("Are We 'Bowling Alone' -- And Does It Matter?" Christian Century 7/19-26/00). We might well expect new and renewed expressions of activism. I have in mind such networks as Protestants for the Common Good, or the "Hip-Hop campus activism" described in a recent issue of The Witness (9/00). Such efforts can move outward, welcoming diversity while identifying systemic economic issues. This has been true, for example, in the international women's movement. Robert Putnam also finds particular reasons for optimism among young people. He points out that youth who join service organizations and serve as volunteers are more likely to remain politically active as adults. Electronic media can identify new opportunities for organizing and building coalitions. Participation matters, Putnam insists, pointing to higher levels of education, child welfare, and health care in those states and cities that foster civic engagement.

Moving beyond WWJD

Still, as Martin Marty reminds us, there are very good reasons to be wary about the intersection of religion and politics: "Faith can produce staying power, prophetic insight, creative visions -- just as, admit it, faith can be twisted into idolatry of nation, party, and policy" (Sightings, 9/5/00). But being cautious does not prohibit dialogue and action. The health of the nation can benefit from sustained theological reflection on complex public issues. A clear example of the significance of religion in public life can be seen in the theological narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here, as elsewhere, a variety of voices is important for assuring freedom. The cultivation of conscience obviously involves much more than wearing a "WWJD" bracelet, or declaring an annual "Jesus Day."

Meanwhile, the most enduring strategy is to look for and work for the coherence of words and actions! Do I work, as well as pray, for peace and justice? Does the preacher "walk the talk"? Does a politician's rhetoric of morality and religious claims jibe with her public record? Are public analysts and journalists helping us see through religious stereotypes to deeper issues at stake?

Public theology can make a thoughtful, if not determinative, contribution to the central social issues of our time. Our shared life demands such informed commitment.

Fredrica Harris Thompsett is Mary Wolfe Professor of Historical Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. For the past three years she has been part of an ongoing ecumenical inquiry into the intersection of religion and public life as it is addressed in theological schools.