Beyond Platitudes

Susann, an exchange student from Germany, approached me recently after class. “Why are Americans so concerned about the private lives of their leaders?” she asked. Referring to a chapter we recently read about President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski, Susann was shocked at how the president’s personal life could frustrate the political agenda of his final two years in office.

Ever since the visits of Tocqueville, Europeans have been surprised by religion’s influence on American public life. Indeed, religious morality provided the spine that allowed democratic muscles to stretch and grow during Jacksonian democracy. And today, faith grounds the actions and ethical deliberations of leaders throughout the halls of power.

Shortly after my conversation with Susann, I read Douglas A. Hicks’ refreshing new book With God on All Sides: Leadership in a Devout and Diverse America. Hicks brings together several different streams of thought from religious studies, history, and current affairs while reflecting on the unique challenges and opportunities that leaders face today. This book—more than any other I know of—provides insight and direction on how leaders ought to respond to America’s increasing religious pluralism with both openness to the perspectives of others and fealty to their own faith commitments.

As associate professor at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies, Hicks is working with his colleagues salism. His book, then, successfully bridges two bodies of knowledge—religion and leadership studies—both of which have suffered, sometimes justifiably, from an intellectual inferiority complex.

The book’s title plays off Lincoln’s observation that leaders of both the Union and the Confederacy thought God was on their side. “Today we see images of God, faith, and morality on all sides of society,” Hicks writes. “These images are not only political claims but also religious, cultural, and social expressions of God in our public life.” As Samuel Huntington and James Davison Hunter have argued, this can lead to sharp divisions in society in which one civilization clashes with another or nations divide in all-out culture wars. Yet Hicks sees more promising possibilities in our country’s growing religious and cultural pluralism. Borrowing from the Spanish, Hicks advocates for a convivencia, a more inclusive model for civic leadership that does not merely tolerate people of different faiths but positively relishes cross-cultural encounters.

Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities in Spain learned how to appreciate one another and live together under the Moorish rule of Al-Andalus from 711 to 1492. Although scholars debate how much interaction actually occurred during those eight centuries of convivencia— and how deeply tolerance was extended to the religious communities not in power—most acknowledge that the period offers a model of pluralism, however imperfect. Around the book’s midpoint, Hicks urges leaders to draw on the moral resources of all religious traditions as a way of building connections across diverse groups. It is here that he comes closest to slipping into platitudes, but thankfully, he quickly directs the reader to examples where genuine convivencia has emerged. In the process, he widens the discussion to include overcoming not only religious differences but also socio-economic, political, and cultural divides.

In Indianapolis, for example, a group of civic and business leaders worked to revitalize the city’s urban center after rust-belt economics and sprawling suburbia threatened what was once the hub of a city that called itself the “crossroads of America.” Over the past three decades, the city has developed an urban state park, a new convention center, a downtown mall, and incentives for developers to provide housing downtown. In this and other examples, Hicks minimizes the roles of strategic philanthropy (such as how Indianapolis has uniquely benefited from the Lilly Endowment’s largesse) and overlapping networks of leaders. But he rightfully emphasizes the role that guiding vision plays in precipitating cultural change, and he convincingly argues that a vision only captures our attention if it is articulated, communicated, and embodied by our leaders.

For many, vision is deeply connected to faith. After all, every major American social movement of the last century— from woman suffrage to civil rights—has been buttressed by religious rhetoric. Such talk scares religious skeptics such as Sam Harris and John Rawls, who would seek a public square where “public reason” excludes faithbased moral deliberation. That logic works in some contexts, but try convincing my grandmother. She, like many Americans, cannot separate her faith from her identity as a citizen, neighbor, or community volunteer. That is why, in a nutshell, Hicks finds Rawls’ vision untenable. How can people be motivated to participate in public life if they are required to cast off their constitutive identities to do so?

To complicate matters, society’s growing multiculturalism provides additional touchstones for identity-based conflicts, making public leadership even more challenging. That is why Hicks’ volume arrives at the right cultural moment. We must redouble our efforts toward greater religious literacy and humility. Only by connecting people at religious crossroads (while avoiding a lowest-common- denominator approach) will leaders in the 21st century be able to draw upon the resources afforded by faith traditions while avoiding the divisive perils that accompany deeply held beliefs.

While religion offers some unique ways of framing cultural vision and of animating personal identity, it can create political quagmires. Just ask Gene Nichol, onetime president of William and Mary, who resigned after three years on the job. Unlike college presidents who have left office over controversies regarding athletics or faculty, Nichol was tripped up by a religious issue. The president stepped on an institutional land mine when he changed William and Mary’s policy of displaying a cross on the altar of the university chapel. Though a public institution, William and Mary had enjoyed a tradition of displaying the cross in the college’s historic Wren Building. So when the university’s 26th president announced to the campus community that the cross would be immediately removed and displayed only during Christian religious services or upon request, thousands of alumni voiced their disapproval. In the end, a prominent alumnus revoked a major financial pledge to the college, and after a few other missteps, President Nichol stepped down.

With God on All Sides reminds leaders like Nichol that religious symbols are especially weighty. Headscarves signal deep allegiances. Holy books stand in for entire cosmologies. Symbolic-expressive acts, such as visiting a synagogue or participating in iftar meals during Ramadan, are important displays of public leadership. And—as Hicks argues—public leadership is too important to be left to politicians alone. Echoing Tocqueville’s concern about the triumph of the majority, Hicks reminds us that we all must look out for the interests of smaller groups within the body politic.

I applaud Hicks for his important points and for offering several practical ways in which leaders can draw upon religion’s resources without getting mired in its accompanying pitfalls. But in a book devoted to the topic of leadership, where is the discussion about power? How do authority and coercion figure into Hicks’ argument for leading a devout and diverse America? And although Hicks mentions how difficult it can be for leaders to exercise humility, there is far too little discussion about how a faithful leader ought to bridle ambition and keep the sirens of self-promotion at bay. He cites former Senator John Danforth’s call for politicians to exercise greater humility in public life—a wonderful, if banal, idea. But is this modesty a privilege afforded only to those no longer in public office? These are the kinds of ongoing challenges our leaders face, which is why American Christianity desperately needs a theology of power.

Despite its omissions, Hicks’ volume offers an irenic, substantive exploration of how diverse religious perspectives can be mobilized for the common good. As he writes, “Religious voices can spark the flames of passion, but they can also light a path toward solutions.” In a time when so many publications that address religion and public life are anemic, combative, or hysterical, this book is a welcome alternative. America’s religious pluralism can create a cacophony of divergent opinions and disparate agendas, but if managed wisely, it also can be our nation’s greatest resource. Conflicts will inevitably arise, but the potential contributions outweigh these concerns. Charting the way forward will require a clear understanding of America’s religious landscape and a resolve to translate that knowledge into practical service to our neighbors. In With God on All Sides, Hicks is effectively lighting a candle in the midst of so many cursing the darkness.

D. Michael Lindsay teaches sociology at Rice University and is the author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite (Oxford Univ. Press)