Episcopal priest and former Republican Senator John C. Danforth has launched an academic center on the relationship between religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Religion News Service has the story:
Just across from the Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University, employees are moving into a new center named for another legendary Missouri politician.
The John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, launched last year with a $30 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, officially opened its doors on Tuesday (Oct. 26) with an inaugural speech at the university’s Graham Chapel by journalist and historian Jon Meacham.
The proximity of two centers named for former Democratic Congressman Richard A. Gephardt and former Republican Sen. John C. Danforth is emblematic of what Danforth anticipates the new center will do for the tenor of political conversation in the country.
“My hope is that this is a place that both illuminates the relationship between religion and politics, and also encourages respectful but vigorous debate,” Danforth said. “Respectful does not mean wishy-washy. It means respectful.”
Danforth’s vision is for an academic center whose scholars can respond quickly when religion enters the political news cycle. Through conferences, debates, panel discussions, lectures and publications, Danforth hopes that as the 2012 presidential campaigns begin revving their engines next year, the center can have a calming effect on a debate that some say has devolved from thoughtful to thoughtless.
“Two things we’re told to never discuss at the dinner table are religion and politics, but a lot of us grew up doing exactly that,” said E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and author who often writes about both topics. “I think the Danforth center is trying to reproduce those dinner table discussions and replace the shoutfest.”
Officials say the political atmosphere of next week’s midterm election illustrates the need for the new center.
“What is called political commentary is, by most standards, entertainment—a circus atmosphere, fight night, who can shout the loudest,” said Wayne Fields, a Washington University professor of English and American studies and the center’s founding director. “There’s something profoundly boring about it.”
Danforth—an ordained Episcopal priest—wrote the blueprint for the new center in his 2006 book, called “Faith and Politics.”
In it, Danforth said it would have been “worse than inappropriate,” and “divisive and wrong” to “foist” his own religion on the electorate.
“Because the task of government is to hold together in one country a diverse public, my interjection of religion into politics would have been a profound disservice to my state and my country,” Danforth wrote. “It would have sown division where there should be unity.”
Danforth also called out Republican Party operatives and conservative Christian pastors, writing that in recent years “the wisdom of our Founding Fathers has been challenged as the Republican Party has identified itself with the political agenda of Christian conservatives.”