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The teachings of Jesus Christ and the writings of James Madison reconcile strikingly well, a Brookings Institute senior fellow said last week at BYU.
The Deseret News covered the address by Jonathan Rauch in detail, but his synthesis of the ideals enunciated by Christ and Madison are worth a brief, separate emphasis.
Rauch said he consulted with theologians to determine three principal teachings of Christianity. He settled on these:
- First, don’t be afraid. “It’s the most frequent injunction in the Bible,” Rauch said.
- Second, be like Jesus, imitate him.
- Third, forgive each other.
Rauch said that as he boiled down those principals, a light went on for him.
“Where have I seen those kinds of virtues talked about before?” he said. “And here’s where: Those three virtues — don’t be afraid, imitate Jesus and forgive each other — map quite neatly on three of the core tenets of Madisonian constitutional liberalism, the things the Founders told us we need to do to defend the system that they gave us.”
Here’s how Rauch boiled down his comparison:
Where Christ taught his followers not to be afraid, Madison wrote that Americans should share power. Where Christ taught people to follow his example of radical egalitarianism, Madison called for equality and civility. Where Christ taught people to forgive each other, Madison pleaded for pluralism and toleration.
“Madison was, in my opinion, a space alien or was directly sent from heaven,” Rauch said, “because he pops up at just the right time with this unprecedented political insight about how you can build a large Republic, not by suppressing conflict but by harnessing conflict, by forcing compromise. And if you had to boil down the Constitution to one phrase, that’s what it does. It’s a compromise-forcing device, and it understands compromise.”
Rauch said the compromise the Constitution anticipated was not just splitting the difference and getting a result no one likes.
“It’s a dynamic creative process where, when I sit down with (someone) and I have one idea which he doesn’t accept and he has one that I doesn’t don’t accept, we then say, what if we try this third thing?
“What we leave with is better than what we entered with. This is a dynamic creative process.”
Live like Jesus and James
BYU students asked Rauch how they could most meaningfully participate in democracy. He gave two answers:
One, model Madisonian values.
“That is to approach the people you disagree with and ask them this question — this is scientifically proven, no kidding, folks, this is the question to ask,” said Rauch, co-founder of Braver Angels, a group that is cultivating civil discussions between regular Democrats and Republicans:
What is it about your life experience that led you to this opinion that you have?
“Once you come at people not with ‘I disagree,’ but with ‘Tell me a story about yourself,’ you’ve translated the axis from arguing about facts to narrative, to storytelling. That’s our natural home as humans. And you’ve shown care and curiosity about the other person. You will be amazed at how that can break down barriers.”
Two, imitate Jesus. For this, Rauch used the terms exilic, which means in exile or related to a period of exile, and orthogonal, which means being at right angles from each other.
“Christianity is at its best when it is an exilic faith,” he said. “Now you all know something about an exilic faith, and my people, the Jews, do as well. Christianity is not at its best when it holds or seeks power. It’s at its best when it’s orthogonal to the whole rest of the universe, when it’s radically countercultural, setting a shining example of a different way to live.
“And you (BYU students) can do that.”
Rauch’s new book, “Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” will be released next week.
My Recent Stories
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At BYU, constitutional expert reveals what Founding Fathers meant by the ‘pursuit of happiness’ (Jan. 28)
BYU adds another constitutional scholar, BYU-Hawaii announces apostles to speak at devotional (Jan. 28)
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Remarkable lecture at BYU points to Latter-day Saints as the solution to a needed civic theology (Jan. 25)
Prosecutors seek arrest, extradition of new suspect in 2020 shooting at Missionary Training Center (Jan. 24)
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About the church
The First Presidency announced a May open house and a June dedication for the Syracuse Utah Temple.
The church has donated $1.2 million to help people affected by the California wildfires.
In a new video, President Jeffrey R. Holland pleaded with members to “stay in the boat.”
Elder Quentin L. Cook spoke to new leaders of the church’s missionary training centers and shared the objectives of the Missionary Executive Council.
The church organized its first stake in Tanzania.
The Church News Podcast interviewed a church historian about peacemaking amid historical misrepresentation.
What I’m reading
Terrific stuff (but a paywall): “What makes Chiefs coach Andy Reid the screen master? ‘His attention to detail is the best.’”
I happened upon this delightful story in an obituary I stumbled upon for a BYU alum named Reed Nielsen, who was 75:
“Reed served a 2-year, 3-month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Brazil North Mission, where he first met Donna Kendall, who was also serving as a missionary. They later reconnected at Brigham Young University in a Portuguese class they were both taking. Reed asked Donna on a date — and even invited her on a second date before the first one had taken place! After they had gone out a few times, and hearing Donna express frustration about another suitor, Reed proposed by saying, ‘Well, do you need a reason to get out of a date? How about we just get married?’ Donna recalled, ‘It was a beautiful spring day, the sun was shining, and birds were singing, and I knew that I would remember this day for the rest of my life,’ so she said, ‘Yes.’” They married in the Salt Lake Temple.