uneasy citizenship
An Interview with Daniel Bennett
This week I had the chance to catch up with my friend Daniel Bennett who serves as Associate Professor of political science at John Brown University and Assistant Director for the Center for Faith and Flourishing. Daniel is an expert on the intersection of politics, law, and religion in the United States and the author of Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement (Kansas Press, 2017). His latest book, Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics (Cascade) is scheduled to be published in 2023.
Daniel writes regularly on Substack.
You can follow his work on Twitter: @danielrbenn.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Amar: Daniel, it is so great to talk with you.
Daniel: Absolutley!
A: You've been utilizing the language of “uneasy citizenship” for a while now. And its language has always caught my attention and I would love to hear more of your reasoning or thinking behind it.
D: You know, it was a phrase that kind of just organically came to me. It was at a panel put on by the American Enterprise Institute. I remember one of the speakers was Patrick Deneen and he was giving to talk about liberalism. This was kind of before he got into his Postliberal work, but I remember just thinking, “you know, this, this idea that Christians (and not just Christians, but, but just citizens in general) focusing on individualism and seeing that as a goal to pursue in our politics doesn't necessarily mesh with what we're called to do in terms of our in terms of our charge as Christians building God's kingdom.
So it's this idea that we shouldn't necessarily turn away from our earthly citizenship, right? I don't believe that we [should] take up a radical vision of something like the “Benedict Option” and, and, you know, fall into cloistered communities. I think there's some good things there to invest and support institutions. Sure. But I think we can hold to our citizenship, but to do so in a way that is loosely, right? Hence this language of uneasy citizenship—that we should, in some sense, be a little uncomfortable with the way that we are conceiving of ourselves as earthly citizens. But it's not because we're inherently skeptical or you know, suspect of, of those roles, [but] more about how we should always be placing our primary citizenship and identity as Christians in, in Christ regardless of the political ramifications of those decisions.
So for me, it's always, it's been a matter of priorities. Do we have our citizenships rightly ordered? And I think if we do, then the things that we do in the public square will align accordingly.
A: How do you think this ordering of citizenship might impact the way we seek some notion of a common good?
D: So, one thing we can do as Christians when we hold our citizenship in an uneasy way is reject this modern contemporary ideal of radical individualism that the state exists to protect me that as an American, especially I have the freedom to do “X” and the government needs to respect my choices.
I think Christians should be certainly supportive of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech—all these things that are generally associated with liberalism—but the motives for doing that are not to secure simple individual rights. It ought to be for the promotion of flourishing.
As Christians, we have a specific read on this. Knowing that the good of the community ultimately comes when seeking justice, pursuing the interests of the vunerable and safeguarding [them].
In the New Testament scriptures, Jesus calls us to serve others. And so it's, it really is a radical departure, I think, from the individualistic self-serving nature of so much of what happens in our politics, right?
And frankly, part of the argument of my book is that Christians can, and, and certainly will disagree on the right policy [that upholds] the common good. I don't think there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach to pursuing the common good through policy through a lower tax rate or a more expensive social safety net. I think Christians can, in good conscience, disagree on these things.
But what's important is we have the right motives behind those beliefs. And so, getting back to holding our citizenship kind of loosely on earth, this influences [how we view] political victories and how we prioritize our political action. What are the reasons we're doing things? That's ultimately something only individuals can know. But for Christians, I hope we have the confidence at least to put our priorities in that right order.
A: A question I've wrestled with, especially in the past six months is what we do with competing notions of the common good? Obviously, the go-to example from the past couple of months would be the two opposing sides that Christians are taking in regards to the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Both sides see, from their Christian values, either an upholding of the good or absolute destruction of the good. So, what do we do when we have these competing notions of the common good?
D: Yeah. And so this obviously creates rifts within the Christian community. I mean, I don't know if I can speak for the whole Christian community, but I think part of the tension might come from perceived hypocrisy or perceived perceptual lack of holistic response to some of these issues.
So on the one hand there are Christians who would say, “we should have these services and programs available to support families,” but at the same time won’t critique the more (what I would consider at least as a Christian to be) extreme positions on the legality of abortion-on-demand [that is] out of step with the rest of the world, so to speak.
But on the flip side, the same is true among a lot of political conservatives, including many Christians who just have this knee-jerk hesitation to support any type of government program in the name of individual freedom and limited government while at the same time, supporting a prohibition on abortions.
And so I think part of seeking the common good is being uncomfortable with your prior assumptions, knowing, “this is going to take me out of my comfort zone at least politically a little bit. [And] this is certainly not going to make me particularly popular with people in my community.”
I think someone like Justin Giboney is an embodiment of this, and Michael Wear as well. They’re certainly not making a lot of friends in those more Democratic spaces. But we need more of that, frankly, from Republicans too. Especially Christian Republicans who can say, “I support this idea that we should try to make abortions unnecessary, maybe that comes through legal prohibitions, but we also need to make sure that we provide options and services for people through, through state programs, just as we have through private resources.”
I'll just conclude with this. I would see the common good as Christians having a general principle and then we'll have different ways of actually pursuing that principle. And it's not just a one-size-fits-all, right? It's going to require some imagination and some creative thinking to get us to that point.
A: Can you speak more about your upcoming book? I'm guessing that what we've discussed so far is incorporated in there. But could you explain more about the thesis of the text and what your aim is in writing it?
D: So, the real thesis of the book is to, on the one hand, argue that at this particular moment in time in the early 21st century there are challenges that Christians are facing or will inevitably face in an authentic and faithful political engagement. But that doesn't necessarily mean all is lost. There are some really interesting opportunities for Christians as we shift from a relatively culturally dominant perspective. And, as a white Christian, I'm writing primarily to an audience of white Christians.
I think Christians who come from different backgrounds like Black Christians or other minority Christians would have a very different historical read on these things. But there are some really neat opportunities that [white] Christians have as we move into a more minority position in our culture being able to speak in a prophetic way, rather than from an authoritative or governing way.
There's been a lot of books about this —about what Christian political engagement ought to look like. One of the things I'm trying to do is use my experience in the discipline of political science to highlight research on some of what these challenges are in terms of individual attitudes and in terms of demographic shifts.
But then I also talk about some interesting opportunities that exist for Christians [in regards to] supporting institutions, the way in which we can invest in our local communities as we become less and less of a culturally dominant group. So it's kind of using my experience, not only as a Christian but also as a teacher getting to work with students and as a political scientist who's familiar with a lot of this research, to speak into some of these more contemporary questions.