Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver by James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin

Reviewed by: Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver by James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin David O’Brien Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver. By James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. 200 pp. $45.00. This is an important book. James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin have a fresh address to the very old question of “religion and politics” as it once again explodes across the world and even upsets long settled arrangements here in the United States. The authors want to help clarify the situation which they think has been made difficult by the “fog of the culture wars,” the “proliferation of doctrinaire religious convictions,” and the “growing secularism the academy and the public square.” Price and Melchin are determined not to contribute to these endless debates but instead to “think responsibly about politics and religion” and offer constructive proposals designed to enable communities of faith to help their members carry out their shared responsibilities for public life. Their goal is contained in the title: to “spiritualize politics without politicizing religion.” To do this they intend to “affirm the religion-politics distinction that guards freedom of conscience and diversity of belief” while, with equal conviction, “affirming the religion–politics relations that ensure religious involvement in nurturing values essential for public life.” They understand that balancing religious [End Page 95] integrity and shared responsibility will always be a challenge, perhaps requiring in some cases conscientious objection to agreed-upon policies. The authors believe that religion and politics need to be distinguished from each other, but that politics needs religion to achieve its objectives while Christians need politics to carry out Gospel-based obligations. Faced with religious diversity, religion must avoid the twin temptations of disengagement and withdrawal at one end and theocratic power at the other. Politics on the other hand—and here they usually mean liberal democratic politics—requires the spiritual and moral energy of religion if its citizens are to bear their shared responsibility for self-government. Rather than lament divisions, Price and Melchin look for ways to address these challenges with full respect for religious claims and civic responsibilities. They begin with an extended analysis of the speeches of Sargent Shriver, founding leader of the Peace Corps. Shriver’s life and work illustrates how this worked out with one “exemplary figure.” They find him first as a Catholic layman familiar with church teaching, influenced by the scholastic philosophy of natural law updated by Jacques Maritain, and engaged with lively movements of Catholic Action inspiring women and men of his generation to take on new responsibilities at the centers of American life now open to them. Shriver found leadership roles in public education, race relations, and civic dialogue, first in Chicago, then in Washington in the administration of his brother-in-law John F. Kennedy and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson. Like so many of his generation, Shriver was formed in the remarkable families, parishes, schools, and ideas of the American Catholic community, then took full advantage of new opportunities opened by family aspirations and post-World War II prosperity. Making that move into centers of shared public responsibility while remaining faithful to Christianity and his American Catholic subculture required aspiring middle class Catholics like Shriver to adopt a bilingualism, speaking among themselves of Christian faith, Catholic practice, and the shared values found in church teaching, then using broader terms to embrace others in shared work for common purposes. When, in their professional and public work, they needed to find common ground with non-Catholics, Shriver and others continued to speak of service, respect for the other, and democratic aspirations for liberty and justice, all informed by what Shriver thought of as Christian charity. Some thought this move watered down the claims of faith, but the authors argue that, in the case of Shriver, he in fact expanded and deepened Christian ideals of justice and charity. At one point in his inter-racial work Shriver stated the goal that informed all his work: “to direct the [End Page 96] immense power of religion to shaping the conduct and thoughts of men...

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