originally published 7/1/2011

Theologian William Cavanaugh discusses the way in which the exaltation of the modern state required the marginalization and privatizing of Christian faith, so that redemption is seen as a purely personal and private matter. Cavanaugh’s book, Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church (), explains how faith in the United States and in secular Western values can take on an element of religious conviction. The willingness to die for one’s country versus the willingness to die for the Gospel is a symptom of this “migration” of the holy. Cavanaugh mentions a book provocatively entitled Was Jesus Muslim? in which author Robert Shedinger argues that the “religionization of Christianity” (in other words, the restriction of faith into a narrow, private category) is what we should really be worried about, not the “politicization of Islam.” Ultimately, politics and religion are false categories that have been invented along with the rise of the centralizing modern nation-state, and Cavanaugh raises fundamental questions about the meaning of church, state, and the place of community. He argues that ultimately, as shown in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is no aspect of life that God doesn’t care about, and the distinction between religion and politics is inherently false. This interview was originally published on Volume 109 of the Journal.

26 minutes

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