The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition

Brilliant. Very fair and resonable. not judgementiv. not embracive. Just as a book by at scholar of religion should be. Finaly something I could use, insted of the endless stream of unscientific books about NCR and Christian Coalition. Thank you. Sara from Danmark (scandinavia)

This book, while not written from a Christian perspective, gives a fair summary of the challenges facing the Christian coalition and religious conservatives. The book stresses the observed dichotomy between Christians' understanding that we want the country to return to its religious roots and yet we also want our right to be heard recognized in a pluralistic society. My own reconciliation of this restoration versus recognition dilemma is that conservative Christians believe in the rightness our ideas and that if we are given a fair chance to share our ideas with others, eventually our message will become a powerful force in our culture. Take for example, the issue of school choice, or vouchers. We believe that all ideologies, philosophies and religions should be able to set up private schools with the parents being reimbursed for a significant part of the tuition. In the short run this system will allow us to educate our children the way we wish. In the long run, tho! se schools with the ideas that work the best will eventually become predominant. We Christians have no fear of such competition. It is the left that insists on maintaining a government monopoly so that their ideas can dominate through the force and power of the teachers' unions and the educational bureaucracy. In the short run we demand recognition of our rights. In the long run the result, we hope, will be the restoration of our Christian heritage, not through the intrusive power of the state, but through the power of the gospel and the fact that good ideas work better than bad ideas.