CCPL Presentation (Martin Institute)

The state of our politics…the state of our public life both shapes and reflects the state of our souls.

If what we have is something like what Abraham Lincoln described as “government of the people, for the people, and by the people”, then we must face a difficult question: what does our public life say about us?

Yes, our politics is a reflection of the kind of people we are.

And our politics is continually shaping the kind of people we are becoming.

In a broad sense, politics affects all of our lives…political decisions have consequences. But I don’t think I need to spend much time trying to convince you of the various ways in which politics shapes us as people… how our political culture affects how we relate to one another in our families, our churches, and our communities.

Questions of politics and public life were never isolated from the more personal and congregational lives that we live everyday, but it is more apparent than ever before that it is indeed foolish to act as if our politics and public life was just something that happened out there.

The question arises, what is our public life doing to us?

And then we can’t forget that even having experienced a long period of rising religious disaffiliation, America remains a deeply religious nation.

That the fate of our democracy is inextricably tied to the character of Christianity in this country.

And so, another tough question must be confronted: What does the broader public take away from how Christians act, and how they are represented in public life?

It is in response to these important questions that Michael Wear, a former White House staffer and long-time student of Dallas Willard launched the Center for Christianity and Public Life.

Now, in its third year, CCPL is a nonpartisan nonprofit civic organization with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the good of the public.

Our vision is for a healthier politics and public life which benefit from positive Christian contributions.

At the Center for Christianity and Public Life, we advance our mission through two complementary streams of work: Public Imagination and Christian Civic Formation.

In our Public Imagination work, we explain Christianity to the public and advance Christian resources for the good of the public.

This stream takes the shape of a research think tank that instigates creative public interventions through research, commentary, and events that agitate public conversation and shift expectations regarding Christian public contribution.

We want to tell a better story. A story of faith as an asset for our civic future.

Our Public Imagination work includes our annual summit, For the Good of the Public, an event where we consider Christian ideas that lead to practical action: how to know and care for our neighbors, build stronger communities, fight poverty, pursue justice, and influence policy.

The Summit will be held on October 20th and 21st in Washington D.C., and each of you is cordially invited.

Our Public Imagination work also includes our unique resources which drive our mission, such as Michael Wear’s latest book, The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life.

In our Christian Civic Formation stream - which I am blessed to lead - we grow, resource, convene, and represent the community of Christians who are convinced of the centrality of spiritual formation to civic renewal; that the kind of people we are has to do with the kind of politics we have.

We are convinced that who a civic leader is is deeply connected to what that civic leader does and how well they serve.

People have souls. Developing civic leaders requires us to care for and develop the whole person, including both developing technical expertise and professional tools, as well as resourcing their characters and nourishing their spiritual well-being.

We currently promote our work in the Christian Civic Formation stream through three programs: we support young professionals through The Community of Young Christians in Politics (CYCP), we resource and support ascending civic leaders through our Public Life Fellowship (PLF), and we convene high schoolers interested in the intersection of politics and Christian formation through the Public Good Generation program. And this year, we will launch a program focused on the formation of pastors and ministry leaders specifically toward their role as civic leaders or as Willard would call it, “Spokespersons for Christ”.

So, what does scholarship contribute to our work?

As we grow our programs and scale this vision, we will need an increasingly robust conception of what it means to care for souls. As we draw in people from various Christian traditions and speak to the broader public beyond our traditions, we will need language that people understand and the spiritual formation techniques that people can grab a hold of and enter into.

I view the excellent scholarship on display at this workshop as a kind of toolbox for the work we do at the Center for Christianity and Public Life. And so I am very grateful to all of you for the work you are doing for the questions you are wrestling with, and for the strides you are making toward deepening and broadening our understanding of what it means for a person to be transformed through experiences with God.

Christianity has much to contribute to our public life:

In a nation overwhelmed by loneliness, we need a a revival of open doors, shared tables, and the kind of hospitality that heals.

In a nation obsessed with output and efficiency, we need to reclaim the sacredness of work—and work to protect the people who do it.

In a nation aching for meaning and belonging, we need a renewal of service—not as high-minded charity, but as whole-hearted covenant.

In a nation too quick to reach for violence, we need the moral courage to forge peace, to reimagine power, and to beat our swords into plowshares.

In a nation wrestling to become a true pluralistic democracy, we need the strength to carry one another’s burdens.

In a nation too deeply divided, we need the clarity to seek reconciliation and the audacity to love across lines that culture says cannot be crossed.

And in a nation where too many go unseen—unheard, unvalued, unprotected—we need to remember that every single person bears the image of God, and must be treated dignity and respect.

But in the final analysis, the real gift that each civic leader has to offer our politics and our public life is not a series of right answers, but a person. The person they are and are becoming as a result this divine interaction you are investigating at this workshop.

This idea that there is something about God that changes us it what makes us able to offer Christian resources to the public, not as an arrogant imposition, but as a gracious gift of love. As Paul has might say, “what do we have that we have not received, and if we have received it as a gift, why would we boast?”

Your ongoing exploration of what it means to receive bring greater capacity to the Center for Christianity and Public Life and leaders we support to give.

And so, we are grateful.