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“Justice is a Bad Idea for Christians:”

Religious Identity in Political Deliberation

William P. Umphres

University of Virginia

WPSA, April 2011

I. Introduction

In a surprising and troubling turn, in 1991 influential Methodist theologian Stanley

Hauerwas declared: “justice is a bad idea for Christians.”1 This was a remarkable statement from

someone who, until then, had given little reason to doubt that “if there is anything Christians can

agree about today it is that our faith is one that does justice.”2 Indeed, as his recent series of

exchanges with Romand Coles makes clear, Hauerwas still maintains a deep concern with the

state of the poor and disadvantaged in our communities and is committed to practices and

movements that aid them.3 What then, has made Hauerwas so suspicious of the language of

justice?

The answer is that Hauerwas no longer believes that the liberal state is compatible with

the ends and goals of Christianity – ends and goals that we might otherwise describe in the

language of justice. For Hauerwas, “the current emphasis on justice among Christians springs

not so much from an effort to locate the Christian contribution to wider society as it does from

Christians’ attempts to find a way to be a societal actors without that action being colored by

Christian presupposition.”4 Hauerwas’s concern is that the language of justice is the language of

a political society that has no room for Christians as such. It is a language that cloaks the

1 Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom?: How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation

Are Bad Ideas (Abingdon Press, 1991), 45. The phrase is his subtitle for chapter two.

2 Ibid. For a detailed discussion of the evolution of Hauerwas’s thought see Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition

(Princeton University Press, 2005), chap. 6.

3 Stanley Hauerwas and Romand Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary : Conversations

Between a Radical Democrat and a Christian (Eugene Or.: Cascade Books, 2008).

4 Hauerwas, After Christendom?, 58.

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religious sources of our claims and concerns and which Christians can adopt only by distancing

themselves from their faith, adopting the safer, more palatable language of liberalism. This

severs Christians from the source of their commitments, turning their faith into just another

human enterprise. Thus, if Christians are to be true to themselves and to their mission, Hauerwas

believes that they must withdraw from the liberal project, including the emphasis on justice.

A similar, if less strident, theme can be detected amongst Christian leaders less prone to

shocking statements than Hauerwas. At a recent gathering of progressive leaders of the

Presbyterian Church (USA), Scott Black Johnson, head pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian

Church in New York City, described the mainstream Protestant Church as being in exile. The

attempt to engage politically and to be “relevant” compromised the church’s mission, leading to

a focus on legislation and a struggle for power that the church should not have entered and could

never have won.5 To be a faithful Christian church, Johnson suggests, requires stepping back

from politics, at least for the time being, and, as a religious community, wandering in the desert

for a while. Rather than trying to be relevant or political, the church must reflect on what makes

its mission distinct and on what its own ends are – apart from any considerations of how that fits

with the ends of other communities, including the larger political one.

This call for a withdrawal from politics amongst liberal, progressive Christians is, of

course, in stark contrast with the more dominant way the religion, particularly Christianity, has

approached the political sphere. Since it coalesced in the 1980’s around the presidency of

Ronald Regan and under the leadership of the likes of Jerry Fallwell and William Bennet, the

“Religious Right” has been a near constant presence on the American political landscape.

5 Scott Black Johnston, “Sermon at Opening Worship of NEXT Conference, Second Presbyterian Church,

Indianapolis, IN”, February 28, 2011, http://www.livestream.com/secondchurch/video?clipId=flv_aa36dbde-6525-

4f5d-8f82-66c4fff691d5.

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Mobilized by a narrative of decline and persecution, it represents a well-organized and well-

funded attempt to advance a conservative Christian agenda through judicial and legislative

channels, an effort that amounts to the subsuming of religion into the apparatus of the state. This

effort has been so effective that it has become commonplace to refer to a “culture war,” a clash

between middle-class, middle American conservatives – a “silent majority” – and a coastal

liberal elite.

We have, then, three constituencies: a progressive religious group that seeks to

voluntarily withdraw from the domain of the political, an aggressive and combatant religion that

hopes to conquer that sphere and “secular” movement that wants to minimize the presence of

religion in public. A brief survey of contemporary political battles seems to bear these divisions

out out; almost every major legislative item at the state and federal levels seems either to be

directly motivated by religious aims – clashes about the teaching of creationism or intelligent

design in public schools, the “defense” of “traditional” marriage against a creeping and

corrupting “homosexual agenda” – or ultimately defined by religious concerns – the

transformation of the recent healthcare and budget battles into clashes over abortion and the

funding of Planned Parenthood.

In turn, a mostly secular constituency resists these efforts as attempts to “reinforce [a]

sexist hierarchy in the family while struggling in other social arenas to maintain privileged status

for men, whites, and conservative Christians.”6 They see the naked introduction of religion into

these debates, unaccompanied by any effort to connect with or justify themselves to those who

may not share their beliefs as an attempt to force religion on others, in a fundamental violation of

6 Stout, Democracy and Tradition, 292. It should be stressed that Stout does not believe that this is the only aim of

religion in politics. Indeed he is trying to open up political discourse in ways that allow a fuller expression of

religion, one not limited to the expression of what he sees as a narrow and limited view of Christianity.

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key liberal values.7 Instead of advancing religious claims, they call for a politics motivated by

shared, universal values. While they quite correctly stress that they are not anti-religion, they are

clear that in a pluralistic society, religion cannot alone justify a policy or practice.

Significantly, in the debates between these two constituencies the religious voice is

presented as unified, clear and definitive. Religion (by which it is almost always meant

Christianity) is alleged to be clear: abortion is wrong, creationism is true, and homosexuality is

against God. These are presented as religious truths. This is because dissenting religious voices,

as Hauerwas notes, seem convinced that they must translate their religious concerns into the

secular terms opposed by the religious right. If they buy into the liberal project then they must

first strip their position of the trappings of religion, making it inoffensive and palatable to all

citizens. There must be nothing distinctive about their claims, nothing unique to their religious

faith. They speak as fellow liberals who happen to be motivated by religion. Thus, the religious

voice in political discourse is ceded to conservatives.8

While these distinctions surely do not capture the full range of positions here, they do

seem to represent dominant approaches to thinking about the role religion can and should play in

political discourse. What seems most striking is that these prominent religious responses to

liberalism both define themselves in opposition to liberal politics. Thought they disagree about

many of the most important points of doctrine and in their very conception of religion, both

7 Interestingly, a number of conservative religious groups have picked up on this theme, arguing that by not allowing

religious groups to advance their specific ends, their freedom of religion is inhibited. See Sonia Sikka, “Liberalism,

Multiculturalism, and the Case for Public Religion,” Politics and Religion 3, no. 3 (2010): 580-609.

8 There is, it is true, a growing movement of religious citizens – particularly liberal Christians – who seek to offer a

different perspective. Rev. Jim Wallis and his group Sojourners may be the most prominent. They seek, for

example, to resist the conservative push to eliminate social welfare programs from the budget on the grounds that to

do so is inconsistent with Christian teachings about duties to the poor. The fact that the recent budget battle has

been framed around funding for Planned Parenthood shows that they have, thus far, been relatively unsuccessful.

Part of what I hope this paper accomplishes is the creation of a deliberative space in which these kinds of arguments

might find more purchase. I will try to show how this is so in the conclusion.

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progressive and conservative religious leaders agree that liberal politics is incompatible with the

sincere practice of religion. To be a citizen, it seems, is not to be a believer. On this account,

liberal politics has cast believers as others, whose goals can only be pursued by overcoming

liberalism or abandoning politics. These two contrary impulses, co-opting and abandoning

politics have, I will argue here, the same source. Both stem from a failure of contemporary

liberal approaches to deliberation to offer the needed recognition for the identities of religious

citizens. As a result, it has spawned both a hostile antagonism towards liberal politics and,

perhaps even more troublingly, a retreat from it by some of the polity’s most committed and

passionate members.

In what follows, I want to try to account for the ongoing tension between faith and

politics by building on the previous chapter’s account of the ends of deliberation. I first (Section

II) argue that the role of deliberation in building trust and solidarity between citizens becomes

even more evident when we realize that the very act of deliberation is, regardless of outcome, an

exchange in which identity is at stake for the participants. Deliberation is a forum in which we

recognize or misrecognize the identity of our fellow citizens. I then (Section III) describe the

kind of recognition offered by the most accommodating accounts of deliberation. Unfortunately,

as I go on to show (Section IV), these accounts fundamentally misrecognize religious citizens,

conveying that they are not full and equal members of the polity. Rather than the trust and

solidarity explored last chapter, religious citizens are alienated from their fellows when they

refuse to hear religious reasons as political reasons. While this may seem to risk ceding politics

to religion, thus alienating all but the minority that manages to hold power at any given time, I

will conclude with some brief reflections on how this approach allows us to recognize diverse

religious identities while at the same time critically engaging religious claims (Section V). The

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result is a much richer deliberative atmosphere in which religions citizens can fully engage in

politics without compromising themselves as believers while still respecting key liberal norms.

These remarks will not, of course, represent a comprehensive account of the place of religion in

deliberation. That is the task of the next chapter. For now, I hope only to show why religious

reasons must be acknowledged to be valid political reasons.

II. Deliberation as Recognition

As was argued in the last chapter, political deliberation aims to create enduring

relationships of trust and an abiding sense of solidarity. The processes of political discourse is,

we have seen, on of the primary means for doing this. In the eyes of writer like Gaus, Rawls,

Audi and Eberle political discourse, when structured appropriately, builds up trust over time. Of

course, as we have seen, there is a great deal of debate between these theorists over the structure

and norms necessary to do this. In order to gain clarity here I want to look more closely at the

process of political deliberation itself. Specifically, I want to offer an account of deliberation

that emphasizes the place of identity within it. The ability of deliberation to generate trust and

solidarity, I will argue, a function of the fact that deliberation is a process of identity expression

and recognition. The exchange of reasons is a mutual presentation of selves. Only when citizens

are recognized appropriately will trust and solidarity flourish. Specifying what this involves is

the larger task of this chapter.

A. What are Identity and Recognition?

Before detailing this view of deliberation, however, a few terminological clarifications

are in order. The notions of identity and recognition are amongst the more robustly debated

features of the contemporary political theory landscape. Their exact meanings and desirability

are by no means settled. And yet, they undoubtedly point to important phenomena in our politics

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generally and, as I hope to show shortly, in our deliberations. I thus use these terms in a general

and somewhat inexact sense.

In what follows the concept of identity I employ is that of a personal identity possessed

by each individual. It is identity in the sense that Taylor writes of in Sources of the Self and that

someone like Connolly uses in his work: a conception of the self that is the result of a more-or-

less conscious orientation towards those things that give ones life meaning and structure. It is

the orientation individuals take towards the world, they way they locate themselves within it.

Common sources are religion, a faith in the transcendent value of human life, a teleological

understanding of history, a conception of the inviolate nature of human freedom, a Romantic

belief in the value of self-creation or an historical connection to some group or movement. These

diverse sources may be – and often are –received by an individual from their parents or culture.

Or they may involve radical rejection of and separation our past and a self-directed move to

embrace new sources. Or they could emerge from something in between. The key points are

that identity is here understood in personal terms and that it is something that each individual

crafts for themselves – though, as we will detail shortly, it is crafted only and essentially in

interaction with others.

This is distinct from the usage of identity that one finds in what is sometimes called

“identity politics.” The conception of identity there is often linked to group affiliation,

sometimes voluntary, sometimes ascriptive. Here identity is often the foundation for a

movement of people whose common identity – as black, as Indian, as transgendered, as Baptist,

etc – gives rise to common political demands. Such may be held individually, but it is expressed

only as a member of a collective. These two conceptions of identity are not mutually exclusive.

Personal identity is often at least partially an expression of one’s relationship to one or more

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group or collective identities and collective identities almost always coalesce around individual

traits. Often an individual’s efforts to negotiate a relationship with the collective identities they

inherit are the principal way in which they shape an individual identity. While this obviously

raises many questions about how one forms identity, whether it is fluid or fixed, whether it is

singular or multiple, among others, the point I want to focus on is that even where someone

thinks of herself primarily as a bearer of collective identity, she still must negotiate a personal

relationship towards those communities.9

Though identity in this sense is personal, it is also inextricably social. We become aware

of our identity, accept it as our own, and revise and rethink it in interaction with others. The

ways others respond to us, the claims they interpret us as making, the values they think we

identify with, are generically and quite nebulously discussed as the recognition of our identity.

The concept of recognition is focused on the ways in which our individual (and collective)

identities are received and reacted to by others and the felicitous or deleterious effects this has on

us. While almost all the essential aspects of recognition are much debated– what it consists of,

what its function is, its very desirability – one thing seems clear: how others react to our

identities has an effect on us. This effect can be beneficial and reinforcing, as when expectations

about the world and our place in it are affirmed by the way others respond to us. It may be

harmful and belittling. It may just be vaguely unsettling or slightly affirming. The effect may be

minimal or it may be life altering. But when others encounter us and react, their reaction gives

us cause to reflect on and evaluate our sources and ourselves.

9 For an account of the interaction of liberal thought and group based identity claims in which recognition is

primarily interpreted as requiring special group rights see Sahar Akhtar, “Liberal recognition for identity? Only for

particularized ones,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 10, no. 1 (February 1, 2011): 66 -87.

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Despite the evident nuances of the process of recognition, I will speak very broadly of

recognition or misrecognition, of positive instances of being recognized and negative instances.

To take but one brief example, say I identify strongly as a Sikh, both as a religious practice and a

distinct set of cultural practices. I interpret the world through Sikh religious beliefs and find

meaning in dressing and living as a Sikh. When I live in a society in which these practices and

beliefs are commonly affirmed and valued, I feel my sense of self reaffirmed. I am more secure

in my interpretation of the world and my place within it. I have been recognized as Sikh

positively. Perhaps even more dramatically, when I encounter others who do not share my

beliefs or personally value my practices, but who respond to me by soliciting and considering my

views on matters, inquiring about or accommodating needs, and generally conveying that they

value my presence and participation in whatever ventures we have in common, I am again

affirmed. The value of those things I identify with is understood and confirmed by others. This

too is positive recognition. By contrast, where I am met with suspicion, ignored or even mocked,

this causes some pain and discomfort. Where I see portrayals of people who look like me, who

have a beard and wear turbans, as terrorists, I feel marginalized and misunderstood. I feel that

my values and beliefs are misunderstood and misrepresented. Thus, I am misunderstood and

misrepresented by those around me. They project back to me a distorted or negatively valenced

view of myself. Their image of me does not correspond to my image of myself. Even if my

beliefs and my sense of the value of my Sikh identity are not shaken, I am left feeling estranged

from and misunderstood by those around me. I feel a disconnect between my sense of who I am

and the way others see me. This is the experience of misrecognition or negative recognition. Or,

it may be that the interaction I have with others, the recognition they give me seems to have no

bearing on those beliefs. I may feel I have been treated as a “normal” customer or as any other

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member of my profession. My identity as Sikh may, in some circumstances, not seem relevant

to me or to those I encounter. Whatever recognition the encounter affords is not of my religious

identity. Of course, if we disagree about whether or not it is relevant, if I am a doctor and sense

mistrust and suspicion of my medical opinion from a patient because of my turban and my beard,

this becomes a form of harmful recognition.

In summary, through recognition, others mirror back to us their perception of our own

values and commitments. Seeing their interpretation of our selves can confirm our own self-

understanding, encouraging us to grow and deepen our identities in beneficial ways. Or, it can

reflect back a divergent and unsetting picture of us, casting doubt on our chosen terms, on our

relationships with others and creating tension between our self-understanding and the world

around us. This tension, though often constructive, can rise to such a level as to cause a

tremendous degree of alienation and despair. As we saw in the previous chapter, part of the

motivation of the liberal state is that, if possible, citizens should not have to feel this kind of

alienation. At the very least, our political interactions should not generate it.

B. Identity and Recognition in Political Deliberation

Because politics involves, if nothing else, citizens reacting to each other, it involves some

form recognition. What is recognized, what should be recognized and how significant this is

overall remains a matter of debate. Much ink has been spilled attempting to determine the

appropriate form political recognition should take, how extensive the claim to recognition is, and

the like.10 In the next chapter, I will attempt to outline a view of recognition and deliberation

that responds to some of these issues. However, for the time being the significant issue is that

10 This includes efforts such as that by Markel to radically rethink the nature of recognition to the point of

abandoning the term in favor of “acknowledgement.” See Patchen Markell, Bound by Recognition (Princeton

University Press, 2003). What is important here is that these disagreements all stem from the same understanding

that the way others react to an individual’s identity is politically and morally significant.

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how we respond to the identities of our fellow citizens raises the same kind of moral and political

questions that guided our analysis of deliberation. Recognition, like justification and

deliberation, is about the relationships between citizens and their consequences.

Seeing this allows us to look at the process of deliberation in a new way. Deliberation is

more than just an attempt to justify force to others. Deliberation involves giving and receiving

reasons. My claim here is that the giving and receiving of reasons involves making and

recognizing identity claims. When we address our fellow citizens in an effort to clarify a

political position and to persuade them to adopt it with us, we are appealing to the same kinds of

values and beliefs that help define the identity of many individuals. We are appealing to ideas

about justice and the purpose of political society, to ideas about human nature and the nature of

the good. These ideas are rooted deeply in the identity of individuals. Hence, the reasons we

offer and how we respond to the reasons of others are therefore occasions for the recognition or

misrecognition of our fellow citizens.

Let us say that I am trying to convince you to agree to some proposal, P. When I

deliberate with you about P, I may be doing one of three things. First, I could be trying to appeal

to or respond to reasons that you value. Second, I could be trying to express myself, offering my

own reasons. Third, I could be seeking common ground, trying to offer reasons that I think

appeal to values that we both hold. Let us take the first case in which I am offering reasons that I

believe will be persuasive to you. In offering your reasons, I am offering an interpretation of

what is valuable to you and trying to show you that P will advance your interests, the goods that

you find meaningful and important. Here, the values I appeal to say something significant about

how I understand you. It is my response to you, to the impression you give me of what you care

about, about who you are; it is my interpretation of you and of your identity. Giving reasons

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here is, in other words, a form of recognition. As such, it may be positive or negative. Where

the values I appeal to resonate with you, mirroring back to your something consonant with your

own interpretation of the situation, this is a kind of positive recognition.

For example, when I appeal to a strong Kantian by arguing that P will enhance the

rational autonomy of individuals, I convey that I understand that these are the most important

terms to them, this is what matters. By appealing to such reasons, I communicate that I

recognize them as Kantian. More than that, by presenting such reasons in political deliberation I

convey my sense that these are relevant considerations and that autonomy is at issue in P and that

it is entirely appropriate to evaluate P on these terms. Even though I may not endorse these

values myself, I recognize that they matter to interested parties and that they are worthy mutual

consideration here. This is especially true if I am responding to an expression of Kantian beliefs.

When I reply to such arguments in kind, I affirm the identity that he has just expressed, as I shall

discuss in a moment. Significantly, this is the case even if our Kantian disagrees with my

analysis of the way autonomy is at issue here, construing a proper concern for it to require ~P.

Offering reasons that resonate with an individual’s identity can be an important and affirming

moment of recognition, regardless of whether or not one agrees with those reasons.

On the other hand, the reasons I offer may not resonate with or appeal to his Kantian

identity. This may, in some circumstances be innocuous. Autonomy may not be that seriously

implicated in our present discussion. Reference to his Kantian beliefs, we might all agree, is

simply unnecessary. Or, it could be the case that though I do not appeal to their Kantian beliefs,

I do appeal to other, similarly relevant beliefs of his that I believe support P. His Kantianism

may be fused with a strong Lutheran faith, which I appeal to. Or, as we shall see below, I may

appeal to liberal values that I think we all share. Here, I have not recognized his Kantian

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identity, but I have offered some kind of recognition that I believe will positively resonate with

his self-conception. I have used deliberation to develop the relationship between us in a way that

affirms that I value him, at least inasmuch as I consider some of his concerns to be relevant and

worth addressing.

However, the opportunity for recognition that deliberation offers is also, it seems clear,

an opportunity for misrecognition. Thus, if I appeal to a strong Kantian exclusively on strict

utilitarian grounds, he is likely to be somewhat confused and perhaps disappointed. My response

to him, to his identity, is dismissive. Again, where I am offering my reasons in response to his,

the effect is heightened. In such circumstances, deliberation serves to highlight the

disconnection between us, and frustration is likely on both sides. It may seem to our Kantian

that I simply do not care about him. I am uninterested in actually understanding what he values.

His views simply do not matter to me or I think that they are just irrelevant overall. Here, I

simply fail to recognize him. Alternatively, it may seem that I am just confused about him. I

simply do not understand the terms he is offering, suggesting that his identity is somehow

incoherent or unintelligible. Worse, it may even seem that I have some sort of animus towards

Kantianism and Kantians. I understand him and understand that autonomy is valuable to him but

myself think it is valueless thus not even worth addressing. “You may be a Kantian, but you

should be a utilitarian,” I seem to be saying. The issue here is not that I disagree about the truth

of the Kantian worldview, but that I refuse to even consider P in these terms. I deny that the

terms he finds most important in debating P could be relevant to the discussion. His Kantian

convictions, and thus his identity as a Kantian, are for me inconsequential. The effect in each

case is to communicate my misunderstanding of, indifference to or disregard for commitments

that are or primary importance to him. And, unless this is accompanied by some other

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significant gesture of recognition, it is to communicate a misunderstanding of, indifference to or

distain for him; it is to misrecognize him. Depending on the relative power differentials between

us and the relative stakes of the debate, this may only generate a general sense of frustration and

mutual suspicion or it may be experienced as a painful repression and denigration his identity,

sufficient to cause deep anxiety in him. At the best, this kind of deliberative misrecognition

introduces a level of alienation and mistrust. At worst, it marginalizes the bearers of the

misrecognized identity, pushing them outside the deliberative space and raising questions about

their membership in the polity.

The second thing I may be doing in deliberation is appealing to reasons that motivate me,

communicating what I think are the central values and goods at stake in P. Here I am expressing

my own identity to others. I may do this self-assuredly, confident that others will understand and

value my contribution, affirming the importance and relevance of my concerns. Or I may do this

hesitantly, even somewhat inarticulately, unsure if others will understand my interests. In both

cases, what I am looking for is a response to my self-expression of the kind described above, a

positive recognition of my identity. By acknowledging my reasons and my reasoning process as

coherent and relevant to our deliberations over P, perhaps even responding with reasons of the

same kind, I am likely to feel recognized. Through deliberation, I engage with my fellow

citizens and I articulate something about myself. This is met with understanding and affirmation.

Again, this is true even if others take a different position on P than I; what matters is that they

understand and value my reasons as relevant to P. If, however, the reasons are ignored,

dismissed or interpreted as conveying a concern very different from the one I though I was

expressing, misrecognition again follows. I have expressed an aspect of my identity only to have

it declared irrelevant or to have it misunderstood and distorted from my understanding. The

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failure to understand my reasons casts doubt on whether or not others understand and value my

identity. This creates distance and frustration, raising doubts about whether or not we can really

reason together. It again places me outside the deliberative sphere and, in doing so, makes me

question my place in the polity.

The giving and responding to reasons characteristic of deliberation is, therefore, a process

in which we express our own identities and recognize others. Occasionally, we engage in these

two tasks as separately as they are described here. Certainly, Gaus’s model of open justification

as explored in chapter two could be described as a fairly circumscribed effort to offer reasons

that recognize citizens on their own terms, without revealing anything about those giving the

reasons. More often, however, these two tasks occur simultaneously, as we react to others’

identity claims with reasons that serve both to say something about our interpretation of them as

well as to make our own identity claims. My response to Kantian concerns will likely invoke

autonomy, thus extending some measure of recognition to my Kantian interlocutors, but it will

also say something about what I find persuasive, revealing my concerns and values. In doing so,

I share something of my own identity, to which others can respond. Deliberation will thus be

most successful when all parties can gain recognition from each other. The process of

deliberation is also a process of trying to secure reciprocal recognition.

Perhaps the most direct way to achieve this, and the third mode of reasons giving, is

offering reasons that all parties can affirm. Here, we secure mutual and reciprocal recognition to

common ground. The recognition offered is of shared values and beliefs. It is the recognition of

an identity that we share. This identity, we will see shortly, may be the limited and partial

identity of rational, liberal citizens. Or it may be a fuller identity, such as a common Kantian

heritage. Thus the “we” here may all citizens or only a few. This approach to deliberation will

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be discussed in more detail in the next section. The important thing to recognize is that one of

the main advantages of sharing reasons is that it offers a clear way to both extend and receive

recognition.

Focusing on the ways in which recognition of identity is involved in deliberation makes

clear the exact mechanisms through which deliberation works to build the social trust and civic

solidarity described in the last chapter. Through deliberation each of us appeals to reasons that

we find persuasive and that we think others should find persuasive. Doing so expresses and asks

for recognition of our own identity; at the same time lets us extend some kind of recognition to

others. From this perspective, deliberation is successful when we achieve mutual recognition for

the citizens engaged in it. This means that the aspect of their identity that each citizen presents

in public, the values and beliefs that they present as most relevant to the political question at

hand, are understood by their fellow citizens as being intelligible and relevant considerations.

Again, this does not mean acknowledging them as the most significant or decisive

considerations. It requires only understanding them as making a contribution to our deliberative

calculations. By recognizing the value of the reasons, one recognizes and affirms the identity

claims that give rise to them.

When each citizen feels that their fellows understand them in terms that resonate with

their own understanding of themselves, the foundation is laid for a meaningful sense of trust.

For each of us is assured that we matter to our fellows, that our interests and goals are valued by

them and will be represented in deliberation. As deliberation proceeds, even if it is sometimes in

ways that we disagree with, this sense of being recognized by our fellow citizens allows us to

trust them. Regardless of the outcome, because we trust that others recognize and value us, it is

possible to remain confident that we have been given our due. Moreover, where we feel we are

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fairly represented in society’s collective deliberations, our sense of being a member of a common

project, a part of the common body defined by the deliberative space, is reinforced. Even where

we disagree with those we are deliberating with, the fact that we are deliberating together, that

we understand each other, generates a feeling of solidarity. Thus, when deliberation fosters

mutual recognition, we cultivate the very relationships of trust and solidarity that work to drain

resentment and alienation out of liberal politics. Viewing deliberation as a process of mutual

recognition lays bare the means through which contemporary liberal theories of deliberation are

capable of creating the relationships that fulfill the requirements of respect.

III. Liberal Deliberative Recognition

Recognizing the importance of recognition to the process of deliberation raises the

question of exactly what it is that must be recognized by others. After all, as we saw above, we

often draw our identities from multiple sources. Which sources need to be recognized? Which

aspects of our identity should be recognized as relevant to our political relationships? Is the fact

that I am a Kantian relevant if I am also recognized in other terms? Surely there seems a great

danger in trying to fully recognize each individual on the complete terms they offer us. Not all

of our identity commitments can really claim to be politically relevant, even if they do shape our

opinions or are implicated in political decisions. For, it seems clear that a deliberative process

that was open to and acknowledged the validity of all claims could devolve into a cacophony out

of which no meaningful decisions would come. The diversity of claims might override our

ability to ensure recognition to all citizens. Staving off resentment and alienation would seem

impossible. Here, liberal theories of deliberation, particularly political liberalism, offer an

ingenious solution.

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Rather than trying to recognize each individual’s complete identity, liberalism postulates

a common identity, one that all individuals can share. In political deliberation each citizen is

recognized in terms of a common identity comprised of the shared political goals of a given

state, those most basic elements of an overlapping consensus. Publically citizens are recognized

qua citizens. This may be a thin, minimal identity, one that any liberal citizen can identify with

without straining their other commitments. Or it may be, as is the case with Rawls, a more

substantive identity, defined by a substantive moral perspective, but one that is believed to be

compatible with the different identities defined by the diverse comprehensive doctrines of a

society.11 The essential point here is that on the political liberal account, deliberation is about

presenting ourselves and recognizing others as bearers of our shared identity. When we appeal

to public reasons we identify ourselves as occupants of our shared perspective. When others

hear our arguments and acknowledge their weight or validity, we feel affirmed in this identity.

As they themselves present us with arguments from that perspective, they too identify

themselves as citizens who draw meaning and understanding from the political values we share.

Our response to them is a recognition of and affirmation of that identity. In these ways, we

mutually affirm our shared identity, thus reassuring each other of their membership in the polity

and value in the eyes of their fellows. This mutual recognition of a shared identity is, on

standard political liberal accounts of deliberation, the function of the justificatory process. The

sense of commonality and trust that results is what staves off resentment and alienation.

This is not to deny the existence of other, equally important identity commitments for

citizens. But for the recognition of these further aspects of their identity, for the recognition of

11 In neither case, it must be said, is the liberal identity conceived of as the sole identity any citizen will bear. One of

the principle tasks of Rawls’s Political Liberalism is responding to the critiques of communitarians like Sandel by

clarifying this. See Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press,

1998).

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those voluntarily assumed beliefs that go beyond consensus, it seems quite reasonable to insist

that we must look to our other communities. Certainly it is important that we minimize to the

extent possible the tension between our identity as citizens and, say, our identities as believers.12

However, from a public, political point of view, our goal is make it possible for every citizen to

identify with the reasons of the state, and to the extent that they do so, feel recognized as

members of a shared community defined by common concerns. Anything more is beyond the

scope of the political.

In fact, recognizing non-shared reasons could be interpreted as an endorsement of

comprehensive view, spawning misrecognition and alienation of those who do not share that

view. To recognize the weight of non-shared views in deliberation would be to risk

misrecognizing those who do not share them, creating a sense the polity is willing to recognize

arguments that might result in some citizens being coerced on grounds that they have every right

to reject. They may interpret this as society valuing other citizens’ claims and identities more

than their own. The sense of disregard this sends those dissenting citizens creates the anxiety

and resentment that is anathema to the liberal commitment to respect. Thus, the liberal argument

goes, it is best that we – as a deliberative body – allow the expression of all those reasons that

matter to citizens but acknowledge as valid only those reasons that all citizens can share. By

recognizing citizens qua citizens in this way, we as a polity extend meaningful though partial

recognition of each citizen. This minimizes the sense of alienation citizens feel. Trust and

solidarity are still possible. Indeed, perhaps the strongest defense of the political liberal

approach to justification rests on its claim to assure meaningful, shared recognition for each and

every member of the polity.

12 Though some, like Macedo, contend that such tension is simply a part of life and, though perhaps lamentable, not

politically problematic.

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IV. The Need for Public Recognition of Religious Identity

If the above account is right, then the plausibility of the liberal account hinges on the

belief that a guaranteed and shared, but partial recognition of the individual, the recognition of

some aspects of their identity (very important aspects to be sure) but not all of them, will

improve relationships between citizens. Sadly, the debates we opened this discussion with seem

to tell against this claim. When it comes to religious identities, the failure of others to recognize

a believer in religious terms appears to undermine any trust or solidarity that might be built

through other channels. To see this, we must look closely at the nature of religious identity.

When many religious citizens endorse a course of action in the political sphere, for many of

them, it is seen as an expression of their deepest and most personal beliefs. Such citizens feel

that the nature of their religious obligations is totalizing: every action they undertake,

individually or as a member of a community, must have religious aims as both their motivation

and purpose. While each individual belongs to multiple communities and can identify with

diverse features of their selves, what is particular about religion is that for many believers, it

becomes the dominant lens through which all their other roles and relationships are interpreted.13

Thus, their understanding of their own action in the political sphere, indeed their interpretations

of all their relationships with others, is primarily religious. They endorse the course the do, they

behave the way they do, they approach others the way they do because they feel doing so best

meets their religious obligations or serves their religious goals. This does not mean that their

every action is explicitly aimed at fulfilling a specific religious goal or dogmatic precept.

Rather, it is to say that everything they do is understood in religious terms, rooted in their

13 For a cogent description of our multiple identities see Akhtar, “Liberal recognition for identity?,” 71-2. I would

supplement this account, however, by highlighting the ways in which individuals come to identity much more

strongly with some of the diverse commitments they bear than others.

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commitments and an expression of their belief. For them, their entire life is seen as an

expression of their faith. To fail to engage politics in this way is, for them, a failure of religious

duty. We can call this, following Wolterstorff, the religiously integrated life objection (RIL).

This objection is not new. It has been offered by critics of both the exclusionary and the

complementary positions.14 And yet both liberal approaches to religion seem to have plausible

defenses. The exclusionary approach, even in Audi’s rather stringent formulation, does not

prohibit the over determination of motivations. Nothing prevents us from being motivated, even

primarily motivated, by religious reasons. He simply asks that before acting, we pause to weigh

the secular motivations available to us. Once we have determined that we would be motivated to

pursue this course even without our religious commitments we have discharged our duty.

Similarly with the Rawlsian proviso and the complementary approach. Rawls, we have seen in

the previous chapters, welcomes religious arguments that complement and deepen support for

the conclusions of public reason. Citizens can enter the public sphere, express their religious

commitments and discharge their religious duties, just so long as someone also takes the time to

explain to other citizens – through the use of public reason – why they too have reasons to

endorse the proposed political action. Moreover, Rawls does not even require that religious

citizens acknowledge that public reasons have motivating force for them, though its very nature

as public ensures that it has such force. There seems to be no barrier to effectively fulfilling ones

religious commitments under the conditions of public reason.

Proponents of pubic reason clearly have gone to great lengths to accommodate religious

belief. Yet, for all this, there continues to be tension between proponents of religious expression

14 See Wolterstorff’s contributions to Nicholas Wolterstorff and Robert Audi, Religion in the Public Square: The

Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996); Kent Greenawalt,

Religious Convictions and Political Choice, New edition. (Oxford University Press, USA, 1991), 155.

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and the proponents of public reason. What explains this? The basic complaint proponents of the

RIL objection continue to have is that each of these approaches marginalizes the role of religion,

refusing to publically acknowledge it as a valuable source of political guidance, one worthy of

the attention of the entire polity. Religion, while present, still does not seem to really matter to

the public. The essence of this objection, I argue here, is that by failing to give religious reasons

a meaningful role in political deliberation, religious citizens are denied the public of recognition

of their identity, a recognition that is essential for their ability to feel a full member of the polity.

This complaint may, at first, seem extravagant. It is one thing to not be allowed to

express religious beliefs at all. It is quite another to demand that other citizens take heed of all

our beliefs in some way. As long as some level of recognition is being offered, on what grounds

could the failure of citizens at large to recognize the validity and importance of beliefs they do

not hold, beliefs they may, if fact, actively reject, be seen as grounding a legitimate objection

from religious citizens? Why should we recognize religious citizens on the full terms of their

identity? Here our earlier insights into the nature and purpose of deliberation come to the fore.

We have seen that successful deliberation fosters relationships of solidarity and trust amongst

citizens, particularly when we extend our perspective to include the cumulative effects of the

deliberative process. Moreover, the expression and recognition of identity that is offered through

deliberation is one of the crucial mechanisms for developing these relationships. So, the

question becomes: are the tasks of mutual recognition and the trust-formation meaningfully

affected by the refusal to give religious views weight in political deliberation? Does the refusal

to recognize religious reasons as political reasons give religious citizens good cause to feel

misrecognized and marginalized?

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As the RIL objection makes clear, when a religious citizen expresses their religious

beliefs as the reason for endorsing or opposing a particular policy, they are presenting to others

something far even more fundamental than even an organizing principle or viewpoint. They are

not just the primary terms through with many religious citizens experience the world. These

terms subsume all other viewpoints for them. For many religious citizens, it is impossible to

think of themselves and their actions in any other terms but religious terms. Even if they are

capable of imagining themselves not holding their beliefs, occupying a different perspective, that

image has no real meaning for them. It is not something they are capable of identifying with in

any significant way. It is as hypothetical to them as imagining that they live in another century.

It is possible but just not meaningful. Next to their religious identity, other identities are

inconsequential to them.

This becomes problematic in public deliberation, for it means that efforts to recognize

both them and their religious values in other terms will be painful and alienating for them.

Demanding that they translate their reasons and identity into public terms is, in fact, a painful

form of misrecognition. For, when religious citizens are told that these reasons are, in and of

themselves, incomplete or insufficient to carry weight in our collective deliberations, religious

citizens feel themselves marginalized and misrecognized in a way that the recognition of them as

a fellow citizen simply cannot assuage. What the requirements of public reason mean to them is

that the deepest expressions of their identity are inconsequential for their fellows and irrelevant

for our common life together. What matters most to them has no significance to those they are

engaging. Even if their preferred outcome is endorsed for other reasons, the fact that the reasons

that matter to religious citizens – for many of them the only reasons that really matter – are not

acknowledged as making an independent, valuable contribution to discourse leaves them feeling

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excluded from the decision making process. For what matters most to them is seen as redundant

and superfluous to those they engage in discourse. Which is to say, they themselves feel

redundant and to superfluous to deliberation, and to the polity more generally. Because they

identify so strongly and centrally with their religious identity, the refusal of others to

acknowledge that identity publically is deeply alienating.

The consequences of this kind of interaction for the relationships between citizens may

be disastrous, especially when extended over a long period of time. Even when done with the

best will, continually relegating religion to a supplemental or auxiliary role creates an underlying

anxiety amongst religious citizens about their position in the polity. When others repeatedly

refuse to hear and respond to their religious reasons in kind, instead shifting the debate to

grounds that they do not identify with, doubt is cast on whether or not our fellow citizens care to

understand us at all. At worst, this anxiety erodes their trust in their fellows and their faith in the

public commitment to hearing and valuing them in deliberation. This does not mean that they

necessarily detect malice or any intentional slight on the part of their fellows. It only means that

they begin to feel that there is not a place for them the ongoing deliberations of society. The

refusal to hear religious reasons as valid public reasons conveys that the public project and my

religious project may not be compatible after all. If, in order to participate in public deliberation

they must identify as citizens, assuming an identity that they feel no attachment to, that seems to

run counter to their deepest commitments, then they might conclude – with Hauerwas and

Johnson – that the liberal political project is not their own. To be faithful to their deepest

commitments, they must give their membership in the liberal state.

The root source of the problem here - it cannot be stressed enough – is not that others do

not accept or endorse their reasons and the underlying beliefs giving rise to them as decisive or

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even as highly significant. It is that they fail to understand them as reasons for themselves at all.

The public appeal to religious conviction, because it is not rooted in concerns all citizens share,

carries no weight as a reason in our deliberations. It is not considered and then rejected or

outweighed or over-ridden or decided against. It simply does not enter into the deliberative

calculation. It is a non-factor in deliberation, something that some group of citizens must on

their own reconcile with public reason. At best, they are preferences, to be considered and

accommodated if possible once deliberation is complete and questions of implementation are at

hand.

This is true even if, as with Rawls, there is a promise of overlap and wide resonance.

Even here, religious considerations, as religious considerations, bear no weight in public

deliberation. They are not acknowledged to be reasons. Were they alone to be the only factors

bearing on a matter under deliberation, the matter simply fails to be public. The public would be

indifferent to it, no matter how much it mattered to other citizens. Similarly, no matter how

significant and important the religious reasons are weighing on a question, the slightest public

consideration outweighs them.15 This, it should be noted, is true even if we decide, as a political

society, to attempt to accommodate different religious beliefs where possible, even to the point

of altering generally applicable laws. For here it is two political reasons that come into conflict:

the reasons supporting the law and the principle of free exercise. It is the commonly affirmable

principle of free exercise that does the work in deliberation here, not the religious reason. We

can choose to allow Quakers to affirm not swear an oath, to permit the wearing of headscarves in

ID photographs, or to allow the use of certain illegal drugs in religious ceremonies because we

15 The headscarf issue in France is one example of this. Relatively minor issues of public safety and public

convenience are taken to outweigh the very great religious concerns about modesty and the role of women. The

frustration and alienation this issue has generated is, from the perspective offered here, fully expected.

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recognize that these accommodations can be made without undermining the political aims

justifying the law in the first place. What we cannot do, within the bounds of political liberalism,

is allow fundamentalist Islamic or fundamentalist Baptist beliefs about scripture and female

modesty to influence the general debates about dress codes in public or in schools. We cannot

recognize modesty as a legitimate political goal. Nor can we count the value certain

hallucinogenic drugs as a way to access a different level of consciousness, enabling an

experience with the divine, as relevant to the more general discussions about drug policy and

which substances to criminalize or not. Public reason can recognize religious beliefs as

preferences, but not as reasons. Religious belief is to be accommodated; it is not to be weighted

as a reason, subject to the scrutiny and critique of reasons.16

Instead, if religion does have a role in political reasoning it is as a rhetorical tool, useful

for broadening consensus on what is already fully justified. Religion is included in the decision

only at the last stages, as a pragmatically useful but ultimately unnecessary tool. At the most, it

helps break the tie between different interpretations of public reason when there is no other

reason – no good public reason – to prefer one to another. What this means is that even the most

accommodating principle of public reason seems to relegate religion to a secondary, all but

unnecessary role. As religious citizens come into public, they are told that the very reasons that

drive them to engage in politics, the ends that they view as most vital for their lives and thus the

reasons that – in one way or another – they believe the state should pursue, all of these are

immediately put aside, to be considered only after the real debate has concluded, if at all.

Compounding matters, if they hope to play a more direct role in deliberation, religious citizens

16 This issue will be briefly touched on in the next section. For an interesting account of how the lack of “public

religion” actually religious beliefs from much-needed scrutiny see Sikka, “Liberalism, Multiculturalism, and the

Case for Public Religion,” 590-600.

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must constantly translate their reasons and motivations into a foreign tongue, effacing that which

matters most to them, in favor of a worldview absent those things that are their (political)

moralities defining features. Thus they engage their fellows in terms that, though perhaps

intelligible, even acceptable to them, do not represent them in terms they themselves endorse and

which feel alien and confining. They are asked to present a partial and distorted view of

themselves and their beliefs in order to gain access to and recognition in political deliberation. It

is difficult to see how citizens in such circumstances could really feel themselves to be a full part

of the polity.

The overall effect of the effort to base public deliberation on public reason is to force

religious citizens to the margins of political discourse or to push them into identifying with

reasons, and thus an identity, that they do not feel is their own (no matter how much others insist

that they could adopt it, if only they cared enough about others to try harder). Rather than being

a mutual and sincere expression of and presentation of our identities to others in public

deliberation becomes an awkward process of self-effacement. Religious citizens present

themselves not as they are but as they believe their fellows want them to be. At the same time,

they are told that the things that attach them to political community, the things that make them

enter into debate and care about the outcome, simply do not count in public. The most important

reasons religious citizens hold are not acknowledgeable as reasons at all for others. For religious

citizens, this is experienced as a fundamental misrecognition of their identities. It is difficult to

see how this could result in anything but a painful sense of separation and alienation for religious

believers.

The ultimate problem here is one of sincerity. Religious citizens, as stressed by the RIL

objection, often feel a deep obligation to address the world in religious terms. To really engage

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such citizens, to connect with them in a way that is immediately and meaningfully relatable to

them, requires engaging them on these terms; religious believers need to recognized in religious

terms. But these terms are not directly admissible in political liberalism. Thus, religious citizens

will have a hard time sincerely committing to the relationships cultivated in political

deliberation. For these relationships are built on a mutual recognition of an identity they do not

adopt, even if it is compatible with the identity they do adopt. The connection is not really with

them, but with some artificial and limited conception of them. Compared to the vivid and

immediate relationships of those who do interact with religious citizens on the terms that they

self-identify with, political relationships are unlikely to foster much confidence that others are

truly invested in understanding and recognizing them.

Nor does it seem citizens adopting the perspective of political liberalism could sincerely

trust religious citizens who persistently deny the relevance of our shared identity to their life.

Their interactions with religious citizens are tinged with the knowledge that no matter how

committed to the public deliberation process they seem, their ultimate loyalty is elsewhere. They

are only tangentially invested in our public project. Even assuming the moral psychology of the

overlapping consensus and stability for the right reasons, there remains a troubling tension. We

must have faith that citizens will continue to see our public deliberation as furthering their

religious ends, even as we refuse to acknowledge the relevance of those ends in those

deliberations. While, as we saw in the previous chapter, Rawls goes to great lengths to describe

the moral psychology that might make this possible, being explicit about the ways in which

identity is at stake in deliberation makes Rawls’s hoped for “stability for the right reasons” seem

unlikely at best. For stability for the right reasons depends upon the political perspective and

identity of citizens becoming so important to their personal identity that it comes to rival or

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eclipse the value of their non-shared beliefs for them. Political liberalism must, in other words,

become a religion for citizens under the overlapping consensus.17

Thus, where political discourse does not allow for the recognition of religious citizens in

terms that resonate with the terms they themselves identify with, the likelihood of deliberation

developing trust and solidarity is greatly diminished. Insisting on political or public reason

forces citizens into insincere relationships in which their true selves are hidden or misrecognized.

Not once or twice, but repeatedly, they are expected to advance supposedly common goals that

they feel little affinity for over the goods and projects they are passionate about. In the effort to

remove political deliberation to common ground, ground upon which trust and solidarity might

flourish, political liberalism minimizes the distinctions between citizens. In doing so, it actually

fosters the very mistrust it is designed to defuse. The forced insincerity of political discourse, the

knowledge that religious citizens are not and cannot be fully committed to our common project,

erodes the faith that others have in them. The result of deliberation based on public reason –

especially over time, as frustration from misrecognition builds – is all too likely to be an

increased divisiveness and a widespread anxiety over our fellow citizens’ commitment to hear us

and give us our due. This may manifest itself in a profound sense of alienation and a deep

resentment amongst citizens who feel oppressed by the community they live in. Or, it may result

in a simple withdrawal, a disengagement from politics by a significant part of the community.

Rather than stability for the right reasons (or any other reasons for that matter), excluding

religious reason seems undermines the fundamental goals of political deliberation.

V. Conclusion: Recognizing Religion

17 This, of course, was something that Rousseau recognized from the start.

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Despite their best efforts, it seems that political liberal theories of deliberation cannot

offer religious citizens the kind of recognition necessary to create a polity defined by trust and

solidarity. Recognizing this, it is again important to be clear about the alternatives to such

exclusion and alienation. For it may seem as though any remedy for this kind of alienation

would be much worse than the ill. Bringing religious claims into deliberation may seem like a

recipe for disastrous conflict as irreconcilable views of the good battle for control of resources

needed to force their beliefs on unwilling citizens. The specter of unchecked coercion and the

deep alienation of all those who do not share the particular complex and deep metaphysical

commitments that happen to dominate at any given time seems quite real. In other words, trust

may be difficult to build with public reason, but it seems to be impossible if we allow the full

range of irreconcilable comprehensive beliefs to enter the deliberative space.

I do not think this is the case. The first thing to stress is that non-religious citizens are not

being asked to cede decision making to religious believers or to accept the validity and

persuasiveness of religious reasons. What they are being asked to do is acknowledge those

reasons as reasons. More than that, they are being asked to recognize that if they are committed

to their fellow citizens, to recognizing them in a way that makes it possible for them to feel a part

of the polity then those reasons should be includes among the diverse considerations that

evaluated when we deliberate together. But they are not being asked to view those reasons as

more valuable or influential than any others. Admitting that a reason matters, that it has value in

deliberation, says nothing about how much weight to give it or how it compares with other kinds

of reasons.

In the same way, to acknowledge religious reasons as political reasons does not mean that

one leaves such reasons unchallenged, accepting them at face value as unassailable articles of

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faith. On the contrary, opening deliberation to religious reasoning makes it possible to respond

in kind; it is completely permissible to present alternative interpretations of the religious values

invoked or to offer different religious arguments that weigh against a religiously-based proposal.

Indeed, it should be encouraged. To do so extends exactly the kind of recognition to religious

citizens that most justificatory liberals fail to offer. For, advancing counter arguments based on

an acceptance of the basic religious premises advanced is to appeal to those citizens as believers.

It is to engage them in a deliberative process on the very terms they themselves use. This is,

then, a form of positive recognition of their religious identity, even if it amounts to a wholesale

rejection of the substance of their religious claims.18

Most fundamentally, considering religious concerns is a way of acknowledging that

religious citizens are not only acting for reasons, but that they are acting for reasons of an

appropriate kind: reasons tied to a legitimate and intelligible understanding of justice. It is to

acknowledge that the conception of justice that religious citizens have is, in fact, recognizable as

a conception of justice. This is true even though many of its goals and supporting premises are

disagreeable to us. Acknowledging its coherence is not to endorse a conception. It is not to aid

it. It is not to promise not to impede it. It is not even to commit to not describing it as wrong,

dangerous and inhospitable to important values. It is simply to recognize that it is a conception

of justice and that sincere citizens, just as committed to the project of a liberal state as we are,

believe pursuing it will help us realize important liberal-democratic goals.19 It is, then, nothing

18 See note 16 above. From this perspective, it seems that introducing religions considerations as reasons may be an

essential if we hope to respond to and minimize the effect of certain illiberal and oppressive religious practices.

19 This may seem an odd statement given that some of these “conceptions of justice” may be described in terms like

“bringing about the kingdom of God.” How can this be thought to be a liberal conception of justice? The answer is

that that such a description is as broad and open to interpretation as the declaring that one aims to bring about

“justice” or “the common good.” All these ends must be spelled out in detail. In specifying the details it is likely

that some of the interpretations will be clearly illiberal, restricting basic rights and subjugating individuals. Such

illiberal conceptions will have to be met with a reassertion of liberal principles. But it is important to remember how

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more than to recognize citizens who chose to publically and primarily present religious reasons

for political action as well-intentioned, contentious liberal citizens, even though they may

advocate beliefs you hold anathema. It is to recognize them simultaneously as believers and

citizens in a way that resonates with them. Or, perhaps more accurately it is to recognize that by

acting on their identity as believers they may also carry out their role as a citizen.

On this conception of deliberation, then, mutual recognition can be offered and the goals

of trust and solidarity meaningfully pursued even when we bring our deepest, most irreconcilable

divisions and disagreements into the deliberative space. What this suggests is that we can

achieve the needed level of trust and solidarity without reaching agreement. What seems most

important here is hearing other citizens. Achieving a level of consensus does not seem to be

integral to liberal aims. The mode of deliberation is as important, if not more important, than the

outcome – at least when questions recognition are our focus.

Spelling out in detail the deliberative landscape that results and articulating the normative

principles that should regulate such a landscape is the task of the next chapters. But what

becomes immediately apparent is that this approach allows us to formulate both a response to

those who would subsume the church into the state as well as those who call for a disengagement

from politics on the part of religious citizens. The essential point is that this analysis shows that

liberalism and religion need not define themselves in opposition to each other. “Political”

broad the family of liberalism can be. It is, after all, consistent with visions both a virtue-based small republican

society, in which the real safeguard to liberty is the strong moral and religious character of the citizens, and with a

radically egalitarian liberalism that sees a large role for the state as a means to counter-act the failings of human

nature. It accommodates Nozick and T.H. Green, Justice Scalia and Justice Holmes, Fr. Neuhaus and Karl Barth,

Bill Bennett and Bishop Gene Robinson. Where the limits of liberalism are is a difficult question, and one that I

cannot address here. The central point is that “bringing about the kingdom of God” may mean Taliban-like

repression, but it is just as likely to mean a radical commitment to improving the lot of the poor and disadvantaged,

just as “protecting the equal rights of individuals” may mean a kind of libertarian-capitalism that generates a deeply

inegalitarian distribution of wealth supervised by a representative government dominated by and overwhelmingly

serving the wealthy or it could yield a commitment to the difference principle.

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reasons need not be distinct from “religious” reasons. Thus, to those like Hauerwas or Johnson

who would lead religious citizens away from the state, lest they compromise their religious

mission, it is possible to say that they can participate in liberal forms of deliberation without

thinking of or presenting themselves except as members of their religious community. This may

not assuage all their concerns about the nature of their religious mission and the nature of the

state, particularly when it comes to the compatibility between the force and violence of the state

and their religious goals. Nevertheless, at the very least it shows that they need not translate or

modify their beliefs in order for their fellow citizens to recognize their relevance to concerns of

the political community. Hopefully, by thus bringing these voices back into the realm of the

political, the passion and energy they bring to caring for the disempowered within our society

can help revitalize society’s commitment to a politics that is meaningfully committed to the

wellbeing of all its citizens.

Moreover, making room for the expression of diverse religious beliefs is necessary if we

are to provide a more complete picture of religious concerns than the one presented by the right.

For, cultivating the contributions of a full range of committed religious citizens undermines the

claims of those who posit a fundamental opposition between liberalism and moral ends. To

those who would willingly assimilate ends of their religious community to the means of the state,

abandoning key liberal claims in the name of being a “faithful” nation, bringing diverse religious

voices to the fore of deliberation shows that there is more than one valid interpretation of

“faithful.” In addition to keeping the most strident voices from dominating, diversifying the

kinds of religion that find expression in public is likely to make some of the illiberal form

articulations of belief seem less attractive to many of those who are now persuaded that their

religion is somehow under attack.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1808318

Again, thinking through how to structure deliration so that these felicitous results emerge

and not a increasingly hostile contest for power between incompatible conceptions of the good

will be no easy task. But what seems clear from this is that failing to give religion a meaningful

role in political deliberation marginalizes and alienates believers, sowing mistrust amongst

citizens. In response they either attempt to overcome liberalism or withdraw from politics in an

attempt to create a community that recognizes them in terms that resonate with them. They

define themselves in opposition to liberalism. By contrast, acknowledging the relevance and

weight that religious beliefs have on our shared political concerns, regardless of whether or not

those beliefs are shared, expands the polity, assures religious citizens that they are full and equal

members of the polity. The solidarity that comes from meaningful and mutual recognition of our

distinct and individual identities creates a sense of common cause that endures even as we each

acknowledge and debate the fundamental beliefs that divide us. Trust comes from honestly

articulating and confronting the disagreements about our deepest, most closely held beliefs – not

from submerging them under a façade of shared reasons.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1808318