As founder and editor-in-chief of First Things, Father Richard John Neuhaus argued with verve and sophistication for twenty years about the relation of politics and religion, with an eye to reinstating the place of religion as a humanizing force in a society fast becoming a “naked public square.” His interest in the proper relation between religion and politics developed early in his intellectual training under his Lutheran father and his Missouri Synod teachers, as he demonstrated keen intelligence and a penchant for arguing about everything. He was convinced that culture shaped politics and was rooted in religion. He expected Protestant and Catholic clerical leaders to encourage their people to assume their responsibilities for their shared public life. Not seeing much response from the Lutherans in the 1960s, he took up the civil rights cause with the Left and tried to model his ideas as a pastor of a...

 

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