What kind of religion does democracy need?

For the past several years, the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has been one of the most intriguing critics of contemporary Western culture. I had come across his arguments about the “uncontrollability” of the world and the human need for “resonance” in various secondary sources, and I found them compelling.

So when Rosa’s recent book crossed my desk, I was eager to engage his work firsthand. Democracy Needs Religion (Polity, 84 pp.) is the kind of enticing title that appeals to political theologians like me.

Rosa begins by diagnosing what he calls the “frenetic standstill” of late-modern culture. The economy must keep growing, innovation must accelerate, and all of it at a breakneck pace—simply to maintain the status quo. We no longer harbor naïve notions of progress, the hope that our labor might leave the world better for those who follow. Growth today is often not about expanded desires but about meeting existing needs, driven less by enthusiasm for the future than by fear of collapse. We run faster and faster, not toward promise but away from the abyss. Meanwhile, we grow increasingly estranged from our past. These dynamics, Rosa argues, have left Westerners incapable of a resonant relationship with history, the cosmos, or future generations.

Here Rosa makes a surprising turn: “religion and perhaps even the church have a[n] … important role to play in our modern society.” Religion interrupts the modern rat race of control and mastery (which is always illusory, anyway). It opens us to the possibility of encountering a caring Reality beyond ourselves. It helps us rediscover the ability to be invoked. We need spaces that foster such vulnerability, encounters not defined by competition and growth. Religion, Rosa argues, provides such spaces. When we walk into a cathedral, we know we are not in control.

For Rosa, this has political as well as personal implications. Good governance, he contends, depends on cultivating a “listening heart,” which is how Rosa characterizes the object of Solomon’s request at the outset of his reign (1 Kings 3). Rosa interprets Solomon’s prayer for “an understanding mind to govern” as a plea to hear the voices of others. It is a striking, if debatable, reading. And Rosa is surely right to observe the way our politics is quick to demonize opponents as enemies or fools. His call for humility, restraint, and the willingness to listen is timely. Yet what is missing is a careful distinction between genuine openness and an undiscerning pluralism that refuses to judge between wisdom and folly, good and evil—which constituted part of Solomon’s prayer.

I wanted to love this book, but this is where the sociologist proves to be a disappointing theologian. He argues that any clear articulation of God’s will turns religion into a “monstrosity.” He pits religion as “resonant event,” in which we humbly encounter others who differ from us, against religion as “guardian and defender of ultimate truths.” Not only is this dualism highly contestable, but one must also wonder how far Rosa is willing to go in affirming difference. He says religion should not close off to those who “love differently”; would we apply this to pedophilia, for instance? Even his rejection of authoritative doctrine misses the “drama of dogma,” to paraphrase Dorothy Sayers.

Resonance should not require moral and religious relativism to make democracy work. Otherwise, democracy might become an idol. True religion must not allow itself to be instrumentalized for a political end. God shall not be mocked. Kiss the Son, O rulers and citizens in democratic orders, lest you perish in the way. Seek justice, praise the good, and punish evil. This is what good governance requires, and what true religion promotes.