Going on 25

First Quarter 2001

Editor's Watch

by James W. Skillen

The Center for Public Justice is now entering its 25th year. The first issue of the Public Justice Report's 25th volume will appear in January 2002. In several important respects, nothing has changed in 25 years. The Center was inaugurated to help develop and promote a deepened Christian approach to civic and governmental responsibility. Among our first concerns was to understand how government's policies should be designed to do justice to nongovernmental institutions and organizations such as families, schools, churches, and social service organizations. From the start, we were concerned about justice beyond American borders, including the just ordering of the international arena. Moreover, the Center has always aimed to be more than a policy research center or think tank and to encourage citizens and public officials in the fulfillment of their responsibilities.

In other respects, however, almost everything has changed. In the mid-1970s there was relatively little public discussion of faith and politics; the "culture wars" had not yet been named; the "civil society" debate had not yet begun. In the late 1970s, school-choice reforms were pushed by Democrats; welfare policy was not yet perceived by most peo-ple to be in crisis; the Cold War was still hot; and the Center for Public Justice did not yet have a full-time staff or an office in Washington. There were no e-mails or websites or faxes or cell phones.

Today, the Center's mission is summarized in three phrases: to equip citizens, develop leaders, and shape policy. The mission is the means of fulfilling the Center's calling to serve God, advance justice, and transform public life. With e-mail, a website, fax machines, and cell phones, the Center continues to develop a Christian philosophy of government, to help shape the civil-society debate, and to work internationally, as this issue of the Public Justice Report illustrates. Stanley Carlson-Thies, who, from 1993 to the beginning of this year served as the Center's director of policy studies and shaped much of the debate over government's relation to faith-based organizations, continues that work in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Colleagues and friends in this country and around the world help the Center pay close attention to developments in other parts of the world.

Many of the challenges the Center faces today arise from the difficulty of communicating clearly and honestly in a world where people are inundated with information but have little time to think, a world where polarizing politics and ideologies keep citizens from opening their minds to new perspectives and approaches. We live in a day when Christians, like everyone else, want quick answers of political right or wrong.

Although there is more discussion of religion and politics today than there was 25 years ago, this is not a day in which most Christians are clamoring for the development of a careful, thoughtful, internationally attentive approach to politics and government. Through this publication and other means of communication the Center wants to find and encourage everyone who does want to help develop such an approach.