Looking to the Future at the Center for Public Justice

November-December 1997

by James W. Skillen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Center for Public Justice this year, its trustees and staff have spent more time looking to the future than they have to the past. Much has changed in the United States and the world during the past 20 years, and the question is how the Center should use its talents and resources most wisely in the years to come. Consider the following:

• More and more citizens lack confidence in government.
• A widespread sense of a national moral crisis has deepened.
• Interest-group politics and single-issue causes continue to dominate political mobilization efforts, so that fewer voters and public officials agree on what serves the common good.
• The end of the Cold War has required a change in outlook about America's role in the world, yet no new consensus about that role has yet emerged.
• Politically speaking, the words "conservative" and "liberal" mean less and less, but new categories of political alignment have not yet taken hold.
• Overt attention to religion in public life has increased, and involvement in politics among conservative Christians has grown.
• A growing number of citizens, though still a minority, are increasingly concerned with fundamental questions about the purpose of government and the relationship of government to nongovernmental institutions.

The Center for Public justice was founded to encourage Christians to become more responsible citizens and to develop a sound public philosophy by which to promote justice instead of simply jumping on single-issue causes with short-term, pragmatic aims. The question now is how should the Center focus its efforts during the next 20 years in order to advance this purpose.

Maintaining Continuity

Some things have not and will not change. The Center is still committed to the promotion of a more just republic and a more just international order. We remain convinced, without embarrassment, of the need for a Christian public philosophy and a Christian approach to politics. By this we mean a philosophy and an approach that seek justice for all rather than special privileges for any one group or the imposition of a Christian point of view on everyone.

The Center will continue to state publicly that it does not claim for its actions divine sanction, but only that its philosophy and policy proposals represent a sincere and considered aim to respond obediently to God's call to do justice. We want everything we do to open public debate, not to close it off.

The Center continues to believe that God has called government to the high purpose of establishing public justice. This means that government should uphold, not replace or ignore, the responsibilities humans have before God in their homes, schools, churches, work places, and a wide variety of personal relationships and other organizational affiliations.

In this respect, we have called our approach to politics one of "principled pluralism" because we believe, as a matter of principle, (1) that the law ought to recognize and uphold the rights and responsibilities of nongovernmental institutions and relationships, and (2) that the law ought to treat all religions and deeply rooted worldviews with equal respect, in public as well as in private life.

On the basis of this continuing purpose and outlook, how should the Center concentrate its energies and seek to grow?

A Focus for the Future

One thing is clear: the goals of the Center for Public justice are long-term and their achievement requires a change of perspective and not simply more activism on the part of citizens. Therefore, our programs must take into account the need for future generations of leaders, beginning with the recruitment and training of the Center's own future leadership.

However, leadership training for the exercise of civic responsibility requires more than a pedagogy appropriate to schooling. The Center is a civic organization that wants to transform the contours of American public life. Therefore, it will need to work simultaneously on at least three levels to persuade people who can exert this kind of influence. In the decade ahead, the Center intends to:

1. promote research and writing that will further expand and deepen its foundational Christian vision and public philosophy;

2. pursue public policy research and advocacy for principled, concrete policy proposals that can make a real difference in the shaping of laws by which Americans are governed;

3. expand its civic education efforts in a practical way so that political leaders and citizens can become increasingly discerning and adept at the art of statecraft to promote public justice.

In recognizing the importance of in-depth work at all three of these levels, the Center accepts the responsibility of developing and constantly nurturing a historical and comparative perspective on the manifold aspects of political practice. American Christians need to learn as much as we can from historical experience and from Christians in other countries who are working to exercise their civic responsibilities.

The intention to focus on these three levels of research, writing, and education does not preclude continued consideration of the Center's identity and programs. To the contrary, the Center does not take as its permanent identity one of the current types of organization prevalent in American politics, ranging from political parties to think tanks, from interest groups to campaign mobilization organizations. Our concern for the entire scope of political life requires that we remain open-minded about the Center's future so we can continue to evaluate the role it should play in the future.

Foundational Work

The Center for Public Justice is not interested in philosophy in the abstract. Rather, it seeks to understand and develop the implications of the biblical commitment Christians make to serve God in all areas of life. In our case it is the political implications of this standpoint that concern us. We at the Center take our stance in the Christian, democratic and pluralist tradition, in contrast to the older Christian-imperial and Christian-nationalist traditions. Much work must be done to develop and articulate this point of view and to demonstrate some of it practical consequences.

At this level, we want to examine carefully and critically everything political. What is the basis, from a Christian point of view, for respecting religious diversity within society? What is the fundamental reason for adequate representation of citizens in government? What should be distinctive about a Christian contribution to public policy in a pluralistic society? In our day, these are extremely practical questions, but they require careful thought in comparative and historical perspective.

Public Policy Research

In the coming decade, the Center will build on the solid work it has already done on education and welfare policies and on questions of religious freedom and electoral representation. We want to expand our efforts so that we can be engaged with a broader range of policy issues.

In the policy arena, we began with a particular interest in the relation of government to nongovernmental institutions and sectors of society because Americans typically focus on individual rights and freedoms in relation to government and tend to ignore the so-called civil society. In the future, we intend to enlarge our public policy research and advocacy efforts to do more in the areas of environmental protection, economic justice, and other areas of political life.

Civic Education

Over the past 20 years the Center has gradually expanded its civic education efforts. Its growing staff is now speaking, consulting, and writing more than ever before. The annual Kuyper Lecture is now in its third year The Capital Commentary, our biweekly editorial, is in its second year. And this year we inaugurated a quarterly newsletter, the Civic Connection.

Starting with its next issue, the Public Justice Report will become a quarterly, and our aim is to expand it gradually into a larger periodical that focuses on public policy, political analysis, and public philosophy.

In the years ahead we will cooperate more extensively with educators in churches, schools and colleges to encourage the production of educational materials. We are developing creative new ways to communicate our perspective and our work to different audiences. The ideas and materials generated by our foundational work and public policy research will feed into the civic education programs.

Acting with Deliberate Realism

After 20 years of service, the Center for Public Justice recognizes that much of American civic culture, including much of Christian civic culture, is weak, superficial, myopic, and controlled by an interest-group mentality. Out of commitment to fellow citizens and above all out of thankfulness to God, by whose grace in Christ we have life and breath, we want to contribute in the next 20 years to a substantial, long-term, public-interest politics that can help make the United States a more just society.