American Babylon

American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile by Richard John Neuhaus, 251 pages

To be in the world, but not of the world, is a continual challenge of the Christian life.  In American Babylon, Father Neuhaus likens the situation of the modern Christian to that of a Jew in Babylon, abiding by the wisdom given to the prophet Jeremiah to "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."  The place where we are is a necessary part of who we are, and its well-being is our concern, but it is not our end.

Neuhaus sees this as precisely the gift religion offers to the secular sphere.  By refusing to accept either visions of earthly utopias or purely utilitarian calculations, people of faith uncompromisingly promote the fundamental dignity of the human person.  While the Kingdom of God is already among us in embryonic form, its ultimate realization must be His work, not ours.  Simultaneously, the religious person is able, by acknowledging the transcendent, to call the immanent world to account, as proclaimed so memorably in Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail.  

For Neuhaus, to say that America is "under God" means that, like every nation, it lives simultaneously under a promise and under judgement.   In this spirit, American Babylon is both a message of hope and a warning.