In a way, it’s the writing of the book that’s as interesting as the content. Madeleine Albright is a progressive A-lister, as close a thing as Democrats have to an elder international stateswoman. And she’s writing about God! Decently well! As the barely intelligible Bob Dylan rasped when I saw him in concert Saturday night, ‘The times, they are a-changing.’ Another sign that progressives at the highest levels are taking religion seriously as a force for social change and academic study.
This is good news for the world (when we get back into the White House), and smart politically. Talking about a foreign policy that works with religious partners for the common good is a massive opportunity for progressives to distinguish themselves from their neo-con opponents and give a strong-headed ethical grounding to their international vision.
Make no mistake that Madame Albright is strong-headed. She reminds you about it every five pages or so. It’s a little much sometimes, like that football player who tried out for the high school play and constantly told his friends he wasn’t turning weird or anything, but it’s honest as well. Albright demonstrates real understanding of faith traditions and a personal candor about her own faith that comes across as genuine, but clearly remains a realist at heart, one who is interested in religion because of the pragmatic advantages it can offer to policy-makers. The Grillmaster thinks that theology risks being all smoke no fire, but it’s still an important imprimatur to secular foreign policy makers that they need to take religion seriously.
I was particularly pleasantly surprised to see Albright explicitly call for the creation of religious affairs liasons at the State Department. Doug Johnston has been calling for those for about a decade over at the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and we’d be better for them. Would be great if this book convinced some Congressman to make it a pet cause.
