on the "How Naked a Public Square ?" conference

I started my post about the conference I went to yesterday, and it led to a beginning of my Church, Community, and Nation paper. A very rough draft and it probably will not stay as it is, but at least it started the thought process. So, I think I will just post the rough draft of the first paragraph of the paper. Also, you can read the papers presented at the conference on the James Madison Program website.


"After attending two sessions of the James Madison Program conference at Princeton University on October 23, 2004 centered around the book The Naked Public Square by Richard John Neuhaus, there are many things I would like to comment on. At the end of it all, I felt a strange satisfaction that despite the mess that our country seems to be in politically, we are not totally lost. As Neuhaus said in his closing remarks on the conference entitled "How Naked a Public Square?: Reconsidering the Role of Religion in American Public Life" the experiment of democracy is a little over 200 years old and it is too early to pass judgment on whether or not it has failed. He then points to Luke 18:8b “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” He then reminds us that we are not God, and as quoted from another source, he says, “For us is only to try, the rest is not our business.” It is God’s business. So, before diving into my paper in which I will try and bring to light the problems in American Democracy or in the American Political System, the structure of our society. I thought this would be good to keep in the forefront so as not to lead us into desperation of the times we are in. While they might be desperate times where we need to act and take a stand in how to change things, it is not entirely hopeless."

Another major part of the discussion was natural law and revelation in public discourse. It was a side of revelation that I had not thought about before...I took good notes since I still want to write a book on revelation.