The Roots of "Authentic Democracy": Christian Political Thought in the Walgreen Foundation Lectures

Abstract

A series of lectures under the auspices of the Charles R. Walgreen Foundation for the Study of American Institutions by Christian political philosophers and theorists that formed the basis for monographs constitute a locus of intellectual activity relevant to debates on the theoretical, moral, and spiritual foundations of politics and American democracy. These works by Jacques Maritain, Yves Simon, and John Hallowell offer raw material for Christian political theorists to develop an alternative to both contractarian liberalism and contemporary postliberal thought. The works of the Walgreen theists, who argued that constitutional democracy rests on classical Christian premises about human nature and society, offer resources for reconciling the American political inheritance with a Christian view of the human person, recovering the best of those resources, and pursuing a public philosophy supporting institutions necessary to preserve human dignity in the post-Christian West.