The NCR Book Club offering this week is Michael Baxter's review of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus' last book, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian in Exile, which Baxter says "is about being Christian in the United States."
Baxter writes: "While readily admitting that the American experiment has weaknesses, [Neuhaus] is clearly not ready to hand over its title as the last best hope of the West."
For another look at the Neuhaus book, check out a review by George Weigel, Neuhaus' longtime friend and intellectual companion. Weigel writes:
Now, as Richard often pointed out, it was precisely that loyalty to "the city which is to come" that makes serious Christians good citizens of a democracy -- or at least good citizens of a democracy that does not divinize itself. By reminding democratic citizens that democratic citizenship is penultimate -- for our ultimate citizenship is in the City of the Living God -- Christians can give politics its due while helping keep politics in its place.
