Preparing for the Election
Dear Friends
There is a feeling, a posture, that concerns me as we head deeper into this election year, and it is pervasive: the sense many people have that our politics is happening to them. As I have traveled this year, one of my main takeaways has been the profound lack of agency that people feel regarding our political life. This does not only apply to the lack of agency people feel they have to influence the way our political systems function, but the dread people feel regarding the topic of politics even coming up in conversations they have or rooms they are in. Kaitlyn Schiess, a 2023 Public Life Fellow with CCPL, recently wrote an essay about this way of relating to politics.
This passivity is not good for our democracy. It is also not healthy for Christians, who have much to contribute in this moment, but will hardly be able to do so if they believe their values, relationships and possibilities are based entirely on the whims of our political life.
We are pushing back against these feelings of helplessness and malaise at CCPL. It has been a tremendously exciting five months to start this year, and there is much more ahead of us in 2024. As you know, our mission is to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. We pursue this through a strategy that incorporates “thinking” and “doing,” “show” and “tell.” We advance a model of agency grounded in, and resourced by, formation.
We want to partner with you as we continue to build the Center for Christianity and Public Life. Here are three reasons why you should consider a financial gift to CCPL today!
1) Since its release four months ago, we have directly engaged over 12,000 people through The Spirit of Our Politics, and millions through traditional and digital media.
Entire churches are reading through the book as a congregation, city-wide pastor cohorts are learning and deepening relationships during this election year as they consider the ideas and practices in the book together (rather than pulling apart), and individuals are gaining a vision for how politics can be a forum in which they grow in faith and love their neighbor. With additional financial support, we can reach many more people with this resource in the coming months, including through the creation of a video curriculum.
2) We are identifying, supporting, and amplifying the influence of Christian public servants across our civic life.
We are serving the second cohort of our Public Life Fellowship this year, and this summer, we will launch Public Good Generation, a program serving high school students interested in public service. Every individual in our programs can make a tremendous contribution to our civic life. Taken together, they are a bulwark against despair, and an inspiration for both the church and the nation to renew their imagination for a politics that is oriented toward the public good. You can learn more about our Public Life Fellowship program directly from our fellows themselves in this video.
3) Our Second Annual Summit, For the Good of the Public, will model a healthier way of approaching our political life in the midst of the election season...and prepare us to serve no matter the outcome.
We saw last year how powerful it can be when you draw together civic leaders to learn and explore together how Christian resources might inform their work and advance the public good. This year, the summit is happening at a crucial time, a month before the election, to provide hope and a way forward both leading up to and after the election. We are excited to continue the conversation this October, and invite you to join us!
We have accomplished a great deal this year so far, but the need is great and we are building for the long-haul. Here at CCPL, we see the difference people can make in building a healthier politics that benefits from Christian contribution. Politics is not just happening to us. We can build. We can contribute. It’s our politics that is waiting on us.
Michael Wear is the President & CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life.