INSIDE america A Reasonable Politics Politics has an “anthropological” basis; it betokens a particular view of the human personal and social destiny. Indeed, politics is an expression of the religious sense Politics is a means for the allotment of power for purposes of building a home for the human heart out of the resources of creation. Politics has an “anthropological” basis; it betokens a particular view of the human personal and social destiny. Indeed, politics is an expression of the religious sense. The religious sense is the source of our experience of meaning and value. It links the contingent moment to our vision of the totality of reality. The religious sense is what shapes and unifies the anthropological vision expressed by politics. A truly human politics–a reasonable politics–will follow the path of the religious sense, so to speak. But in so doing, it will inevitably run into the experience of a “disproportion” between the human heart’s needs and the fruits of our efforts to fulfill them. This disproportion is “the inability to be satisfied by any worldly thing, or, so to speak, by the entire world” (cf. The Religious Sense, L. Giussani, McGill-Queen's University Press, p. 48). Before this disproportion, two paths are possible. One path is to reduce human desires to what human power–and therefore, politics–can achieve. This path leads to a restriction or destruction of freedom. The alternative is to recognize the limits of politics and look elsewhere for fulfillment of the heart's needs and desires. Moreover, politics expresses the wounded condition of the link that ties us to our destiny. That is why “ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action, and morals” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 407). Politics will not rescue us from this wound in our human nature. Instead, as with all human acts, politics must take into account our need for redemption if the power it confers is not to turn against us with destructive violence. We are not saved by politics. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of Man. Therefore, He is the Redeemer of politics. But how is this redemption of politics manifested? It is not realized through a political agenda, however morally commendable. “Earthly time is not subject to a progressivist teleology or reading. At one time we will be in the end-time, but in the meantime we cannot entertain hopes of anything that can reasonably be called sure and certain progress–change, yes, but continuing transformation toward some preformed ideal, no” (cf. Augustine and the Limits of Politics, by Jean Bethke Elshtain, University of Notre Dame Press, 1995, p.93). A reasonable politics will never be absolutized as the apocalyptic battle between good and evil, between salvation and damnation, between the City of God and the earthly city. The frontier between the two cities does not separate political parties; it runs right through the human heart. On the other hand, redemption occurs in this world, such as it is. It cannot be relegated to a world beyond this one. The power of Christ’s victory over sin and human impotence touches and transforms everything that is human, including politics. The victory of Christ is the creation of a new people, of a new unity between human beings, a new friendship, a new solidarity that “the world cannot give.” The victory of Christ is the creation of the Church. The impact of redemption on politics is the recognition by political power of a true liberty that will allow the people of God to live the consequences of the redemption they have encountered in Christ, and to offer to all the creative witness of its correspondence with the needs and desires of the human heart–the witness of a new way of looking at nature, at human society, at human relations: a new way of loving, of building a city, of resolving conflicts, of educating children, of working for peace, of defending the dignity of each human being, of caring for those in need. Recognition, promotion, and respect for this liberty: this is what can be expected–indeed, demanded–of politics, of a reasonable politics.