Heritage Foundation President agrees with Daily Wire host that politics “is the medium” for achieving “supernatural ends”
Kevin Roberts: “The absence of that ideal has so many negative repercussions”
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From the July 18, 2024, edition of The Kevin Roberts Show
KEVIN ROBERTS (HERITAGE FOUNDATION PRESIDENT): And so what we're aspiring to, I know what motivates your work in part at least is reminding people to live the good life.
MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST, DAILY WIRE): Yes. That's especially in an age of decay and decadence and decline. It's more difficult to live the good life as we've forgotten the very meaning of education. And so it's no wonder that our educational institutions fail and perhaps the most prestigious ones fail most spectacularly. It's difficult, to, to live the good life.
I thought that the first prayer on day one of the convention from the archbishop of Milwaukee. I think it was, he came out and, and he read this beautiful prayer about Declaration of Independence and about American history and about the Catholic vision of a polity. And I thought it was, it was so important because he was viewing American history through the spiritual lens. He was recognizing that there is the church and there's the state and they are distinct. They're not - there's no firm wall of separation between the two as Thomas Jefferson maybe wrote in some crazy letter, but they're distinct.
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I sometimes fear that, Christians in politics, they want to just throw their hands up in the air and say, well, who cares? As long as the government doesn't make me sin, what do I care? But you can't divorce yourself. You know? Politics, history, contingent reality is the medium through which we will achieve even our supernatural ends.
ROBERTS: Well, and that has the absence of that ideal has so many negative repercussions even on people who are not people of faith, right?
KNOWLES: That's right.
ROBERTS: And so part of what the progressive left is trying to do to us, whether we're people of faith or maybe people who appreciate religion, even though their practices may have, may not be as committed, is to put us on the sidelines of the public square.
KNOWLES: Yes.
ROBERTS: And we can't allow that to happen.
KNOWLES: Oh, of course not.
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ROBERTS: What's your assessment for people? And, ultimately, I want to give folks a homework assignment. What can each of us do to participate in that? Not in the sort of vapid meaning of unity. I'm not at all concerned about that or interested in that. I'm interested in that if it's real. I'm interested in that if the progressive left will participate. What's the homework assignment for us in our neighborhoods and our families maybe over Sunday conversation with folks who might not quite agree with us?