Joshua Mitchell: American Awakening

Connection

Joshua Mitchell is the author of "American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time." He argues that America's political crisis has a religious origin and that the extremes of identity politics are an expression of a dislodged Christianity. The book exposes the spiritual disorders that are paralyzing public life and highlights some surprising reasons for hope. Mitchell is a professor of political theory at Georgetown University and the author of numerous journal articles and four books including "Tocqueville in Arabia." Mitchell's research focuses on Western political philosophy and theology.

2:00 - Why Joshua wrote the book
5:00 - The new religion of politics
7:00 - Debt and the three economies
11:00 - The religion of identity politics
13:00 - "Purity" and the truth of the environmental cult
16:30 - "Clean vs. dirty" in Christianity and forgiveness
18:45 - Why Christianity is healthy
23:00 - How identity politics is affecting children
32:45 - The culture of narcissism, depression, and "too much and too little"
38:40 - Bounded freedom
43:30 - What identity politics gets right
47:00 - The heresy of identity politics
50:00 - How do we move forward in a secular society?
58:00 - Where conservatives get it wrong
1:02:00 - The liberal politics of competence
1:06:00 - Solutions