Public life happens outside the private boundaries of family and friendship. It is the social space where citizens who cherish democracy and people of faith who hunger and thirst for justice must learn to register our claims effectively. It includes but is in no way limited to partisan, electoral politics. Voting is in actuality a minimal expression of authentic public life. The basic dilemma in the collective life of the U.S. today, namely the unraveling and discrediting of genuinely democratic governance, is a crisis of what I am calling public life.
People of faith have another word for building our public life.
In biblical language to provide for the common good is to seek the shalom of a community. Shalom is the peace which emerges only when human beings are in right relationship with themselves, their neighbors, the earth and all its creatures and God. The prophet Jeremiah s stunning letter to the remnant of his defeated and devastated community in Babylon includes the admonition to seek the shalom of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its shalom you will find your shalom. What the right balance is at any given moment is a judgment call which God leaves to us. In making it, we must exercise both religious discernment and practical wisdom.