Thanks to Lora for extending the discussion on my last post.  I relish exchanges with my colleagues here at S-USIH. I have an extension of my own: if Bellah and Kennan felt trapped by their own eloquence, can the inverse happen?  Can the golden cage of a term or concept release the author and entrap the culture? The example I have in mind here is Richard John Neuhaus’s use of the term, “the naked public square.”  His 1984 book by that name, appearing in an election year and at a moment of impasse for the Religious Right, captured a transition Read more