Ten Lectures on Psychotherapy and Spirituality Book

Skillen provides a different approach to understanding what it means to be Christian in a democratic society. He constructs his overall argument as "a Christian-democratic approach to government represents a positive advance, a move away from past accommodations to imperialist and statist structures and ideologies toward a more normative Christian realization of public justice." (p2.) This idea provides a new way for Christian public engagement and an imaginative approach to providing religious conversation in spaces that have been separated by Church and State approaches.

He does this by introducing a new form of pluralism that allows for Christian democracy as well as other religions to fully participate in the public forum while still remaining true to each organization's ideologies. Instead of privatizing religious views, the new pluralism, or E Pluribus Unum, allows for the public forum to be enriched by all. Skillen uses the example of chaplaincy in the military. Each religion is represented and participates in the areas where they are skilled. Meanwhile, the public forum of the military branch operates separately but alongside the chaplains, in the areas the military is skilled at operating.

The military example provides an interesting argument when used in the conversation about education. Skillen argues a completely new approach to education by stating, "government should begin to deal with schools, including its own, as distinct agencies of education rather than as an extension or department of the government. Then it should do what a just government ought to do, namely, treat all agencies of education justly and without discrimination" (p. 105). While Skillen does describe how this is possible, he does not address how this would be funded in an equal and just way. The current system of education is funded by local taxes. killen's description of a pluralistic education system does not cover who will provide the financial support for each of the various school options. In order to provide a pluralistic education system, the whole funding structure would need to change as well as the way teachers are paid. If the goal is more equitable education, then funding will need to reflect this goal as well.

While the complex details of how to practically shift to this new way of civic engagement are not explained by Skillen, the main idea of how to engage in society as Christians remains strong. Christians should no longer answer pluralism by sheltering around each other through privatization. Pluralism means engagement and enrichment with one another in religious and secular faiths.