In Faith’s Answers to America’s Polit­i­cal Cri­sis, Sen­a­tor Joe Leiber­man implores his read­ers to mine their respec­tive reli­gious tra­di­tions for the val­ues that will solve the tox­i­c­i­ty and grid­lock that have become norms in pol­i­tics today. 

With chap­ters explor­ing issues like our dis­trust of one anoth­er, the break­down of thought­ful debate in Wash­ing­ton, our unwill­ing­ness to com­pro­mise, and the weak­ness and timid­i­ty of our lead­ers, Sen­a­tor Leiber­man charts an alter­na­tive path. Refer­ring to Amer­i­can his­to­ry, per­son­al anec­dotes, and reli­gious text, Leiber­man calls on his read­ers to fix the ills that plague our nation. As he explains, ​“we need a new reli­gious awak­en­ing in Amer­i­ca, whose goal is to bring the Amer­i­can peo­ple and their lead­ers back to bipar­ti­san, prob­lem-solv­ing pol­i­tics and government.” 

Although the book was pub­lished posthu­mous­ly, the read­er feels as though Leiber­man is speak­ing direct­ly to them. It’s clear just how much today’s polit­i­cal land­scape pains him. At the same time, the book brims with Leiberman’s love of and grat­i­tude for Amer­i­ca. Faith’s Answers to America’s Polit­i­cal Cri­sis is a refresh­ing reminder that patri­ots do walk the halls of Congress. 

Although Leiber­man is much more adept at using Jew­ish texts to illus­trate his points, he has done his home­work about oth­er faiths. His quotes from the New Tes­ta­ment and Koran are well cho­sen, and he even pep­pers his book with bits of east­ern thought. When address­ing the need to return to the gold­en rule, for exam­ple, Lieber­man turns to Leviti­cus and its par­al­lel in the book of Matthew (“Love your neigh­bor as your­self”) as well as in the Mus­lim Hadith lit­er­a­ture (“None of you has faith until he loves for his broth­er or his neigh­bor what he loves for himself”). 

The one thing that Leiber­man does not cov­er is whether faith in pol­i­tics is whol­ly good. Lieber­man picks some strong quotes to sup­port his points, but as many know, reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism has also been a major fac­tor in why Wash­ing­ton is so bro­ken. By pick­ing only the help­ful texts and not treat­ing the trou­ble­some ones, Lieber­man miss­es the chance to help his read­ers nav­i­gate the tricky land­mines of using reli­gious ethics in politics.

In sum, Faith’s Answers to Amer­i­cans Polit­i­cal Cri­sis is a help­ful guide for how peo­ple of faith can call on their tra­di­tions to do good. With illus­tra­tive sto­ries and pas­sion­ate­ly argued points, Leiber­man delin­eates a path for us all out of the quag­mire of polit­i­cal stalemate.