Discovery Institute fights against the conceit that only a secularized culture can have a legitimate public life. Indeed, we would argue that people of serious religious perspectives not only have a full, long-recognized right to contribute to the leadership of political culture (broadly defined), but also that they often provide intellectual insights beyond the reach of the culturally deracinated secularist. In consequence of this stand we find ourselves described by foes on the Darwinist evolution debate as a "Christian" or "religious" think tank. That is really an ignorant, philistine description, though one that always amuses those Discovery fellows who are Jewish or non-religious.
We do weigh many issues in the scales of ethics that have been employed for centuries in the Judeo-Christian world. We do so without apology. The standards are sound even without reference to religion. In staking out this ground, we are constantly intrigued by a number of brilliantly edited magazines that look at politics and culture through a religious lens. The wonderful thing about such magazines as Touchstone, First Things, Crisis, World, Christianity Today and Commentary is that within their respective circles of writers, one actually finds more diversity of religious backgrounds—and more true tolerance--than, say, at The Nation or The New York Times magazine, and more relevance to lasting consequences of public policy than one encounters at certain increasingly rudderless conservative journals.
Commentary is an example that stands out in this group of magazines because its Jewishness is ethnic as much as religious, and because it has an utterly unique history and record of achievements. (One of our own senior fellows, David Berlinski, has been responsible for some of those achievements.) A new account of Commentary's history by Nathan Abrams obviously doesn't do the subject justice, if Benjamin Balint is to be believed. And my own familiarity with the magazine over the decades suggests that Balint is to be believed, indeed. His review of Abrams' book, running in the new issue of The Weekly Standard, has real authority.
Balint explicitly asserts that "Commentary showed that there is no contradiction between ethnic particularities and participation in the larger culture," and that the path to full participation need not fall into the trap of cultural relativism or "multiculturalism". Abrams apparently doesn't come close to grasping that point.
Overall, Balint's fine review suggests that the full story of one of America's most under-recognized cultural resources—Commentary magazine—has still to be written.