Christianity and Civil Society responds to the crisis of American democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once held to be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these institutions--such as the family, neighborhood, church, and civic associations--one finds a disturbingly reduced socio-political stage, dominated by an abstract triumvirate of the individual, state, and...