Faith & Spirit Quote by David E. Price

In a secular age allergic to sermons, David E. Price threads a careful needle: he defends religion in public life without sounding like he wants a theocracy. “Personal faith” is doing most of the work here. It frames belief as private, voluntary, and character-forming, not as a mandate for everyone else. That qualifier anticipates the modern suspicion that religious language in politics is code for exclusion. Price’s phrasing tries to preempt that backlash by insisting faith enters the public square as motivation, not legislation.

The second hinge phrase, “public good,” is equally strategic. It’s capacious enough to include service, charity, civil rights organizing, disaster relief, prison ministry, and the everyday moral stamina that keeps people showing up for neighbors. It sidesteps hot-button doctrine and invites bipartisan agreement: you don’t have to share the creed to benefit from the outcomes. The subtext is a rebuttal to two critics at once. To secular skeptics: don’t dismiss religious citizens as irrational or dangerous; their commitments often underwrite social trust and volunteer labor the state can’t easily replicate. To culture-war evangelists: the point of faith in politics isn’t domination, it’s contribution.

Price, a long-serving moderate Democrat, is speaking from a tradition where religion frequently powered progressive coalitions in the South while also being weaponized against them. The line reads like governance-speak with moral ambition: keep church and state distinct, keep conscience and community connected.