Politics & Power Quote by Jeff Miller

The line sells religion less as salvation than as civic technology: a tool to domesticate ego and keep democracy from eating itself. Miller’s move is rhetorically savvy. He starts with a flattering insult - “we are imperfect” - then turns that shared flaw into an argument for institutional partnership. The pivot is “humble enough to admit they are sinners,” which frames political tolerance not as a constitutional discipline but as a spiritual achievement. If you want pluralism, he implies, you need people trained to doubt their own righteousness.

The subtext is where the stakes are. By defining humility as a religious posture, the quote quietly narrows the circle of who can be trusted with democracy. Secular citizens may be personally modest, but they’re not “admitting they are sinners” in the same sacramental way, so their moral equipment is implicitly suspect. “Our government needs the church” also smuggles in a hierarchy: the state as dependent, the church as the supplier of the one virtue that keeps the system alive.

Contextually, it’s a familiar American maneuver: invoke religion not to impose doctrine outright, but to justify religious influence as an antidote to polarization, decadence, or civic rancor. It lands because it recasts a hot-button church-state question as a softer claim about character. Yet it also risks turning tolerance into a gated community: a democracy “requires” it, but only certain people are portrayed as capable of providing it.