When a prominent religious leader spends 13 years navigating the intersection of faith, identity, and civic life — and then steps back to share what she learned — American voters and democratic institutions should pay attention. Rabbi Deborah Waxman, who is stepping down as president of Reconstructing Judaism after more than a decade of leadership, has issued a pointed warning: democracy itself is under threat, and faith communities have both a stake and a responsibility in protecting it.
Waxman’s farewell reflection arrives at a moment of genuine democratic anxiety. She writes that she once believed American society was moving — however imperfectly — toward greater inclusion, equity, and justice. That confidence, she says, has eroded. What she sees now, in both the broader civic landscape and within Jewish communities, is regression. And her seven convictions, drawn from a career at the crossroads of religion and public life, carry clear implications for how Americans vote, who gets to vote, and whether democratic institutions can hold.
Democracy Is Not a Given
Of her seven convictions, the fourth is the most directly relevant to voters and elections. Waxman is unambiguous: democracy matters, and it is not guaranteed. She writes that Jews and other minority communities have flourished in America because of what she calls “robust multicultural, multiracial, multi-faith commitments to political and social equality, however imperfectly realized.” That foundation, she argues, is now being undermined.
Her specific concern is Christian nationalism — a political and ideological movement that, in her assessment, “distorts democracy to restrict rights along lines of religion, race, gender and sexuality.” For voters and election observers, this is not an abstract theological debate. Restrictions along those exact lines — religion, race, gender, sexuality — have historically been the vectors through which voter access has been narrowed. Poll taxes, literacy tests, ID requirements that disproportionately burden specific communities, restrictions on early voting locations in certain neighborhoods: these are the policy mechanisms through which democratic participation gets constrained in practice.
Waxman’s call is for progressive religious leaders to actively resist this narrowing — to join efforts to “foster an inclusive civic nationalism that repudiates supremacism and celebrates difference.” In the context of elections, that means faith communities showing up not just in pews, but at polling places, in voter registration drives, and in civic coalitions that push for broad participation.
The Coalition Problem and Voter Mobilization
Her fifth conviction — that coalitions matter — has direct bearing on how democratic participation actually works for minority and marginalized communities. Waxman argues that no meaningful social transformation has ever been achieved by groups who agree on everything. This is especially true for communities with less institutional power, who must rely on allies to amplify their voice.
She is particularly pointed on the danger of purity tests — demands for ideological conformity that end up excluding potential partners and weakening collective civic power.
“Purity tests and disenfranchising entire groups of people weaken our ranks, undermine shared values and work against effective change. It’s bad strategy and often rises to the level of discrimination, if not immorality.”
For voter mobilization efforts, this is a practical warning, not just a moral one. When civic and advocacy organizations fracture over ideological litmus tests, voter outreach suffers. Communities that should be working together to ensure broad participation end up divided. The result is lower turnout, fragmented coalitions, and democratic outcomes that fail to reflect the full range of eligible voters.
Political scientist Robert Putnam’s research, which Waxman cites, offers an evidence-based counterpoint. His work has demonstrated that a shared sense of community can be deliberately built — as it was at the turn of the 20th century, following an earlier period of extreme income inequality and social fragmentation in America. Waxman argues the same deliberate effort is needed now.
Community and Clergy as Democratic Infrastructure
Two of Waxman’s other convictions — that community matters and that clergy matter — speak to something election administrators and civic leaders have long understood: democratic participation does not happen in a vacuum. It is sustained by the networks of trust and accountability that communities build over time.
Waxman writes that the opportunities to encounter, learn from, and be transformed by people in day-to-day settings — through celebration and grief, across years — are “essential antidotes to the isolation and social fragmentation dominating our world.” That fragmentation is not just a social problem; it is a democratic one. Isolated citizens are less likely to vote, less likely to engage with civic institutions, and more vulnerable to misinformation that distorts their understanding of how elections actually work.
Religious communities, she argues, are uniquely positioned to counter that fragmentation — not because of theology alone, but because they create sustained, accountable relationships across time. Clergy, she emphasizes, despite well-documented betrayals of trust in some institutions, remain important resources. Thousands of rabbis, pastors, priests, imams, and other spiritual leaders are, in her words, “animated by a desire to serve, comfort and help make meaning, even and especially in these challenging and painful times.”
Complexity and the Danger of Reductiveness in Public Discourse
Waxman’s sixth conviction — that complexity matters — carries a warning that applies directly to how elections and public debates are conducted in the social media era. She writes that reductiveness “reigns — at a terrible price.” American Jews, she argues, have experienced this acutely, as their diverse internal debates about identity, religion, culture, and political ideology get flattened into a single question about Zionism.
The same reductive logic distorts democratic discourse more broadly. When complex communities — Jewish, Muslim, Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, and others — are reduced to a single political position or identity, their internal diversity is erased, their civic power is diminished, and their participation in democratic life is made harder to understand and support. Waxman argues this flattening also “fuels expressions of antisemitism that are growing increasingly violent and must be repudiated.” The same dynamic applies to other forms of bigotry that, left unchecked, suppress civic participation and public trust.
For those covering or working in election administration, the lesson is clear: oversimplified narratives about who votes, why, and for what do real damage to democratic institutions and to public confidence in elections.
What Faith Leaders Are Calling For
Waxman closes her reflection with a direct charge to Jewish communal leaders and funders — but its logic extends to anyone invested in democratic health. She urges them to set aside litmus tests. To recognize that antisemitism, while real and serious, cannot be fought by retreating from democratic norms, racial equity commitments, or coalition work. And to understand that the safety and well-being of any community is ultimately bound up in the well-being of others.
“Recognize that Jewish safety is bound up in the well-being of others and show up for other folks, even when it is uncomfortable,”
she writes.
That call to show up — across lines of difference, in discomfort, in coalition — is also a description of what healthy democratic participation looks like. Elections are won or lost not just at the ballot box, but in the years of relationship-building, coalition-forming, and community-sustaining work that precede them. Waxman’s 13 years of leadership offer a case study in what that work demands — and what is at stake when it falters.
For readers interested in how faith communities are engaging with questions of democratic participation and civic life, Religion News Service’s podcast lineup covers these intersections regularly, including The State of Belief, which recently explored how people can move from feeling overwhelmed to taking concrete action at the ballot box, and Saved by the City, which examines fringe movements seeking to replace democratic governance altogether. RNS also covers ongoing developments in religious communities navigating questions of authority and accountability — including new details in abuse allegations against author Heather Thompson Day and Seth Day, and the announced resignation of Bishop Mariann Budde, who has used her public platform to urge voter participation.
The broader questions Waxman raises — about who belongs, who is protected, and whose participation is valued — are not only religious questions. They are the defining questions of democratic life, and they will be answered, in part, by how many eligible Americans choose to engage with their elections and insist that their votes be counted fairly.
