Hugh Heclo > Quotes

“In fact if one simply considers the similarities between religion and government, it can seem quite odd that anyone would imagine the authority of the two should be anything but united. Religious and political regimes are both about governing people. Both lay down rules for doing so. Both regard these rules as expressing moral values, the way things ought and ought not to be. Both insist that these normative rules are authoritatively binding on people. Moreover, any religion is a comprehensive worldview which necessarily includes the political, social, and all the other dimensions of human life. From all this the conclusion would seem to necessarily follow: since God is Lord of all creation and since His truth is one, religious and political authority must be one. If they are not, social peace and godly order are impossible. Looked at strictly in these terms, the Taliban has a point.”
― Hugh Heclo, Christianity and American Democracy

“The deeper satisfactions we crave come from strong bonds of mutual attachment to other people and larger causes outside ourselves. Then the mirrors become windows and doors into a wider world of loyalties. In that world a sense of well-being and happiness finds us rather than our frantically chasing it down. It is a place where a person has a chance to find the simple satisfaction that comes from doing a job the way it is supposed to be done.”
― Hugh Heclo

“Institutions exist for people. People do not exist for institutions. Since institutions exist for people, they are to be judged along a moral continuum of good and bad according to what is needed for human beings to flourish as human beings. In order to deserve the designation of good, institutions ought to be doing what is good for us as human beings.”
― Hugh Heclo, On Thinking Institutionally