A Marvellous Speech on Faith in Public Life

This is quite simply one of the most impressive speeches I have ever read from a politician in modern times. It is logical, informed, fearless and literate.

Rick Santorum, former US Senator from Pennsylvania and currently Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently gave this speech on the place of religion in public life and politics in Houston, TX, where 50 years ago John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech to reassure voters that he would not allow the Vatican to determine US policies. As Santorum shows, Kennedy opened the door to secularization and compromise by a generation of Catholic politicians who have failed to bear a faithful witness in the public arena.

Here is how it begins:

Three pictures hung in the home of my devoutly Catholic immigrant grandparents when I was a boy and I remember them well -- Jesus, Pope Paul VI and John F. Kennedy. The president was a source of great pride and a symbol to Catholics that all barriers had finally been broken. What my family and maybe even candidate Kennedy at the time didn't realize was that in a key moment in that election of 1960 right here in Houston, Kennedy began the construction of another, even more threatening wall for our society -- one that sealed off informed moral wisdom into a realm of non rational beliefs that have no legitimate role in political discourse.

Fifty years ago this Sunday JFK delivered a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to dispel suspicions about the role the papacy might play in the government of this country under his administration. Let's make no mistake about it -- Kennedy was addressing a real issue at the time. Prejudice against Catholics threatened to cost him the election. But on that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith. Let me quote from the beginning of Kennedy's speech: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

The idea of strict or absolute separation of church and state is not and never was the American model. It was a model used in countries like France and until recently Turkey, but it found little support in America until it was introduced into the public discourse by Justice Hugo Black in the case of Everson v. The Board of Education in 1947. (Black, by the way, was a Catholic-hating former member of the KKK who ironically enough advocated this strict separation doctrine to keep public funds from Catholic schools.)

Read the rest here. If this man runs for president, the US would have to be crazy not to elect him.

Avery Dulles on Our Contemporary Political Options

Peter Kreeft, in his book about C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, quotes the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, who said that there are four basic political options. I like the way he charts this out because he includes both the Church and the State in the options in a very Augustinian manner.

"He calls the four options traditionalism, neo-conservatism, liberalism and radicalism. Traditionalism believes in the Church but not the State, i.e. not the present state of society. It is counter-cultural. Neo-conservatism believes in both the Church and the American State. Liberalism believes in Americanism but not in the Church, i.e. not traditional Christianity. And radicalism says, "A plague on both your houses.""

Very nicely put; I especially liked the forthright statement that our hope as a civilization is not in the State but in the Church. I think that message coheres very well with MacIntryre's After Virtue and with Augustine's City of God as adjusted to take into consideration the present situation.

Kreeft calls himself and Lewis Traditionalists and that is where I would put myself too. Where would you place yourself in this grid?

Political Theory Explained in Ten Minutes

This is a great video which explains political theory in about 10 minutes. It does make it sound as if only the American republican system works under the rule of law, even though the American system builds on the English system of parliamentary democracy and common law. But if you ignore that quirk and realize that what is said about America actually is true of the entire Anglo-Saxon political tradition dating back to the Middle Ages and embodied brilliantly in the American constitution, the main point is totally valid.

The old communist propaganda about Fascism being on the right side of the political spectrum is rightly demolished and the truth about the political spectrum is explained very simply and compellingly.

I can't get it to embed, but here is the link: http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/

Is the "Educated Class" Losing Its Grip on Power So Soon?

David Brooks is wringing his hands at the New York Times about how the country (the USA) is trending right and the great unwashed are just not listening to what he calls "the educated class."

No kidding. He actually uses that term "the educated class" to describe people like himself who write columns in the NYT and lawyers and doctors and stockbrokers etc. who attended university and vote Democrat and worship Obama, if they worship at all. Who does he think he is talking about? Does he really think the new knowledge class of late modernity is made up of real intellectuals?

Are you kidding me? Intellectuals in the European sense means people who read deeply in Plato and Augustine and the whole Western philosophical and literary tradition, people who actually write books, for heaven's sake. Vaclav Havel is an intellectual. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) is an intellectual. Jurgen Habermas is an intellectual. The guy who went to the University of Pennsylvania and took business and then did an MBA at Harvard and whose idea of reading consists of absorbing Dan Brown novels while the football game is on- that is not an intellectual.

David Brooks writes:

"The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity. The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.

The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party."

So if I have a Ph.D. from Canada's leading university, read 150 books a year, write books, teach Augustine and Dostoevsky to university students and have an IQ that is higher than most people I encounter in the run of the day, but I think abortion is murder and that the idea that a man can marry a man is inherently self-contradictory, then I am not a member of the "educated class?" And God help me if I question sacred cows like global warming or inclusive language. But some guy who attended Columbia and now watches TV every night and trades stocks all day long but has made his peace with all the dictates of political correctness - he is an intellectual? So Robert P. George and John Henry Newman are not of "the educated class" but Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are?

I'm having a bit of difficulty here. In the Brooks universe all the "educated class" apparently live on a coast and vote Democrat, while all the poor peons in fly-over country cling to their guns and religion and are Tea Party sympathizers. That may not be exactly what he said, but it sure sounds like what he implied. Poor Mr. Brooks; he wants to be a "conservative" but he is so worried that someone might identify him with the great unwashed. Why does he not just give up on the conservative idea and just adjust to the universe in which he lives?

But even if Mr. Brooks "educated class" were really intellectuals, which is a stretch as I've said, that still would not mean that their ideas should dominate politics. Thomas Sowell, who is a lot closer to being a true intellectual than David Brooks could ever hope to be, has just written a book on intellectuals, Intellectuals and Society. I have not read it yet, but it is definitely on the list. I did read an interview in which he was asked why he wrote it and how it differed from Paul Johnson's similar book entitled Intellectuals, he said that he agreed with much of what Johnson had to say but he planned to be harder on intellectuals than Johnson was! That was when I knew I had to read his book.

In a recent column in the Washington Times, Sowell writes:

"Those whose careers are built on the creation and dissemination of ideas - the intellectuals- have played a role in many societies out of all proportion to their numbers. Whether that role has, on net balance, made those around them better off or worse off is one of the key questions of our times.

The quick answer is that intellectuals have done both. But certainly, for the 20th century, it is hard to escape the conclusion that intellectuals have on net balance made the world a worse and more dangerous place. Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the 20th century was without his supporters, admirers or apologists among the leading intellectuals - not only within his own country, but in foreign democracies, where intellectuals were free to say whatever they wanted to.

. . . snip . . .

The ideas that Karl Marx created in the 19th century dominated the course of events over wide portions of the world in the 20th century. Whole generations suffered, and millions were killed, as a result of those ideas. This was not Marx's intention, nor the intentions of many supporters of Marxist ideas in countries around the world. But it is what happened.

Some of the most distinguished intellectuals in the Western world in the 1930s gave ringing praise to the Soviet Union, while millions of people there were literally starved to death and vast numbers of others were being shipped off to slave labor camps.

Many of those same distinguished intellectuals of the 1930s were urging their own countries to disarm while Hitler was rapidly arming Germany for wars of conquest that would have, among other things, put many of those intellectuals in concentration camps - slated for extermination - if he had succeeded.

The 1930s were by no means unique. In too many other eras - including our own today - intellectuals of unquestionable brilliance have advocated similarly childish and dangerous notions. How and why such patterns have existed among intellectuals is a challenging question, whose answer can determine the fate of millions of other people."

Sowell is right in saying that intellectuals, who trade in ideas rather than practical knowledge, are dangerous. That is not to say that they are not quite frequently right, eloquent, insightful and brilliant. It is to say that the practical work of governing a state requires character more than intelligence and virtue more than facility with theoretical ideas (assuming an average or above average level of intelligence as well).

It would be very comforting to people like David Brooks if the people who went to the same colleges as he did and spoke with the same accents and wore the same clothes could be counted on to be right about political and ethical issues. But it is a dangerous illusion. Being smart doesn't automatically make you good.

In fact, the primary characteristic that members of the "educated class" that Brooks is talking about share is a common indoctrination in a common set of worldview assumptions that train you in what jokes to laugh at and what images it is bad to be associated with. Contemporary university campuses contain a very high percentage of students who are being trained in narrow technical skills rather than reading the classics that form the essence of a truly liberal education. They could learn what they are learning in the classroom in a technical institute. Their real purpose in being in an elite university is to learn to navigate and conform to the code of political correctness that allows them to be simultaneously casually bohemian (about sex) and self-righteously moralistic (about the environment) and never ever feel any incongruity between the two ways of thinking.

Universities today are bubbles in which critical thinking is seldom required. Students at universities across Canada are banning or trying to ban politically incorrect groups from being registered clubs. Unequipped to be able to win arguments, they resort to fascist methods as naturally as a duck takes to water; this is the legacy of the kind of education they have received. They are the newest members of Brooks' "educated class."

William F. Buckley famously remarked that he would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard and his remark is so often repeated because it punctures a balloon that David Brooks can't seem to keep from re-inflating. The fact that such drivel gets published in the NYT goes a long way to explain why newspapers are in such a precipitous state of decline and likely won't survive much longer.

My Predictions for 2010

Politics and the Economy
1. The Conservative Party in the UK will fumble a glorious opportunity to win a large majority in the Spring election and one of the smaller parties (either UKIP or the BNP) will make astonishing gains thus changing the electoral landscape radically, possibly even to the extent of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.

2. The Conservative Party of Canada will win an historic majority in a Fall election.

3. The Republicans will either gain, or nearly gain, control of the House and gain at least 4-5 seats in the Senate during the 2010 mid-term elections, which will be a referendum on Obama's fiscal, health care, environmental and abortion policies.

4. By late 2010 there will be fierce debate over the introduction of a European-style Value Added Tax and drastic cuts to military spending in the United States in response to a spiraling deficit.

5. By the end of 2010 polls will show Sarah Palin leading Barack Obama and there will be talk of Hilary Clinton challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012.

Religion
6. The Emergent Church movement will gradually fade, though it will take longer than a year for it to be absorbed completely into liberal Protestantism.

7. The Church of England will begin to splinter in 2010 as the Anglican Communion divides into the section that remains in communion with The Episcopal Church and the section that does not.

8. Pope Benedict XVI will succeed in bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the rest of the Church. He will continue to be vilified by the liberal media and will continue to view that as a good sign that he is doing his job.

9. John Paul II's Theology of the Body will begin to be recognized by Evangelicals as the theoretical foundation of an alternative to the sexual revolution and will be increasingly embraced by conservative Christians of all stripes.

Culture
10. The debate over whether global warming is man-caused or part of the natural cycle of the planet's constantly changing environment will accelerate in 2010 and climate change alarmists will be increasingly placed on the defensive.

11. It will become widely recognized in 2010 that declining world population growth rates mean that a drop in population by mid-century could result in economic disaster.

12. There will be another major terrorist attack in the United States in 2010.

The Hypocrisy of Sojourners

A decade ago, Jim Wallis’ criticisms of the “Religious Right” seemed to me to have some merit. Here were some of his most telling points:

1. The Church qua Church should not be in politics. Evangelical churches that allow voter registration in services, that distribute voting report cards and allow Republican candidates to speak during the campaign risk allowing their primary mission of preaching the gospel to be compromised by their political involvement.

2. Conservative Evangelicals have sold their souls to the Republican Party and support it even when it is wrong for the sake of influence within the party. They thus have lost the ability or will to be prophetic and critical of the Republican Party. Not everything the Republican Party stands for is consistent with Christian morality.

3. The Religious Right is self-righteous and strident. It projects an attitude of “My way or the highway” and thus alienates sinners for whom Christ died who think the Church is not for them. People get tired of being hectored and lectured by self-righteous prigs.

4. The Religious Right does not bear a specific witness to Jesus Christ; it has embraced a bland form of civil religion that reflects the general culture rather than the Biblical gospel.

In my book Rethinking Christ and Culture, I took what I thought was a balanced approach to criticizing the failings of both the secular left and the secular right equally. And I tried to be critical of my own Evangelical tradition, as well as liberal Protestantism. I took some of the criticisms of the Religious Right from Wallis and others to heart and let them shape my thinking about faith and culture.

Now I’m sorry I did. Now I’m sorry that I let Wallis and co. make me feel guilty for being a conservative. I feel embarrassed that I fell for the line that Evangelicals are all wrong and that we should apologize for taking a stand for conservative beliefs and morals. I feel that Jim Wallis has let me down. In fact, I feel like I’ve been played for a fool.

He never was interested in developing a distinctly Christian position and most of those who hammered the Religious Right have now simply revealed their true colors as the Religious Left. I’m embarrassed because I should have seen it coming. What has happened to Sojourners over the past two decades is simply a repeat of history. Nineteenth century Evangelical Protestantism was invaded and distorted by theological liberalism imported from Germany and European socialism took the form of the Social Gospel movement that emptied churches, muted the preaching of the true Gospel and led to the dying hulks that dot the ecclesiastical landscape today called liberal Protestant denominations.

The latest e-mail blast from Sojourners contains further evidence, as if any more were needed, of the fact that the Religious Left has now become a perfect mirror image of what it once criticized in the Religious Right. Take the list above and apply it to the contemporary Religious Left. Change the names from Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Charles Colson to Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren. Then go through the list; they have imitated everything about the Religious Right that they once criticized.

1. Every e-mail urges congregations to distribute “how to vote” materials in their churches and when Barack Obama and other candidates for office speak in churches while on the campaign trail, Sojourners cheers them on and says “See, he is a Christian so you can vote for him.”

2. Wallis, Campolo and McLaren have totally sold out to the Democratic Party. You never hear a peep of criticism of either Obama or the Democrats without it being framed with an excuse. Every problem is the fault of “America” or “Conservatives” but the problem is never with Obama or the Democrats. Wallis and co. are deeper into the Democratic Party and more partisan than Robertson and co. ever were. I used to admire Wallis for being one of the few left-wingers to take a pro-life stand; but his uncompromising support for Obama shows how important abortion is to him today. Sojourners can't even stand up for marriage anymore lest their liberal supporters be outraged.

3. If you thought the Religious Right types could be moralistic scolds, just try listening to Wallis tell you what “God’s Politics” is! He knows and will enlighten the rest of us. The latest article by McLaren “An Open Letter on Health Care to Conservative Christians in the US” is a condescending, ad hominem attack on conservative Christians that does not debate the issues; it just directs conservatives to liberal websites where they are supposed to find enlightenment. But the idea that conservatives are interested in being made to feel guilty for holding to orthodoxy and traditional morality and for resisting the encroachments of an out-of-control federal government is just wishful thinking on his part. There is no reason for Evangelicals to listen to him anymore.

4. As for point four, just note that in the magazine and in his writings Wallis hardly mentions Christianity any more. It is always “people of faith.” Jesus is often mentioned, usually along with Ghandi. It doesn’t get much blander than this. The moral position from which Wallis operates is not specifically Christian, yet he tries to twist the Bible and the teachings of Jesus into supporting it. His overall worldview, however, owes more to the French Revolution and Jeremy Bentham than to the Bible or Jesus.

Sojourners has convinced me of one thing, however, and that is that you can’t live in this world without taking sides. It may be morally gratifying to take a position above the fray and to look down on all the poor benighted souls who are wrong in some way while you hover in the air never getting involved or taking sides. But it is not responsible or morally right. There really is a battle going on in this world between the Church and the forces of modernity and neutrality is not possible. Sojourners made its choice years ago and now conservative Christianity is its sworn enemy. I’ve made my choice too, but I’ve come down on the other side.

Evangelism, Politics and the Mission of the Church

In the last post, I expressed my discomfort with N. T. Wright's book, which (somewhat intemperately) attacks the traditional Christian preoccupation with heaven and recommends a focus on social justice based on the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This theology fits hand in glove with contemporary Evangelical tendencies to put more emphasis on social justice work than Evangelicals have previously done.

Sometimes trends with labels like "missional" or "emergent" seem to stand for practical outcomes and theology that is not very different from the old-fashioned social gospel movement. This is especially true for Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, though not for Lesslie Newbigin or John Stott. (Stott's Christian Mission in the Modern World is still well-worth reading and is superior to much of the more recent writing on the same subject. And Lesslie Newbigin's work needs to be read in toto and not simply reduced to a few slogans.)

I want to stress that I do not regard this as an "either/or." I'm not saying that there is no place for Christian concern for poverty, the environment or abortion. I'm talking about balance and clearly liberal Protestantism has completely lost its balance and has lost classcial orthodoxy in the bargain. How can we avoid having the same thing happen to us as Evangelicals? What makes us think it is impossible? How do we make sure the biblical gospel, which pertains to eternity, is not submerged below the cries for social justice in the here and now?

I think we should make three key distinctions.

I. Evangelism versus Social Improvement - We should be capable of distinguishing between the work of preaching the gospel to individuals and calling them to personal, saving faith in Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and the work of improving society whether through social service, social action or politics, as a witness to our faith.

This distinction should be kept in mind when deciding what action a Church qua Church should take with regard to social improvement. Social service is the direct meeting of the needs of individuals (food banks, relief work etc.) and is the primary work of the Church. Social action is the attempt to address the problems that create injustice through lobbying and public statements. This is not really the work of the Church qua Church and more appropriate for social justice organizations created and supported by Christians. Politics is direct involvement in democratic partisan activity with the goal of changing the law so as to facilitate either social service, social action or both. The Church and clergy should stay out of politics and Christians should participate as individuals in existing parties or through Christian parties.

The rule should be that the primary goal of the Church and the clergy is to preach the gospel and convert people. Some social service activity is certainly consistent with this mission, as long as it does not become central, but social action is questionable and politics is beyond the pale. (In extreme situations, social action may be necessary and appropriate. But it cannot become the focus of the institutional Church if the focus on evangelism is to be maintained.) The Church must keep evangelism and missionary work central. If people are genuinely converted, however, they will become involved in social improvement, but this will primarily be the work of the laity.

II. Moral Issue versus Political Issues - When the Church, as Church speaks out on politically charged issues it must not do so in a partisan manner. The best way to ensure that this does not happen is to limit the voice of the institutional Church itself to the morality of the issue and to leave aside the partisan political aspects. The Church must speak to actions which are good or evil and not to debatable methods of achieving desirable social outcomes. For example, abortion is an intrinsic evil and the Church must condemn it. On the other hand, the best way to address global warming is debatable and complex. The principle of stewardly responsibility for the environment can be proclaimed by the Church, but the best legislation dealing with carbon emmissions is beyond pastoral competence.

This will be difficult because even if the Church's pastors get it exactly right, those whose interests are harmed by the the moral stand of the Church will inevitably accuse the Church of partisan interference. But confronted with the demands of morality, it is the responsibility of those on the wrong side of the issue to change their stand and not the responsibility of the Church to pretend that it can change basic morality.

III. The Presence of the Kingdom Now versus the Presence of the Kingdom in the Future - When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we pray for the kingdom to come and this is an admission that there is a crucial sense in which the kingdom is not here already. Christians generally agree on the blessed hope of Christ's glorious return and the full manifestation of the Kingdom in the New Heavens and New Earth.

Yet, since the kingdom was present in the King and since we are the body of Christ, the kingdom already came in the past in one sense and is now present on earth in another sense. This raises a huge question: How is the Church related to the Kingdom? The short answer is, I think, as a witness to the kingdom. But what is the nature of that witness? Here we find Christians divided in their answers.

1. Christ's Presence in the Sacraments: This is the view of the Roman Catholic Church. The kingdom is present in the sacraments, especially the sacrifice of the mass where the real presence of Christ may be found. The Lutheran view, insofar as it tries to be Catholic but is inhibited by Luther's nominalism, may be regarded as a defective version of the Roman Catholic View.

2. Christ's Presence in the Word of God: This is the Reformed view. The kingdom comes in the reading, preaching and hearing of the Word of God, which bears testimony to Jesus Christ and makes him present. The authoritative voice of Christ is present in the proclamation of the Gospel. The exposition of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures is constitutive both of the kingdom of God and of the true Church as well.

3. Christ's Presence in the Relationships Between Christians Within the Church: This is the Anabaptist view. It views the kingdom as visible in the sanctified lives of believers living in relationship to one another. If not disciplined by the Reformed view, it can easily slip into the Liberal Protestant view.

4. Christ's Presence in the Renewed Society Resulting From Social Improvement: This is the Liberal Protestant view. It views the kingdom as being present wherever one seek social justice, relief of poverty, peace etc. This may occur either in the Church itself or in the general society surrounding the Church. This is why the Church is called by those holding this view to discern where God is working and go there. The kingdom, in this view, is often reduced simply to secular ideals of peace and justice.

It seems to me that the fourth view is deficient and to be rejected. The third is dangerous insofar as it tends toward either perfectionism, on the one hand, or toward the fourth view, on the other. The debate is between the first two, especially between the Roman Catholic and Reformed views. Here the challenge is for the two sides to see that they have more in common with each other than with the other views because both see Christ present in a real and saving way in the Church.

Summary:

1. Evangelicals should take care to make preaching the gospel of personal faith in Christ central in their churches and to keep our focus on heaven and hell and the eternal destiny of every human being.

2. Evangelicals should understand social improvement as the work of the laity, a natural witness to the gospel by those who have been converted. The Church should equip its members for the work of influencing society for good, but the primary goal of pastors is not social improvement.

3. Evangelicals should be wary of any theology that pits the Synoptics against John and Paul or Jesus against Paul or which makes the coming of Christ's kingdom a human accomplishment in history. The Christian hope must not be reduced to secular, modern, liberal notions of progress or human perfectibility. It is much greater than that and the mission of the Church is to preach Jesus Christ and His Eternal Kingdom.

I'll Stop Going on About Marriage If You Shut Up About the Poor

The way Christians are wavering these days about the benefits of upholding marriage as our commonly-held social ideal is just unbelievable. All the social science confirms common sense and tradition; children do best when they live with their natural parents all the while they are growing up - by any important measure you care to mention. Divorce, promiscuity, living together without being married, homosexuality - they all harm children by disrupting the ideal. And what is good for children is good for society as a whole, whether we are talking about physical health, mental health, productivity, happiness, or whatever. Every member of society is a child before he or she is an adult and what kind of childhood we have is crucial to what kind of adult we become.

The sexual revolution is a total failure. Elevating the convenience of adults over their duties as parents does not even make adults happier, let alone children. The rest of the world thinks the West is insane. We are not the speartip of progress; we are the barbarians. We have regressed to the state of Greco-Roman society prior to the civilizing influence of Christianity. There is no real future for the West as presently constituted.

Increasingly, we hear calls from Christians for the state to "get out of the marriage business" so that homosexual couples can be treated the same as heterosexual ones. Why? Because Christians lack courage. We don't like it when people yell at us and call us names. That is the sum total of the reason. Everything else is excuses. Excuses include the arguments from "equality" and "fairness" and "secularism." We should not, we are told, impose our faith. I don't for one minute believe this is a seriously held position. No one believes this who has thought about it for more than five seconds. Liberals who claim to agree with the secularists that secular, Western societies should not embody the morals of one religion (Christianity over atheism) are just full of it. I don't believe it and neither do they. And I can prove it.

Liberal Christians go on and on and on about "the poor" and "our responsibility" to help the poor. We all need to get involved in working for "peaceandjustice." But why? Really, why? If I'm an atheist who has read Nietzsche and I ask the question why, what is the Liberal answer? If I don't believe the poor are created in God's image, why not just let nature take its course? If they die, the human carbon footprint will be reduced and that is good for the environment. If informed by Jim Wallis in breathless tones that over a billion people live on less than $2 per day, I could simply suggest that if they all were left to starve it would solve a whole bunch of problems at once. Why do I have a "responsibility" to them? Who says? A bunch of professional peaceandjustice protesters? Why should I care what they think? I'm an atheist, remember? Why should they get to impose their liberal Christianity on me? The West is secular, remember? They are just all deluded with their sentimental humanism and they should shut up and stop putting guilt trips on all those of us who don't share their narrow and mystical religious ideas.

I don't see the difference between atheists telling us that marriage is a social construction that has outlived its usefullness and atheists telling us that sentimental humanism is a social contstruction that has outlived its usefullness. How are they different? One is as religious as the other.

If Christians let the atheist Nazis shut them up on marriage, then they should, to be consistent, also shut up about poverty. After all, many kinds of humanistic ideas regarding loving neighbours and respecting human life are rooted in Christianity. So if secularism is really such a great idea, let's run with it and see what happens.

After a few decades, a lot of people just might get a bit nostalgic for that old-fashioned Christian concern for love, fidelity, self-sacrifice and compassion.

UPDATE:
The Poverty Issue Solved!

Halden Doerge thinks he has solved the marriage debate. http://inhabitatiodei.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/the-gay-marriage-issue-solved/

He suggests that the government get out of the marriage business and issue identical licences for civil partnerships to homosexual and heterosexual couples. Then religious people can go to their church or synagogue or whatever to get a religious marriage as well. Problem solved. Privatize marriage! A classic liberal solution from someone who claims not to be a liberal.

So let's test the logic with regard to poverty. I suggest that the government get out of the poverty business. A lot of people disagree with the government raising their taxes and doling them out to the poor. (I don't, but that is beside the point, I'm just one person.) A welfare state imposes certain religious beliefs on those who don't share them. Why should Nietzscheans be discriminated against? Is this just a matter of the majority imposing its morality - just because it can? (How ironic, the triumph of the will over the Nietzscheans!)

So we privatize poverty reduction. People pay low taxes to the government and those who are religious or who have some sort of unscientific, unprovable, mystical belief in sentimental humanism can then channel charity for the poor through their religious or social aid agency. Problem solved! Everyone is happy. Nietzschean Atheists no longer have to be second class citizens.

So the question is, can liberals accept the same solution for poverty as for marriage? Or are they inconsistent? Do they think that some things, in order to be effective, have to be done by society as a whole rather than by isolated individuals here and there? Well, if this is their argument, I agree, but I'm consistent enough to agree on both poverty and marriage.

The American Election: Silver Linings

The election of a hard-edged, liberal ideologue who stands firmly against the culture of life as the leader of a country in Europe is now so common as to be expected, but for it to happen in the United States of America is a shocking event. More pro-abortion even than Bill Clinton or any other Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama is by no means a centrist politican as defined by American politics. But does this mean that the center has shifted left in the US, as it has over the past 40 years in Canada? Was this election "transformational?" Should the pro-euthanasia activists, the re-definition of marriage activists and those advocating such things as cloning humans for spare parts all now stand shoulder to shoulder shouting "Yes we can"?

It has taken me four days to write this post because I wanted to put the election of Obama in the perspective of the election results as a whole. There is a lot of silver in the linings of this election, more in fact than one would expect after the American people had elected a man who stands for legalized private killing after a campaign in which the mainstream media actively campaigned for him to the point of comparing him to Lincoln.

There is no doubt that, in principle, it is a wonderful thing that the first African-American president has been elected. But the real story is that it is not that astonishing that a black man can be elected president. I really don't know how someone can be all that surprised. It speaks well of America that his policies, his abilities and his timing were all more important than his race - and it must be admitted that his race was actually a greater asset than liability in many quarters of America. And I'm not just talking about black America, but about white, liberal America where the eagerness to vote for a black president was extremely high. (I actually heard comments from white voters who were so excited to be able to vote for a black candidate that they were going to do so even though they disagreed with his policies!)

So what can we take from this election as positives for those who are neither Republicans or Democrats, but who are concerned to build a culture of life?

1. Obama Only Managed 52% of the Popular Vote:
In this election we had a Republican president with a 31% approval rating who had led the country into an unpopular war, run up a gigantic deficit, attacked civil liberties and squandered much of the good will in the world in which America has basked after 9/11. The big question the mainstream media will never ask, but which begs to be asked is "Why was the margin of victory so narrow?"

The answer is that the US was and remains a conservative-leaning (center-right) country. The abortion issue dragged Obama down and prevented a run-away win. McCain was nominated as a centrist Republican with a reputation for being a mavrick because the Republicans were trying to distance themselves from George Bush. Therefore, he did not excite the social conservatives within the Republican coalition and it took the choice of Sarah Palin to convince many social conservatives to vote this time. That decision, which was out of character for McCain, demonstrated that the Republican Party ignores the social conservatives at its peril because they represent a large part of the voting public. If McCain had chose Lieberman it likely would have been a blow-out for Obama.

2. Voters in California, Florida and Arizona Reject Same-sex "Marriage:"
Secondly, it is heartening that 30 states now have now enshrined the traditional definition of marriage in their constitutions. Activist federal judges be warned: America will not tolerate a repeat of the abortion scenario where 9 unelected citizens impose their morality (or lack thereof) on the nation.

The vote in California against same sex "marriage" happened despite the Obama landslide. In one of the most liberal states in the union in an election in which a Democrat opposing Proposition 8 is overwhelmingly elected, Proposition 8 should have been toast. Obama himself ran 13% higher than the campaign to support same sex "marriage," which strongly suggests that he was not elected with a moral revisionist mandate.

3. The Democrats Fall Short of the Super-Majority in the Senate:
This was close. If the Democrats (or the pro-abortionists of both parties) had gained 60 seats in the Senate, then the filibuster could have been over-ridden at a signal from Biden and Ried. But it looks right now that the Democrats have fallen just short of this threshold. This means the Republicans have at least one weapon to use to provide an effective opposition.

This development has huge implications for two crucial matters. First, it may mean that the Freedom of Choice Act will not be able to be passed. Or at the least, it may have to be watered down. This will be a major fight during the next 12 months. Second, it may put a little tiny brake on Obama's nominees for the Supreme Court. The good news is that the four anti-Roe votes on the court will likely survive the next four years, just as Ginsberg and Stevens have hung on to the end of the Bush years. Obama will only (we pray) have the opportunity to replace two liberal judges and no conservative ones. And without the Senate super-majority there will actually be a fight. Obama's nominees likely will be as far the left as Robert Bork was to the right and if the outcome is only that a slightly less liberal judge is appointed, that will be good for the country.

4. Obama did not win the Evangelical or Church-Going Catholic Vote:
Obama, for all that he had going for him, did not win the vote among those who actually practice Chrisitanity. He won among nominal Catholics and liberal Protestants, which is to be expected since he stands for what many of them believe in. But he did not win among those who read the Bible, attend worship, pray and try to live a Christian life. Over 70% of white Evangelicals, for example, voted for McCain even though many required a clothespin on their noses in order to do it. As one British newspaper opined recently, Obama is the first secular president.

It would have simplified things if two elections could have been held: one in which everyone could vote for or against George Bush and then another in which everyone could vote on who should lead the country in the future. Many people did not vote for Obama but against Bush. Many Catholics and Evangelicals were as unhappy as the rest of the country with Bush's out of control spending, tax cuts for the rich and his ruinous war. But they couldn't see how electing the most liberal member of the senate was going to fix those problems. And the life and marriage issues were just too fundamental to ignore.

If the Democratic Party had moved to the center on moral issues by upholding traditional marriage and advocating strict limits on abortion, it could have won a thundrous majority. But my sense is that it would rather maintain its extreme left ideology and win 52% of the vote - enough to give it power but not enough to limit its ideology.

5. The Republican Party is Now Out of Power:
This in itself is a very good thing. The party is the only available vehicle for the pro-life and pro-family social conservative coalition to utilize at this stage of American politics and it is badly in need of being overhauled. Opposition is where it needs to be at this moment because it needs to rethink conservatism.

Conservatism does not mean invading countries on wild adventures like Napoleon spreading the ideals of liberty, equality and faternity at the point of a sword. The neo-cons hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton and Wolfowitz should walk the plank. They are most responsible for the loss of power and they should be pariahs in the forseeable future.

Conservatism does not mean out of control pork-barrel spending while doling out tax cuts to those who don't need them. I know that many conservatives believe in cutting taxes in order to prevent overall government spending on entitlements to rise forever. But to use this as an excuse not to balance the budget is just reprehensible.

Conservatism does not mean extreme libertarianism. There is no future for the Republican Party if it repudiates its social conservative base in order to pander to a kind of libertarianism that joins forces with the cultural left on moral issues. Instead, Republicans need to give attention to how to strengthen families, appeal to the working class and be a balance to extreme, coastal, left-wing elites.

Being out of power is a good time to rethink these things.

6. Conservative Democrats May Constitute the Real Opposition to Obama:
One last silver lining is that many of the Democrats elected to the House in particular in 2006 and 2008 are well to the right of Obama. They won in parts of the countries that would never vote for the kind of liberal Obama is and yet they are Democrats. We will see how many of them will feel a need to oppose the most extreme aspects of the leftist social agenda that Obama and his inner circle will undoubtedly try to advance over the first two years of his mandate. (The first sign of how radical and determined Obama agenda will be is his choice for chief of staff.) These conservative Democrats in the House and Senate will need to keep an eye on their re-election prospects and they may prove to be something less than automatic votes for the Democratic leadership.

UPDATE: I have just learned that, in fact, 31 pro-life Democrats were elected to the House this time, 5 new ones and 26 re-elected. It was only the second time in 30 years that the number of pro-life Democrats in the House increased. This confirms my suspicion that if the Democratic Party wants to increase its majority it needs to come to terms with the reality that most of America is pro-life. And it confirms the suspicion that the most effective future opposition to the Democratic Party leadership may be the grassroots of the party itself. Such a development is probably a necessary step in the long-term fight against legalized private killing.

Conclusion:
As usual in politics it is never as good or as bad as it seems. We pray now for the health and strength of the church in the United States, which is a more important factor than any parties, politicans or platforms. It is the church that constitutes a bulwark against social disintegration into hedonism, individualism and materialism. As weak and imperfect as it is, nevertheless it is the church that is the real vehicle for God's work in history. As the church goes, so goes the country.

An Ugly Attack on Any Religious People is an Attack on All of Us

If you want to be shocked, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28UwAyzUkE

This is an ad produced by the so-called agents of "tolerance" and "liberalism" who are bent on getting their way on same-sex marriage in California. I am not a Morman and I do not consider Morman theology to be Christian. But I have the same reaction to this sickening and vicious attack on religious freedom as I would have had if had been Jews or Catholics or Muslims or anyone else being attacked for daring to speak out in a democratic way.

Mormans are Americans and they have the right to participate in the Democratic process just like anyone else. For someone to suggest, as this ad does, that for Mormans to vote and campaign for Proposition 8 in a thoroughly democratic manner means that the Morman Church is taking over the government is tantamount to saying that Mormans should shut up and stay out of politics because atheists, liberals, secularists and their liberal Protestant fellow-travellers disagree with them.

At what point is the tired old "theocratic" scare tactic just going to get so stale no pays attention to it anymore? Maybe it is time to work up a campaign for the separation of atheism and state. How about an ammendment to the constitition for that?

No religious minority should be attacked this way. No group that actually believed in tolerance, religious freedom and democracy would attack them like this. The mask slips and the true face hiding behind "tolerance" appears for a second.

It will be interesting to see who speaks up for the Mormans now. Tomorrow it may be Orthodox Jews or Roman Catholics. Who will speak for them? Remember, the religious liberty you protect may be your own. Those who attack religious liberty deserve to lose the election - every time.

A Prayer for the American Election Tomorrow

As a Canadian, whatever happens in the United States has a huge impact on me and those I love. The dominance of the US media in Canada is powerful. When the US economy sneezes, the Canadian economy catches cold. Laws made in the US often decisively affect the making of Canadian laws. And on it goes. Yet I have no vote in the US elections.

Today for the first time in my life I wish I was an American citizen so I could vote against Barrack Obama and for John McCain. I pray that my fellow Evangelicals will not be led astray by the dishonest and illogical campaign that has been waged by Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren in support of the most liberal, most pro-abortion, most anti-marriage candidate for president in the history of the United States.

In many ways, the US stands alone now as the last bastion of Christian influence in Western culture. Europe is on its back. Canada, since the 1960's, has chosen public policies that emulate Europe rather than the US so that the moral fiber of our country has weakened to the point of collapse. The US is far from perfect; I could list its flaws. But the fact that up to half of its citizens are church-going, practicing Christians has meant that secularism has not completely succeeded in taking over all of the cultural institutions. The media, the universities and the military-industrial complex are all but lost to Christian influence. But the heartland of the country still contains large pockets of middle-class, church-going people who run for office, teach school, practice law, become judges, start businesses, raise families and generally create a conservative brake on the secularism, hedonism, individualism and disrespect for human life that fuels the culture of death. And the Evangelical churches are flouishing and growing even as the liberal Protestant churches are shrinking rapidly and descending into self-parody and perversion. In another encouraging sign, the Roman Catholic bishops have found their voice and are speaking out in this election season in support of the Church's moral teaching and the common good of the culture.

We should imagine the Church in the US as engaged in what Galadriel, in the The Lord of the Rings, calls "the long defeat" that she and others have fought down through the ages. If there is no dramatic, supernatural intervention in the form of a great revival of Christian faith in the 21st century, the West will surely fall. It does not matter if the external enemy is Communism or Islam or something else; no external enemy could possibly destroy the West by its own power. Like the Roman Empire, the modern West can only be destroyed by decadence on the inside. The core beliefs about God, human nature and morality have rotted away and no civilization can endure once its core beliefs have rotted. The culture of life created by the influence of the Gospel on Western institutions and thought has gradually been replaced by the culture of death.

The two sins against hope (according to the Baltimore Catechism) are presumption and despair. The proper response to the presumption that has led the West into utiopian schemes for perfecting human nature and society, which will be the occasion of our fall, is not to lose heart and despair. Anything could yet happen. We are not Deists. We believe that the God of Scripture can and does raise up and cast down nations. God's providence is often inscrutable, but His sovereignty is unchallengeable. The West will only fall if that is His will and if it does, then like Abraham Lincoln, we will consider the ways of the Almighty to be just and his judgments righteous altogether.

Many Evangelicals are thinking about not voting in this election. Disgusted by Bush's unjust war, (and rightly so), and unimpressed by the Democratic Party's morphing into the "party of death" they propose to succumb to apathy and say" "A plague on both your houses." But voting is not done for the benefit of one political party or the other. It is done for the sake of the country as a whole. To allow oneself to be reduced to inaction by the drumbeat that tries to discredit all conservatism by virtue of wrong decisions by someone who is not even running in this election is to allow oneself to fall into despair. And despair is a sin against hope.

A Prayer for Election Day in the US 2008
O Lord, who rules and reigns on high, by whose powerful Word the heavens and the earth were brought into being and who preserves and oversees this creation at every moment of every day. We bless your holy Name and we praise You for Your mighty works.

Look down today with compassion on Your people in the United States of America, who look to You for courage, help and comfort. May they experience a welling of up hope within them; may they be preserved from the temptation to despair. Use their willingness to work for the common good and their humble regard for Your laws to benefit the entire nation, including those who scorn Your Word and ignore Your will. Help your people to stand for righteousness with humility, determination and grace. As the democratic process moves on, may all of Your people be found to have been responsible, faithful and obedient to the moral law in the discharge of their duties as citizens.

Lord, send revival to your Church. We ask for revival over all the nations of the Western world, particularly in places where the Church was once strong and vibrant but now is cold and weak. We ask that you would forgive us our many sins and grant to us a spirit of repentance and openness to your chastisement so that the revival might begin with us.

We confess that we do not control history; nor do we rule over this earth. We know our Advasary the Devil overstates his claim to rule, yet his power is not inconsiderable. You alone are God. You alone rule over all. Help us to believe more strongly in what we already know.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.

The Choice Before America

In the inscrutible providence of God, it appears that the ill timing of the economic meltdown and all the accompanying fear and anger among the electorate means that John McCain is likely to lose this election. Whenever the economy goes south, the incumbent party suffers the wrath of the electorate and it appears that the American public has decided that it will vote against the Republicans. Obama and the Democrats will be the beneficiaries. This is hard to understand, unless it is Divne Judgment, that is, God letting us have what we have desired.

Obama is well to the left of the American center. But he will take an election win as a mandate to end the abortion debate (by signing the Freedom of Choice Act), help impose same-sex marriage and open the euthanasia debate. Ironically, he will likely be fairly conservative on economic issues - given the constraints placed on a president (and congress) by an economic recession. If the recession is prolonged and deep, he may also be a one term president.

This video summarizes how different the two candidates are on the sanctity of life issue. Yes, the economy is important - but nothing is more important than protecting the innocent who are too helpless to defend themselves.

The momentum for euthanasia is gaining ground quickly in Britain and across Europe. By the end of an Obama presidency, killing the elderly who do not measure up to a certain calculus of heath and age (and level of insurance coverage) will likely be widespread in both Canada and the US. He will almost certainly appoint two pro-abortion Supreme Court judges. With the "settling" of the abortion issue in the last Western country where it is still in question, euthanasia will surge ahead as the West enters the next phase of the culture of death. We as a culture are becoming more and more callous and casual about taking the lives of the young, the weak, the handicapped the elderly and the depressed and we are not reproducing ourselves as the family continues to decline. By any objective measure, we are a very sick society.

Watch it and pray for a miracle.
http://americaschoicenow.com/

The Rise of Liberalism as a Return to Pre-Christian Paganism in the West

I have been reading Pierre Manent, in his An Intellectual History of Liberalism (Princeton U. Press, 1995) with my Christianity and Culture class. Manent's book provides a fascinating and lucid discussion of evolution of European political thought from the Enlightenment to the 19th century and it clarifies how politics has become religion in modernity.

First, Manent argues that the origin of political liberalism in Europe was in an attempted solution to a "theologico-political" problem. What is this problem? Since the Church is concerned with an other-worldly good (salvation), its interest in not in this world. But, on the other hand, the Church's mission is to bring all people to salvation and so it cannot help but be concerned with everything that places salvation in peril. Since everything in human society could be considered as affecting salvation, including politics, the Church was led to claim supreme power in society - even over rulers. Manent writes:

"The remarkable contradiction embedded in the Catholic Church's doctrine can be summarized in this way: although the Church leaves men free to organize themselves within the temporal sphere as they see fit, it simultaneously tends to impose a theocracy on them. It brings a religious constraint of a previously unheard of scope, and at the same time offers the emancipation of secular life. Unlike Judaism and Islam, the Church does not provide a law that is supposed to govern concretely all of men's actions in the earthly city." (p. 5)

The rise of liberal states from the 17th century on was an attempt to push the influence of the Church back and create secular space by using the power of the State.

Second, he notes that the growing power of the state in the name of a negative concept of freedom tends toward individualism. He writes:

"Freedom is less doing what I want than being able not to do what you want me to do. It is doing what I want so long as I do not constrain you." (p. 62)

But this individual freedom is achieved through representation and the idea of representation leads to the strengthening of the state at the expense of civil society (including the family and the church).

"All legitimate power is concentrated at the summit, in the political institution, in the state which alone represents members of society. The modern idea of representation leads naturally to a continuous increase of the state's power over society, because it continuously erodes the intrasocial powers that ensure the independence and solidarity of this society. This is the paradox of representation: reprentative power tends necessarily to dominate the civil society that it claims to represent. In the sense, those who deplore society's growing dependence on the state are right." (p. 63)

Once unleashed, the growing power of the state in the name of "individual freedom" is difficult to restrain and the tendency is toward a "soft totalitarianism."

Third, he notes the seminal influence of Thomas Hobbes and J. J. Rousseau on this process of the gradual monopolization of power by the "benevolent state."

"I have pointed out that Rousseau's principal modern interlocutor was Hobbes. . . They have one fundamental point in common: all the political misfortunes of European peoples come from Christianity, more precisely from the constitution of a Christian religious power distinct from and in rivalry with the political power: 'This double power,' says Rousseau, 'has resulted in a perpetual conflict of jurisdiction that has made any good polity impossible in Christian states.' He continues: 'Of all Christian authors, the philosopher Hobbes is the only one who correctly saw the evil and the remedy, who dared to propose the reunification of the two heads of the eagle, and the complete return to political unity, without which no state or government will ever be well constituted." (p. 68)

Fourth, he notes that the influence of the French Revolution on the evolution of European liberalism was to make liberalism itself into a secular religion:

"the first part of the nineteenth century was in fact extraordinarily 'religious.' I do not mean to say that the French docilely reintegrated the Church into society, which did not happen; nevertheless, they began to interpret political and social events in religious terms, such that their political considerations became inseparable from the religious ones. . . since what is at stake here is not the soul's salvation but the understanding of society, these authors religion to fit the century, and made Christianity a 'secular religion.'" (82)

The entire drift of political thought from Hobbes to the rise of Marxism is toward ending the uniquely Western doctrine of the Two Swords, i. e. the doctrine that the political ruler and the ecclesial ruler both have a legitimate claim to obedience in Western Christendom. Prior to the Fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Western Europe, every society was unitary with the political, military and religious concentrated in the Emperor. Even the Byzantine empire united the religious and political authorities in the person of the Emperor. But in the West, the concept of the secular emerged for the first time in human history. There can be no denying that that it was not neat and tidy; many battles raged back and forth between the Church and political leaders. But in the tug and pull emerged little patches of the secular - space for dissent and the possibility of religious liberty.

The tendency of modern political thought is away from the dual power toward the unification of all political and religious power in the State. The religious power of the State is there in Hobbes at the very beginning of the tradition, but it took time for the privatization of religion (read Christianity) to work. Only after the French Revolution did the State begin to take on a religious hue and tone and this intensifies in the modern, technological and beaurocratic State in the 20th century. Christianity must make way for Leviathan - the great idol, which claims soveriegnty in the name of the "people" in such a way that even God must stand back and be dazzled by its power and might!

The Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians and Romans would have understood modern liberal political theory: its stress on the unity of political, military and religious power in one set of hands would be perfectly comprehensible. Why? Because they were pagan and so is modern liberalism.

How Should Christians Be Involved in Politics?

In the last three posts I have argued:
1. The Church qua Church should not be involved in politics.
2. The Church qua Church has an evangelical responsibility to be involved in moral issues.

Now, I want to go on to discuss the role of individual Christians in the political process. I want to make a distinction between the role of the Church itself and the clergy and other leaders as its official representatives, on the one hand, and the individual Christian church member on the other. The individual church member is trying to work out his salvation with fear and trembling and is called by God to a variety of vocations and for some their vocation will be politics. All Christians, in modern liberal democracies, are citizens with certain rights and responsibilites. So how should Christians be involved in politics as citizens and, for some, as politicans?

The Problem
In the current situation, many Evangelicals are confused by the choice between the two political parties, neither of which seems to offer a consistently Christian platform. What to do? I have been arguing that part of our problem is that we fail to distinguish between moral issues, on which the Church can speak clearly and which require no debate, and political strategies, on which the Church should not speak and which require much debate and may even be impossible to resolve. My point is that we should be guided primarily by moral issues, rather than political strategies. Now, this leads to the problem posed by Sam in the comments thread of the last post that it seens that one party is better than the other on abortion but both have serious shortcomings. So should we just refrain from voting? Some, especially in the Anabaptist camp, are urging this approach this election year. How should we respond?

Stepping Back From the Immediate
Part of our problem is that many of us (most?) are somewhat naive about how politics works and we only get interested in the process once every few years when there is a media blitz of publicity concerning a presidential race or something comparable. So our participation is sporadic. In this situation, I think it is not surprising that we would be tempted not to vote and as we all know, voting rates in most western countries are falling overall. If we expect to be able to ignore the whole democratic process between elections and then be presented with black and white options in which choice is easy - then we are bound to be disappointed most of the time.

Let us assume a hypothetical situation in which we have a two-party system (as in the US) and both parties advocate positions incompatible with Christian moral positions. Let us say that one party advocates an unjust war and the other abortion. (Does this sound familiar?) Now, does that mean that individual Christians can just do whatever they want, i.e. vote for either or vote for neither? I think not.

First of all, Evangelicals should be involved in politics in multiple ways. The possibilities are local, state and national levels, working within one of the parties, running for office for one of the parties, running as an independent, working for a political action committee, working for a public policy advocacy group, working in a social justice ministry that educates the Church as part of its ministry, etc. I suggest that the long-term goal of Christians should be to be a swing vote that is educated on Christian moral issues and helps to bring those issues to the public consciousness.

Second, Evangelicals should try to form a Christian caucus in each party that tries to influence party policy with Christian morality from within. For example, I doubt that we will ever see abortion made illegal until the Democratic Party is at least divided on the issue. Even if one party is completely sold on making it illegal, the degree of determination with which the other party opposes it will be crucial. This may mean that some Christians are called to work within the Democratic party structures knowing that the Christian vote will not go their way until there is serious change to the party policy on abortion. I can thus imagine a Tony Campolo working within the Democratic party to try to moderate its position on abortion but not asking Evangelicals to vote Democratic until there is change. My problem with him at the moment is that he wants Evangelicals to vote Democratic when there has been no movement on abortion at all and that is highly problematic from a conscience perspective. This is compromise with evil, rather than transforming culture.

Third, Evangelicals should work outside the traditional partisan structures to make a compelling case for Christian moral positions in ways that do not depend on revelation and Scripture alone. This work can be done by appealing to the stated convictions of the non-Christians in power and showing how their own rhetoric of human rights and freedom should lead them to support Christian moral positions.

Fourth, some Evangelicals should run for office in order to be a witness to Christ in the government. Evangelicals who do so must be guided by the moral teachings of the Christian Church and not deny those teachings in order to get ahead politically. The John F. Kennedy strategy of promising to refuse to be governed by the teaching of his Church is not acceptable. After all, do we ask Secularists not to be governed by their highest philosophical ideals and committments? This may severely limit their acceptability to the major parties and, if so, the time may come when Christians run as independents. But at the moment, it is possible for Christians to run for the Republicans and maybe for the Democratic party as well. We should not give up on the Democratic party as far as trying to change it is concerned; all I have argued is that we must not allow ourselves to be changed by it.

Specific Problems With the Religious Right
1. It was led to an unacceptable degree by pastors as its public spokesmen. This, more than anything, created the "theocracy scare." It also placed the Church in politics up to its neck and thus undermined the Church's moral credibility.
2. It over-identified with the Republican Party to the extent that it seemed that the Christians vote has no where else to go and therefore could be taken for granted. If Evangelicals want to sit out this election in order to make the point that the Republicans need the Evangelical and Catholic vote and had better not take it for granted (say by appointing another disaster like Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court for example) then that is a reasonable position to take as a one-off strategy. I would not say that there is a moral obligation to vote Republican necessarily.
3. It could not keep specific moral issues (marriage, abortion, assisted suicide) separate from general neoconservative ideology (especially US exceptionalism and empire building and unregulated capitalism as the ideal). This also brings shame and reproach on the Church.

The Religious Right would have been much more effective (and still could be) if if was lay-led, organized outside a party and more focussed on certain issues and not neoconservatism in general. (A caution: Coalition building will always be necessary and should not automatically be identified with compromise.)

Specific Problems with the Religious Left
1. It is also too often led by clergy (who often stand to the left of their congregations) and this tends to identify the Church with as left-wing ideology. This is a similar problems as on the right.
2. It is over-identified with socialism and big government as the answer to all problems.
3. It promotes a secular solution for the problems of the world and thereby renders itself irrelevant except as a cheering section for government action.
4. By endorsing the economic left, it also tends toward approving the cultural left, which brings it into conflict with many Christian moral teachings. So far (in the past 100 years) Christians who endorse the economic left have not been able to do so without endorsing the cultural left, which raises the question of whether or not this is even possible.

Last Point
I think that the way the Catholics approach politics has a lot to teach us as Evangelicals. The role of the bishops, the substance of Catholic social doctrine, and the way Catholics function as a swing vote all are models to us, I think. I will explore this point in future posts.

Should the Church Get Involved in Morality?

It seems to me that the flip side of the Church staying out of politics is the Church concentrating on its evangelical mission of preaching the gospel, converting sinners and building up God's flock. Integral to this mission is maintaining a clear witness to right and wrong, distinguishing between good and evil and calling the faithful (and all people of good will) to do the right and avoid evil.

Jim Wallis wants us to "vote out poverty." If only it were that easy. What he actually proposes is that the Church get involved in what could be termed "outcome-based politics." He holds up the Enlightenment ideals of democracy and equality as the outcomes we seek and then suggests that we work for those outcomes through all partisan political means possible. Morality must take a back seat to the more important goal of eradicating poverty. So we are told to support the Democratic Party even though it advocates clear moral evil in the form of legalized private killing. We must become morally complicit in moral evil for the sake of a greater good. This is utilitarianism and it contradicts Christian morality at the most fundamental level. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae: "the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral." (#57) As Brend Wannenwetsch, points out, it is the teaching of another of the pope's encyclicals, Veritas Splendour, that provides the background for this teaching. (See B. Wannenwetsch, "'Intrinsically Evil Acts'; or, Why Abortion and Ethanasia Cannot Be Justified" in Ecumenical Ventures in Ethics: Protestants Engage Pope John Paul II's Moral Encyclicals, ed. R. Hutter and T. Dieter, Eerdmans, 1998). In Veritas Splendour, Pope John Paul II made it clear that there is such a thing as an "intrinsically evil act."

In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan tries to get Alyosha to answer the question of whether he would agree that it is acceptable to torture one little five-year old girl and inure yourself to her tears if that were the only way to "build the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last." Would you agree, demands Ivan? "No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly. (Book II, Chapter 4 "Rebellion") Alyosha says that he would rather leave millions of people in misery than torture one innocent little girl. He is right, but not by any kind of utilitarian calculation. From a utilitarian point of view he is selfish and moralistic. But from a Christian perspective he is correct to fear God, refuse to commit an evil act that will imperil his soul and leave the results to God.

Now I know that Jim Wallis proclaims that Obama would reduce abortions and probably he really believes this in his heart of hearts. But Obama steadfastly declares that mothers have the "right" to kill their children and that he will defend this right legislatively. (I hear that a pro-life, pro-Obama website is about to be launched. As one wit said: Can the McCain for Pacifism website be far behind?) How can we take seriously those who say they want to reduce abortions when they vote for politicans whose policies ensure that abortion on demand will remain legal?

We who argue that Evangelicals and Catholics cannot support Obama are accused of being single issue fanatics who don't look at the big picture. But what bigger picture is there than the fundamental right to life? It seems to me that we are being invited to enter into the murky world of partisan politics and engage in compromises and trade-offs in order to achieve our ideological goals. This is exactly what the Church must not do. We don't have an opinion on every issue because not every issue is a moral issue and even when it is a moral issue it is not always clear cut. The Church has a right to say to its members and to society as a whole that to vote for abortion is to imperil one's soul. This is the subject that the Church is the expert on and this is the kind of issue on which the Church must speak. Morality, unlike partisan politics, is the Church's business.

Should the Church Get Involved in Politics? More Thoughts

I'm not sure I made myself as clear as I might have done in the previous post so I want to try again. The Church, qua Church, should steer clear of politics because it has more important things to do. The policy of the Roman Catholic Church not to allow priests to run for political office seems to be to draw an important line in the sand that should never be erased. Politics is the realm of ideologies and partisan strife; it is always morally ambiguous and never a vehicle of salvation. I fear that this truth has been obscured today.

Why should the Church not involve herself in politics? We often hear today strident condemnations of the Church for failing to do exactly that. We are told that every social institution must be on one side or the other; no neutrality is possible. We are either "for" the poor and oppressed or we are "for" the oppressors. Let me give three historical examples of what I am talking about.

1. The 19th and early 20th century Social Gospel. Basically, the Church was told that as Church she must choose sides in the class warfare between socialism and capitalism. The Church, in her preaching, Christian education, worship and ethical instruction, was told to place herself in the service of the struggle for socialism. This was the only way to be "relevant" and to "responsible" given the world historical (read: eschatological) struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

2. In the 1960's European Marxist thought imported to Latin America launched a struggle for "liberation" in the name of the poor, indigeonous peoples of Latin America. Liberation theology said much the same thing as the Social Gospel in a largely Roman Catholic context. To embrace a fundamental option for the poor once again meant taking sides in the ideological struggle to replace capitalism with socialism.

3. In recent years, the Sojourners organization evolved from an alternative community to a left-wing social justice lobby group that seeks to elect Democratic candidates and influence legislation according to the dictates of both econmic and cultural left. Evangelicals who feel guilty about suporting George Bush and his unjust and unwise war are urged to make ammends by electing the morst extreme left-wing ideologue ever to run for president in the US.

What do all three of these movements have in common? Let me make a list.

1. All of them urge Christians to support a particular secular ideology that arises out of the Enlightenment instead of applying specifically Christian doctrine to the social question.

2. All of them propose a comprehensive program for improving the world instead of addressing specific issues one at a time, thus flirting with the dangers of utopianism.

3. All of them require compromise with evil in order to achieve the "greater good." Each asks Christians to support coercion and violence as a way of implementing social justice.

4. All of them put a great deal of faith in government as the means by which justice and peace can come about in this world.

5. None of them require their secular allies to give up any of their cherished sins in order to be part of the movement, which is to say that none are evanglistic in nature. Rather than trying to convert non-Christians, the goal is simply to get them to adopt left-wing policies and ideology and nothing more. Nothing in the programs of these groups requires faith in Chirst to believe. A vague secular humanism is adequate. In this way the Church becomes little more than a faint echo of what the world is already saying to itself.

Notice, finally, that when an argument is made like the one I am making, the response is usually to castigate the person making the argument to stay out of politics and remain focussed on morality as "intolerant" and wanting to impose his views on everyone. In other words, it is reasonable to impose socialism on everyone, but not the Ten Commandments. This is, at best, highly selective tolerance and is actually driven by ideology.

Should the Church Get Involved in Politics?

One way to understand the difference between Catholic Social Doctrine and Protestant social ethics is to see the Catholic teaching as moral teaching, rather than political involvement and to see Protestant social ethics as blurring the line between Christian morality and politics. What do I mean by this distinction?

Catholic Social Doctrine is focussed first and foremost on what human persons need to know and do in order to be saved. It is the teaching of pastors to the faithful on the implications of the Gospel for their lives as disciples of Christ. It is not about strategies and trade-offs necessary to effect change in this world. It is not primarily about power politics, parties, coalitions, programs, and electability, although it may affect all these things indirectly. When the Church concentrates on what is morally right and wrong, it inevitably bumps into the political realities of the world around it. That cannot be helped. But when the focus shifts from morality to the effective implementation of programs, something vital is lost - something evangelical is lost.

When the Catholic bishops clarify that abortion is always an intrinsically evil act and that to vote for a politican because he is for legalized abortion, when an alternative exists, is always formal cooperation in moral evil - that may well rule out voting for the Democratic Party in this election. But the main concern of the bishops is not which party wins or which program is put into action. The main concern of the bishops as pastors is to safeguard the souls of their flock and to teach the truth about the taking of human life that arises out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and which can be discerned by reason as natural law. The main concern is moral even though the implications are also political.

Protestants on both the right and the left seem to have lost the ability to make this distinction. For example, when neoconservatives like Colson and Robertson defend the indefensible in the form of the second Iraq War, they display a committment to Republican party unity and conservative ideology that is political and, of greater concern, trumps morality in the form of the just war teaching. To defend an unjust war on utilitarian grounds is unworthy of Christian theologians. And when Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo collaborate in advancing the pro-legalized abortion agenda in the name of Democratic party unity and liberal ideology, they need to be corrected for a moral lapse. Liberal Protestantism, in particular, seems prone to enshrine liberal political ideology on a level of equality with classic Christian orthodoxy. (Well, to be honest, it actually doesn't hold classic orthodoxy that high!).

There is a very large distinction to be made between matters of prudential judgment and the direct evil of breaking God's commandments. For example, it is debatable whether the State should allow no-fault divorce and Christian politicans might well find themselves on either side of a debate over a specific bill relating to divorce. But it is always evil to commit adultery in every situation and there is no debate to be had between Christians on this matter. It is debatable whether a given war is justifiable, but abortion is always wrong. (And, to be fair to the Christian Right, the Iraq War is not as clear cut an issue as abortion by a long shot, except for pacifists and most Evangelicals are not pacifists.)

Perhaps the Church, in the form of the teaching of her pastors, would do well to be much more discrete about making political pronouncements, and save her moral credibility for moral issues that are more clearly matters of faith and more clearly grounded in the Bible and Tradition.

The Democratic Party and Catholic Social Doctrine

Catholics like Doug Kmiec, Chris Korzen and Alexis Kelley, as well as Evangelicals like Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren have claimed that, even though the Democratic Party is on the wrong side of the abortion issue, it deserves support because its platform as a whole better reflects Catholic social doctrine as a whole. I dispute the premise in this argument. I think Kmiec and the others are wrong about the Democratic Party being much closer to Catholic social thought than the Republicans in general for several reasons.

1. First, the right to life is fundamental to all the other rights. You can’t be in favor of children having a right to an education or health care if the children are killed before birth. In order for health care and educational rights to mean anything, there has to be respect for the right to life and a society not committed to the basic right to life is not going to respect other rights for very long.

2. Second, the Republican Party has more respect for the principle of subsidiarity than the Democratic Party and subsidiarity is a major pillar of Catholic social teaching. Subsidiarity is the principle that decision-making authority should be at the lowest possible level that it can be without being ineffective. So power in society should be dispersed to local communities, workers and families rather than being concentrated in beaurocracies or central government. The Democratic Party answer to everything is big government and centralized power.

3. Third, the Democratic Party advocates the use of state power to re-define marriage and the family rather than recognizing the family as an institution that historically and logically precedes the state and is not subject to the state. In other words, both human rights and family rights exist independently of the state’s say so. The state overreaches and becomes tyrannical when it tries to place itself above the family. Tyranny is not consistent with Catholic social doctrine.

4. Fourth, the Democratic Party does not stand against the culture of death in the areas of infanticide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc. Speaker after speaker at the recent Democratic National Convention railed against the refusal of George Bush to allow scientists to create, experiment on and destroy human beings at the early stages of life. Aside from embryonic stem cell research, on which they are against Catholic social teaching, the Democratic party platform does not even address these issues. This is incredible in light of the fact that assisted suicide is already legal in Oregon and on the ballot in Washington. At best, they are indifferent. It is not just abortion, but a range of sanctity of life issues.

5. Fifth, the Democratic Party does not have a coherent philosophy for the protection and support of handicapped people and thier families. They support eugenic abortion in which handicapped babies are killed just because they are handicapped, which sends a chilling message about how much Democrats value handicapped people.

6. Sixth, Kmeic presumes that increasing the size and scope of the welfare state through high taxation and high entitlement programs supports the family, rather than undermining it. This is at least highly debatable – unlike the moral clarity that exists on the taking of innocent life for the convenience of the more powerful. There are some areas in which the Democratic Party is better like labour issues and health care. But I must stress that these are, unlike issues surrounding marriage and the sanctity of life, matters of prudential judgment on which honest people will disagree. They are not of the same order at all; this is what the bishops have been saying and they are exactly right.

So it is not just abortion that is involved here; it is a range of issues relating to the culture of death plus other principles that make the Democratic Party unfriendly to Catholic Social Doctrine. The Democratic Party used to be a big tent party that included Catholics and many working-class Evangelicals within it until it was taken over by the 1960's radicals. Now the cultural left dominates the party and it is impossible to be economically left without swalllowing the whole cultural left agenda. Will this ever change?

I think there is one scenario under which it might change. If the Democrats lose election after election until they come to the realization that they cannot win without the social conservative vote, then and only then will they change their party platform and limit the power of the cultural left. Then the Democratic Party will become a big tent again and many Evangelicals and Catholics will find it congenial.

But clearly this has not happened yet; the so-called "outreach" to Evangelicals and Catholics this year is all style and no substance. The thought was that they would not really need the Evangelical and Catholic vote, since the Republicans were so unpopular. The attempt to moderate the party platform on abortion failed miserably and Obama has not made abortion reduction a priority in the campaign. The only hope is that Evangelicals and Catholics will be so mad at Bush that they will vote Democratic to punish their own party. But that would only slow down the process of forcing the Democratic Party to extricate itself from its culture war extremism and open up to the center. So it makes no sense for Evangelicals and Catholics to vote Democrat this year if the long term goal is to change the Democratic Party.

Update:
Here is an excellent short article by George Marlin expanding what I have said here in this post:
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=576&Itemid=2