Month: October 2004

Recently, I spoke to an audience of college kids. The subject was our president. For 20 minutes or so, I gave them my assessment of George W. Bush, that he is a spoiled rich kid who wasted his youth partying with his frat-boy buddies and then woke up one morning and decided to become president. I pointed out that his domestic policy has been disastrous and his foreign policy idiotic.



We came to the question-and- answer session. “So who are you voting for?” one of the students asked.

“Why, George Bush, of course.”

More here.



(link via The Corner)

Last week I attended a discussion at our church on “Christians and the Upcoming Election.” The featured speaker was Rev. Philip Krey, the president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary here in Philadelphia. The purpose of this gathering was not to decide on one candidate or the other, but to clarify the context in which Christians, specifically Lutheran Christians, understand politics and our role in the political process.

The discussion was good – it was civil, for the most part, and serious, substantive issues were discussed. The gist of Dr. Krey’s presentation was that a Lutheran understanding of politics is based on Luther’s doctrine of the “two kingdoms.” The idea being that politics is the sphere in which reason, prudence and compromise must hold sway rather than religious notions of right and wrong. This is similar two Augustine’s idea of the “two cities.” The essential functions of government are to defend from external attack, keep the internal peace, and protect the poor. (Luther would’ve agreed with G.K. Chesterton who quipped that the poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.)

The role of the church, with respect to politics, is to hold political leaders accountable when they go astray. Luther was not shy about criticizing the German princes when he thought they were misgoverning (most infamously in his exhortation to the princes to put down the peasants’ revolt). However, the church, per se, doesn’t wield the sword, i.e. hold political power.

Dr. Krey is clearly a Kerry man. He criticized the Bush administration (and “Christian fundamentalists”) for trying to blur the distinction between the two kingdoms. He said that this is part of a movement to jettison our Enlightenment heritage and return to the model of the Middle Ages where the church held sway over political authorities. He also emphasized what he saw as the “arrogance” of the current administration’s attitude to the rule of international norms.

The question that I put to Dr. Krey was how we can simultaneously hold that it’s dangerous for the President to be swayed by religious beliefs in making policy, and that the church should criticize political leaders (since this assumes that we think political leaders should listen to the church)? In other words, how is the church supposed to “speak truth to power” as they say, without transgressing the very boundary that the doctrine of the two kingdoms is supposed to uphold?

His response was to tell a story about Bishop Mark Hanson’s (the presiding bishop of the ELCA) visit to the White House during the run-up to the war. According to Dr. Krey, Bp. Hanson warned President Bush that a pre-emptive war in Iraq was likely to unleash chaos and result in much suffering. This was an example of church leaders seeking to hold politicians accountable.

But in this case, I asked, was the Bishop speaking as a religious leader or as an amateur geopolitical analyst? If the former, then it looks like we’re back to square one with religion seeking to influence the President’s decisions. If the latter, then the Bishop is speaking with no special authority, since he wouldn’t have been any better informed about the likely outcome of a war than other sources of information at the President’s disposal (though, of course, Bp. Hanson turned out to be largely right). What do Christians have to bring to the political table if they’re not speaking as Christians?

All of which indicates, to me at least, the inadequacy of the “two kingdoms” view as applied to our modern (or post-modern) situation. It may be that Luther could allow “reason” to hold sway in the realm of politics because he thought natural justice was largely identical with the revealed moral law. Attempts to paint Luther as a proto-liberal have to reckon, it seems to me, with the fact that nearly everyone in his political milieu was Christian and would have had similar views about the common good. In this situation, it makes sense to think of clergymen criticizing political rulers on the basis of a shared morality.

But one of the most salient differences between our time and Luther’s is that not only is their wide disagreement about particular religious claims, there is also wide disagreement about what the natural law requires in the way of political and social justice. For that matter, there is wide disagreement about whether there even is a natural law! Alasdair MacIntyre’s question seems appropriate: Whose justice and which rationality will guide our political decisions?

Modern liberalism (and, in this sense, many “conservatives” are liberals) rests on the notion that we can bracket or indefinitely defer questions about the good life and the ultimate nature and destiny of human beings as far as politics is concerned. Is this the same thing that Luther had in mind when he delegated authority over the political realm to reason?

Various bloggers have weighed in on the issue of voting.

One of the more thoughtful is Tom at Disputations who has done a series of posts from his Catholic perspective (there are lots of good posts from Oct 7th to today).

Also, Among the Ruins has several worthwhile posts (here, here and here). Link via Camassia.

Not to get monomaniacal on the subject, but, hey, what’s a blog for if not to indulge in what preoccupies me at the moment?

Items of interest from various sources (note: linking does not necessarily imply agreement!)

Georgie Anne Geyer: Four More Years of War?

If the United States is to have another four years of this kind of foreign policy, it will come to be considered an outlaw in the world, most of its historical standards and principles in tatters and its future unknown.

In a first John Kerry administration, on the other hand, there would, at least at first, be few miracles. His would be the hard business of extricating us from Iraq without leaving behind a shameful period of history. His would be the formidable job of building up American stature and values in the current absence of them in the world.

But at least we’d have a chance.

From Nina Shea at Freedom House: The Plight of Iraqi Christians

An estimated 800,000 ChaldoAssyrians remain in Iraq and constitute the country’s largest non-Muslim minority. They have found the last two months especially traumatic. On Tuesday, according to the Catholic press outlet, Fides, Islamic fanatics broke into a Chaldean Catholic home near Mosul and killed a ten-year-old boy while shouting, “We’ve come to exterminate you. This is the end for you Christians!” In prior weeks, ChaldoAssyrian workers were murdered for “collaborating” with the United States. Three others were kidnapped and beheaded. Christian girls were assaulted with acid for not wearing the veil. A Chaldean Catholic priest was forced at gunpoint in his church to convert to Islam. Christian homes were targeted by mortar attacks that killed and injured children sleeping in their beds.

Jeff Jacoby: “Cranky Libertarian Conservative”

Call me a cranky libertarian conservative, but just once I would like to hear a candidate for president answer a question by saying, “Sorry, the Constitution limits the role of the federal government — the issue you’re asking about is one for the states or the private sector, not Washington.”

And:

I do wish Kerry would explain sometime why it is OK for his faith to shape his stands on social welfare programs and the environment when he vows never to let his stands on abortion and embryonic stem cells be shaped by that same faith.

Christianity Today: The Vanishing Church in Turkey

Many Greek and Armenian Christians in Turkey suffer the double ignominy of religious and ethnic marginalization. Though the government is officially secular and many Turks are only nominally Muslim, conversion to Christianity is considered a betrayal of heritage and homeland. Persecution stemming from this perspective has stunted church growth and crippled the small Christian community.

Godspy: ADD and the Multi-Tasker

When I found myself constantly desiring to multi-task at the office, it startled me.

When I sat back and started watching myself, discovering that I had an urge to fill every moment of the day with two or more functions, it disgusted me.

Then during those days when I was watching myself, I discovered that I was scarcely able to read a book for more than five minutes without looking up and checking my e-mail or favorite websites and message boards, or without calling to my children to see how they are doing, or without doing something to break up my reading. A favorite pastime had stealthily become arduous.

It scared me.

My power of attention had suffered a serious blow and I didn’t even see it coming. Looking back, I know my multi-tasking obsession with my Internet connection caused it (or at least contributed mightily to it). McLuhan would knowingly chuckle to hear my story.

But I wasn’t chuckling. The crippling of my power of attention was frightening. In addition, I recalled Simone Weil’s observation that, “In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.” If multi-tasking cripples the power of attention, does it also cripple humility, the first of the virtues, and its close sibling, concern for the other?

Mark Gauvreau Judge on “Neutral Angels”

[P]erhaps the most tragic part of the Inferno is not any of the nine rings of hell, but the Vestibule that stands outside of hell’s entrance. It is here where the apathetic and undecided are. They are the humans and “neutral angels” who never took a side. Virgil tells Dante:

This wretched state of being

is the fate of those sad souls who lived a life

but lived it with no blame and with no praise.

They are mixed with that repulsive choir of angels

Neither faithful nor unfaithful to their God,

Who undecided stood but for themselves.

Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out,

But even Hell itself would not receive them,

for fear the damned might glory over them.

Dante translator Mark Musa observers, “In a sense they are the most loathsome sinners of all because in life they performed neither meritorious nor reprehensible acts… Appropriately, these souls are nameless, for their lack of any kinds of action had left them unworthy of mention.” None of these shades are identified, but there is speculation that one of them, a man whom Dante calls “the coward who made the great refusal,” is Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the king of irresolution; comparatively, Dante says the sinners going into hell are “eager.” They at least made a choice.

In my view, this pre-limbo limbo should be the fate of every journalist, politician, “undecided” voter and dinner table philosopher who complains that half the American population doesn’t vote because the politicians are all the same. We live in a country that is at war. It is also a country that allows partial-birth abortion, assault weapons and pornography. According to the National Geographic, the earth is frying due to the pollution we create, and it could destroy all life. If you can’t find a stance, a passionate stance, on one of those issues, check your pulse.

Here is a statement being circulated by Richard B. Hays of Duke Univeristy, George Hunsinger of Princeton, Glen Stassen of Fuller Theological Seminary and Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine. They accuse the Bush administration of embracing a “theology of war” that threatens to turn the nation into an idol:

Faithfully confessing Christ is the church’s task, and never more so than when its confession is co-opted by militarism and nationalism.

* A “theology of war” is emanating from the highest circles of American government.

* The language of “righteous empire” is employed with growing frequency.

* The roles of God, church, and nation are confused by talk of an American “mission” and “divine appointment” to “rid the world of evil.”

The security issues before our nation allow no easy solutions. No one has a monopoly on the truth. But a policy that rejects the wisdom of international consultation should not be baptized by religiosity. The danger today is political idolatry exacerbated by the politics of fear.

In response they offer a five-point declaration, “Confessing Christ in a World of Violence”:

1. Jesus Christ, as attested in Holy Scripture, knows no national boundaries. Those who confess his name are found throughout the earth. Our allegiance to Christ takes priority over national identity. Whenever Christianity compromises with empire, the gospel of Christ is discredited.

We reject the false teaching that any nation-state can ever be described with the words, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” These words, used in scripture, apply only to Christ. No political leader has the right to twist them in the service of war.

2. Christ commits Christians to a strong presumption against war. The wanton destructiveness of modern warfare strengthens this obligation. Standing in the shadow of the Cross, Christians have a responsibility to count the cost, speak out for the victims, and explore every alternative before a nation goes to war. We are committed to international cooperation rather than unilateral policies.

We reject the false teaching that a war on terrorism takes precedence over ethical and legal norms. Some things ought never be done — torture, the deliberate bombing of civilians, the use of indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction — regardless of the consequences.

3. Christ commands us to see not only the splinter in our adversary’s eye, but also the beam in our own. Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed that the distinction between good and evil does not run between one nation and another, or one group and another. It runs straight through every human heart.

We reject the false teaching that America is a “Christian nation,” representing only virtue, while its adversaries are nothing but vicious. We reject the belief that America has nothing to repent of, even as we reject that it represents most of the world’s evil. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

4. Christ shows us that enemy-love is the heart of the gospel. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8, 10). We are to show love to our enemies even as we believe God in Christ has shown love to us and the whole world. Enemy-love does not mean capitulating to hostile agendas or domination. It does mean refusing to demonize any human being created in God’s image.

We reject the false teaching that any human being can be defined as outside the law’s protection. We reject the demonization of perceived enemies, which only paves the way to abuse; and we reject the mistreatment of prisoners, regardless of supposed benefits to their captors.

5. Christ teaches us that humility is the virtue befitting forgiven sinners. It tempers all political disagreements, and it allows that our own political perceptions, in a complex world, may be wrong.

We reject the false teaching that those who are not for our nation politically are against it or that those who fundamentally question American policies must be with the “evil-doers.” Such crude distinctions, especially when used by Christians, are expressions of the Manichaean heresy, in which the world is divided into forces of absolute good and absolute evil.

The Lord Jesus Christ is either authoritative for Christians, or he is not. His Lordship cannot be set aside by any earthly power. His words may not be distorted for propagandistic purposes. No nation-state may usurp the place of God.

We believe that acknowledging these truths is indispensable for followers of Christ. We urge them to remember these principles in making their decisions as citizens. Peacemaking is central to our vocation in a troubled world where Christ is Lord.

I wish they’d specified a bit more what they mean by a “theology of war” and confusion of the roles of God, church and state. Certainly President Bush has used grandiloquent speech about the USA’s “mission,” but is this really outside the mainstream of American speechifying?

As for the declaration itself, most of the positive points are, I think, unexceptionable. What I’m less sure about are the “false teachings” they reject. Not that those teachings aren’t false, but that anyone actually teaches them. For instance, has anyone in the Bush administration referred to those who question U.S. policy as “evil-doers”? As far as I can recall, that has only been applied to the terrorists and their supporters. And they certainly are evil-doers, one would think. Also, has anyone in the government advocated torture, the intentional killing of civilians or indiscriminate use of weapons of mass destruction? (All things to be rejected, certainly.)

Still, a salutary reminder to Christians that our primary loyalty can never be to any earthly kingdom.

I didn’t watch the debate last night (I was engrossed in this instead), but I can’t help but notice that all the liberal sites are declaring Kerry the winner, while all the conservative sites say Bush cleaned his clock.

To wit:

“Kerry Closes the Deal” by William Saletan at Slate (tagline: “Kerry Crushes Bush”)

“Strike Three!” by Tim Grieve at Salon (“Bush gets that sinking feeling as a steady and presidential Kerry sweeps the series”)

“Winner Take All” by Ryan Lizza at the New Republic (“Kerry won the third debate the same way he won the first two: by foiling Bush’s attempts to label him.”) (subscription req’d)

“On All Cylinders” by Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard (“Bush does everything you want from a candidate in a debate”)

“Bush-Kerry III: Return of the King” by Jonathan Last also at the Weekly Standard

Jay Nordlinger at National Review: “That’s my boy. That’s my Bush. He a hoss — a debatin’ hoss. Last night, he was flat-out marvelous in debate. I said, following the second debate, that he had done well, but not his best. (Who does his best all the time? That’s why we call it ‘best.’) Last night, he did his best — and his best is superb. And I say this as an analyst, not a Bush partisan.”

You get the picture.

For what it’s worth, the polls seem to be showing a fairly decisive Kerry victory (see here for summary), whatever “victory” means in this context.

I missed this the first time I read this interview with Ralph Nader in the American Conservative, but it was pointed out by Bill Samuel at his “seamless garment” weblog:

PB: Let me move to the social issues. Would you have voted against or in favor of the ban on partial-birth abortion?

RN: I believe in choice. I don’t think government should tell women to have children or not to have children. I am also against feticide. If doctors think it is a fetus, that should be banned. It is a medical decision.

What does Ralph mean by “feticide”? A fetus is defined as an unborn human eight weeks after conception. Does this mean he thinks abortion after eight weeks should be banned?

Such scrupulousness in thinking about voting might reasonably be taken to be a sign of a mind with an unbalanced set of priorities. After all, you vote and you hope for the best outcome, right? Or the lesser of two evils. Your vote isn’t even going to make much of a difference anyway!

There’s certainly something to this. As far as public actions go, voting probably holds a fairly low position in terms of its importance in terms of the effect it has on the world around us. The way we treat our spouses or co-workers on a daily basis no doubt has a much greater impact both on ourselves and on the world around us.

I think this concern to avoid cooperating with evil may be a distinctly (or at least predominantly) Christian concern. Christians have always been suspicious of consequentialist ethics and have generally favored a more deontological approach. That is to say, rather than base our actions on the calculation of consequences, Christians have tended to advocate following the moral law and letting the consequences take care of themselves (or, more accurately, letting God take care of the consequences).

One consequence of consequentialism (if you’ll pardon the expression) is to call into question the distinction between acts of commission and acts of omission. In other words, if all we’re concerned about are consequences, or net utility, refraining from some action traditionally deemed evil might actually turn out to be blameworthy.

For example, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are usually justified on the grounds that they brought the war to an end, thus saving many lives and defeating Japanese imperialism. This is a clear-cut case of consequentialist reasoning. However, traditional just war theory is usually thought to forbid such actions because they involve the direct and intentional killing of civilians. So, depending on your ethical stance, the same action turns out to be either morally laudable (indeed, obligatory) or a heinous crime.

What is less frequently pointed out is that just war theory may depend on a robust sense of God’s providence. Notre Dame theologian Fr. Michael Baxter makes this point in the course of a discussion of Christian pacifism:

Most critics of pacifism contend that it is either unrealistic or irresponsible or both. But if one takes this strict understanding of just war theory, then it too can be criticized on similar grounds. Take, for example, the argument advanced by Finnis, Boyle, and Grisez in Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism…. They argue that deterrence strategy is immoral in that it entails a willingness to take innocent life, or if not, then it entails lying. But, the question arises, if we reject deterrence strategy, what are we supposed to do? Let the Soviet Union conquer the West? In the final chapter of the book, they provide an answer to such questions by offering some “concluding Christian thoughts” including a “profession of faith” in Jesus Christ whose life, death, and resurrection shows to humanity the path of righteousness and true freedom. This path requires Christians to pay many costs, and one of those costs in the context of the nuclear rivalry of the early 1980s is a sacrifice of the notion that the fate of Christianity depends on the future of the Christian West, which must not, they point out, be confused with the kingdom of God. Christians must, in other words, have faith in Divine Providence, which calls them to greater detachment from the Christian West. A similar emphasis on Divine Providence can be found in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor by Pope John Paul II, who argues that one should avoid evil no matter what the consequences, trusting that any and all consequences will be enveloped into God’s mysterious plan. This profound belief in Divine Providence is deeply rooted in Catholic tradition which holds that God is capable of bringing forth good from any kind of horrifying evil.

Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas likes to say that Christians have to get over the notion that it’s our job to make history come out right. That’s God’s job (and, in fact, the decisive victory has already been won in the cross of Christ). Our job is to be obedient to God’s command and leave the consequences up to him.

Of course, this flies in the face of our secular politics. Politicians do not generally (however much they may profess otherwise) take Providence into account when devising military strategy, say. To take God’s sovereignty over history seriously ends up looking like quite a radical stance. It means, at the very least, that we can never “do evil that good may result.”

I’m still not convinced that voting for President Bush or Senator Kerry counts as doing evil that good may come, but I think it’s definitely a position worth taking seriously.

Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli (a wonderful blog, by the way) read the same Crisis piece I linked to earlier and responds:

What is astounding in the excerpt above is its lack of recognition that refusal to vote is NOT inaction, it is action at its very highest. Refusal of moral compromise is the most important action we can take.

I won’t comment on the political state at the moment, nor on my own view of what should and should not be done. However, not voting is rather like refusal to move when blocking the doors of an abortion clilnic. You get yourself thrown in jail, reviled and hated by the media, branded a fanatic, and ultimately probably don’t change even a single mind that day–but that steadfast refusal is a witness to a societal evil so profound that even if you witness accomplishes nothing else it is a testament of the courage that accompanies refusal of moral compromise–it charges the world with a greater good.

On the other hand, “Fr. Jape” at the New Pantagruel has some less kind things to say about the non-voter:

More on the “not voting” malady among committed Christians: What does it portend when a luminary of Evangelicaldom, a former supporter of cultural and political “engagement” among defeatist, self-disenfranchising religious rightists, publicly declares his intention not to vote? The Christian Century reprinted Noll’s declaration of his disengagement, perhaps because the Century’s typical, liberal reader will find a sign of slow progress and hope for the future regarding the housetraining of the once uppity evangelicals. A supposedly “militant” pro-lifer who doesn’t vote against John Kerry obviously isn’t very militant and may in time gather the courage to come out of the closet and cease being a crypto-liberal.

Ouch!

As I quoted below Paul Griffiths says:

[I]n the case of voting (which is also a deal: I vote, as I hope you do, in response to what a candidate advocates and has done), there are also deal breakers, which is to say actions done or positions advocated sufficient to make voting for someone improper, no matter what other good policies that person may advocate and no matter what other good things he or she may have done. …

…You might object to this line of argument by saying that there are no deal breakers in politics, that we have to look at the whole picture and make prudential, calculative judgments about what will, on the whole, be best for the country. On good days, I find this line half persuasive. But it really won’t do: if the two candidates were Hitler and Stalin, would you feel that you had to vote for one of them?

The argument here is clear enough: there are some actions that a candidate has done or proposes to do which make it categorically immoral to vote for him. In the present election, the deal-breakers Griffiths identifies are Kerry’s support of unrestricted abortion on demand and Bush’s launching of a pre-emptive war on grounds that have turned out to be false.

Now, we can dispute whether those are accurate descriptions of the candidates’ positions or actions as well as whether they are bad, or as bad as Griffiths claims. But what I’m interested in at the moment is the concept of a “deal-breaker” itself. How do we decide what policies constitute deal-breakers?

Griffiths’ remark about Hitler and Stalin should not, I think, be taken to imply that Bush and Kerry are comparable to Hitler and Stalin (though there are some who might say so!). Rather his point is to show that there are at least some cases where the candidates’ stances are such clear-cut instances of evil that we intuitively think it would be wrong to vote for either one. Thus, in principle, the notion of a deal-breaker makes sense.

What isn’t so clear, though, is precisely which cases count as deal-breakers. How would we distinguish between those policies which suffice “to make voting for someone improper” and policies which are merely imprudent or ill-advised?