Month: December 2004

From Frederica Mathewes-Green (via Mere Comments – permalinks aren’t working; scroll down to “Young & Pro-Life: Get Used To It” ):

The other night a couple of dozen young professionals and college students, mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians, crowded into my house for dinner. We played a current events party game. We divided the group in two and assigned one side to favor, and the other to oppose, five controversial issues.

At the end of the discussion we went around the room and voted. One after another, these twenty- and thirty-somethings said that one issue was more important to them than any other. They were strongly opposed to abortion.

Abortion was the stealth factor in the recent election. It hadn’t been in the spotlight for a while. Many people may have thought it went away. Yet some polls show the pro-life position is quietly growing, especially among young people.

Perhaps opposition to abortion was underestimated because pro-choicers began to believe their own propaganda. Perhaps they assumed pro-lifers were poor and uneducated, knee-jerk opponents of women’s rights. They didn’t make room for people like me.

I was the first feminist in my dorm, thirty years ago. I fought for abortion rights. But then I came to see that abortion is wrong. I learned that in the most common method the unborn child is sucked into a tiny tube. Well, you can picture the results. Advocates of abortion rights may see it as a medical procedure. My stand against abortion is a stand against violence, and I voted for the only candidate who gets this.

Same with my friend who works at a big-city newspaper. He was very angry about the war, and for awhile swore he’d vote against Bush. But in the end the abortion issue, and related biotech fears, caused him to pull the Republican lever. Another friend, a college professor and life-long Democrat, says his party ought to stand for the weak, the poor, and the threatened. That includes unborn children. He crossed over to vote for Bush. …

In comments to this post asking to what extent pacifist Christians should participate in the functions of the state, Camassia directed me to Telford Work’s blog where he addresses this and other related issues. From the looks of things, Prof. Work was doing yeoman’s work (no pun intended) back in the summer of 2002 defending Christain pacifism in the face of some harsh criticism from various warbloggers.

Prof. Work adheres to what he calls “church pacifism,” which is the view that it is only Christians who, as part of their life of discipleship, are called to nonviolence. The state is instituted by God to use force in the service of justice (per Romans 13), but Christians, following the example of their Lord, may not participate in the use of force (per Romans 12 among other NT passages), even for just ends. This rules out, among other things, Christians holding offices that require them to use lethal force (soldier, executioner, probably police officer, etc.).

What I found most interesting about Prof. Work’s position is that he seems able to combine pacifism with a quite positive evaluation of the state’s job of using force in the pursuit of justice. For instance, he says:

Not only am I not “sorry we are not more accomodating of” Osama bin Laden, I am delighted that the United States is pursuing him militarily.

Prof. Work compares the role of Christians to that of medics or journalists; they are not “anti-war” per se, it’s just that they have a special vocation that precludes their participation in war. In the case of Christians, that vocation is witnessing to the new age that God has inagurated through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

It would seem then that for Prof. Work there is a division of labor between the church and the state; the state’s job is to enforce justice with the sword, and the church’s job is to incarnate the reign of Christ in a new kind of community.

Now, I may be reading too much into a few scattered blog comments, but this position seems to differ significantly from what I take to be the position of someone like John Howard Yoder. Yoder agrees that pacifism is primarily the vocation of the church, but he also seems to hold out the possibility that the church can convince the state to moderate its use of violence.

In fact, in at least some places, Yoder indicates that even under the strictures of Romans 13, war is still an illegitimate activity for the state as well as for the church. For instance in this (admittedly early) essay Yoder says:

Our general thesis is that the policing function of the state is to a certain degree legitimate, and that war is illegitimate, for the clear reason that the police function can fit the prescriptions of Romans 13 and I Timothy 2; it can distinguish the innocent from the guilty and can preserve a semblance of order, whereas war cannot. (Yoder, “The Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State,” p. 22-23)

This would seem to imply that in addition to refusing participation in war, Christians should also be actively “anti-war” in calling the state to abjure the use of lethal violence. Once war has begun or become inevitable, Yoder says that Christians should advocate the least violent means of prosecuting the war.

The difference (assuming it is a difference and that I haven’t misinterpreted anyone) seems to be that Prof. Work thinks that a Christian pacifist can approve of the state carrying out its (God-ordained) task of using violence in a just cause, even if she can’t wield the sword herself. Yoder, on the other hand, seems to think that Christians should speak out against every use of lethal violence, and that the state’s commission to wield the sword does not extend to killing in war.

So, I guess this leaves my initial question unresolved: Can Christian pacifists, while opting out of war themselves, ever support the state in its use of the sword? Much turns on how we interpret Romans 13: Is it a reference simply to the “police function” of keeping domestic order, or does it extend to war?

Ben Stein on the difference between celebrity and heroism (via the Pertinacious Papist)

American Christians’ Persecution Complex (via Morning Retort)

Marcus responds to my Pascal post.

Thomas Hibbs reviews Sideways (such a great film!)

(also see Noah Millman on Sideways here)

The Confessing Evangelical on evangelical “anti-Incarnationism” and the importance of Christmas.

One story making the rounds today is that philosopher Antony Flew has gone from being a renowned defender of atheism to embracing some kind of theism or deism.

While interesting, this shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a victory for Christianity. Even if we could “prove” the existence of some kind of limited deistic god, that’s a long way from the God of the Bible. I like to recall these words from Pascal:

I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all their light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that the proofs of our religion are very weak. And I see by reason and experience that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt.

It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a better knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on the contrary, that God is a hidden God, and that, since the corruption of nature, He has left men in a darkness from which they can escape only through Jesus Christ, without whom all communion with God is cut off. Nemo novit Patrem, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare.*

This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so many places that those who seek God find Him. It is not of that light, “like the noonday sun,” that this is said. We do not say that those who seek the noonday sun, or water in the sea, shall find them; and hence the evidence of God must not be of this nature. So it tells us elsewhere: Vere tu es Deus absconditus.**

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*Matt. 11:27 “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”

**Is. 45:15. “Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself.”

Max Sawicky responds to Peter Beinart’s “get tough” article:

Whether a closer Democratic adherence to a “muscular” foreign policy would win elections is an uninteresting question. More important is whether such a policy is commendable in its own right. Beinart envisions a reconstruction along the lines of the late 1940s Truman/ADA crusade against communism, with “Islamist totalitarianism” taking the place of the Reds. He cites Clinton’s toppling of Milosevic and the Afghan mission as precursors of his Trumanesque revival. He attributes Kerry’s primary victory and electoral defeat to the Senator’s ambivalence about Iraq. Kerry acted to placate the party’s liberal base and compromised his commitment (itself problematic, in light of his Senate record) as a liberal interventionist hawk. Bad politics and maybe bad (inconsistent) policy, but is an anti-war posture wrong on the merits? […]

Beinart wants to conflate opposition to dictatorship and terrorism with the projection of U.S. military force. If you are skeptical of the latter, you are inadequate on the former. If you are prone to recount the historic calamities wrought by the U.S. in the name of Wilsonian interventionism, you are in solidarity with anti-Americanism around the world. PB approvingly cites John F. Kennedy’s escalation of defense spending, glossing over his role in the debacle of the Bay of Pigs, and the disaster that became Vietnam. Similarly, there is no restraint occasioned by TNR’s own endorsement of the Iraqi venture. Never let empirical evidence restrain the enunciation of principles! As I have harped on here ad nauseum, the moral case for liberal interventionism does not imply the practical feasibility of any such project. The moral case borders on triviality: elsewhere in the world, people are doing awful things and somebody ought to stop them.

With the benefit of hindsight, how many U.S. military interventions could be said to have turned out well? I would say damn few. (Warning: Godwin’s Law is in force.) The same goes for foreign aid in ostensible support of Third World democracies. By my lights, democracy is not a common sight in under-developed countries. There are lots of voting systems, but to me democracy requires a great deal more than that.

David Sirota argues that Democrats can, and are, winning in “red-state” areas with an progressive economic message. A strong case against the conventional wisdom that Dems need to either become more hawkish or embrace conservative cultural issues.

I have no particular stake in seeing the Dems win more elections per se, except insofar as I would like to see a party that emphasized protecting the worker and the small-farmer and made protecting local communities and the environment a priority rather than swallowing hook, line and sinker the corporate-globalist new world order being touted at the highest levels of both parties. Sirota makes clear that, in many cases, this is not an issue of expanding the nanny-state so much as leveling the playing field between, e.g. small businesses and big box stores like Wal-Mart.

(via Godspy)

In a comment to this post Marcus wondered if John Paul meant to be promulgating a new understanding of the Atonement to replace the “traditional” satisfaction theory.

Though I don’t believe the Roman Catholic Church has ever definitively pronounced one Atonement theory to be the correct one (certainly nothing comparable to the dogmatic definitions of Christ’s two natures or the relations of the Persons of the Trinity), certain passages in the Catechism of the Catholic Church seem to indicate that the notion of “satisfaction” is still considered a crucial element in any adequate understanding of the Atonement.

For instance:

615 “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who “makes himself an offering for sin”, when “he bore the sin of many”, and who “shall make many to be accounted righteous”, for “he shall bear their iniquities”. Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.

and:

616 It is love “to the end”that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.” No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.

I suspect that what the Pope is doing in the passage I quoted is drawing attention to the light the Atonement sheds on the problem of human suffering, rather than offering a new theory. For instance, in his book Responsibility and Atonement, philosopher Richard Swinburne suggests that even if the good of the universe outweighs the evil, it would still be a very good thing for a loving God to enter into solidarity with his creatures by sharing their lot in life, including (especially) their sufferings and disappointments. This is a supererogatory act of divine love, not something God is obliged to do (since, by hypothesis, the good of the world outweighs the evil). It’s important to remember, though, that this is in addition to the atoning work acheived by Christ’s Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection.

I think it’s tempting for moderns to see the problem of evil and suffering as greater problems than that of human sin. We tend to think that God needs to justify himself to us, but that we, on the other hand, don’t need atonement for our sins. After all, we’re the victims here! There seem to have been a host of new theologies that understand Christ’s work primarily in terms of God entering into solidarity with our suffering (or perhaps just the suffering of certain oppressed groups). While this is certainly an important aspect of what Christians believe God accomplishes, I think we lose a big part of the picture if we leave out our need for forgiveness and atonement.

The passages from the Catechism quoted above affirm that it is precisely our disobedience that Christ undoes through his obedience. Christ’s sacrifice isn’t just his death, but his entire life as a continuous self-offering to the Father. This is the “true worship” that we fallen humans are unable to offer, which Christ offers on our behalf. Or, as Luther was fond of saying, there is a “happy exchange” whereby we take on Christ’s righteousness, and he takes on our sins.

Here’s how Reformed theologian B. A. Gerrish puts it:

Jesus’ offering to God was his life of perfect obedience, an obedience which remained firm in the face of death. Even the death of Christ derives its significance from being an act of obedience. In St. Bernard’s familiar adage, “Not his death, but his willing acceptance of death was pleasing to God.” It is remarkable how prominent is the idea of Jesus’ obedience alike in the New Testament and in the Reformers. He was “obedient unto death,” says Paul (Phil. 2: 8). And again: “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5: 19). Hebrews associates Christ’s obedience with his sacrifice, making use of the 40th Psalm (Heb. 10: 4-10). Again, in both the Reformers Christ’s gift to us, his part in the “happy exchange,” is always his obedience or righteousness. According to Luther, it was with his eternal righteousness that Christ endowed his bride (that is, the sinful soul). According to Calvin, Christ reconciles us to God “by the whole course of his obedience.” The purpose of the Incarnation was precisely that he might pay the debt of obedience; and even his death is significant only because it was a sacrifice offered willingly. The “victory” of Christ, we might add, was that he allowed nothing to turn him from his purpose to make this perfect offering to God. The crucial engagements in the conflict are represented in the Gospels by the temptation-story, the decision of Jesus to set his face stedfastly towards Jerusalem, the agony in the garden, and, finally, the cross. The victory of obedience was complete when he cried out “Father, forgive them” (the obedience of love) and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (the obedience of faith). And upon this victory the resurrection set the seal.

Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ’s Cross at the center of that history? Obviously, one response could be that God does not need to justify Himself to man. It is enough that He is omnipotent. From this perspective everything He does or allows must be accepted. This is the position of the biblical Job. But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and-to repeat once again-Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man’s lot and participates in his destiny. This brings to light another inadequacy, the completely false image of God which the Enlightenment accepted uncritically. With regard to the Gospel, this image certainly represented a step backward, not in the direction of a better knowledge of God and the world, but in the direction of misunderstanding them.

No, absolutely not! God is not someone who remains only outside of the world, content to be in Himself all-knowing and omnipotent. His wisdom and omnipotence are placed, by free choice, at the service of creation. If suffering is present in the history of humanity, one understands why His omnipotence was manifested in the omnipotence of humiliation on the Cross. The scandal of the Cross remains the key to the interpretation of the great mystery of suffering, which is so much a part of the history of mankind.

Even contemporary critics of Christianity are in agreement on this point. Even they see that the crucified Christ is proof of God’s solidarity with man in his suffering. God places Himself on the side of man.

He does so in a radical way:

He emptied himself

taking the form of a slave

coming in human likeness

and found human in appearance

he humbled himself

becoming obedient to death

even death on a cross (Phil 2:7-8)

Everything is contained in this statement. All individual and collective suffering caused by the forces of nature and unleashed by man’s free will-the wars, the gulags, and the holocausts: the Holocaust of the Jews but also, for example, the holocaust of the black slaves from Africa.

– Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope

That’s Marcus’ response to Peter Beinart’s attempt to revivify “muscular” liberalism for the 21st century.