Month: October 2005

I once heard or read a story that Stanley Hauerwas, at a panel on the ethics of scientific research using aborted fetuses, asked a proponent of the research, “If it turned out that fetuses were a delicacy, would it be okay to eat them?” Obviously a kind of reductio ad absurdum, right?

Well, the problem with reductio ad absurdum arguments is that, sooner or later, you’ll find someone willing to embrace the absurdum.

To wit:

Britons desperate to halt the ageing process are being injected with the stem cells of aborted foetuses at a clinic that charges £15,000 for a controversial new cosmetic treatment. Despite warnings from biologists in the UK that the process is unproven and could be harmful, dozens of British women have flown to Barbados in the hope that the injections will make them forever young – and possibly even boost their sex drive.

(Link via The American Scene)

Brendan O’Neill skewers what he says is a new breed of rock stars who suck up to politicians, avoid drink and drugs, and generally have evacuated rock music of any trace of rebelliousness:

When Noel Gallagher of Oasis visited Downing Street in July 1997 to congratulate the incumbent New Labour regime on its stunning victory, it was the end of Britpop as we knew it. The sight of this Mancunian rocker — the bad boy of Britpop, who together with his brother Liam had injected some much-needed laddish abandon into a music scene dominated by skinny art students and millionaires’ daughters — taking tea with Tony and nibbling canapés with Cherie …well, it was too much for some to take. A friend of mine even threw out his Oasis CDs in disgust (though he bought them all again a couple of weeks later). What kind of working-class hero is it, we wondered, who takes part in an official orgy of brown-nosing for a Prime Minister as unhip and illiberal as Blair?

Now, however, I am almost willing to forgive Gallagher. For today’s stars of British indie rock have committed a treason far graver than his. Never mind chatting to Blair over champers; this new generation of Britpoppers is made in Blair’s image — they look like Blair, sound like Blair and think Blair is ‘BRILLIANT’. And they espouse every mealy-mouthed prejudice of the Blairite age, taking a safety-first, shrink-wrapped approach to life, love and politics that would have been anathema to the punks and grunts of yesteryear. From Coldplay to Keane, James Blunt to Franz Ferdinand (the band, that is, not the assassinated Austrian archduke), the independent music scene is dominated by the most insufferable, middle-class, non-smoking, anti-drugs, safe-sex-observing bunch of Blairite bores and arse-kissers you could ever have the misfortune to clap eyes on. We’ve gone from Britpop to Blairpop. The kids, I’m afraid, are not all right.

I’m re-reading William Placher’s The Domestication of Transcendence. His argument, in a nutshell, is that, starting in about the 17th century, thinking about God moved sharply away from an emphasis on mystery and the inadequacy of all human language and concepts when applied to God (as he finds in St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin) and toward an obsession with formulating clear and distinct ideas about God and making God part (even if the most important part) of a metaphysical scheme or system.

In chapter 6, “The Domestication of Grace,” Placher discusses how post-Reformation groups like the Pietists, Jansenists, and Puritans recoiled from the Reformers’ radical doctrine of grace and fixated upon discerning the signs of grace in themselves and in others. This led, almost inevitabley, to the idea that the successful and respectable members of society must be among the elect, and the poor and disreputable must be among the reprobate.

In the Pietists this took the form of endless introspection in order to determine whether one had been justified or not, as well as an almost obsessive avoidance of anything that might smack of impropriety, like dancing, joking, etc.

Placher contrasts this with Luther’s attitude:

If we are justified by grace alone through faith alone, he said, then we can take risks in our faith. After all, a Christian should not think “he is pleasing to God on account of what he does, but rather by a confident trust in his favor he does such tasks for a gracious and loving God and to his honor and praise alone. And in so doing he serves and benefits his neighbor.” The person trying to earn salvation can never fully concentrate on either the glory of God or the good of a needy neighbor; one will always be thinking about how much credit a morally good act will build up in one’s own account. If we realize that we need not worry about our salvation, by contrast, that “for ourselves we need nothing to make us pious,” then we act out of “pleasure and love.” “If someone desires from me a service I can render him, I will gladly do it out of good will, whether it is commanded or not. I will do so for the sake of brotherly love and because service to my neighbor is pleasing to God.” I can glorify God because God deserves the glory, and I can help my neighbors because they need my help; my own fate already rests secure in God’s grace.

Such confidence ought to free Christians from worrying overmuch about moral rules. Luther even proposed that, to make sure we do not take our own virtues too solemnly, we should from time to time consciously exercise our Christian freedom in a harmless way: sleep too late, eat or drink more than usual, take part in a practical joke. A faithful relation to God, he proposed, is like a good marriage. “When a husband and wife really love one another, have pleasure in each other, and thoroughly believe in their love, who teaches them how they are to behave to one another…?” They do not need checklists of instructions–indeed, if they are resorting to such checklists, then something has already gone wrong with the marriage–but they spontaneously do “even more than is necessary,” and freely, “with a glad, peaceful, and confident heart.” (p. 90)

The Pietists tended to look in themselves for assurance of their salvation. But Luther always insisted that we look outside of ourselves, that faith have something external to the self to hold on to. This is why he emphasized so strongly the promise in our baptism, in God’s word, and in the Lord’s Supper. We should, in other words, always look to Christ.

This interesting essay (via Kevin Carson) argues that Greens and Libertarians have enough in common, philosophically and politically, to forge an alliance.

Camassia on her Mennonite church and the Real Presence.

Brandon on what it means to respect other people’s beliefs.

Malcin Horton on the “Caelum & Terra” vision.

John Allen has a piece in the National Catholic Reporter on the Taizé community in the aftermath of the murder of its leader Brother Roger Schutz. (via Amy Welborn)

There is still debate about Taizé, but Schutz and the community he founded are nevertheless seen by millions of Christians as prophets of the ecumenical dream, already living the full, visible unity that official structures struggle to realize.

Americans often assume that European-style welfare states are inherently unworkable and unstable and that they must lead in the long run to high unemployment and low economic growth.

This article disputes that view, saying that there are important differences between the generous welfare states of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland and their counterparts in countries like Germany and France. The former have managed to combine fairly lavish provisions for health and unemployment insurance, paid family leave and other amenities with farily robust economies.

The article suggests that the difference lies in the fact that the Nordic countries, unlike Germany and France, have maintained an economic climate that is more flexible and favorable to innovation:

The difference, analysts say, is in how the Nordic states spend the money, and how they structure their benefit programs.

While France, Italy and Germany are hamstrung by job-for-life cultures that erect myriad legal barriers to firing workers, the Nordic countries make it easier for companies to downsize. That in turn paves the way for new industries and new jobs.

The Nordic governments offer generous unemployment benefits and extensive government-funded retraining. But while Germans, French and Italians tend to linger on unemployment benefits for years, the Nordic states force people to take other jobs that come along.

Though their citizens take as much vacation as their European counterparts – two to three times as much as Americans do – the Nordic societies work more, because there is less early retirement and more women in their workforces.

Sweden and Finland also lead the world in research-and-development spending. The Swedes spent 4.3 percent of their gross domestic product on research last year, compared with about 2.6 percent for the United States and less than 2 percent for the European Union as a whole.

Another key factor: The Nordic states are widely perceived to have the world’s least corrupt, and the most efficient, governments and court systems. Foreign investors can count on fair and evenhanded treatment from regulators.

There are some problems on the horizon though:

This is not to say that the Nordic systems are problem-free. Sweden, for example, is grappling with huge abuse of its generous sick-leave policy. In recent years, it also has admitted large populations of poor, uneducated immigrants, many of whom are failing to assimilate and living on public aid.

I wonder if the success of these countries’ systems has something to do with the relative homogeneity of their population. This would seem to make a common ethos of solidarity and communal provision easier to maintain (i.e. strong ties of affection and identification with fellow-citizens combined with a sense of civic obligation). A welfare state can only last as long as most people choose not to become free riders.

Plus, such generous welfare provisions might be tempting for immigrants who don’t speak the language and find it difficult to find a good job and assimilate into the community. Could the U.S., for instance, have such a system and maintian its level of immigration?

And there’s the issue of freedom of choice. Even if one is able to rely on the state to ease the vicissitudes of living, some people no doubt prefer to have more control over their own lives and resources, the education of their children, etc. There is a trade-off between freedom and economic security.

Still, it’s good to be reminded that there are many possible social and political models. Americans in particular tend to think of our system as though it was delivered from on high and should be the model for the rest of the world.

“Fr. Jape” has a post on the need to inculcate habits of devotion and piety, not just an intellectual “world-view” (as seems to be popular now in some circles), in order to pass the faith on to the next generation.

As an adult convert (or adult “re-lapsed” Christian depending on how you look at it) I don’t think kids are the only ones who could benefit from training in such habits. Most of the churches I’ve attended in the last five or six years have been pretty deficient in this area.

Here’s the Lutheran World Relief page for donations of aid for victims of the earthquake in South Asia. No doubt all of your more reputable charities are doing similar things.

Can this be true?? Bono, lead singer of U2 and poster boy for vaguely Christian global do-goodism, is going to appear with his bandmates at a fundraiser for … Sen. Rick Santorum, poster boy of Christian Rightist eeeevil!

UPDATE: As I suspected, this isn’t true. See here.