A Thinking Reed

Month: November 2006

  • The politics of biotech

    William Saletan has a good article on how biotech issues are threatening to upset existing political categories. He gives an admirably evenhanded account of the stakes as each side sees them, but then points out that these debates are making for strange bedfellows:

    On the left, the instinct is to treat ESC research like health care. “[Missouri’s] Amendment 2 is about finding cures and saving lives—nothing more, and nothing less,” said an ad for the ballot measure. But in the stem-cell fight, the teams are all messed up. You’ve never seen conservatives so exercised about protecting women from “Big Biotech,” or liberals so in love with drug companies. From California to Michigan to Massachusetts, the most common argument for stem-cell subsidies, next to saving lives, is that they’ll attract high-tech business.

  • The more things change… or Lessons from the early church

    I’ve been reading Henry Chadwick’s history of the early church (thanks, Josh!) and been struck by the relevance of that history for some of the issues facing the church today.

    Consider, for example, the so-called new atheists (Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al.) who specialize in arguing against a certain construal of Christianity as though it were the sole legitimate version. I call this the “heads I win/tails you lose” argument since the whole point is to brand one’s opponent as either a raving fundamentalist or a weak-kneed temporizer. Either you accept the most implausible literalistic version of Christian belief, or you’re a wishy-washy liberal sellout and therefore not a “real” Christian.

    But as Chadwick demonstrates, the early church was well aware of the difficulties of some of the more literlaisitc versions of key beliefs, as well as the moral issues raised by certain troubling Old Testament passages for the Christian view of God, and resolutely grappled with them. Irenaeus offered a nuanced account of creation and the existence of evil, Clement of Alexandria questioned the idea of a “materialist” resurrection and earthly millenium, and Origen pressed the case for allegorical and metaphorical interpretations of Scripture (too far, some would say).

    The point isn’t that we need to accept the answers provided by these early theologians (and, it’s worth recalling that they were writing during a time when church teaching was still in a great deal of flux and some of their ideas would later be deemed unorthodox), but that this style of theologizing and exegesis has as long a pedigree in the church as any, and modern fundamentalism (which itself even gets unfairly distorted by some of its critics) is a relative newcomer.

    Another thing that I’ve been thinking about is just how radical a decision the early church made in deciding that the Mosaic Law was no longer binding upon Christians. We talk nowadays about “revisionists,” but, to take our most heated contemporary example, the argument for blessing monogomous same-sex unions looks positively conservative compared to chucking the Law. [Edited to add: Not that the Law was regarded as a bad thing. Rather, it was seen as a temporary expedient, or a “tutor” to lead people to knowledge of righteousness. But what’s striking to me is that Christians would feel free to set aside what were regarded as divine commands.] Of course, this by itself doesn’t settle that particular issue, but it does put into perspective some of the more dire pronouncements about overthrowing thousands of years of unbroken tradition, since that’s precisely what the church did!

    Also noteworthy is how some of these early theologians resisted the imposition of a “new law” in the sense of hard and fast rules for Christian conduct. Consider Chadwick’s account of Clement’s discussion of Jesus’ advice to the rich young ruler:

    Clement wrote a special discourse to help Christians puzzled about the right use of their money and troubled especially by the absolute command of the Lord to the rich young ruler, ‘If you would be perfect, sell all you have…’ On a rapid reading it might seem as if Clement were merely a compromiser trying to wriggle out of the plain meaning of a commandment. But a fairer reading of his tract shows that he did not see the gospel ethic as imposing legalistic obligations but rather as a statement of God’s highest purpose for those who follow him to the utmost. What really matters is the use rather than the accident of possession. Accordingly Clement laid down a guide for the wealthy converts of the Alexandrian church, which imposed a most strenuous standard of frugality and self-discipline. Clement passionately opposed any luxury or ostentation, and much that he protested to be lawful he regarded as highly inexpedient.

    The exposition of the saying to the rich young ruler and several passages in the Paedogogus and Stromateis show Clement acting as a spritual director. It lay in the nature of his view of the Christian life as a progress towards the likeness of God in Christ that he saw it both as a dynamic advance in the comprehension of the nature of Christian doctrine and also as a process of education in which the aspirant would make mistakes calling for penitence. The church he describes as a ‘school’, with many grades and differing abilities among its pupils, where all the elect were equal, but some were ‘more elect’ than others. Accordingly Clement could take a view of the church which allowed room for the resotration of the lapsed and at the same time held the highest demands before all Christians. (p. 98)

    Of course, alongside this fairly humane and tolerant ethic we also have the rigor of, say, Tertullian (though it should be noted that Tertullian ended his days outside the church). But the idea of Christian ethics as a way of life leading to a gradual increase in Christ-likeness, while recognizing the persistent reality of human sin and failure, strikes me as a deeply appealing one. And it appears to have significant precedent in the church’s history.

  • Feingold’s out

    Looks like Russ Feingold has ruled out an 08 presidential run to focus on influencing the Democratic agenda in the Senate. This is too bad in my view, not because I expected him to actually get the nomination (much less win the general election), but that I think it would be useful to have an out-and-out dove in the primaries of at least one party. As things are shaping up now, we may end up with the debate carried on entirely between pro-interventionist Dems.

    Currently it looks like John Edwards is the most leftward candidate likely to run, but I don’t recall him being particularly dovish on war and peace issues. I’m also not sure what the foreign policy views of the much-hyped Barack Obama are. But I would like to see a candidate who challenged the basic assumptions of our interventionist foreign policy.

  • Black helicopter watch

    I read the NT Wright lecture I linked to yesterday and I tend to agree with Jonathan that Wright is too optimistic about a global army (or “police force” as he calls it) as a viable alternative to our present situation.

    Wright says:

    First, we must work from every angle either to enable the United Nations and the International Courts of Justice to function as they should, or to replace them with something else that can do the same job better. The only way we could have done something wise in Iraq would have been for a force, with the energy of the whole international community behind it, composed equally of Norwegians and Nigerians, of Australians and Pakistanis, of Chileans and Japanese and, yes, British and Americans. To continue to resist the making real of such an internationally credible police force, as many on the right in America have done, is more and more obviously a way of saying that now that we’re in power we will use that power utterly for our own advantage, and rule out the possibility that anyone might call us in turn to account. Of course, when China or India becomes the next superpower, we can expect the present superpower to go running for help to any international court that might then exist. But the point is this: it is time to make the transition globally that we in this country made in the 1830s when we moved from local militias to a credible national police force. Of course with any such move there are all the same dangers of the abuse of power. But we already have abuse of power; it is part of the task of the church, in calling present abuse to account, to work for a better structure which could actually deal, with visible credibility, with all kinds of problems around the world. I wish I thought that such a refreshed United Nations was likely to emerge soon. But we must work and pray for something like this to happen. In such work, and in such prayer, God is present to call both the War on Terror, and the Terror itself, to account.

    I think there are a few problems with this. One is the implication that abuse of power won’t be more pronounced at a global level than at a national level. While it’s certainly dangerous for any nation to act as judge in its own case, any kind of world government or army would have the added danger of being the only game in town. A world government, for instance, would presumably have no “right of exit” acting as a check on its pretensions. There is the added problem that the more removed any governing body is from the people it governs, the more problems there are with accountability.

    In addition to problems of monopoly and accountability, I think the empirical claim that a multinational invasion of Iraq would have had significantly more credibility and that that credibility would’ve made a significant difference to the success of the mission is dubious. The thing is that most people in the world would resent outsiders coming into their country and bossing them around. Maybe the invasion of Iraq would’ve engendered less resentment if it was the kind of multinational force Wright envisions, but the attendant bomb-dropping that would’ve still been necessary (and which Wright rightly deplores) would no doubt have created the same kind of enmity toward any invading force. I don’t think the dynamic of occupation changes just because it has a UN (or whatever) imprimatur on it.

    It’s interesting to me that Wright uses the analogy of England moving from local militias to a national police force, because an American would read that totally differently. If any politician in Washington proposed replacing all local law enforcement with a federal police force, people of every political persuasion would roundly denounce it. Suspicion of centralized power is part of our political DNA.

    Not to say that better international institutions aren’t desirable, but I can’t help but think that any kind of global UN army would be a standing invitation to more meddling and intervention by the powerful nations of the world (who would almost certainly dominate it like they do the UN in its present form) or it would result in a deadlock when powerful nations’ interests clashed (just as the US and the USSR essentially prevented the UN from functioning as intended during the Cold War).

    If anything, my inclination is to go in the opposite direction and make political institutions more participatory by devolving important functions to regional and local levels, with less centralization, more federalism, more local autonomy, and with decisions made among the people who are most affected by them. That may sound utopian, but no less so, I’d argue, than what Bishop Wright is proposing.

    All that said, there are a number of good and important points made in the lecture, and I think Wright’s account of how Jesus inagurates God’s kingdom and Christians participate in it is very good.

  • Linkery

    A smattering of links for a Friday afternoon.

    Elliot at Claw of the Conciliator writes on a recent meeting with everyone’s favorite sectarian tribalist theologian, giving rise to the perennial question: Kooky cults – good or bad?

    Faith and Theology: Ten Propositions on Karl Barth.

    Russell Arben Fox offers some theses on the midterm elections.

    At Noli Irritare Leones Lynn has been blogging J.H. Yoder’s Politics of Jesus (I, II).

    Right Reason: Is it wrong to watch Borat?

    Three Hierarchies on Iraq.

    The problem with “realism” at MaxSpeak.

    Evangelicalism, post-Haggard and post-Rumsfeld by Ben Witherington.

    Slate asks: who’s better, REM or U2? Well, both bands have certainly passed their sell-by date, but REM moreso I’d say. On the other hand, the claims made for U2 are clearly more disproportionate to their actual merits (best rock band in the world, etc.).

    NT Wright on the GWOT (via Jonathan, who comments).

    Conservative dissent on the Iraq war: an exchange between Joseph Bottum and Ross Douthat at First Things (here, here, and here). I think Douthat gets the better of it.

  • Pithy goodness

    Have you ever found a good blog because you were impressed with something its proprietor said in a comment thread elsewhere and clicked through? Well, this morning I found Pith and Substance, whose owner goes by the name “PithLord” (one of the better handles in the blogosphere it has to be said). He appears to be a Canadian lawyer and writes about a variety of things political and philosophical. I found it through a comment thread over at The American Scene (itself a great blog).

    I was also delighted in browsing his archives to come across this post, which, while probably a bit tongue-in-cheek, comes eerily close to describing my own basic political outlook.

  • Post election day thoughts

    In light of the November massacre of 2006, here’s what I wrote back in August about rooting for the Dems:

    For me, a vote for Democrats this fall (and possibly in 2008) would be, more than anything else, a vote for a check on the policies of the Bush Administration. The last six years have shown us what this administration will choose to do when virtually unconstrained by Congress. “Preventitive” war, highly questionable detainee policies, domestic spying of dubious constitutional provenance, and a more statist and authoritarian policy generally have been the result.

    Some Republicans have been spinning this election as a victory for our enemies, the Islamists and associated tyrants, but that begs the question regarding whether the policies of the Bush administration have been objectively effective at countering the threat from Islamist terrorism. It’s debatable, to say the very least, that the war in Iraq has been a net gain for the USA on that score. Republicans have been eager to treat the Iraq war as an essential part of the “war on terror,” but that has, at best, been a self-fulfilling prophecy as American troops find themselves bogged down fighting jihadist insurgents in a country that formerly posed no significant threat to us.

    I thought the war was both unjustified and unwise from the get-go, and nothing that’s happened since has persuaded me to change my mind. So, if this election is taken as a rebuke to the war by the powers that be that’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned. What that will translate to in concrete terms is unclear, and there’s good reason to think that, at least as far as Iraq is concerned, the answer is “not much.” But a Democratic congress stands a much better chance of checking presidential warmaking ambitions elsewhere. Plus, chastened Senate Republicans who see which way the wind’s blowing might take this opportunity to press the White House for a change of course (I’m lookin’ at you, Sen. Hagel). I’m not a Democrat and still have plenty of differences with the Donkey party, but I’m thankful for a little Madisonian sand in the gears, so to speak.

    One expects that there will be some intense soul-searching on the part of the GOP leading up to the 2008 presidential election. The increasingly fractious conservative movement looks set to rupture completely with libertarians, neocons, evangelicals, paleocons, and so on bursting the seams of fusionism once and for all. In a recent Newsweek article former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson sees the younger generation of evangelicals moving away from the quasi-libertarian views of some of the older generation with their embrace of activist government, making a continued alliance with economic conservatives look more and more tenuous. Meanwhile, neoconservatives are turning on the President and his botched war policy, not entirely unlike what happened to the President’s father in ’92 when various prominent neocons started flirting with the Clinton-Gore campaign. Whatever emerges from all this, it seems unlikely to look much like the conservatism that existed from Goldwater to Reagan. And it’s hard to point to a prospective GOP presidential candidate who could rally these various factions to his candidacy (McCain? Romney? Guliani?).

    Not that the Democrats, despite their impressive victory, are necessarily going to have an easier time of it. There are enduring tensions between the socially liberal and “centrist” leadership and some of the more socially conservative populist candidates elected yesterday (the kind of people Russell Fox would approve of). The tepid Democratic agenda papers over these differences more than it commits them to much of anything concrete (They believe in “a strong national defense that is both tough and smart” – great!). The Dems’ internal strife is presumably going to come out into the open when they select their candidate for 2008 (Interventionist or anti-interventionist? Socially liberal or moderate? Economically centrist or populist?). And a voter rebuke of the Republicans doesn’t necessarily translate into strong support for any particular Democratic platform. Interesting times.

    By the way, locally, the voters of Massachusetts let me down by sending question one down to defeat thanks to a coordinated scare campaign orchestrated by the liquor stores. Stupid democracy! Oh, and the Democratic candidate for governor, Deval Patrick, glided to victory over his Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy, making Patrick the Bay State’s first African-American governor.

  • Praying with St. Francis

    The venerable Massachusetts Bible Society bookstore in downtown Boston is closing its doors next month, and, consequently, they’re selling off their stock at discounted rates. Despite what the name might seem to imply, the MBS is actually something of a “progressive” Christian outfit.

    Anyway, I was in there yesterday and picked up a copy of the St. Francis Prayer Book, compiled by Jon Sweeney. Sweeney, who’s Episcopalian I think, has edited an edition of Paul Sabitier’s biography of St. Francis and written a book appreciating the saints from a Protestant perspective.

    The St. Francis Prayer Book consists primarily of a one-week daily office (morning and evening prayer) with a particularly Franciscan emphasis. The Psalms and readings (chiefly from the Gospels) are selected to reflect Franciscan spirituality, and they are framed by prayers attributed to him or his followers, as well as traditional prayers of the church. In addition, each day’s prayers and texts are chosen to reflect a particular theme such as detachment from possessions, peace in human relationships, and love for God’s creation that we associate with Francis.

    Sweeney also contributes a couple of historical essays about Francis’ approach to prayer, emphasizing the importance he placed on praying the Office, times of silence for listening to God, and meditating on the figure of Jesus as we have it in the Gospels. Sweeney also mentions the memorization of texts and prayers as particularly important in Francis’ time, and as something that modern Christians could stand to recover. This may be a place where the various simpler forms of the office now available may have an advantage; they enable us to enter more deeply into certain prayers and texts through repitition and memorization. The downside, of course, is that you aren’t exposed to the full sweep of Scripture as you would be in following, say, the daily lectionary of the Episcopal office.

    Naturally the test of any prayer book is actually using it to pray, which I haven’t done much of yet, but it’s a very nicely put together little book.

  • Arizonans against animal cruelty

    Obviously I don’t live in Arizona, but this strikes me as quite a worthwhile measure.

    UPDATE: Looks like this won handily. Go, Arizona!

  • Election day!

    Russell Arben Fox on why he, as a social traditionalist with progressive economic views, is endorsing the Democrats.

    Jim Henley advises us to vote on the principle of punishing the wicked.

    Matthew Yglesias and Alan Bock both doubt much will change even if the Dems take Congress, at least in foreign policy matters.

    I duly performed my civic duty this morning. I voted for the Democrat, Deval Patrick, for governor, abstained on the Senate race (the inevitable Ted Kennedy vs. some no-name Republican guy), abstained on all races where there was no opposition to the incumbent, and voted for a smattering of third-party candidates on other local races. I also voted for our incumbent Congressional representative Michael Capuano (his only opponent, as I mentioned, being the Socialist Workers Party candidate). In 9 out of the 13 races on my ballot there was no Republican running and only a handful of thrid party challengers. So on local races I tried to vote against the incumbent where I could for the sake of breaking one-party hegemony.

    I also, as I mentioned earlier, voted a hearty “yea” on the “wine in grocery stores question” and “nay” on all other ballot questions, including the non-binding resolutions to withdraw from Iraq, support the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and divestment from Israel. These symbolic non-binding ballot questions strike me as a huge waste of time and an exercise in moral preening, so I vote against them on principle.