Wednesday, March 12, 2008
EJ. Dionne, Hugh Hewitt and What Seperates conservative Christians andLiberal Christians on politics
Hugh Hewitt, America’s smartest and best talk show host, is doing a mutipart interview with E.J. Dionne, a man of the Left who is also a committed Roman Catholic, about his new book. Tonight was part 3 of the interviews (I think it is always Wednesday the 2nd hour, 5pm here in Colorado on 1460 KTLK).
E.J. is a man I would love to have coffee with, but he is treading into my area of expertise - theology, culture and their interrelationship. So, here is what I have to say about his idea that if we could just get past abortion and talk theologically rather than politically that we could see more unity between the sides. Improbable? Cataclysmic? In the adapted words of Bill Murrey in Ghostbusters “Pat Robertson and Jim Wallis living together - mass hysteria!
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Was able to catch about 20 minutes of Hugh Hewitt’s talk with E.J. Dionne tonight while picking up the kids (no radio allowed inside during dinner time expect for Hugh and Emmet at the last hour of his program on Friday).
Hugh was pressing E.J. on things that he said to broadly, which was very helpful, but I do not think E.J. even understands that he is labouring under such a different perspective of what faith means that he fails to understand Hugh’s questions. He made the point, after an Alan Wolfe quote from his book about “in the old days we used to have people like Tillich and Niebuhr (sorry new spell checker loaded so my spelling is amiss) on the cover of Time.”
Yes and?
Tillich, Niebuhr and many of the other people who did dominate the religious talk were themselves men of the left, either Catholic or Protestant. After Fundamentalisms defeat in the 1920s the liberal theological viewpoint had its dominance culturally, and with that came this segmentation of private and public spheres of morality (I am making broad statements here, and I can think of my Scottish-born PhD advisor shaking his head as I write). The basic ethos of America was a generalized form of Christianity, which was expected to be treated with respect was not expected to really change the way we acted politically.
Writers like Tillich took us further from traditional understandings of the scriptures or theological concepts. While I am a huge fan of Tillich, Neibuhr and others of that era (as a theologian I can appreciate their efforts even as I am unconvinced by their arguments), the fact is that the move, as one would expect from modern theology, was away from the “traditional” and towards a space that could be “carved” out in the modern and rational world. But this was the slow end of the rule of liberal theology. Today liberal theology continues to sell books (see people like John Shelby Spong, Bart Ehrmann, and Marcus Borg), but they do not really move anything. In the end, in a modern (and postmodern) secular world, they are arguing for theology when they have reduced the entire religious aspect of life to the periphery, making it more like shuffleboard than the centre of people’s lives.
What is funny is at the same time Tillich and company were writing, you had men of the center and right (theological speaking, I hate those terms in theology) like Karl Barth (neo-orthodoxy) and Hans Ur von Bathasar (the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century and sometimes called the Catholic Karl Barth) who were making it more clear how the kergyma of the Gospel meant not only pietism but faith in action - public, private, political and aesthetic. In the late 1930-40s we see the rise of the Evangelical movement led by Carl F. Henry and the spawning of new institutions like Fuller Seminary, parachurch groups like Campus Crusade, Young Life, etc. that represented the first real pushback against the liberal theological view of private and public. And trust me, those places were not reading Tillich (maybe Niebuhr, but usually to argue with the Christ and Culture thesis - sorry inside baseball there, occupational hazard).
But how do we get from a rejection of liberal theology to a political movement of weight among Christian conservatives? The piece that I had missed in my own thesis about the separation of religious liberalism and conservatism politically was provided by Amity Shlaes and Jonah Goldberg (especially The Forgotten Man, though Jonah’s Liberal Fascism has also been very helpful) where we began to see the state assert itself into more and more areas of life, but doing so at a time when the state was becoming increasingly more secular in its orientation. So now we are being asked to ceded more and more power (as well as money, time, etc) to the state (with less and less return I must add), while the state was increasingly acting in ways counter to the morality, principles, and most importantly heart of the faithful.
So what was the response of theological conservatives - to push back, to join forces, and to resist - thus the Religious Right, the Christian Coalition, and whatever will come next. Hugh pushed E.J. on the abortion issue (which I think has to remain #1 on the list since it is so pivotal), stating that E.J. wants to punt it thinking that if we can just get rid of it Christians, especially conservative Christians, will see more in common with liberal Christianity and politics. But what of 50 million Americans who are missing from our society today (and millions more worldwide) because of abortion.
E.J. is right of course that abortion is not going to become illegal tomorrow, but neither was slavery in the 1830s in America, but that still did not give devout believers (my wife is a Wheaton College alum, founded by abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard, so abolitionism is part of our “heritage so to speak) any room to stop working to overturn the 3/5th clause, the Fugitive Slave Act, or Dread Scott. Was it wrong for abolitionist to work in opposition to Christians who saw slavery as ordained by the Bible?
In Hugh’s 3rd hour today he was going to be talking about home schooling. While Christians are not the only homeschoolers, they certainly do homeschooling in most cases for reasons of faith. Now the California court has begun to stick its nose into the home and into the lives of children. A liberal Christian may indeed see this as appropriate, as the needs of children are more important than faith issues (again, public vs. private). But a Christian who believes that their faith affects their whole lives is going to take a very different view on the state coming into “raise” their kids. And there are countless issues down the line that keeps believers separated.
E.J. believes we are now arguing politically. And yes these are political issues - but they are also theological. Think of these theological issues and how they inform the view of political policy:
1) Whom do you trust - the state or the community of faith indwelt (in the Christian tradition) by the presence of God?
2) What does God require of us? “To do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God” vs. “ But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
3) How do you describe God - a God who is loving first last and only or a God who is holy love, whose love is never sentimentality but is always drawing people to wholeness (gonna get slammed by my liberal Christian friends for that one), and thus looks at our moral choices from the view of a holy love.
E.J. said that he believed it was the reading of scripture rather than abortion that was the key issue today between religious left and right. And yes it is about reading scripture (or not reading it). The same ideas that drive Supreme Court nominees to believe in a living Constitution that means whatever the judge thinks it should mean also drive people to see the Bible as “valuable” but completely rooted in its context, and thus we can disregard the parts we want, because their morality was contextual. Jim Walls, noted man of the religious left (along with my hero Tony Campolo) is correct about the passages on the poor in Jesus’ ministry, but he forgets that Jesus was not abrogating or saying the Old Testament was passé.
And so Jesus does not address, say homosexuality(go ahead and pick the biggest hot button issue), because, as far as we can tell, there was no misunderstanding on that issue in the time of the New Testament (in fact, the Jewish populations, as part of their desire to set themselves apart from the Roman and Greek overlords, saw homosexuality as a “foreign concept"). No, the Bible is not primarily a set of moral codes on sex, or making money, marriage, or anything else. But those things are discussed in there, and being willing to take those parts just as serious as the call to justice or care of the poor is the key for Christians on both sides of the theological aisle.
As a Christian I believe in the idea of a calling of God. Some people are called by God to dedicate their lives to care for the poor. Others are called to eb evangelists - to speak and share their faith with others. This is the classic dichotomy, but the key needs to be that God has called both people to their callings. One is not more valuable or more important than the other - because it is the same God who calls both people to their callings. Difficulity arises when either person looks at the other and says, “Because you are not passionate and doing what I do, you are wrong, and I am right.” We must create the space for people to fulfill their callings. And we must, in doing either calling, not fail to remind those we serve of the larger picture - beyond mere forgiveness of sins of freedom from poverty or oppression. As Ray Bakke, the great urban evangelist said once to The Navigators, “neither on its own is the Gospel. The Gospel is about freedom from both sin and the oppressions of the world.” The government we would agree has no role in spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ (though it should not work against it as can and does happen in educational settings -sorry, have to be honest based on my own experiences back in K-12 and university).
Hugh made a good point that the stereotype of the conservative Christian caring not a wit about poor is not something that E.J. is willing to accept, but then E.J. defends the views of people like Wolfe and Wallis who pretty much make such statements. Alas for them, the statistics on charitable giving between self described “liberals” and “conservatives” show that conservatives are more generous. My wife and I are not alone in a deep concern for the poor that, yes, does come from entirely from our faith (on my own I would be tight fisted money loving ogre, making Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life look like Mother Teresa’s Mother Superior). It describes our vegetarianism (too long to go into here), it explains why we give money to certain places, why we do not buy certain things, and many more things in our life. And we are not alone. Our local church has been part of partnership for many years running Ecumenical Social Services - why? Because we actually believe the Bible (all of it) and although we do a bad job living it out sometimes, we are doing our best to love the poor for the sake of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that Jesus brings in his birth, death and resurrection for the redemption of humanity and creation (talk about a long sentence). And First Pres of Colorado Springs is not alone in that. Most of the Evangelical churches I know have a similar concern for the poor. A growing number of Christians understand that God is offended (sorry to sound to fundamentalist there) by both our private and social sins.
I meant to say only a little but what strikes me is that E.J.’s book (just starting it after Hugh’s talks with E.J.each week) is that a lot of what he desires is happening at the grass roots level. I would love to see a country where Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics provide a bridge for the “two sides” in America. But there is going to have to be real dialogue on major issues:
1) Abortion - folks Jesus cares about the least of these and children in particular. You cannot tell me that Jesus would think that mass abortion is in line with the Kingdom of God, and while I applaud and agree right now that we need to focus on reducing the number of abortions (in a perfect world abortions would go to zero and then at some point someone would think, “You know what, lets pass a law just to go ahead and outlaw abortion since no one has them anymore), the fact remains that there are millions of tiny voices who are literally crying out for their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own happiness.
2) Ending poverty does not necessarily mean either higher taxes or more government spending. Sorry but we have spent billions (trillions) on the war on poverty, jacked up tax rates to as high as 90%, and millions of American poor were stuck being poor. The reason that many of us who are serious about ending poverty, serious about Jesus and serious about lower taxes is that they work. If I can remind Jim Wallis, the richest 10% are paying more of the national tax bill today under Bush then under Clinton. Lower taxes (on the margin) means the rich actually end up paying more in taxes. And lower tax rates mean more jobs, more opportunities. Less regulation means more opportunity for new businesses (I am sensitive to regulation to make clean products and safe work environments, but do we really think that explains all the regulations in America). Cooperation between government and community organizations (including churches) need to be in place to care for the truly least, last and lost, but that does not mean that giant bureaucracies that consume large percentages of the dollar intended for the poor are needed. There are good government programs for helping the poor (Head Start being one of them), but what about programs that are failing? What about giving children access to any school with their state and federal tax dollars in the form of vouchers?
3) Private morality and Public space. Yes, as an Evangelical I care about morality, not just my own but everyone’s. Does that make me a nosey Ned Flanders? Well, yes. But I am my brother’s keeper. That does not mean that all behaviors should outlawed. We live in a land of personal liberty. Literally what goes on behind closed doors is private. But there is a lot government can do and sometimes does do in the form of spending and the like that gives behaviours that are damaging to the larger society an equal footing with behaviours which are healthier for society at large. Divorce laws, the marriage penalty, the lack of tax credits indexed to inflation in past years for children (yes, having children is good for society - ask the Social Security actuaries), handing out condoms and for many years not having abstinence based alternatives for sex education are all examples. Leaving aside the two primary illegal behaviours - drugs and prostitution - behaviour choices should be up to the individual. But can liberal and conservative Christians agree to work on bringing solid grounded moral behaviour back into vogue in order to save the larger society (or does 67% illigitimacy in African American households and 25% of young women having sexually transmitted diseases not cause poverty, brokenness, and despair)?
4) International world. From “Global Warming” to immigration to sending dollars overseas what is the Christian response? Climate change is going to be a reality (there is no static climate), but what are our environmental policies going to do to the developing world (note: I am a anthropogenic based global warming doubter, due to the evidence and wholes in the theory, sorry folks, and I would remind people of what happened after Silent Spring caused DDT to be pulled worldwide - a massive increase in malaria deaths and disability in the developing world)? What does a sound LEGAL immigration policy offer to immigrants for the whole world? Should only people from Latin America benefit from our immigration system (largely through illegal immigration) or should a larger number of people be welcomed in and from a more diverse demographic including Africa, Central and East Asia, Europe, and of course India)? I have long been in favour of a “Wide Gate, but Tall Fence” immigration policy, but on the liberal Christian side this is sometimes called “racist.” This is not helpful (illegal immigration is a dangerous game for immigrants, and that is something that I would hope both liberal and conservative Christians can agree on). And what about dollars going overseas? Far to many governments around the world are dominated by corruption, by oligarchies, and other structures which make poverty a life sentence for most of their people. Can we agree that it is not the total $s that matter but the good use of dollars? Can we agree that “giving to the poor” does not mean we do not ask for developing country governments to clean up corruption, lower tarriffs to stimulate their economies, and make the process for new businesses simplier and cheaper?
So, as I said earlier this is already happening at the grassroots in communities all over our country. E.J.’s book is a welcome addition to the discussion, but I think he fails to realize that even when we agree on the need for things to be done, that does not mean that we will all agree on how to get there, or in what order to get there.
If you have not listened to Hugh and E.J., you can listen or read the transcripts at Hugh’s webpage http://www.hughhewitt.com Questions? Comments? Email me at
