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Introspection time for evangelicals

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Christian conservatives are often the subject of study by academics, who seem to find their culture as foreign as that of Borneo tribesmen. And this is a particularly interesting time for brave social scientists to put on their pith helmets and head to Wheaton, Ill., Colorado Springs or unexplored regions of the South. They will find a community under external and internal cultural stress.

It is fair to say that some cultural views traditionally held by evangelicals are in retreat. Whatever the (likely dim) future of political libertarianism, moral libertarianism has been on the rise. This is perhaps the natural outworking of an enlightenment political philosophy that puts individual rights at its center. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy described this view as the right to define ones own concept of existence.

Whatever else traditional religious views may entail, they involve a belief that existence comes pre-defined. Purpose is discovered, not exerted. And scripture and institutions a community of believers extended back in time are essential to that discovery. This is not, to put it mildly, the spirit of the age.

It was not, as far as I can tell, really the spirit of any age. But many evangelicals believe it was, subscribing to the myth of a lost American Eden. There has certainly been a cultural shift in the United States on religion and public life. But it has largely been from congenial contradiction to less-sympathetic contradiction. There is more criticism of the (thin) veneer of Protestant spirituality in public places. There is also a growing belief that individual rights need to be protected, not only from the state but also from religious institutions that dont share public values. In the extreme case, this means that nuns who dont want to participate in the provision of contraceptives are interfering with conceptual self-definition.

The reaction of evangelicals to these trends can (and does) vary widely. They can accommodate to the prevailing culture, as many evangelicals have already done on issues such as contraception, divorce and the role of women (without talking much about it). Or they can try to fight for their political and cultural place at the table, as other interest groups do.

A recent study, Sowing the Seeds of Discord, by a group of scholars associated with the Public Religion Research Institute, describes a mix of reactions. There is some evidence that younger evangelicals are more socially accepting of social outgroups, including gays and lesbians. A higher proportion of evangelical millennials (more than 40 percent) support gay marriage than do evangelicals overall. But there is no evidence this shift is changing political allegiances. White evangelicals remain reliably and monolithically Republican.

My interpretation: Even as some evangelical cultural views change along with broader norms, the Democratic Party is still viewed as a hostile instrument of secularization a perception reinforced by the health-care mandates of the Obama era.

But the most interesting finding of the study concerns where disaffection with conservative politics is developing among evangelicals. On a number of questions Should under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance? Does religion solve more social problems than it creates? evangelical millennials expressed more negative views on the social role of religion according to an unexpected pattern. Those who lack friends and ties outside evangelicalism are more critical of traditional evangelical views. Millennials, according to the study, react more negatively and see less value in religious socialization when they have more homogenous networks . The authors believe this small but significant shift represents a rejection of the embattled, political subculture of their parents.

My interpretation: A desperate, angry, apocalyptic tone of social engagement alienates many people, including some of the children of those who practice it.

Conservative evangelicals, like other religious people before them, are responding to a culture that does not always share their values. But a purely reactive model of politics is not attractive, even internally. And the problem is not only strategic but theological. A Christian vision of social engagement that is defined by resentment for lost social position and a scramble for group advantage is not particularly Christian.

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Introspection time for evangelicals

Gerson: Introspection time for evangelicals

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Christian conservatives are often the subject of study by academics, who seem to find their culture as foreign as that of Borneo tribesmen. And this is a particularly interesting time for brave social scientists to put on their pith helmets and head to Wheaton, Ill., Colorado Springs or unexplored regions of the South. They will find a community under external and internal cultural stress.

It is fair to say that some cultural views traditionally held by evangelicals are in retreat. Whatever the (likely dim) future of political libertarianism, moral libertarianism has been on the rise. This is perhaps the natural outworking of an enlightenment political philosophy that puts individual rights at its center. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy described this view as the right to define ones own concept of existence.

Whatever else traditional religious views may entail, they involve a belief that existence comes pre-defined. Purpose is discovered, not exerted. And scripture and institutions a community of believers extended back in time are essential to that discovery. This is not, to put it mildly, the spirit of the age.

It was not, as far as I can tell, really the spirit of any age. But many evangelicals believe it was, subscribing to the myth of a lost American Eden. There has certainly been a cultural shift in the United States on religion and public life. But it has largely been from congenial contradiction to less-sympathetic contradiction. There is more criticism of the (thin) veneer of Protestant spirituality in public places. There is also a growing belief that individual rights need to be protected, not only from the state but also from religious institutions that dont share public values. In the extreme case, this means that nuns who dont want to participate in the provision of contraceptives are interfering with conceptual self-definition.

The reaction of evangelicals to these trends can (and does) vary widely. They can accommodate to the prevailing culture, as many evangelicals have already done on issues such as contraception, divorce and the role of women (without talking much about it). Or they can try to fight for their political and cultural place at the table, as other interest groups do.

A recent study, Sowing the Seeds of Discord, by a group of scholars associated with the Public Religion Research Institute, describes a mix of reactions. There is some evidence that younger evangelicals are more socially accepting of social outgroups, including gays and lesbians. A higher proportion of evangelical millennials (more than 40 percent) support gay marriage than do evangelicals overall. But there is no evidence this shift is changing political allegiances. White evangelicals remain reliably and monolithically Republican.

My interpretation: Even as some evangelical cultural views change along with broader norms, the Democratic Party is still viewed as a hostile instrument of secularization a perception reinforced by the health-care mandates of the Obama era.

But the most interesting finding of the study concerns where disaffection with conservative politics is developing among evangelicals. On a number of questions Should under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance? Does religion solve more social problems than it creates? evangelical millennials expressed more negative views on the social role of religion according to an unexpected pattern. Those who lack friends and ties outside evangelicalism are more critical of traditional evangelical views. Millennials, according to the study, react more negatively and see less value in religious socialization when they have more homogenous networks . The authors believe this small but significant shift represents a rejection of the embattled, political subculture of their parents.

My interpretation: A desperate, angry, apocalyptic tone of social engagement alienates many people, including some of the children of those who practice it.

Conservative evangelicals, like other religious people before them, are responding to a culture that does not always share their values. But a purely reactive model of politics is not attractive, even internally. And the problem is not only strategic but theological. A Christian vision of social engagement that is defined by resentment for lost social position and a scramble for group advantage is not particularly Christian.

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Gerson: Introspection time for evangelicals

Conservative Libertarianism & the Transformation of First Amendment Jurisprudence – Video

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Conservative Libertarianism the Transformation of First Amendment Jurisprudence
In observance of Constitution Day 2014, Professor Steven Heyman presented a lecture on the impact of conservative libertarian ideology on the First Amendment...

By: IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law

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Conservative Libertarianism & the Transformation of First Amendment Jurisprudence - Video

LIBERTARIANISM WANT WORK Tit For Tat Proves that "And Yes I am really that Stupid" – Video

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LIBERTARIANISM WANT WORK Tit For Tat Proves that "And Yes I am really that Stupid"
Tit For Tat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat A Good Place for Crazy Ideas form Ray Kurzweil http://www.kurzweilai.net/ Sam Harris http://www.samharris.org/the-moral-landscape Beginning...

By: Mark Hidden

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LIBERTARIANISM WANT WORK Tit For Tat Proves that "And Yes I am really that Stupid" - Video

Catholicism and libertarianism clash over property and the common good

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Editor's note: Michael Sean Winters is on vacation this week. Filling in for him are various writers from Millennial, a journal featuring the writing of millennial Catholics. Winters will be back next week.

It seems our ongoing religious consideration of the merits of libertarianism has come at precisely the right time. With The New York Times wondering if the "libertarian moment" has come -- and substantially lesser venues hoping that it has -- now is the time for a definitive Christian ethical case to be taken up with regard to libertarianism. Such a case is being mounted with increasing vigor. Yet while Vatican officials disown libertarianism and all Pope Francis' statements on politics militate firmly against it, a loud portion of American Catholics in the political realm seem doggedly committed to it. Why?

One source of libertarian sentiment among Catholics is likely, as argued by Meghan Clark, the popularity of a certain mistaken anthropology. By this, Clark means a story about what type of creature man is and what his purpose is that has been fundamentally divorced from the biblical narrative and tradition by vested political interests. Clark points out that the chief feature of this warped anthropology is its naked individualism and its inability, therefore, to grasp the necessity of solidarity in producing whole and morally upright people. For the radically individualistic libertarian, solidarity is a burden, not a boon. If it is a boon, it is only so insofar as it produces certain desired outcomes for the individual -- but this utilitarian understanding of solidarity is, as Clark demonstrates, a far cry from the real thing.

Clark is right to note the failed anthropology at the heart of libertarianism. But yet another thematic failure animates libertarian philosophy as well: a vital misapprehension of the nature and purpose of property.

One thing to note about libertarianism is that it is first and foremost liberal, in the sense of classical Enlightenment liberals like John Locke. Liberalism arose as a political philosophy at a time when hostility to the Catholic church was well received, and many assumptions that contradict truths held obvious and foundational by the Catholic church remain tied up in liberal, and therefore libertarian, reasoning. Chief among them is the philosophical preference for the primacy of private property rights over all other institutions or conditions, including the common good. Consider Murray Rothbard, arguing that all rights disputes are little more than disputes of private property:

There are other vexed problems which would be quickly cleared up in a libertarian society where all property is private and clearly owned. In the current society for example, there is continuing conflict between the "right" of taxpayers to have access to government-owned streets, as against the desire of residents of a neighborhood to be free of people whom they consider "undesirable" gathering in the streets. ... They are, in brief, complaining about the "human right" of certain people to walk at will on the government streets. But as taxpayers and citizens, these "undesirables" surely have the "right" to walk on the streets, and of course they could gather on the spot, if they so desired, without the attraction of McDonald's. In the libertarian society, however, where the streets would all be privately owned, the entire conflict could be resolved without violating anyone's property rights: for then the owners of the streets would have the right to decide who shall have access to those streets, and they could then keep out "undesirables" if they so wished.

It is a foregone conclusion in Rothbard's ethics that owners of property have the absolute right to exclude people from what they own, be it land or material objects, even in the case of individuals who have nowhere else to go -- as "undesirables" here surely refers to homeless people who congregate in or near fast food restaurants for warmth and shelter. Rothbard flatly does not see the need to argue for such a right on behalf of owners, but smoothly progresses from the problem of "undesirables" to the "cure" of private property ownership: If only land held in common were held privately, he laments, you would presumably never have to see another "undesirable" for any longer than it took you to banish them. That your ownership claim supersedes their right to shelter, warmth, perhaps even food -- is simply assumed.

Libertarian luminary Hans Hermann Hoppe makes this claim explicit, writing:

It becomes apparent that nothing could be further from the truth as soon as one explicitly formulates the norm that would be needed to arrive at the conclusion that the state has to assist in the provision of public goods. The norm required to reach the above conclusion is this: whenever one can somehow prove that the production of a particular good or service has a positive effect on someone else but would not be produced at all or would not be produced in a definite quantity or quality unless certain people participated in its financing, then the use of aggressive violence against these persons is allowed, either directly or indirectly with the help of the state, and these persons may be forced to share in the necessary financial burden.

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Catholicism and libertarianism clash over property and the common good

Solidarity is our word: My humanity is bound up in yours

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Editor's note: Michael Sean Winters is on vacation this week. Filling in for him are various writers from Millennial, a journal featuring the writing of millennial Catholics. Winters will be back next week.

What does it mean to be a human person? The debate between Catholicism and libertarianism, which took center stage in Catholic circles over the summer, is not primarily about economics or politics. It is about anthropology. Catholicism and libertarianism have incompatible views of the human person. Perhaps the most important divergence between these two worldviews is in this very basic theological claim: I do not create myself, I do not call myself into existence, and I always exist in relationship to other people and to God.

Human freedom is crucial, but it is not reducible to negative liberty. In "Charity in Truth," Pope Benedict XVI explained that true freedom "is not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being, beginning with our own personal being." Freedom to love, freedom for human flourishing, freedom for community, and freedom for God all shape the Catholic understanding of freedom. Far from reducing the importance of freedom, this deeper and broader approach elevates freedom and, with it, our responsibility before God.

This understanding of freedom begins with the recognition that human persons are fundamentally and inescapably relational. On some level, nearly everyone agrees that human beings are social and that we need other people to survive. However, Catholicism doesn't see community and the government as merely necessary for survival or necessary evils to mitigate conflict. Human society is a good that should be valued. Human persons are created in the image of God, and God is Trinity. What does it mean to say that to be made imago dei must be to be made imago trinitatis? It means that we can only live fully human lives together and that we are called to live more fully as the image of God in the world. Thus, we end up where libertarianism cannot: Our humanity, as in the image of God, is not only a matter of creation but also places a claim on us.

For libertarian philosophy, the starting point is that human beings are autonomous individuals who are most human when they are making choices. The only legitimate constraint is the requirement to respect the liberty of others. Autonomy and negative liberty -- the absence of external impediments -- dominate their understanding of freedom. In many ways, their anthropology begins with the idealization of a Robinson Crusoe-like figure and posits a humanity that only enters into relationships, commitments and responsibilities of one's own choosing (completely forgetting that Robinson Crusoe was a fully grown, educated English gentleman when he was stranded). From this anthropology, economic libertarians develop the concept of the rational economic man, which defines rationality based upon self-interested choice. Am I really irrational every time I consider someone else in making a decision? Is selfishness really a virtue, as Ayn Rand argues?

This anthropology lays the foundation for their view of politics. Thus we see libertarians and figures like Ayn Rand argue for the complete separation of state and the market. She genuinely believed (and Alan Greenspan with her) that a community of autonomous individuals pursuing their own self-interests would self-regulate and be harmonious. Friedrich Hayek perceived any attempts at social justice and substantive equality of opportunity as moving toward totalitarianism or fascism. The irreconcilable divergence between libertarianism and Catholicism, which we see in their views of government and social justice, is really a disagreement about what it means to be human.

In a speech at Georgetown, U2 frontman Bono challenged students that "when you truly accept that those in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God's eyes or even just in your own eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you cannot unsee." The image of God places a claim upon us that goes well beyond simply not harming or impeding others. We are morally required to promote the flourishing of others. Pope Paul VI explained, "There can be no progress towards the complete development of the human person without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity."

To understand what Pope Francis says on poverty, inequality and exclusion, you have to first understand this deep unity of the one human family, of our belonging to each other and our standing together before God. This is the foundation of Pope Francis' key insights. The threat of libertarianism is not primarily political; it is theological. Libertarianism creates a barrier to seeing the other as neighbor, as brother or sister.

St. John XXIII's "Peace on Earth" offers a comprehensive account of what is demanded in terms of upholding human dignity and the flourishing community. It is a basic list of human rights. The concerns are always both personal and structural, as Catholic social thought recognizes that "human freedom is often crippled when a man falls into extreme poverty." Human freedom is crippled by extreme poverty whether arbitrary obstacles exist or not. Freedom is not just about removing obstacles but providing the positive conditions for human flourishing within which true freedom can be exercised.

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Solidarity is our word: My humanity is bound up in yours

Battling Nancy Pelosi: Candidate John Dennis on Why Libertarianism is the GOP’s Only Hope – Video

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Battling Nancy Pelosi: Candidate John Dennis on Why Libertarianism is the GOP #39;s Only Hope
"We are the bridge on all those sorts of issues where the Republicans have no other bridges, so maybe we should put up a toll road and make them pay to come ...

By: ReasonTV

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Battling Nancy Pelosi: Candidate John Dennis on Why Libertarianism is the GOP's Only Hope - Video


  1. Libertarianism