I'm not ambitious enough to venture a comprehensive answer to Michael Scaperlanda's query regarding the pope's vision of national vocation -- i.e., the "unique gifts" the United States can offer the "world community in building a civilization of love." I will say, however, that many of our actions in the war against terrorism seem to be entirely disconnected from such a venture. Instead, we appear willing to bring about considerable suffering outside of our borders in order to decrease the likelihood of suffering within our borders. As President Bush said in justifying the invasion of Iraq, "I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein."
(Read the full speech here.) Nations of course should take actions to defend their borders and maintain their viability -- otherwise they would be unable to participate in the broader task outlined by the pope. But it seems that this task is turned upside down when a nation uses the mere possibility (however remote) of a future terrorist attack as a justification for conduct that knocks out the pillars on which the world community has been formed.
This is not to suggest that the pursuit of democracy is inconsistent with the pope's vision of national purpose; but a self-serving, violent pursuit of democracy in which potential threats to one nation's citizens are used as trumps against the claims to life and dignity voiced by other nations' citizens cannot seriously be considered a sincere effort to build a "civilization of love."
The "Taking Christian Legal Thought Seriously" Conference was held yesterday in San Francisco, in conjunction with the AALS annual meeting. It was a wonderful and stimulating event, and thanks are due to MOJ-ers Mark Sargent and John Breen (and also to the Law Professors Christian Fellowship and the Lumen Christi Institute for their support and sponsorship). MOJ speakers included Mark, John, and Susan Stabile, and also Jim Gordley, Scott Pryor, Mark Scarberry, David Smolin, and Charles Reid. (It felt like Steve Bainbridge was also there, since his work and thought was addressed by many of the speakers!) Archbishop Levada joined us for Vespers after the conference, which was a real treat.
I know that some of the speakers presented completed papers, and I hope they will make them available, soon. I encourage all the MOJ folks who attended to post their thoughts about, and reactions to, the various presentations.
I'll say more later, but I was inspired by the various speakers' efforts to engage the challenge to which this blog is a response, namely, trying to work through what it would mean to have a meaningfully Catholic, or Christian, Legal Theory.
Pope John Paul II believes that nations have unique gifts to offer their people and the world community in building a civilization of love. At the close of the Compostelan Year, he said: "Spain, be yourself. Discover your origins! ... Seek in fidelity to your historic being the course for your future and the guarantee of your progress."
What does it mean for the United States to be itself? Does the United States have a unique vocation in the world? What is it? If so, what tensions, if any, exist between that vocation and our power? What does it mean to discover our origins? To seek in fidelity to the United State's historic being the course for our future and the guarantee of our progress?
The Wall Street Journal has a review of God on the Quad, a new book tracing the rising popularity and quality of religiously affiliated colleges and universities.
William Schweiker, professor of theological ethics at the University of Chicago, has contributed a thoughtful essay to Michael Marty's Sightings series regarding British philosopher Anthony Flew's apparent conversion from outspoken atheist to (theoretical) theist, noting its likely impact on "the cottage industry of religion and science." Eric Weislogel of the Metanexus Institute has taken issue with Schweiker's language, responding with a powerful portrayal of the religion-and-science dialogue as a movement "attempting to mitigate the deleterious effects of our 'analytic obsession' in our pursuit of knowledge. While respecting the power and success of our methodology of breaking all of reality into smaller and smaller bits in order better to know it, the religion-and-science dialogue is attempting to provide a complementary mechanism for synthesis in thought and understanding."
Here's an interesting column in the London Times by Gerard Baker challenging the "the smug way the ubiquitous 'God is dead' crowd in the media have seized on the [tsunami] tragedy as some sort of vindication of its creed. It is unedifying to say the least to behold scientists and philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic waving the shrouds of hundreds of thousands of victims as a debating trophy." In addition to taking a swipe at the Archbishop of Canterbury's statement about the tsunamis understandably causing people to doubt God's existence ("Since the leadership of the Church of England has generally acted as though it did not really believe in God for most of the past 20 years, perhaps we should not be too disappointed."), Baker contends that a:
fair, challengeless world might be a wonderful place to live. But I don’t think that it would be recognisably human. If we have reason to doubt the point of our existence in this world, surely we would understand it even less in that one. And if I were God, and had created Man, I am not quite sure that I would see the point either.
Thought that some of you might be interested in this paper of mine, which I prepared for a conference on "La conception americaine de la laicite," to be held in Paris later this month. Comments most welcome: [email protected]
Those of us living "in the world" can benefit from a relatively new series of spiritual writings generated in remote cloisters. The Carthusian Novice Conference Series, published by Cistercian (sic) Studies, provides in its several volumes unique access to the contemporary spirituality of those men and women who (as T. Merton said) "have gone the furthest, climbed the highest." Particularly at a time when many are wondering where God is in this creation of His, the Carthusian theology of God's presence and of how we discern it seems particularly ripe for study and reflection. It's not for everyone, I suspect -- but many of us can be grateful that the Carthusians are sharing with us, in an unprecedented way, what they learn about a world they take all their time to listen to and to pray about and for. There is reassurance in the motto of these persevering pilgrims: "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis."
Those of us living "in the world" can benefit from a relatively new series of spiritual writings generated in remote cloisters. The Carthusian Novice Conference Series, published by Cistercian (sic) Studies, provides in its several volumes unique access to the contemporary spirituality of those men and women who (as T. Merton said) "have gone the furthest, climbed the highest." Particularly at a time when many are wondering where God is in this creation of His, the Carthusian theology of God's presence and of how we discern it seems particularly ripe for study and reflection. It's not for everyone, I suspect -- but many of us can be grateful that the Carthusians are sharing with us, in an unprecedented way, what they learn about a world they take all their time to listen to and to pray about and for. There is reassurance in the motto of these persevering pilgrims: "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis."
Havard Law Professor William Stuntz follows up, here, to an earlier essay, "Faculty Clubs and Church Pews." The new essay, "The Academic Left and the Christian Right," fleshes out this statement:
I've come to a conclusion: The situation is even better than I'd
thought. The intellectual left and the religious right not only could come together. Given the right kind of political leadership, they will.
So
what would this coming-together look like? What ideological territory,
what issue space, can secular academics and evangelical Christians both
occupy?
He concludes: "Academics dream for a living -- we
think about ways the world might change, and how the change could
happen. And evangelicals believe we live in a world afflicted by sin
and filled with wrongs that need righting. I bet both groups would
welcome a politics that aimed to right some of those wrongs. I know I
would."
