Saturday, June 18, 2005
For those of you interested in the controversy over evolution, and who want to steer a course between religious fundamentalism (= ignorance) on the one side and scientific fundamentalism (= ignorance) on the other, this is the book to read:
Michael Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard University Press 2005). Click here.
Ruse, a philosopher, is an agnostic who respects (non-fundamentalist) religious belief.
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Michael P.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Brian has responded to my last post with the following comment:
I would have thought that Rudenstine was marking exactly this kind ofdistinction by calling attention to the kind of "faith" that sets itself in opposition to evidence, for example, from the sciences. I did notread his remarks as a blanket condemnation of everything that travelsunder the heading of "faith."
Perhaps Rudenstine got carried away with his own rhetoric -- I don't read him the way Brian does. But it is reassuring to see that Brian himself would make the kind of distinction about "faith" suggested in my original post. Thanks to Brian for his quick response!
- -Mark
I found David Rudenstine's statements about faith and legal education appalling and unworthy of the dean of a religiously-affiliated law school. I also found Brian Leiter's approbation disappointing. Brian is a fierce critic of mindless fundamentalism, and I usually applaud him for that. But he has been willing, at times, to distinguish between that and those segments of religious belief and discourse that engage with reason, have deep intellectual traditions, are tolerant and ecumenical, and have a vivid sense of the proper spheres of the religious and the secular. Brian's applause for a statement that shows absolutely no understanding of these vitally important distinctions is thus surprising, as well as disappointing. Now, I do understand the frustrations that are animating Brian's and Rudenstine's comments. Many of us in the Catholic center and left are deeply frustrated by the religious right's cooptation of the religious voice in public life. We believe that the Bush/DeLay/Frist type of "Christian nationalism" is deeply antagonistic to the Catholic Tradition. I believe that it even verges on a kind of blasphemy, as it wraps the cross in the flag. But for Rudenstine to argue that there is no place for faith in public discourse -- or in law schools -- not only shows not only that he has not done his homework (as Mike Perry suggests), but that he would throw the religious baby out with the dishwater, thereby impoverishing the quality of debate within law schools and marginalizing (or excluding) those students who seek to integrate faith, reason and public responsibility in their lives. This constitutes a kind of secularist fundamentalism that is as unsophisticated, un-nuanced and dogmatic as any religious fundamentalism. In my opinion his statements are also unworthy of the great Jewish ethical and social traditions that is Yeshiva's legacy, but I will let someone from those traditions adress that with more authority than I could muster. Among the many tragedies of the Republican/Religious Right rapprochment is that it produces this kind of argument.
--Mark
Is the posting below, from Brian Leiter's blog, another example of the ignorant tendency to reduce all faith/religion to religious fundamentalism? Is David Tracy a religious fundamentalist? Bernard Lonergan? Karl Rahner? Surely Rudenstine could have chosen a more precise, informative label than "faith".
So said Dean David Rudenstine of Cardozo Law School (which is part of a religious university, Yeshiva University). Story here; an excerpt:
In a provocative address last week to some 200 undergraduate counselors from northeastern universities, the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law warned of a "collision course with democratic order and social unity" as politically outspoken religious leaders wield increasing influence over the nation's public policy.
Dean David Rudenstine, himself a political activist in the 1960s as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded groups, further suggested that U.S. jurisprudence and legal education were "very much on the defensive," in part because strict secularism as a legal paradigm is seen by the faithful — including some at Christian law schools — as an insufficient context for policy issues such as abortion rights, homosexual marriage, stem-cell research and Darwin's theory of evolution.
Mr. Rudenstine said that America's law schools have a social responsibility, especially at a time of religious fundamentalism, to foster reasoned debate over the facts and science of such controversial matters. To shirk this role, he suggested, would be to leave the way clear for faith-based organizations to impose "divisive" views.
"Faith challenges the underpinnings of legal education," Mr. Rudenstine declared. "Faith is a willingness to accept belief in things for which we have no evidence, or which runs counter to evidence we have."
He added, "Faith does not tolerate opposing views, does not acknowledge inconvenient facts. Law schools stand in fundamental opposition to this."
I admire Dean Rudenstine's courage in speaking forthrightly on this subject.
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Michael P.
Apropos Rob's last post, perhaps that institution should rename itself the "United Church of, Well, Whatever." I gather it hasn't been noticed that recognition of Christ as Lord no longer requires Catholics to regard others as necessarily damned or hopeless.
The John Danforth column posted by Michael is a valuable reminder that recognizing the limits of human knowledge is a prudent stance when translating religious convictions into public policy. The danger is when that stance begins to overwhelm foundational religious convictions themselves. I initially thought this was a spoof, but Christianity Today reports that the United Church of Christ is set to defeat a resolution proclaiming that "Jesus Christ is Lord." As one pastor complained, "there is a judgmental quality to [the resolution] that implies very strongly that those who do not agree with us are condemned or damned or hopeless - and that's exactly the thing that UCC is against."
Rob
St. Louis
IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.
People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.
Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.
But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.
When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.
When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.
We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.
In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.
By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.
For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Steve Bainbridge's posting, earlier today, came to mind when I read the following posting, by philosopher David Velleman, on Left2Right:
Of what moral significance are the results of Terri Schiavo's autopsy, if any, especially the conclusion "that she had irreversible brain damage and was blind "?
Here's a wonderful essay by Ragan Sutterfield on the use of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's legacy in today's just war debates. An excerpt:
Bonhoeffer's life is wrapped in the dilemma of faithfulness. And we who come after him are left with that dilemma no more clearly resolved. Are we to follow Bonhoeffer in his calls toward peacemaking, or are we to go his way of drastic action for the sake of justice? Some would-be followers deny that there is any ambiguity in his example. They make him a pacifist and only a pacifist, or a model just warrior who rejected his earlier idealism. To step out of line with either position is a step that demands correction.
When John Buchanan, editor of The Christian Century, wrote that Bonhoeffer "move[d] to the Niebuhrian conclusion that the evil of Nazism should be opposed on Christian ethical grounds," he was upbraided by a reader who responded that "there is no hint that Bonhoeffer ever justified this choice on the grounds of Niebuhrian 'Christian realism' or denied that pacifism was the most faithful Christian commitment." In the same vein, Walter Wink wrote a short piece in Sojourners reminding readers that "American thinkers who have used Bonhoeffer as a way of justifying the just war theory overlook his clear statement that he does not regard this as a justifiable action—that it's a sin—and that he throws himself on the mercy of God."
The essay also details the conflicting applications of Bonhoeffer's work by Jean Bethke Elshtain and Stanley Hauerwas, concluding with a point of agreement:
While Bonhoeffer sees the state as an ordained "restrainer" that establishes and maintains order, it is the Church that must remind the state of its obligations. It is the Church's existence as a truth-telling community that gives it this role. "The failure of the church to oppose Hitler," Hauerwas writes, "was but the outcome of the failure of Christians to speak the truth to one another and to the world." And it was in the context of this failure that Bonhoeffer took action at the risk of incurring guilt through violence.
On the imperative of truth-telling Elshtain and Hauerwas agree, and it is here that they are closest to Bonhoeffer. But how can we begin to speak truthfully? Elshtain calls us to the task of describing things as they are. The attacks of September 11 were clearly murder, an act of evil that we must respond to. But Hauerwas is more cautious; with Bonhoeffer, he reminds us that telling the truth sometimes requires more silence than the world would like. "No good at all can come from acting before the world and one's self as though we knew the truth, when in reality we do not," Bonhoeffer once said. "Qualified silence might perhaps be more appropriate for the church today than talk which is very unqualified."
Rob
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