Rudenstine's Own Fundamentalism

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