Richard S. writes, in response to my post about the possible execution in Afghanistan of a convert to Christianity:
On the other hand, it would be a great tragedy for the integrity of the Afghan conscience for them to put fear of the USA, or (worse) desire to be liked by world opinion leaders, ahead of what they conceive to be God's command. As long as they are not convinced that the Quran permits converts to live, they must seek to kill him.
Hopefully, that tradition can be reinterpreted from within to permit conversion. But if not, I suggest that we must be careful to use methods to protect converts which do not involve getting the Afghans to pledge allegiance to something above Allah (e.g. international human rights). To think that one has betrayed God should make one sick unto death, a fate clearly worse than martyrdom.
I disagree. It is one thing to say -- and I imagine that Richard and I would both say this -- that we need to be careful about imposing our contested and contestable understandings of international human rights, by force or otherwise, in contexts where those understandings threaten the religious consciences of those who disagree with us. It is another thing, though, to say that what Christians must regard as a monstrous and objective evil -- i.e., the killing by the public authority of a human person for becoming a follower of Christ -- is to be excused, or even tolerated, on the ground that to do otherwise might burden the consciences of the would-be killers. Obviously, one would hope that these would-be killers would abstain, or change their minds, for reasons other than a "desire to be liked by world opinion leaders."
I do not mean to be flip, but it seems to me that Sir Charles James Napier got it right. Napier was the British commander-in-chief in India, and he prohibited the Hindu practice of sati ("suttee"), i.e., burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. When some Hindu leaders objected, Napier is said to have replied:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
Now, of course, my point is not to endorse British colonialism, or cultural imperialism, or hanging people. It is to say, though, that intentionally killing people who convert to Christianity, or who are widowed, is immoral, period, and it is appropriate, period, for the public authority charged with -- or, in the current case, stuck with? -- promoting the common good and protecting human life to forbid and prevent it.
On the one hand, I certainly hope we can rescue the fellow who is about to be executed in Afghanistan for becoming a Christian. We must try to do so. And we are also mandated to seek converts.
On the other hand, it would be a great tragedy for the integrity of the Afghan conscience for them to put fear of the USA, or (worse) desire to be liked by world opinion leaders, ahead of what they conceive to be God's command. As long as they are not convinced that the Quran permits converts to live, they must seek to kill him.
Hopefully, that tradition can be reinterpreted from within to permit conversion. But if not, I suggest that we must be careful to use methods to protect converts which do not involve getting the Afghans to pledge allegiance to something above Allah (e.g. international human rights). To think that one has betrayed God should make one sick unto death, a fate clearly worse than martyrdom.
Apparently, a man is on trial in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity, and is facing the death sentence. (Here is another story). And this is after the ouster of the Taliban!
The U.S. State Department is watching the case closely and considers it a barometer of how well democracy is developing in Afghanistan.
"Our view … is that tolerance, freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
I hope the United States State Department -- and, more particularly, the armed forces of the United States -- are doing more than "watching the case closely." It would be, in my judgment, grossly immoral to permit this farce, given the current presence and role of American troops in that Afghanistan, and the not-insignificant responsibility the United States has for the current government in that country.
One would hope that the execution of a convert would prompt at least the same level of hand-wringing by Western watchers as, say, the publication of insensitive and juvenile cartoons.
I know that many MOJ readers and bloggers are interested in the Solomon Amendment case, in part because of its relevance to questions of associational freedom, mediating institutions, subsidiarity, etc. Professor Jack Balkin has a (very) long post, here, analyzing the opinion and explaining why he participated in the lawsuit.
Brian Tamanaha has this very interesting post over at Professor Jack Balkin's blog. He notes that some "prominent conservatives" have been rethinking publicly their previous support for the war in Iraq, but insists that these conservatives continue to miss the point. For example, he writes, Andrew Sullivan has confessed to "three huge errors. The first was to overestimate the competence of government, especially in very tricky areas like WMD intelligence.... The second error was narcissism. America's power blinded many of us to the resentments that hegemony always provokes. . . . The final error was not taking culture seriously enough. There is a large discrepancy between neoconservatism's skepticism of government's ability to change culture at home and its naivete when it comes to complex, tribal, sectarian cultures abroad."
But, Tamanaha insists:
The first and overarching error of neoconservatives, Mr. Sullivan, is their willingness (nay, eagerness) to use war to achieve their ideological objectives. Neoconservatives see war as a tool, perhaps messy and unpleasant, not to mention expensive, but sometimes useful.
War is the greatest horror we inflict upon one another, destroying bodies and lives, inflicting untold pain, often on innocent bystanders. War must be a last resort, undertaken with great reluctance, when no other option is available--appropriate only when necessary to defend ourselves against an immediate aggressor (as international law recognizes).
That was not the case with Iraq. Bush and the neoconservatives were bent on starting a war in Iraq for their own ideological and personal reasons and they made sure it came about. Bush's premptive war doctrine, recently reiterated, is more of the same failure to recogize the utimate horror of war.
None of the neoconservative mea culpas I have read have recognized this true (moral and pragmatic) error of their vision and understanding, which is more fundamental than Sullivan's three so-called "huge errors." If neoconservatives understood that war is appropriate only as an absolutely last resort to defend ourselves against an attack, the war would never have happened--hence no WMD debacle (because there was not enough to justify war), no offending allies with our arrogance of power, and no attempt to shape another country in our own image.
I suspect -- but maybe I am wrong -- that Tamanaha and I would disagree about what it means, operationally, to commmit to the constraint that "[w]ar must be a last resort, undertaken with great reluctance, when no other option is available--appropriate only when necessary to defend ourselves against an immediate aggressor (as international law recognizes)." And, I am not convinced that, in principle, ousting a dangerous and murderous regime can never provide a justifiable purpose for waging war (though any such war must, of course, be conducted in a moral way). That said, the post is worth reading in full.
Thanks to Michael for posting the Brinkley review of Kevin Phillips's new book, American Theocracy. I am curious to know Michael's, and others' reactions to it. I have not (and probably will not) read American Theocracy, but I found the review insular and ignorant. "Harrowing picture of national danger"? Whatever. The idea that so-called "Christian Reconstructionists" do or ever will pose any threat of "theocracy" in the United States is just silly. So is, in my view, the idea that there is anything particularly "radical" about evangelical Christianity, as it is lived and believed in the United States today. Brinkley is, I realize, an accomplished scholar, but it is not clear to me that he really has any idea who evangelical Christians are, or what they believe, do, and want. (Brinkley would do well to read Christian Smith's, Christian America: What Evangelicals Really Want, or, for that matter, Alan Wolfe's The Transformation of American Religion -- a flawed but still useful book).
Here, by the way, are Martin Marty's thoughts on the Brinkley review:
In his new book, Baptizing America, Rabbi James Rudin speaks of a developing American "Christocracy." Kevin Phillips, in American Theocracy, writes about a developing "theocracy." Rudin is a moderate and Phillips has carefully detailed his own odyssey. Reviews of Phillips are coming in furiously fast, so we will concentrate on the "Radical Religion" theme of his subtitle, which is linked with two others, "Oil" and "Borrowed Money." Not swimming in oil or debt money, but recognizing that Phillips interweaves "theocracy" inextricably with these other two themes, I have to specialize on Sightings ground.
Phillips, once a Republican strategist and speech-writer, has read widely and well in the historical records and the political and social scientific works of our decades, and documents his work thoroughly. Would that there were space to quote or even outline his case, which I hope our readers will "sight," sometimes if only to argue with the author. My advance copy of the book is all highlighted and scribbled up with quotations and judgments, graphs and charts, that I will not be alone in using. But here we have to hurry to a set of questions about "theocracy."
For whatever light it sheds on the subject, let me say that I tend, or try, to dampen hyperbole on subjects of this sort. In the sixties and seventies, when it was the fashion among radicals to call America "Amerika," implying that European-style fascism was developing, my kind and I stepped back, contending that one can make a case about repression and its styles without invoking the extreme, even an often demonic aura of "the other." The same goes for "theocracy." Why give people a name they might savor and favor, or apply the term to near-miss phenomena? Phillips quotes many leaders of far-right and near-far-right Christian groups who want Christianity to have privilege, status, and even a monopoly on the spiritual front of a lame pluralist society, and sees -- yes -- theocracy in their goals.
Advice to myself, after reading Phillips's counsel: 1) Don't assign to people a label and a position they don't exactly hold; 2) Don't lump all people called "conservative" or "born again" into the mix of the theocracy-minded; 3) Don't label anyone "theocrat" who does not bear most of the marks of the theocrat; 4) Thus remember that, for people of faith on left or right, to try to influence foreign or domestic policy is not by itself a mark of theocracy -- not by any means; 5) Do urge fellow citizens to be Madisonian (Federalist Papers X and LI), to work for the republic, against favor or privilege or establishment for particular religions (e.g., "Christianity" or "the biblical worldview"); 6) If you must blame, blame fairly, including the Republicans-not-on-the-right or Democrats-wherever-they-are for leaving a moral vacuum that exploiters can invade and exploit; 7) Make the point that theocracies have always corrupted communities of faith that favor them, noting that such polities are bad for religion; 8) Read and profit from Rudin and especially Phillips as they make their cases; 9) Be ready to link up with others, to see if at this late date the republic can be invigorated and survive; 10) Arrange with people you can trust to help you live with new strategies and old hopes, as you try to find a means of sleeping peacefully after you've read this unsettling script -- and then awaken, for thought and action.
Rick
I was in Cuba for the past week, doing some preliminary research for a project on Cuban property law and the inevitable transition to a market democracy. The trip was, as always, depressing and frustrating, but it left me with a few thoughts relevant (to varying degrees) to our blog:
(1) Anyone who doubts the wisdom of the Church's opposition to communism need only visit Cuba for a short while to become a believer. There can be no doubt, as Leo XIII recognized (along with every Pope to write a social encyclical thereafter), that Marxist economic systems leave insufficient room for individual dignity and self-expression in the economic sphere. Moreover, the centralization of virtually all employment leaves dissenters with few options. The Church's dual criticism of the injustice of unfettered capitalism, and the inadequacy of the Marxist solution, continues to strike me as incredibly wise.
(2) Like many college students, I often sympathized with the egalitarian rhetoric of Marxism. But my first trip to Cuba in 1995, at the height of the post-Soviet economic hangover, made me a (qualified) believer in the market system. The profound effect that my first-hand exposure to the folly of communism had on me gives me reason to doubt the wisdom of the US embargo as a tool for change in Cuba. One of the key strategies of government control in Cuba is the denial to ordinary Cubans of access to information. Satellite TV is banned in Cuba, and Cubans (unlike foreign tourists) are not allowed to use the Internet. More people-to-people contact would help to circumvent the isolation fostered by these restrictions. And, because Cuba's system would clearly lose in a head-to-head comparison by almost any measure, it seems to me that more contact between the two countries could only enhance the pressure for reform on the island. In addition, the embargo provides Castro with a convenient excuse for the economic failures largely caused by the island's inept management. As many, many Cubans have told me, the embargo is Castro's best friend.
(3) The Church's stance with respect to the Castro government is an interesting one. The Archdiocese of Havana has taken a non-confrontational approach to the regime. In light of Pope John Paul II's strong opposition to communist regimes in Eastern Europe, I find the hierarchy's acquiescence in dictatorship in Cuba to be somewhat disappointing. While those of us on this blog might disagree about the value of greater lay participation in Church governance, I think we can all agree that there is no excuse for dictatorship in secular government. No doubt the global Church has more pressing issues, but it would be nice to see the official Church in Cuba take a more prophetic stance in favor of liberty and justice. (And, to give credit where it is due, some diocese in Cuba have done precisely that.)
(4) Finally, political rhetoric in Cuba is colored by constant references to external threats to Cuban security. Billboards everywhere proclaim that Cuba remains under seige, in a state of war, and under constant threat of attack. This is, mind you, over four decades after the Bay of Pigs. In light of this supposedly ever-looming threat, dissenters are tarred as unpatriotic and treasonous, as knowing (and unknowing) dupes of a hostile foreign power. In other words, I felt right at home. Can there be any doubt that Karl Rove's shameful attempts to use the (permanent) war on terror as a tool of domestic partisan politics bears a strong resemblance to the fear-mongering used by the Castro government, as well as virtually every totalitarian state in history? If people of good will do not speak out against the political climate of permanent war and stifled dissent that has emerged under this administration since September 11, I fear for the long-term health of our democracy.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
With registration materials available, I'm re-posting information on "Public Policy, Prudential Judgment, and Catholic Social Tradition," the annual conference of the Murphy Institute at St. Thomas (co-sponsors, Law and Catholic Studies), coming up in Minneapolis on April 7 and 8. The list of 8 plenary speakers, including Chris Wolfe (Marquette Poli Sci), John McGreevy (Notre Dame History), and our own Rob Vischer, is here. They'll be joined by 15-20 panelists in concurrent sessions.
Tom
"PUBLIC POLICY, PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT, AND THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL TRADITION"
April 7-8, 2006, University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Registration Information
| There is no fee to attend the conference. However, participants must make their own travel and lodging arrangements. Attendees must complete and submit registration form by Wednesday, March 29, 2006. |
General Conference Information
In the Catholic moral tradition, prudence is understood to be a moral virtue that enables a person to reason well about things to be done. Prudence concerns reasoning both about goals to be pursued and means to be employed to accomplish them. The tradition acknowledges the importance of moral principles, which shape practical reasoning in very fundamental ways, but it also insists that concrete actions are also determined by prudential judgment, which wisely takes account of particular conditions.
In recent years a number of public policy questions, such as the permissibility of the death penalty, the morality of the war in Iraq, and the justice of welfare reforms, have provoked controversy among Catholics. Advocates of very different policies have claimed that their positions follow from the Catholic social tradition and, at times, some have even insisted that their positions alone are faithful to this tradition. These controversies highlight enduring questions about the proper relationship between moral principles and prudential judgment.
In much the same way, controversies have also accompanied some of the formal positions adopted by the American bishops and even the Vatican on questions of public policy. Here again there has been an indistinct line between direct inference from moral principles and sound prudential judgment, where the former invites commitment and the latter tolerates disagreement.
Because of the importance of prudential judgment in public policy matters, the time is ripe for a careful and comprehensive discussion of the topic. The Murphy Institute's 2006 conference, held April 7-8 at the School of Law building in downtown Minneapolis, will investigate these questions with a roster of approximately 25 speakers in concurrent and plenary sessions. |
