Schutt on Rush

Regent law prof (and author of a wonderful new book) Mike Schutt offers this response to my question about Rush Limbaugh's embrace of self-reliance:

I think you have it pegged about right (and I think Michael hit this, too) so maybe this isn't even worth saying, but there is an awful lot of this "autonomy" stuff going around, even in "Christian" thinking about politics, and it's a problem. I'm a conservative because I think government is a generally a lousy vehicle through which to love one's neighbors and, as you point out, is not the most effective way to meet human needs. Charity itself is denatured and community destroyed when human beings begin to rely on government to care for the poor, house orphans, take care of widows, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and the like. It's also wasteful, but that is a secondary problem. The trouble is that community is also destroyed-- and charity made impossible-- by a vision of the human person that says community is not a necessary part of humanness. So Rush has it wrong. Body life is a fundamental Christian and biblical concept that is lost on modern conservatism. I think conservatism has capitulated to modernism, which holds radical autonomy as fundamental tenet. I guess the bottom line for me, as a Christian conservative living in the midst of modernity, is that we aren't fully human beings without meeting the needs of others and having our needs met by others, yet the vehicle for this interdependence is properly the body of Christ in ministry both within and to outsiders, rather than the state.