Malcolm Gladwell has this interesting article in a recent New Yorker. Any thoughts?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
"Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism"
Saturday, August 15, 2009
This is awesome. If I could get this mutation, ...
... I could post to MOJ almost as much as Rick G. does! Read about it, here.
Thanks for your prayers, Rick
God knows I need all the prayers I can get! But your own beloved Coach K is a Republican! Need I say more?!
Lifted from dotCommonweal
Michael Place on Health Care Reform
August 15, 2009, 11:21 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
One of the voices most worth listening to on matters of health care policy is Michael Place, former head of the Catholic Health Association, former advisor to Cardinal Bernardin, and charter member of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative. He is a moral theologian with extensive, on-the-ground, practical experience. Here is an article he published in the current issue of America
I had the privilege of being part of a CHA working group that he convened on cooperation with evil and Catholic health care institutions, which brought together a broad range of Catholic moralists to discuss the application of the principle of cooperation in an institutional setting. Father Place was a superb facilitator of the discussion, regularly clarifying the issues, and identifying the fault lines, and bottom lines, in a non-polemical way. For anyone interested in teaching or learning the topic of cooperation with evil, the final report is, I think, a good resource.
Pray for Michael Perry
Recent news reports indicate that the rock-star coach of our own Michael Perry's favorite college basketball team is a loathesome lout. (Let's go Duke!).
Peter Steinfels' column this week is about the debate over healthcare reform
It's certainly worth reading, here.
Professor Amos Guiora and Public Religion
Thanks to Rob for bringing to our attention Professor Amos Guiora’s interesting essay entitled Religious Extremism: A Fundamental Danger. I have not been successful in downloading the entire essay as I have had problems in working with the SSRN website since moving to Chicago. However, I have been able to read Professor Guiora’s abstract which Rob has kindly posted.
As one interested in Catholic Legal Theory and in religious liberty and libertas ecclesiae, I find some of the professor’s claims troubling. As Rob notes (and I concur looking at Professor Guiora’s areas of proficiency), the author does not appear to claim expertise in religious liberty. Nonetheless he makes some remarkable points about religious liberty that need to be challenged and to which reasoned response must be given.
First of all, Professor Guiora does not seem to make the distinction between religious teachings and individuals who claim to be followers of religious teaching. My point here is that it is quite easy to blame a particular faith rather than the followers of a faith who misinterpret and misapply its teachings. I think that the author makes a legitimate point in being concerned about terrorism and terrorist acts that claim to rely on religious views. However, clarity is needed in the argument distinguishing between the tenets of a faith versus followers of a faith who decide on their own that belief in God entitles them to pursue harsh, uncalled for, and unacceptable acts against their neighbors.
Second, it appears that at best Professor Guiora wishes to privatize religion and strip it of any public role whatsoever. In my estimation, this is unwarranted. Professor Guiora asserts that “Private religion [which he defines elsewhere] is the ideal articulated by the American Founding Fathers.” Like Rob, I disagree with this conclusion. But let us assume for the moment that the Guiorian thesis has support within some segments of the American Republic. Is this a good and correct position to advance?
I for one do not think so. I am now reading a fascinating book published in 1939 by Nathaniel Micklem who was the Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford entitled National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church. I do not want to be mistaken by anyone that I think Professor Guiora adheres to the beliefs of National Socialism—for that would be a strange position to advance if one takes stock of the fact that Professor Guiora dedicated nineteen years of his life to serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. However, as Christopher Dawson has reminded us, even persons who hold high democratic ideals can reflect views that are synonymous with those advanced by totalitarian systems, especially when it comes to religious perspectives and the proper role of religion and religious believers in public life. Professor Micklem draws our attention to a speech delivered by Adolph Hitler in 1935 in which Hitler was doing all within his power to privatize religion and silence the believer in any public manifestation of faith. Micklem quotes Hitler saying:
Neither in earlier times nor today [1935] has the Party the intention of waging any kind of war against Christianity. But under no circumstances will the National Socialist State tolerate the continuance or fresh beginning of the politicizing of the denominations by roundabout ways. Here let there be no mistake about the determination of the Movement and the State. We have already fought political clericalism once and driven it out of Parliament, and that, too, after a long struggle, in which we had no power of the State behind us, and the other side had all the power. Today it is we who have this power; and we shall never wage the war as a war against Christianity or even against one of the two denominations; but we shall wage it in order to keep our public life free from those priests who have fallen short of their calling, and who think they have to be politicians, not pastors of the flock.
I do not believe that the Founding Fathers were intent on doing away with public religion, nor do I think that the religious person is engaged in erroneous activity by engaging roles in public life which some may conclude is the exclusive preserve of “politicians.” To conclude that the Establishment Clause requires this, as Professor Guiora seems to imply, is a grave misstep. To further conclude, as Professor Guiora does, that the “vulnerable non-believer” can be protected only by removal of religion from the public square is to borrow from the tactic of the totalitarian. It would be mistaken to conclude that the supporter of democracy would also adhere to and advance the same view.
RJA sj
Friday, August 14, 2009
Combat terrorism! Keep religion in the home!
Utah law prof Amos Guiora has posted his article, Religious Extremism: A Fundamental Danger. I do not think religious liberty is Prof. Guiora's primary area of scholarship, but that is no excuse for some of the assertions set forth in the article. Here is the abstract:
Given that religious violence constitutes such a grave threat to democracies, governments must begin to examine this institution more critically than they have in the past. Governments are charged not only with protecting civil liberties, like freedom of or from religion, but with protecting their citizens from internal and external threats. This Article discusses the framework modern democratic governments must begin to institute if they are to protect freedom of religion and effectively respond to a unique threat to safety. Five countries - the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Israel and the Netherlands - will be examined. My primary thesis is that civil societies cannot afford to continue to treat religion as an "untouchable" subject - we must begin to understand what religion is in order to know when and how it may be appropriately limited for the benefit of society.
And from the conclusion:
Discussing the public/private religion question is critical in analyzing the limits of freedom with respect to religious practice. Religious practice, after all, suggests religious conduct as distinct from religious belief alone. Religious practice is how religious belief manifests itself; prayer is the liturgy and manner in which a person of faith communicates with his/her deity; speech is communication by a person of faith or religious leader (priest, imam, rabbi) invoking the deity for the purpose of action in the name of religion with respect to religious and non-religious individuals and groups. Private religion—the manifestation of any of the three above in any combination within the home—is the ideal articulated by the American Founding Fathers. The premise was clear: belief, practice and speech with respect to religion in any manner within the confines of your home most effectively balances between the state and religion. Furthermore, private religion protects non-believers from religion. Public religion, however, not only affects the delicate balance between state and religion (religion used here in the generic rather than “Church”), it also conceivably endangers the now vulnerable non-believer.
So practicing my faith in public not only upsets the "balance" between state and religion, but it defies the vision of the Founding Fathers? Who knew?
Dallas Willard on my mind
I've been thinking a lot about Dallas Willard, who is one of the most thoughtful evangelical Christian writers today and a philosophy professor at USC. He was one of the featured speakers at the Bible conference I attended last week. It turns out that Willard was heavily influenced by my great-grandfather, even dedicating one of his books to hiim, and so he had an interest in coming to Iowa to see the conference that my great-grandfather started 75 years ago. In a series of talks, Willard spoke powerfully and movingly about the Kingdom of God, and how it invariably requires God's grace in our lives -- not just in terms of our ultimate salvation (which is the traditional evangelical emphasis), but in terms of our eternal living beginning here and now. The problem with the Pharisees was that their focus was on conduct within their control -- not murdering, not committing adultery, etc. -- but Jesus expanded the focus to matters of the heart, to attitudes and dispositions that could not be changed absent God's grace. So while my kingdom is what I'm doing, God's Kingdom is what God is doing. When we enter into the Kingdom of God, we let our kindgdom become part of God's Kingdom, becoming dependent on God and focusing not on what I control, but on what controls me -- i.e., matters of the heart.
Then this week, I received the new Pepperdine Law Review devoted to a symposium on the higher law and featuring a short piece by Dallas Willard about why the higher law matters. This brought to my mind comments Willard made to a group of Christian academics, which you'll see still centers on God's grace (which he defines as "God acting in your life to accomplish what you cannot accomplish on your own"). Here's an excerpt of his advice:
My strategy was this – do really good work. Do work that you would think God had to help you with to get you there, and then do some more. Just stay at it. That’s the only strategy I’ve had is to work in that way. My view is that, if you are in a good field, you must work on the things that are really central and essential to that field. And you ought to believe that God will enable you to do work in that field that will be a benefit and challenge to everyone. . . . what we as Christians want to do — we want to get to the point where people scattered around the academic world are worried about what we are doing. They sit up at night and think about us. They get on the internet, and they chase our work down. I really challenge you to believe that about yourself, whatever your area of work is. Not because you are so good, but because God is so great.
I don’t know anything more to say in terms of how I work, because that’s all there is to it. I try to teach classes well. I pray for my students. I pray as I set up the course schedule and the outline. I pray for them when they come in to interview. They don’t know I’m praying most of the time, but I pray for them, and I pray for the class. I say, "Lord, let this be a class that will really help these students in their work, in their field, in their self-confidence." Because, you know, many of the students I have, especially in the beginning, don’t know they have a mind. One of the things I will do often in a large introductory course is say, "How many of you would like to be known as thinkers?" Of 150 people, you may get 3-4 hands, and those will be tentative. And then I say, "How many of you would like to be known as feelers?" They all want to be known as feelers. So you know that you have to start working to encourage knowledge of what it’s like to learn, to build their foundation, to help them to come to understand how the mind works.
I’m not there to be a witness. I’m there to do a good job as a teacher and writer. I will be a witness. I can’t help that. The only question is, "What am I going to witness to?" And I take a lot of comfort from Jesus’ statement that you cannot hide a city that is set on a hill. So I don’t have to think about it. I have to try to do real good work; and that’s my business – to do real good work. I wouldn’t say it’s the best in the world or anything like that, others can make judgments, but my intention is to do the best work possible. And by that I don’t mean within my human limitations; I also mean God helping me. I’m going to put my human limitations on the line, but my expectation is not from them. I expect to see something happen that I could not possibly do. And I would do that if I were preaching or witnessing on the streets, or doing whatever wherever. I want to see something happen that I couldn’t possibly do. And that’s what I would encourage anyone in the academic line of work to do: to say "I know what good work is. I’m going to do it, and I expect God to help me. I will give my life to it." Of course, I will be a prisoner of Christ; that’s what I am. Because when I am doing my work as a philosopher or a writer, that’s what I’m doing. Of course, I write a lot more in philosophy than I do in religion, but few people read that. That’s kind of the way it is in the academic world, the writing in philosophy helps me in everything else I do. So I really want to do very good work in my field. I guess that’s the simple thing I would say: I just want to do good work.
I’m afraid to say this, because I’m afraid to burden someone else. But I never ask for a promotion. I never ask for money. Of the books I’ve published, all have been solicited from me by the publishers. And I’ll tell you why I have approached things in this way. When I was at Baylor University as a young man, as a very green young man, I was watching other green young men trying to find a place to preach. And the Lord said something very simple to me: "Never try to find a place to speak, try to have something to say."
Also appropriate for academics (at least for me) is Willard's warning that he gave last week: "What our will is directed toward tells someone everything they need to know about us."
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Some thoughts about human nature
I begin this entry by thanking Michael Scaperlanda for his posting earlier today bringing to our attention the quotation from Kingsley Martin on human nature: “The clue to the political thought of any period lies in the conflict between various views of human nature.”
I for one would agree that such a sentiment, i.e., the conflict of various views of human nature, has fueled the development of political thought across the centuries. But I think that today we are seeing some evidence of a change—a change that I suggest does not necessarily mean something better regarding conflicts in political thought. This past year I offered a course at Boston College Law School entitled “Natural Law and Natural Rights.” I shall be offering the course again this year in a new venue, Loyola University Chicago.
During the discussions that took place at Boston College, I was surprised to see the degree to which some young, energetic, and clever minds quickly dismissed the existence of the concept which is called “human nature.” It struck me then, and it still does today, that if one does not consider that there is such a thing as human nature, there cannot be conflicts between or among differing views of that which is denied.
Here is a challenge for those interested in Catholic Legal Theory and its development. Are we—those who are presumably doing something to enhance CLT—doing enough to investigate with our students, colleagues, and anyone else we encounter the idea of human nature. It seems for the longest time that the Catholic intellectual tradition was quite interested in studying, discussing, and investigating further human nature and the essence of the human person. After all, discussions about essence and nature had long been a part of the important studies that took place in Catholic educational institutions. But, have we reached the stage that these sorts of inquiry no longer merit sufficient interest to continue their examination?
If so, then I think we face a dark future where offering an answer to the question what is constitutive of human nature can escape a purely subjective explanation about who or what the human person is. This is not the same issue presented by the conflict of various views of human nature. The issue now seems to be whether there are sufficiently universal characteristics about human beingness to indicate that there is an essence, a nature about humans that can supply an idea, theory, or concept of “human nature.”
As a way of beginning to address this issue, assuming that it is of sufficient interest to others, may reside within the thought of Jacques Maritain. Some years ago, in 1943 to be more precise, Maritain began wrestling with work that would lead him to chair the UNESCO committee advising the drafting committee that would produce the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his own contribution, Maritain raised an important initial question about whether man was a means to an end or an end in himself or herself. He answered his own question by suggesting that there are things due to the person purely on the basis that he or she is man. If Maritain was on to something, and again I suggest that he was, would his thinking provide some resolution to how the conflict between various perspectives on human nature is to be settled knowing that there is an essence or nature about being human?
RJA sj
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