The White House press release on the now-authorized military execution says: "The President’s thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous crimes and their families and all others affected.” If the president is going to bring in his perspective as a person of prayer -- Christian prayer, we know -- shouldn't he say clearly that his prayers are also with Gray, the convicted murderer? "All others affected" could literally cover that but obviously doesn't suggest it (probably it's meant to suggest, among others, Gray's family). Saying it clearly would be a crazy, Christian act by a president who often suggests that he is resolute in applying Christian faith in office. If it's imprudent to say it clearly, then shouldn't "the President's thoughts and prayers" be left out altogether, lest he reinforce all of us in our natural tendency to pray only for the good people? (This is all separate, of course, from whether executions should happen ever or how often.)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Praying for the Killer
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Klan Shelter Hypo
I agree that under the facts Rob has proposed, the Klan shelter should probably be eligible for funding, since it is providing the services and is considering employees based not directly on their race, but rather on their ideological beliefs (in this case in racism), just as other ideological organizations seek employees of their ideology -- including religious organizations when they consider religion in hiring. However, I think there is an argument for allowing the government to treat the religious-belief and racist-belief criteria differently; the right of religion-based hiring does not stand or fall with an asserted right of racism-based hiring. Religious beliefs as a category have a positive constitutional protection that racist beliefs do not. The government should be at least neutral toward religious beliefs and arguably must give them as much solicitude as it gives to any other ideology that it protects (a line of free exercise cases, several from Judge Alito when he was on the 3d Circuit, suggest this principle). Racist beliefs don't have that kind of solicitude, although they of course enjoy basic free speech and expressive associational protections; i.e. they have a right to be free from impositions, but not a right to neutral treatment in funding. So, since the government allows various funded organizations to consider ideology in their hiring, there is a strong argument that it must do the same for religious organizations' religion-based hiring, but a much less strong argument that it must do so for racism-based hiring. The distinction between religious exercise as a positive constitutional value and racial bias as a tolerated position, but without such value, is emphasized in Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 468-70 (1973) (striking down textbook loans to families at racially discriminatory schools five years after upholding textbook loans to families at schools that considered religion in hiring etc.). It's true that the "segregation academies" in that case discriminated based actually on race, not just on racist ideology; but the broader distinction between religion and racism also seems part of the argument.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Commonweal Review of Religion/Politics Books
I review books by E.J. Dionne, Mark Toulouse, and Garry Wills in the new Commonweal issue (I'm not sure if the link accesses the full article unless you have an online or print subscription).
Quotations on "The Human Condition"
Thinking about Christianity and law starts with, among other things, a moral anthropology, an account of human nature and the human condition. Here are a few thought-provoking quotes. An example, from theologian Helmut Thielicke:
The power of temptation is not in its appeal to our baser instincts; if that were the case, it would be natural to be repulsed by it. The power of temptation is in its appeal to our idealism.
The monthly "Reflections" section of Christianity Today, which provides such quotes, is always a good reason for looking at the magazine.
How the Law on Funding and Religious Hiring Has Really Developed (Response to Martha Minow)
Among the misconceptions used to challenge religion-based hiring in private programs receiving government funds is the idea that such hiring was prohibited until President Bush came along. For example, when Barack Obama proposed his faith-based initiative earlier this month, Martha Minow was quoted in the Times as saying that
Mr. Obama would move to “return the law to what it was before the current administration,” in other words barring the consideration of religion in hiring decisions for such programs that receive federal financing.
“I don’t think there’s anything too controversial about that,” Ms. Minow said. “Any religious organization that does not want to comply with that requirement simply doesn’t have to take the money.”
Leave aside the question whether it's right, or constitutional, just to say "don't take the money." Prof. Minow's statement is misleading about the law before the Bush administration. Religious organizations receiving funding have had far more freedom, all along, to consider religion in hiring than she suggests.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Who Wrote the Serenity Prayer?
So now the traditional attribution of Reinhold Niebuhr as author of the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer -- "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" etc. -- has been questioned, by a Yale Law librarian no less. But Niebuhr did say many other inspiring things, especially about religion and public life, so it's a good excuse to quote one (from The Irony of American History):
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Original Sin and Politics
Alan Jacobs, who teaches English at Wheaton College, is a wonderful writer who can be found in the pages of First Things and sometimes at The American Scene (and who wrote a great biography of C.S. Lewis). Now he has a new book called Original Sin: A Cultural History, which came in my mail today. Maybe you'll be enticed by the review of the book in Christianity Today, which emphasizes how Jacobs
uses literary and historical examples to show what the doctrine means. It is not simply a description of a quaint story about a garden with an apple. It is an expression of what's wrong with all of us, an attempt to answer the question, Whence all this evil?
The range of culture that Jacobs engages runs from Augustine and Origen to "the Hellboy films and George Thorogood's 'Bad to the Bone.'" I'm particularly interested in the political implications that Jacobs draws from the fact of our common flawed nature. As the reviewer, Jason Byassee, summarizes:
Original sin is a good word to the poor, bad news to tyrants, and a prescription for a politics more radical than any we've seen: a genuinely Christian democracy, inclusive of all the living and the dead, each equally bound up in a plight we cannot solve ourselves.
Jacobs thinks original sin does this leveling work in a way that other points of Christian anthropology do not. God's good Creation, humanity's crafting in the image of God, the charge to tend the Garden and to multiply: such prelapsarian pronouncements don't lift the luggage politically. They "should do so, but usually" do not, he writes. Somehow it works better for us to "condescend" than to try and lift up others to our level.
This all speaks powerfully to me. But I'm a Protestant. What do Catholics think about the idea that equality and democracy rest more securely in the recognition of universal human flaws than universal human possibilities?
Berg's Response to Kaveny on Funding and Religious Hiring
Since I'm not down the hall from Cathy in South Bend, I'll respond at greater length to her arguments for excluding from funding private programs that consider religion in hiring.
Among her key premises is that allowing religion-based hiring serves only the purpose of "mak[ing] religious groups flourish," whereas the purpose of funding is "to partner with them in enacting limited purpose programs demonstrated to make the community as a whole flourish." But the argument for religious-hiring rights in funding includes a significant component of institutional pluralism. Allowing funding recipients flexibility in this matter would serve the community by allowing a broader range of organizations, bringing a broader range of community contacts and strategies for addressing needs, to partner with the government. Obama's speech appeals to institutional pluralism, asserting the need to have "all hands on deck" in attacking social problems through a "bottom up" approach. But because of the hiring-rights issue, his proposal is likely to drive away the majority of evangelical hands, as the negative reaction of the very moderate evangelical leader Rich Cizik in last week's Times suggests. And his proposal is top-down to the extent that it supports only one model of religious engagement in social services -- the ecumenical one where, in Cathy's terms, religion is not "relevant to the job" of working in the soup kitchen.
Monday, July 7, 2008
"Ministers, Minimum Wages, and Church Autonomy"
For those interested in the legal issues about religious organizational freedom (or "freedom of the church," or "church autonomy," etc.), I have a short piece in Engage, a Federalist Society-published journal. It focuses on a recent one of Judge Posner's opinions, which are typically fun to read (and read about!).
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Time Magazine Poll: Catholics on the Presidential Race and Other Issues
Time reports its new poll showing McCain at 45 percent among Catholics, Obama at 44. However, according to the fuller survey account, McCain leads 42 to 31 in terms of "firm support," while Obama leads 49 to 11 in terms of "leaning support." So it appears that Obama is catching up but has more work to do, and the situation is fluid because there are lots of undecideds. Non-surprises in the poll: McCain is closer to Catholic voters' views on "so-called values issues, such as abortion and gay marriage," while Obama is seen as "best [a]ble to handle the economy." A surprise: McCain is seen as "most comfortable talking about his religious beliefs." There's an accompanying story featuring Doug Kmiec.
The full survey (again, here) includes some interesting results concerning Catholics' views on various issues. It also reports that 86 percent "give Pope Benedict XVI a favorable job rating."
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
