Here, thanks to Engage and the Federalist Society, is an edited transcript of a conversation that my friend Kurt Lash and I had last Spring, at the University of Illinois. Topics covered include the Smith decision, the Hosanna-Tabor case and the ministerial exception, church-state separation, the views of Washington and Jefferson, etc., etc.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Garnett & Lash on church-state separation, religious freedom, and the ministerial exception
Lew Daly on "The Church of Labor"
I really appreciated Lew Daly's God's Economy, and so I'm not surprised that I very much enjoyed, learned from, and was provoked by this essay of his, "The Church of Labor." I'm not able to agree with Lew entirely -- I think he, and other Catholic advocates for the labor movement, need to distinguish more than they do between (a) the dignity of workers and their right to associate in order to advance their common interests and the common good, on the one hand, and (b) the practices and demands of today's labor movment, especially of public-employee unions. But, for now, I want to put that aside. Lew's essay nicely reminds readers of the (secular) journal, Democracy, that most of what today's "progressives" value (or say they value) about the labor movement is not easily separable from Catholic, communitarian thinking about associations, mediating institutions, and the common good. A bit:
I believe that widespread indifference and even hostility toward religion among progressives and Democrats in recent years has helped to reinforce certain trends in our political and legal culture that are equally hostile to the goals of organized labor and, indeed, to the very idea of organized labor. This is the little-told part of the story of labor’s decline—how the very same liberalism that has separated church and state and strengthened individual rights on social issues such as gay marriage has helped to undermine collective rights in the economy.
Lumen Christi event: "God, Freedom, and Public Life"
On Thursday, October 6, the good folks at the Lumen Christi Institute are holding what looks to be a really good event.
Cardinal George at the University of Chicago, Symposium on “God, Freedom, and Public Life”
Thursday, October 6, 4pm-6pm:
Mandel Hall
1131 East 57th Street
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Social Thought
The Lumen Christi Institute is pleased to co-sponsor a symposium at the University of Chicago entitled “God, Freedom, and Public Life” on the occasion of the publication of Francis Cardinal George’s book God in Action: How Faith in God can Address the Challenges of the World.
The symposium will feature contributions from Amitai Etzioni (George Washington University), Hans Joas (University of Chicago), Martin Marty (University of Chicago), and Francis Cardinal George, OMI (Archbishop of Chicago). Jean Bethke Elshtain (University of Chicago) will chair the event.
Amitai Etzioni is University Professor and Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is also Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies. Etzioni is the author of twenty-four books. His most recent books are My Brother’s Keeper: A Memoir and a Message; From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations; and How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?
Hans Joas is a Permanent Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and Professor of Sociology and a Member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Joas has taught at many institutions as a visiting professor, most recently in Berlin, and has published several books on social theory, most notably The Creativity of Action.
Martin Marty, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he taught for 35 years and where the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion has since been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. The author of over fifty books, Marty has written the three-volume Modern American Religion as well as Politics, Religion and the Common Good.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI is the first Chicago native to become Archbishop of Chicago. A member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, George is the sixth Cardinal to lead the 2.3 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago. He has assumed a prominent position among U.S. Cardinals, serving as the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2007 to 2010. In addition to his most recent book, he is also author of The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion and Culture.
Audi on church-state separation
My colleague at Notre Dame, Robert Audi, has a new book out called Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State. Here is the description, from OUP:
Democratic states must protect the liberty of citizens and must accommodate both religious liberty and cultural diversity. This democratic imperative is one reason for the increasing secularity of most modern democracies. Religious citizens, however, commonly see a secular state as unfriendly toward religion. This book articulates principles that enable secular governments to protect liberty in a way that judiciously separates church and state and fully respects religious citizens.
After presenting a brief account of the relation between religion and ethics, the book shows how ethics can be independent of religion-evidentially autonomous in a way that makes moral knowledge possible for secular citizens-without denying religious sources a moral authority of their own. With this account in view, it portrays a church-state separation that requires governments not only to avoid religious establishment but also to maintain religious neutrality. The book shows how religious neutrality is related to such issues as teaching evolutionary biology in public schools, the legitimacy of vouchers to fund private schooling, and governmental support of "faith-based initiatives." The final chapter shows how the proposed theory of religion and politics incorporates toleration and forgiveness as elements in flourishing democracies. Tolerance and forgiveness are described; their role in democratic citizenship is clarified; and in this light a conception of civic virtue is proposed.
Overall, the book advances the theory of liberal democracy, clarifies the relation between religion and ethics, provides distinctive principles governing religion in politics, and provides a theory of toleration for pluralistic societies. It frames institutional principles to guide governmental policy toward religion; it articulates citizenship standards for political conduct by individuals; it examines the case for affirming these two kinds of standards on the basis of what, historically, has been called natural reason; and it defends an account of toleration that enhances the practical application of the ethical framework both in individual nations and in the international realm.
Interestingly, one of the claims advanced in another, recent book -- one that is likely familiar to MOJ readers -- "God's Century", by Toft, Philpott, and Shah -- is that the recent "wave" of democratization is both facilitating and reflecting a resurgence in religious belief and practice. Anyway, Audi's book (like "God's Century") should be of interest.
Monday, September 12, 2011
"Faith, Reason, and the University": Regensburg, 5 years later
Five years ago today, Pope Benedict XVI delivered what I thought, and think, was a profound and important (if widely misunderstood and misreported) address at the University of Regensburg. The address was called "Faith, Reason, and the University." Read it (again) here.
Arkes replies, on natural law and judging
Continuing the conversation with Prof. Baur, Hadley Arkes sends in this:
Rick Garnett and my friends on the Mirror of Justice have been kind enough to play the exchange between Professor Michael Baur and me under conditions that may resemble a chess game played over long distance and long intervals. . . .
But we had something of importance we were both trying to think through. And so let me omit the sword play, on who might have misunderstood, or misrepresented, whom—and try to recall the central questions that will remain, even if Professor Baur and I recede from the scene.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Fall Conference: "Radical Emancipation"
The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is holding its 12th (time flies!) annual Fall Conference on Nov. 10-12, 2011, on the University's campus. The theme this year is "Radical Emancipation: Confronting the Challenge of Secularism." (More info here). This conference is always one of the highlights of the academic year at Notre Dame and this year's line-up is, as per usual, a great one, and includes Alasdair MacIntyre, Timothy Shah, Christian Smith, and many others. Be there!
Indiana-envy
This op-ed, which appears in the Chicago Tribune, urges (correctly) Illinois lawmakers to look across the border to the Hoosier State, where educational choice is really taking off:
. . . Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers passed one of the most ambitious voucher programs in the country. It offers state-funded vouchers to students whose parents earn as much as $61,000 a year for a family of four.
And how have kids and their families responded? Overwhelmingly. In just a little more than 50 days, 3,669 Indiana students have been approved to receive vouchers to attend private schools, according to Alex Damron, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Education. Many of the students are choosing parochial schools, The Associated Press reports. . . .
Right on.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Steve Smith on "The Plight of the Secular Paradigm"
Great stuff, as always, from Steve Smith:
The Plight of the Secular Paradigm
Steven Douglas Smith
University of San Diego School of Law
San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 11-062
Abstract:
For many it has been axiomatic that liberal democratic governments and the laws they impose must be “secular”; this assumption pervades both constitutional law and much political theory. But there are indications that this secular “paradigm of legitimacy” is losing its grip; thus, while urging a rehabilitation of secularism, Rajeev Bhargava suggests that “[o]nly someone with blinkered vision would deny the crisis of secularism.” This essay considers that crisis.
Part I of the essay discusses the nature of a “paradigm of legitimacy.” Part II outlines the strategies of assimilation and marginalization that historically have supported such paradigms and considers the paradigm shifts that can occur when these strategies prove ineffective. Part III illustrates these observations by reviewing the process by which, beginning in the fourth century, a Christian paradigm replaced an earlier Roman one and then in turn declined in favor of a more secular view. Part IV, the longest in the essay, discusses the rise of the secular paradigm, the strategies that have supported it, and the increasing futility of those strategies that have led to the present distress.
More on natural law and judging: Baur replies to Arkes
The conversation continues. Prof. Michael Baur wrote, here, about the role of natural law in the work of judges; Prof. Hadley Arkes responded, here; and now Prof. Baur replies (most of his reply is after the jump):
. . . I am grateful to Rick Garnett for facilitating this discussion, and to Hadley Arkes for offering his own input and for inviting a further response from me. I am pleased to join the company of those who find themselves in “heated agreement” with Prof. Arkes, but I would be even more pleased if we together might also convert at least some of this thermal energy into light.
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