Results of a new survey regarding Americans' favorite buildings suggest (a) we're not wild about contemporary stuff and (b) we don't think there are many beautiful Catholic churches. Out of the top 150 buildings, only one (St. Patrick's in New York City) made the list. Should we care about this? That is, should we care that we have not (apparently) been building beautiful churches (or, churches that people *think* are beautiful)?
Thursday, February 8, 2007
America's favorite buildings
American Exceptionalism?
Sightings 2/8/07
On the Migration of Religious Ideas
-- W. Clark Gilpin
The current issue of the New York Review of Books contains a probing article by the noted author and columnist on international relations, William Pfaff. Entitled "Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America," Pfaff's essay excoriates the Bush administration for pursuing its international economic and political goals "by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities." Increasingly, the American public is joining the international community in criticizing the catastrophic folly of President Bush's violent efforts to impose his vision of democratic virtue. "A claim to preeminent political virtue is a claim to power," Pfaff rightly observes, "a demand that other countries yield to what Washington asserts as universal interests."
For Sightings, however, with its mandate to identify and assess the role of religion in public affairs, another aspect of Pfaff's essay holds particular interest. How is it, Pfaff wants to know, that President Bush's political, journalistic, and foreign policy critics find themselves "hostage to past support of his policy and to their failure to question the political and ideological assumptions upon which it was built?" The ideological assumptions, Pfaff recognizes, have deep roots in an American religious history that has generated a national myth of exceptional mission and destiny. Pfaff locates the origins of this national myth in the religious beliefs of the New England Puritans and synoptically observes its later appearances in nineteenth-century ideas of manifest destiny, Woodrow Wilson's idealism regarding the League of Nations, and the Cold War rationale for American international involvement, "interpreted in quasi-theological terms by John Foster Dulles."
The myth-building energies of religious ideas are a perennial source of hope in a world all too frequently cruel and difficult. Simultaneously, these energies combine with the human will to power to generate many of these very cruelties and difficulties. Theologians through the centuries have therefore constrained and counterbalanced visions of future possibility with more austere spiritual norms. Among the New England Puritans, for instance, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay, John Winthrop, did not simply announce that the colony would be "as a city upon a hill" but immediately followed with the warning that the people's failure to observe their covenant with God would invite the wider world to "speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God's sake." Embarking on their mission, these Puritans insisted that humility was the "fundamental grace" and the gateway to all the virtues, and they agreed completely with the great Puritan poet John Milton that the primordial sin was pride.
The "failure to question the political and ideological assumptions" of the Bush administration, therefore, lies not only with Congress, the media, and the foreign policy community. In addition, the public responsibility of the theologian entails appraisal of the role of religious ideas in the formation of ideological assumptions. When religious vision migrates from its theological context, amidst the constraining and countervailing spiritual norms of responsible humility and wariness of pride as the deepest fault, its hope-engendering powers become perilous indeed.
References:
On the Migration of Religious Ideas
-- W. Clark Gilpin
The current issue of the New York Review of Books contains a probing article by the noted author and columnist on international relations, William Pfaff. Entitled "Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America," Pfaff's essay excoriates the Bush administration for pursuing its international economic and political goals "by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities." Increasingly, the American public is joining the international community in criticizing the catastrophic folly of President Bush's violent efforts to impose his vision of democratic virtue. "A claim to preeminent political virtue is a claim to power," Pfaff rightly observes, "a demand that other countries yield to what Washington asserts as universal interests."
For Sightings, however, with its mandate to identify and assess the role of religion in public affairs, another aspect of Pfaff's essay holds particular interest. How is it, Pfaff wants to know, that President Bush's political, journalistic, and foreign policy critics find themselves "hostage to past support of his policy and to their failure to question the political and ideological assumptions upon which it was built?" The ideological assumptions, Pfaff recognizes, have deep roots in an American religious history that has generated a national myth of exceptional mission and destiny. Pfaff locates the origins of this national myth in the religious beliefs of the New England Puritans and synoptically observes its later appearances in nineteenth-century ideas of manifest destiny, Woodrow Wilson's idealism regarding the League of Nations, and the Cold War rationale for American international involvement, "interpreted in quasi-theological terms by John Foster Dulles."
The myth-building energies of religious ideas are a perennial source of hope in a world all too frequently cruel and difficult. Simultaneously, these energies combine with the human will to power to generate many of these very cruelties and difficulties. Theologians through the centuries have therefore constrained and counterbalanced visions of future possibility with more austere spiritual norms. Among the New England Puritans, for instance, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay, John Winthrop, did not simply announce that the colony would be "as a city upon a hill" but immediately followed with the warning that the people's failure to observe their covenant with God would invite the wider world to "speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God's sake." Embarking on their mission, these Puritans insisted that humility was the "fundamental grace" and the gateway to all the virtues, and they agreed completely with the great Puritan poet John Milton that the primordial sin was pride.
The "failure to question the political and ideological assumptions" of the Bush administration, therefore, lies not only with Congress, the media, and the foreign policy community. In addition, the public responsibility of the theologian entails appraisal of the role of religious ideas in the formation of ideological assumptions. When religious vision migrates from its theological context, amidst the constraining and countervailing spiritual norms of responsible humility and wariness of pride as the deepest fault, its hope-engendering powers become perilous indeed.
References:
William Pfaff's article "Manifest Destiny: A New
Direction for America" (New York Review of Books, February 15, 2007) can
be read at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19879.
W. Clark Gilpin is Margaret E. Burton Professor of the
History of Christianity and Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity
School.
----------
----------
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the
University of Chicago Divinity School.
Freeing God's Children
Thanks to an enthusiastic recommendation by Chris Eberle (Naval Academy, Philosophy), I tracked down this book, and now want to join Chris in recommending it, enthusiastically, to MOJ readers:
Allen D. Hertzke, Freeing God's Children: The Unliklely Alliance for Global Human Rights (2004).
From Publishers Weekly
Why would liberal Jewish groups team up with conservative Pentecostals
to fight human rights abuses? What issues might prompt the Catholic
Church to work together with Tibetan Buddhists? In this engaging book,
Hertzke, who teaches religion and political science at the University
of Oklahoma, argues that 21st-century religious and political activism
has made for some strange bedfellows. As religious persecution
increases in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world—and most of the
West continues to ignore the mounting death toll—some courageous people
have banded together to fight for religious freedom and human rights
around the world. With surprisingly accessible writing and memorable
stories of activists and the victims of religious persecution, Hertzke
explores the rise of unexpected religious alliances in the struggles
against sex trafficking, against the persecution of Christians in
Indonesia and elsewhere, and against the atrocities in Sudan and the
repression in Tibet. One startling trend that emerges is the new
interest America’s evangelical Christians have evinced in world issues.
Hertzke paints a fascinating, and ultimately optimistic, picture of the
way that individuals of many different religious backgrounds have
chosen to work together on human rights issues. In doing so, he
analyzes a neglected aspect of the paradigm shift in religion today, in
which affiliation matters far less than ideological affinity.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
Given unprecedented insider
access, author Allen D. Hertzke charts the rise of this faith-based
movement for global human rights and tells the compelling story of the
personalities and forces, clashes and compromises, strategies and
protests that shape it. In doing so, Hertzke shows that by raising
issues such as global religious persecution, Sudanese atrocities, North
Korean gulags, and sex trafficking the movement is impacting foreign
policy around the world.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America by Half
A few weeks ago Catholic Charities announced a campaign to reduce poverty in America in half by the year 2020. My apologies if this has already been discussed here, but I honestly haven't seen much about this anywhere in the media. The announcement starts:
Catholic Charities USA today announced a new multi-year initiative to cut poverty in half by 2020, urging Congress and the Administration to give a much higher priority to the needs of the poor in budget and policy decisions on issues such as health care, housing, nutrition, and economic security.
“Poverty is a moral and social wound on the soul of our country and threatens the health and economic well-being of both families and our nation,” Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said at a briefing this morning on Capitol Hill. “We must marshal the strength and the collective will of our nation to take on this tragedy that affects 37 million people who are living in poverty in one of the wealthiest nations in the world.”
“The Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America is about who we are as a nation,” Father Snyder said. “We must no longer ignore the injustice of poverty and the extreme inequality in America and instead must seize this opportunity to advocate for changes that promote human dignity and the common good.”
Has anyone taken a look at their program? Their website contains links to their report, a study guide to the report, poverty statistics, etc. It might be a good resource for teaching.
Solum on Religion and Constitutional Consensus
University of Illinois law prof Larry Solum has posted his new paper, "Pluralism and Public Legal Reason." Here's the abstract:
What role does and should religion play in the legal sphere of a modern liberal democracy? Does religion threaten to create divisions that would undermine the stability of the constitutional order? Or is religious disagreement itself a force that works to create consensus on some of the core commitments of constitutionalism - liberty of conscience, toleration, limited government, and the rule of law? This essay explores these questions from the perspective contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. The thesis of the essay is that pluralism - the diversity of religious and secular conceptions of the good - can and should work as a force for constitutional consensus and that such a consensus is best realized through commitment to an ideal of public legal reason instantiated by the practice of legal formalism.
The case for these claims is made in six parts. After this introduction, Part II, The Fact of Pluralism in the Context of Contemporary Religious Division, explores the idea of religious division in light of an important notion in political philosophy - the idea that John Rawls calls the fact of reasonable pluralism. Part III, Public Legal Reason, argues that the fact of pluralism has important normative consequences for the foundations of normative legal theory and argues for an ideal of public legal reason. Part IV, Legal Formalism, contends that this idea is best realized in constitutional practice through a formalist approach to constitutional interpretation - one that deliberately eschews direct reliance on religious and secular comprehensive conceptions of the good. Part V, Feasibility and Positive Theory, discusses the question whether this ideal of public legal reason and corresponding conception of constitutional formalism are realistic, given the constraints imposed by democratic politics under contemporary conditions. Finally, Part VI, Religious Division Revisited: From Pluralism to Formalism, brings the discussion to a close.
Who Do You Love?
Mike Jones, the former male prostitute involved with former National Association of Evangelicals leader Ted Haggard, recently visited Haggard's former church in Colorado Springs and apparently received a welcoming response. Christianity Today 's weblog reports that
Associate pastor Rob Brendle was apparently one of those who thanked him. "I told Mike, 'I don't want to impose my religious beliefs on you, but I believe God used you to correct us, and I appreciate that,'" he said. "The church's response to him was overwhelmingly warm. One of the wonderful and enduring truths of Christianity is to love people the world sets up to be your enemies."
He didn't say "love your enemies," which was a nice touch.
Well, it's good in this case that the church members didn't look on him as an enemy. But isn't "love the people the world sets up to be your enemies" somewhat less radical -- and therefore less "wonderful" -- than what Jesus actually said in the Gospels?
Tom
The REALLY Big Day
Rick, Rick, what can I say about your deluded belief that the UNC-Duke basketball game makes today a "big" day? I too enjoy college basketball as a mild wintertime diversion. Yesterday's Villanova-St. Joe's tilt, aka "The Holy War" here in Philly, kept me amused for a while as Villanova cruised to its inevitable triumph. But the only REALLY big day in February is the 15th-- yes, the day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Only 8 days til life begins again, and we can put away childish things (the Super Bowl, the BCS, basketball, luge etc.), as we watch pitchers warm up in the the Florida and Arizona,sun, worry about whether foreign players will get their visas in time, and speculate about the Rocket's return. Yes, that is THE day.
--Mark
The Big Day
So, the elections are over, Christmas has come and gone, the BCS games are (thankfully) a fading memory, the commercial-fest -- I mean, Super Bowl -- is done . . . and so, now, finally, today we can get to what really matters: Duke and Carolina, in Cameron. Go Devils.
A response to the question: what does it mean to be in communion with the Church?
I would like to thank Steve for his important and timely posting about the US Bishops November 2006 statement on the Eucharist. There is a lot to Steve’s posting, and there is a lot in the Bishops’ statement. But neither Steve’s posting, the Bishops’ statement, nor my reflections could cover all issues that may arise about who should receive the Eucharist and who should not. Having said this, let me provide an imperfect response to some of the points Steve has presented and on which he sought the thoughts of MOJ participants.
First of all, there exists an abundance of guidance and instruction on many of the issues Steve has raised (abortion, marriage, masturbation, pre-marital sex, artificial birth control) and some that he has not but are on the minds of many Catholics today (euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, capital punishment, the use of armed force, etc.). The Catechism of the Catholic Church is always a good place to begin when one is searching for answers about what a Catholic should do and should avoid. Those with computer or library access should have no difficult obtaining access to Conciliar documents, encyclical letters, bishops’ conference texts, apostolic constitutions, curial documents, etc. Another useful resource is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church and the websites of the US Conference of Catholic bishops and of many US dioceses.
But still, as Steve suggests, there may still be some questions on particular points. Well, pastors, including bishops, have the office and, therefore, the responsibility to help the faithful assess whether a person may receive the Eucharist or not. In this context, the Church has the sacrament of reconciliation (confession and penance) to assist each member of the Church—clerical or lay, but all being members of the Body of Christ—to determine whether he or she is in a sufficient state of grace to receive the Eucharist. These are the resources useful for helping to address his underlying question. These provide the foundation for a proper exercise of the examination of conscience that serves as an appropriate prelude to the sacrament of reconciliation that may be needed before participation in the Eucharist. And surely a good and thorough examination of conscience, as the Church teaches, is a fundamental step before receiving the Eucharist. Statistics demonstrating that some percentage of a particular population agrees or not with some teaching of the Church, while they may be interesting, are not determinative of the question: who should receive communion?
In this context, I recall another debate over the use of statistics which, while interesting, were not determinative of the situation: suppose there are fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous within the city… will you destroy it? “No” was the answer that God gave Abraham. I often think that if their walk continued a bit further and the question concerned the existence of one righteous, the answer of God would have been the same.
Steve poses the case of the Bishops’ Conference preparing a statement with no “wiggle room.” Knowing that the text to which Steve referred is a pastoral rather than a legal document, I wonder if it would be possible to draft the perfect legal document? In this regard, one need not think solely about Church texts that are juridical. After all, many of us spend countless hours in offices and classrooms demonstrating why the “perfect” legal text is not perfect at all. I guess that is why Sacred Scripture reminds us that only God is perfect, but we, as disciples of His Son, are called to become more perfect than we are. And the Church, through its ministry, teaching, and sacraments, is there to help in this pursuit.
But let me continue with Steve’s question and assume with him that the Church and the Bishops’ Conference or some appropriate dicastery in Rome issued such a text, if that were possible. Steve suggests what the result may be: a smaller Church, that is, a smaller number of people considering themselves Catholics. While I cannot disagree with Steve’s observations, I personally do not know the answer. I do know a bit about the Church’s history since its beginning, and I am aware that each of us who claims to be Catholic or once made that claim is a sinful person. The measure and degree of sinfulness waxes and wanes, but we must be mindful that God sends His people help to cast off temptation and seek that greater perfection, that deeper holiness, and that greater goodness that can be found within each person who desires to abandon the sinful and put on Christ. I am of the view that God has never abandoned His people; however, it is His people—individually and in community—who have turned their backs to God. Percentages really are unimportant, but human nature and its ability to remain faithful or to succumb to temptation are facts.
God has called His people to holiness and to fidelity. What pollsters, interest groups, lobbyists, or individual theologians suggest and argue is nice to know. But, what God asks of us is pretty clear. When we need help to determine what that is, our Holy Mother the Church is there to help. Each person through his or her baptism has a role in evangelizing—going forth to bring the Good News to those who have not heard it. But, ultimately it is up to each of us to accept it or not. That is the free will God has given everyone; it is up to us to exercise it with fidelity. But if we chose not to on any particular occasion through our own insistence that my conscience, right or wrong, is the voice I follow, God will still be there to welcome us home if our sincere intention is ultimately to seek His forgiveness, understanding, and mercy.
Like Steve, I, too, am interested in what others think. But frankly, I don’t think God is interested in opinion polls and the percentages they reflect. I don’t think God is interested in popularity polls or that which is deemed politically correct at any moment. His truth exists, and His Son has shown us the way to that truth that he personifies. It is up to us to accept that way and God’s Truth or not. As Pope Benedict said at Regensburg and as the Second Vatican Council did in December of 1965, there is no compulsion in religion, in belief, in true faith. Businesses may be interested in increased market shares; and governments in larger percentages of electorates; but the Church is interested in the salvation of souls, and, I believe, so is God. If I may borrow from St. Paul, it’s running the race and finishing that is important—all win who discipline themselves up to the finish line and remain mindful and observant of what God asks along the way. RJA sj
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Howlers About Evangelicals (and Other Christians)
In the new issue of Books and Culture, Alan Jacobs catalogs some recent "howlers" -- laughably uninformed or at best simple-minded statements about evangelicals and other Christians -- made by reviewers who are oh-so-concerned about those uninformed, simple-minded evangelicals. He includes quotes from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, and this one from biologist Lee Silver, in his book Challenging Nature: "American Christian evangelicals . . . believe that God in the form of Jesus Christ will grant them an eternal afterlife only if they work sufficiently hard to persuade non-Christians to become evangelicals themselves." (Umm, no; whatever you think about preaching to seek conversions, evangelicals -- whose theological cornerstone is justification by faith -- don't teach or believe that their salvation turns on such work.)
Jacobs offers responses to these and concludes:
The first noteable atheists and agnostics, the nineteenth-century critics of Christianity in England and America, were raised in largely Christian cultures and knew, often in considerable detail, the contours of the faith they were opposing. This made them more forceful arguers and more effective debaters, even if it also made them more vulnerable to the power and beauty of the Christian message. . . .But today's polemical skeptics not only lack adequate knowledge of Christianity or of other religions, they're apparently unaware that such knowledge would be to their advantage. . . . Largely or wholly innocent of religious culture, religious language, and religious belief, they make their confident pronouncements and wonder why, for all the articles and books they're selling, the world seems to be getting more religious rather than less.
Tom B.
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
