Here's a very interesting short piece by Professor David Fontana (GW), which responds to Professor Fred Gedicks's (BYU) longer article, American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time is Past. Both papers are worth your attention. What interests me is the taxonomy of progressive American civil religion that these papers go some distance to fleshing out (Steve Shiffrin's book about the religious left is also useful). It is sometimes assumed that all progressives are opposed to civil religion, while all conservatives support it; progressives are supposed to be for the naked public square, while conservatives prefer greater public modesty. There is a little truth in this caricature, but the picture is more complicated. Civil religion is neither the possession of the left nor the right. Instead, the fight seems to be about the variety of civil religion that the country ought to embrace. And as to that question, it seems that not only do conservatives disagree with progressives but progressives differ among themselves. Fred's piece, for example, is largely skeptical about civil religion but in the end calls for a "thinner," "Rawlsian," "procedural" version that, he claims, "can function to bind us together as a people and a nation." And though he does not believe "religion" can perform this function, the election of Obama made him "proud to be an American" and provided something like this "thinner" variety of civil religion (or civil civilianism). By contrast, Fontana writes:
The issue
with the American civil religion, though, is that it had come to be seen as so ideological and exclusionary that it alienated many mainstream and liberal voters. While advocacy of an American civil religion could have motivated those true believers, typically those on the political right that Gedicks discusses, a politically conservative civil religion that had “appropriated the symbols and practices of American civil religion and infused them with sectarian meaning” turned off many voters. An American liberal civil religion held out more promise as an inspiring American nationalism, but with a tolerant edge. Enter Obama onto the national political stage, perhaps “the most theologically serious politician in modern American political history,” whose speeches have been just
as full with religious imagery and rhetoric as they have been with
civil imagery and rhetoric. Obama’s
speeches were full of references to civil ideas, or as Gedicks
defines them, Rawlsian ideas, as well as to religious ideas . . . .
In
other words, then, perhaps the American civil religion is not dead,
but has been brought to life by our new President. Since Bellah’s
concept of the civil religion was about the idea as a political tool
as much as about a sociological concept, it has come to life again
because it has been used by a group—and a political phenom—better
able to use it in the political sphere. Indeed, just as maybe
only Nixon could go to China, maybe only Obama can reinvigorate civil
religion.
The claim that Obama is "the most theologically serious politician in modern American political history" is supported by a citation to Professor Charlton Copeland's piece, "God-Talk in the Age of Obama: Theology and Religious Political Engagement." I'm not sure how one would measure such things; read Copeland's paper to find out how he claims to do it.
But the interesting thing about both pieces is the durability of civil religion, the hardiness of this plant and its capacity to take root in what one might think would be the inhospitable, stony soil of the progressive heart. For Fred, the terrain is truly rough and desiccated. For Fontana, it's a little richer, but only a little.
And that points toward another interesting feature of progressive civil religion. What binds Fred's and Fontana's accounts is that for both writers, civil religion is feeble. It lacks deep roots. For Fred, civil religion is "thin" (in fact, it isn't even religion) while for Fontana it has a shelf-life of roughly two and a half more years and is connected not to a tradition, but to a single person. I am reminded of the following passage concerning the modern orientation toward tradition in the sociologist Edward Shils's excellent book of the same name:
Tradition is like a plant which repeatedly puts
down roots whenever it is left in one place for a short time, yet is frequently
torn up and flung from one place to another, so that the nutriment of its
branches and leaves is cut off and the plant becomes pale and enfeebled. Traditions may be unavoidable but they are
not always very strong. Tendencies to
seek and find traditions may be ubiquitous in human society and the tendencies
to seek and find might always find a tradition to attach themselves to. The tendency to seek a religious tradition
may be present in all societies but if they are unaided by the availability of
traditions and proponents of tradition, substantive traditions may become
etiolated and very weak. (315)
For progressive civil religion, that may be the point.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
From a while back:
Notre Dame's provost, Nathan Hatch, delivered this (I thought) moving and provocative <a href="talk" _mce_href="http://www.nd.edu/~ndethics/archives/hatch.shtml">talk">http://www.nd.edu/~ndethics/archives/hatch.shtml">talk </a>after the opening Mass at the University this year. Hatch's remarks built on observations by David Brooks and C.S. Lewis (!) to remind the students that:
<blockquote>Your identity does not derive from how successful you are. All of us, from the top of the class to the bottom, derive our tremendous worth because God, our creator, knows our name, calls us sons and daughters, and takes joy in our own unique gifts. Who you are does not rest on a fickle ability to write brilliantly, to solve the experiment correctly, or climb the organizational ladder.
My second word of advice is this: living in a pressure cooker of achievement, how do we view our neighbors. Our reactions are often twofold, to envy those who seem more gifted and to look past people who seem ordinary. In his recent book on envy, Joseph Epstein notes that envy runs high in the world of art and intellect. “How little it takes to make one academic sick with envy over the pathetically small advantages won by another: the better office, the slightly lighter teaching load, the fickle evaluation of students.”
What is the answer to resenting those who break the curve and ignoring others who seem uninteresting? In his essay, The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis asks us to attend to a proper theology of the human person. He challenges us with the awesome reality of the human person, bearers of the very image of God. “There are no ordinary people,” he concludes. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization––these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, exploit. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,” he continues, “your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
In this academic community, during the coming year, may all of our work be leavened by this reality: Neither you nor your neighbor is an ordinary person. </blockquote>
I've always loved Lewis's "The Weight of Glory." In my view, the observations that "there are no ordinary people" and that, indeed, "your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses" are beautiful -- and jurisprudentially significant.
Rick
From a (very happy) day in April of 2004:
This is, I admit, shameless: I'm pleased to report the birth, on April 22, of <a href="Elizabeth" _mce_href="http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/facultypages/garnettr/rick_garnetts_kids.htm">Elizabeth">http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/facultypages/garnettr/rick_garnetts_kids.htm">Elizabeth Ann Garnett</a>. In order to justify posting this announcement, I suppose I should point out -- given our discussions about school choice, religious freedom, and CST -- that St. Elizabeth Ann Seton serves as a patron to school-choice reforms and parochial-school boosters. God is good.
Rick
From 2009:
Reflecting on Church, State, Politics, Trends, and Values at St. John Lateran
Today was the last of our ten days in Rome with our extended Sisk and Gilchrist families, which we concluded with a visit to the Basilica of St. John Lateran. We thereby completed our pilgrimage to all four of the major basilicas in Rome (the others being St. Peter's, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls). I am grateful for being able to spend this time in Rome, attending the Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's with thousands of the faithful from all over the world, visiting the four major basilicas, and seeing again many of the other churches and holy places in Rome that I have cherished (such as Santa Maria Trastevere and Santa Maria Sopra Minerva).
And I have been reminded at nearly every holy place that the Catholic Church has always struggled with its proper place in worldly society while also seeking to transcend time and place and point the faithful to the higher things. Although I am very tired as we pack late in the evening for an early morning departure, and so I apologize if this post is poorly worded, I thought I would share these thoughts while they were fresh in my mind.
In each of the past twenty centuries, the Church has had the mission of being fully engaged with the particular society of a time and place by being a locus of coherent and integrated values, while always holding fast to the Deposit of Faith and passing on that tradition and revealed teaching through the Apostolic Succession. As sons and daughters of the Church, we on the Mirror of Justice also are confronted with the difficult task of upholding the continuing relevance of Catholic teaching for the peculiar problems arising in this particular time and place, while needing to remain sufficiently independent from political, cultural, and academic movements to be led by our faith rather than by our preferences or aspirations. Along with St. Paul, we seek “unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God,” and want to avoid being “tossed one way and another, and carried hither and thither by every new gust of teaching (Eph 4:11-15).”
Of course, the Church has not always succeeded in every era in rising above temporal trends and temptations. From the Bronze Doors taken from the Roman Senate (Curia) in the Imperial Forum to symbolize the Church's political reign over Rome to the large statute of Constantine in the portico, the Basilica of St. John Lateran amply illustrates that the Church at times has been too willing to seek to exercise direct political power. We should learn from the Church's failures as well as its successes.
We have the opportunity on this jewel of a web site to find a way toward a uniquely Catholic common-ground in which we resist accommodation to academic or political trends of every nature and ideology and seek instead to find and apply those more transcendent values that have carried the Church through twenty centuries. Without becoming isolated from our communities and while being open to new insights into human nature and experience, we also need to remember – as one finds in the most moving and powerful of the icons and imagery and stories found in the holy places of Rome – that the Church typically is at its most effective as a counter-cultural witness for values.
As I sat today meditating in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, I found my eyes constantly returning to the statue of the basilica's namesake. As rendered in the statute, St. John the Evangelist holds his quill with a waiting hand away from the book as he looks above and listens for the voice of God. While I do not expect that any of our writing, either in academic venues or on the Mirror of Justice, will reflect the immediate revelation experienced by St. John, we too must remind ourselves to pause regularly and listen for the voice of God. We should never presume that what we say proceeds from the mouth of God, but neither should we ever write on matters of values and faith without opening our ears to that quiet and powerful voice.
Greg Sisk
Statue of St. John at Basilica of St. John Lateran (photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen)
From 2008:
"Gone Baby Gone"
I'm probably behind the curve on this one, but I just saw the (relatively) recent movie, "Gone Baby Gone." Here's the opening line (spoken by the main character, a private investigator "from the neighborhood" in Boston):
I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family.
I won't provide any spoilers, but here's a thought: "Juno" and "Bella" (and "Knocked Up") notwithstanding, "Gone Baby Gone" was one of the most "Catholic" -- and, I thought, one of the most pro-life (in a subtle way) -- movies made in recent years. Discuss.
From 2004:
Following up on my exchange (below) with Vince, I recommend enthusiastically -- to anyone interested in what Christianity means for our thinking, and our acting, regarding criminal punishment -- an essay by Professor Jeffrie Murphy, of Arizona State University: "Christianity and Criminal Punishment." Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a link to the paper, but it is available in the <a href="journalhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalIssue.aspx?pid=99&jiid=1025100503">journal</a>, Punishment and Society, and also as a chapter in Murphy's new <a href="bookhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3Djeffrie%252520murphy%252520getting%252520even%26store-name%3Dbooks/103-9038779-0883019">book</a>, "Getting Even: Forgiveness and its Limits." Many readers are likely familiar with another work of his, "Forgiveness and Mercy" (with Jean Hampton).
Here's a blurb from the abstract: "Christianity organizes thinking about punishment around the value of love. Love requires a focus on the common good and on benefit to the soul or character. Punishments harmmful to the soul are to be avoided, and punishments beneficial to the soul are to be favored."
"Someone needs to be punished for this," he said, referring to sharing the Gospel within the Armed Services. A story about this developing issue is
here, and it demonstrates that the concern I shared here on MOJ is not isolated or marginal, though I recognize that such concern is not shared by many.
That's the title of a new post at ReligiousLeftLaw by University of St. Thomas law professor Charles Reid. The post begins:
"From 2003 to early 2009, I wrote a series of historically-grounded
papers that reached the common conclusion that marriage equality
represented a radical departure from the western tradition of marriage
and so, for that reason, should be rejected as a matter of public
policy. I have now changed my mind regarding this conclusion. While
there is no question that marriage equality represents a dramatic
departure from what has gone before, I can now find support within our
western tradition for expanding the definition of marriage to embrace
loving, committed same-sex unions.
Let me begin with my professional background: I am a lawyer and an
historian. These two sides of my brain co-exist in what I like to think
is, for the most part anyways, a creative tension. The lawyer side of
my brain considers public policy issues in the urgency of the present.
The historian's training, however, summons me always to look at the deep
picture, to appreciate what has come before, and it was this innate
conservativism that long governed my instincts on marriage equality. In
my historical writings on the subject, I made essentially three
arguments: (1) In the few instances in which same-sex marriage was
debated on the historical record, it was rejected; (2) a principal
reason for this rejection, furthermore, was because marriage was about
procreation, and only procreative relationships should therefore be
recognized as marriage; and (3) public policy should remain within
these tightly-drawn boundaries, because any departure would be likely to
result in arbitrary line-drawing."
The rest of the post, is here, where, if you want, you can comment.
