For far too long, the Catholic legal theory project has ignored the importance of liturgical dance. Consider this a desperate attempt to fill that void. (HT: Commonweal)
Rob
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Dance Break
Monday, June 12, 2006
Another Failed Everest Expedition . . .
Fr. Araujo's recent post about a disturbing sense of nonchalance among Mount Everest climbers was brought into stark relief by this report of the possibilities that emerge when human life is given priority over reaching the summit.
Rob
The Urban Christian
Tim Keller, pastor of Manhattan's "seeker-sensitive" Redeemer Presbyterian Church and arguably the most influential evangelical voice in New York City, has written an essay for Christianity Today emphasizing the importance of the urban Christian:
My first strategic point is simple: More Christians should live long-term in cities. Historians point out that by A.D. 300, the urban populations of the Roman Empire were largely Christian, while the countryside was pagan. (Indeed, the word pagan originally meant someone from the countryside—its use as a synonym for a non-Christian dates from this era.) The same was true during the first millennium A.D. in Europe—the cities were Christian, but the broad population across the countryside was pagan. The lesson from both eras is that when cities are Christian, even if the majority of the population is pagan, society is headed on a Christian trajectory. Why? As the city goes, so goes the culture. Cultural trends tend to be generated in the city and flow outward to the rest of society.
He also comes across sounding, well, Catholic:
It will not be enough for Christians to form a culture that runs counter to the values of the broader culture. Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of the city as a whole. We must move out to sacrificially serve the good of the whole human community, especially the poor. Revelation 21-22 makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of redemption is not to escape the material world, but to renew it. God's purpose is not only saving individuals, but also inaugurating a new world based on justice, peace, and love, not power, strife, and selfishness.
Rob
Scare Tactic or Prophetic Insight?
Peter Steinfels reports on the coming clash between same-sex marriage and religious liberty. He reports that U of Chicago law prof Cass Sunstein, asked whether a conservative Christian college would risk its tax-exempt status by refusing to admit a legally married gay couple to married-student housing, answered, "Sure — and if pigs had wings, they would fly," dismissing the idea as a scenario "generated by advocacy groups trying to scare people." Georgetown law prof Chai Feldblum forecasts significant conflict ahead, and believes that the only honest position is to admit that "we are in a zero-sum game in terms of moral values." Generally, in her view, the dignity/equality concerns of gays should outweigh religious freedom considerations, but the latter may weigh more heavily for religious institutions "geared just towards members of the faith" as opposed to those that interact broadly with the general public.
Rob
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Jeb Bush vs. Richard Rorty
Convinced that post-modernism is a threat to common decency and public virtue? Well, the elected officials of Florida agree, and they're not going to take it anymore, as Sandy Levinson reports.
Rob
Violence, Nudity, Jesus-Talk!
Culture Watch: Apparently the Motion Picture Association of America now affixes parental warnings not only to films depicting violence and sexuality, but also to films with characters who openly discuss their Christian faith. (HT: Open Book)
Rob
Toward a Catholic Legal Theory of . . .
. . . childhood games of chance as dispute resolution tools? The conversation begins here.
Rob
The Civil War as Theological Crisis
Mark Noll has a new book, The Civil War as Theological Crisis. One reviewer, writing in The Christian Century, explains Noll's central claim that the "political crisis" leading to the war "was necessarily a theological one, because theology and republicanism shared the same rhetoric," and:
The key to the antebellum synthesis—and, for Noll, the heart of the problem—was a widespread belief in a commonsense approach to the Bible. A faith available to all had for its authority a book accessible to all. The Bible yields its plain meaning to the believer. And so if the apostle Paul commanded, "Slaves, obey your masters," and told a Christian slave to return to his master, no sophistication was needed to see that the Bible condones slavery. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," Jefferson wrote of the nation's founding ideals, and Noll sees the same democratic instinct guiding biblical understanding. No bishop or Harvard scholar was needed to tell the unordained evangelist or even the man in his cabin reading the Bible by firelight what the Bible does and does not say.
But common sense applied to morality as well as to understanding the Bible. To some, including many readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the moral reprehensibility of slavery became more and more obvious, and the simplicity of an individual verse less decisive. Stowe's novel was powerful because it showed the limits of a morality shaped by exegesis alone.
The ensuing theological crisis was in some ways, then, a battle between moral common sense and exegetical common sense.
Protestant America lacked the theological resources to avert the stalemate; Noll praises the Catholic thinkers of the time as offering resources to fill the void, including Orestes Brownson, with his famous insistence that "popular liberty can be sustained only by a religion . . . speaking from above and able to command." Two quick points: first, for an evangelical like Noll to praise 19th century Catholics as the authentic defenders of political liberty, he must be making a well-timed effort to curry favor and minimize hazing by his new colleagues; second (and more seriously), our need for resources to avert the stalemate between exegetical common sense and moral common sense continues, particularly on the question of homosexuality. Another important contribution from one of my favorite scholars.
Rob
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Subsidiarity and Moral Absolutes
Last week Patrick offered a subsidiarity-based defense of the Federal Marriage Amendment, asserting that:
the primary place of subsidiarity in the marriage amendment argument, as I understand it, concerns the government's responsibility to assist the body politic in giving effect to the particular function/authority that precedes the state. I therefore agree with those who insist that subsidiarity does not necessarily assign this task to the lowest possible level, e.g., states, governments, or individuals. Marriage needs help, and those charged with the common good are to provide it, consistent with their own proper functions.
I agree that subsidiarity cannot just stand for devolution across the board, or else we'll soon be one step removed from the state of nature, empowering any local actor so inclined to pursue their own moral project, regardless of its corrosive effect on the common good. But I'm left feeling a bit perplexed if the alternative approach is to limit subsidiarity based on the (highly contested) contours of the natural law. It sounds like we're telling society, "we implore you to honor subsidiarity's localizing impetus, except when the issue is one that we don't want to localize." If subsidiarity's implementation is going to turn on a contest of overarching principles, it's not going to go very far. Supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment can insist that marriage between a man and woman is so important that local exceptions are forbidden; Massachusetts can insist that having a pool of potential adoptive parents based only on relevant parenting criteria (as determined by the state) is so important that local exceptions are forbidden; California can insist that having access to employer-provided birth control is so important that local exceptions are forbidden, etc. Once we start arguing over which principles are so important that the higher body is justified in supporting the principle's vitality in the society, subsidiarity recedes from the conversation. To a certain extent, this is unavoidable (e.g., we're not talking about subsidiarity in our approach to regulating murder), but we need to be very careful in letting the non-negotiable moral principle overwhelm the inclination toward local empowerment.
I'm not suggesting that we can do away with a debate about principles; I'm just saying that if we carve out an exception to local empowerment on contested moral issues based on our own contested understanding of the natural law, we shouldn't be surprised if the society views our invocation of subsidiarity as self-serving.
Rob
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
The Bishops and the Federal Marriage Amendment
Maggie Gallagher linked to the U.S. Bishops' recent reaffirmation of a statement on marriage as indicating that the Church does not share my misgivings about the Federal Marriage Amendment. I agree that Church leaders are supportive of the amendment; their statement, however, reflects the difficulty in articulating publicly accessible grounds to oppose the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Note that I am not saying that it is impossible to articulate such grounds, but it's difficult, and many attempts to do so either fall flat or resort to divine revelation via sacred texts. Consider the opening paragraphs of the bishops' statement:
The Catholic Church believes and teaches that marriage is a faithful, exclusive, and lifelong union between one man and one woman, joined as husband and wife in an intimate partnership of life and love. Marriage exists so that the spouses might grow in mutual love and, by the generosity of their love, bring children into the world and serve life fully.
Moreover, we believe the natural institution of marriage has been blessed and elevated by Christ Jesus to the dignity of a sacrament. In this way, the love of husband and wife becomes a living image of the way in which the Lord personally loves his people and is united with them. God is the author of marriage. It is both a relationship of persons and an institution in society. However, it is not just any relationship or simply another institution. We believe that, in the divine plan, marriage has its proper meaning and achieves its purposes.
Therefore, it is our duty as pastors and teachers – a responsibility we share with the Christian faithful and with all persons of good will – to promote, preserve, and protect marriage as it is willed by God, as generations have understood and lived it, and as it has served the common good of society.
Because this statement leads to the conclusion that the Federal Marriage Amendment should be supported by all persons of good will, I'm not sure why it is relevant that "marriage has been blessed and elevated by Christ Jesus to the dignity of a sacrament" or why the model of Christ's love for His Church gives insight into the nature of civil marriage. These statements by the bishops are not, and should not be, deemed inappropriate arguments in our public discourse, but they do seem unhelpful. Thoughts?
Rob
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