Tuesday, September 28, 2004
The mainline-dominated National Council of Churches has objected to the Institute for Religion & Democracy's study suggesting anti-Semitism as a possible motivating factor for mainline churches' foreign policy pronouncements. (See Steve's post below for details on the study.) Christianity Today does not find the objections entirely persuasive.
Rob
Sunday, September 26, 2004
In the current issue of First Things (article not available on-line), Mark Noll, perhaps the leading evangelical scholar today, revisits the thesis of his landmark book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Ten years after its publication, Noll writes that he is "more hopeful now about Christian thinking by evangelicals." "Because evangelicals tend to disregard tradition," Noll explains, "we are liable to miss the rich contributions that other strands of faithful believers have made to interpreting and applying the multitudinous biblical words that are so potent for the life of the mind. But this can change." The first "source of hope" Noll points to in this regard is "the increasing engagement between evangelicals and Roman Catholics," which has "contributed dramatically to improved evangelical use of the mind":
The exchange between these two traditions is probably more important to Catholics for reasons other than intellectual, but the life of the mind is where evangelicals benefit most. While evangelicals offer Catholics eagerness, commitment, and an ability to negotiate in a culture of intellectual consumerism, Catholics offer evangelicals a sense of tradition and centuries of reflection on the bearing of sacramentality on all existence.Whenever evangelicals in recent years have been moved to admonish themselves and other evangelicals for weaknesses in ecclesiology, tradition, the intellectual life, sacraments, theology of culture, aesthetics, philosophical theology, or historical consciousness, the result has almost always been selective appreciation for elements of the Catholic tradition.
Noll's optimism is tempered, though, by his recognition that "common, generic evangelicalism and the activist denominations that make up evangelicalism do not possess theologies full enough, traditions of intellectual practice strong enough, or conceptions of the world deep enough to sustain a full-scale intellectual revival." Perhaps in acknowledgment of the substantive indictments that tend to be made across the evangelical/Catholic divide, he reminds us that "tradition without life might be barely Christian, but life without tradition is barely coherent."
Rob
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Today's New York Times reports on a new "Catholic" health plan offered as part of the package of choices given to federal employees:
The Bush administration has broken new ground in its "faith-based" initiative, this time by offering federal employees a Catholic health plan that specifically excludes payment for contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.
Among a bevy of nonsensical quotes in the article, the prize for silliness goes to Frances Kissling:
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent organization of Catholics who support reproductive choices, criticized the inclusion of a plan with such restrictions in the federal program."I don't think substandard medical care should be offered through the federal government," she said.
So now not only does the group Catholics for a Free Choice stand for the availability of procedures like abortion, sterilization, artificial insemination, and contraceptives, but if individuals choose to forego those procedures, they have subjected themselves to substandard health care? This certainly gives some indication of the particular conception of "choice" with which the group is concerned.
Rob
Friday, September 24, 2004
This week the diocese of Tucson became the second to file for bankruptcy, further underscoring the importance and timeliness of Seton Hall Law School's upcoming conference, Bankruptcy in the Religious Non-Profit Context, scheduled for November 5 and featuring a stellar scholarly lineup, including MoJ's own Mark Sargent.
Rob
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Much of my writing focuses on the relationship between a lawyer's own moral identity and her practice of law. On that theme, I have a new paper posted in the column on the right titled Tortured Ethics: Abu Ghraib and the Moral Lawyer. Here's the abstract:
By appearing to offer a legal justification of torture, attorneys at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel stand accused of facilitating the government’s mistreatment of prisoners held in the war against terrorism. This article seeks to place attorneys’ complicity in the prisoner abuse scandal into a broader professional context, exploring the purported amorality that serves as the foundation for the infamous “torture memorandum” and, more broadly, for the ethical paradigms under which American lawyers operate every day. Specifically, the article argues that attorneys’ own moral convictions are inexorably part of the interpretive dynamic that makes the attorney-client dialogue possible, whether acknowledged by the attorney or not. When the attorney’s advice is pitched in exclusively legal terms – as was the torture memorandum – the moral component is not erased, but rather is forced into the background, where it is not susceptible to exploration by the client. As such, the lawyer’s interpretive morality is neither challenged nor endorsed by the client; it simply holds sway over the course of representation. In this regard, the amorality of legal advice is a fiction, but not a harmless fiction, for it facilitates the tendency of clients to equate legality with permissibility. This article traces the paths by which attorneys’ own moral convictions can be brought to the surface of the attorney-client dialogue.
Feedback, as always, is welcome.
Rob
I have a new paper titled Subsidiarity as Subversion: Local Power, Legal Norms, and the Liberal State, which is posted under my name in the right-hand column. The paper starts with the observation that subsidiarity seems to be a doctrine that is endlessly moldable, depending on one's preexisting view of society's proper organization, as witnessed through its invocation by actors as diverse as Catholic social progressives, the European Union and the Bush Administration. In reality, though:
Subsidiarity’s seeming vacuity arises only when the doctrine is shorn from its surrounding web of truth claims; therein lies its vulnerability to secular domestication. This article seeks to recapture the radical edge of subsidiarity by reconnecting its localizing framework with the substantive anthropological vision of solidarity. Understood in this context, subsidiarity reveals itself as a proposition that is fundamentally subversive to the hyperindividualist norms espoused and increasingly enforced by the liberal state. Specifically, subsidiarity calls for individuals and communities to recognize the objective value of the human person as they strive to meet the needs of those around them.This call stands in direct opposition to modern America’s brand of liberalism, which appears to value consumer autonomy above all else and increasingly seems willing to collectivize its consumerist norms by legally precluding the exercise of moral agency by providers of certain goods and services. In this regard, the maintenance of subsidiarity’s framework will require a vigorous defense of moral autonomy beyond that of the consumer. This takes us into the realm of value pluralism, for the surrounding society’s emerging conception of the common good appears unlikely to embrace such a defense. In other words, for subsidiarity to continue facilitating the common good as conceived of by Catholic social teaching, society must be persuaded to make room for multiple conceptions of the good, not simply seek to collectivize the Church’s anthropologically authentic conception.
I welcome any feedback on my argument. For those interested, I'll be presenting the paper on October 8 at Villanova's Conference on Catholic Social Thought and the Law.
Rob
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Eugene Volokh has sparked an interesting discussion (here, here and here) regarding Christians' obligation to condemn the inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric of figures like Jimmy Swaggart. (Swaggart essentially asserted that he would be justified in killing a homosexual.)
Volokh suggests that, as members of a movement built around a common set of beliefs, Christians should police their fellow members to ensure against public stances contradicting those beliefs, or at least to avoid leaving the impression that those stances are acceptable within the movement. I agree completely that Swaggart's statement is beyond the pale, and should be repeatedly and openly labeled as such by Christians. But the broader hesitation to condemn loose cannons like Swaggart, Falwell and Robertson may stem in part from the nature of the evangelical Christian movement. Evangelicals are defined in significant part by their insistence that biblical interpretation and application is properly undertaken by the individual believer within the context of her personal spiritual journey. Certainly some community standards will hold sway, to varying degrees, but their authority is secondary, especially when evangelicals are compared to other faith traditions. In this regard, many evangelicals don't voice their objections to outliers like Swaggart, not because they believe he speaks the truth, but because they defer to his individual interpretive prerogative. Disagreement among evangelicals is not generally a cause for discipline or condemnation; it's an inescapable dimension of the movement.
On an unrelated point, Swaggart may offer some insight, or at least cause for reflection, on the controversy over certain bishops' threats to deny communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians. If Swaggart were Catholic and persisted in espousing a belief that the murder of gays is justified, should he be denied communion? My tentative answer is no, but if we're concerned with sending a clear message that a Christian's willful denial of central tenets of the faith will not be ignored by the surrounding Christian community, isn't the denial of communion an effective and powerful way to communicate that disapproval? Or is it enough to voice the community's objections without calling into question the individual's standing within the community? Perhaps it's relevant that Swaggart is a minister of the faith, not a secular actor in the public sphere. But doesn't the Christian community have a pressing concern to communicate disapproval of any publicly visible Christian's open disregard of Christian beliefs? I don't pretend to have the answers to these questions, but if we expect the Christian community to take seriously its members' espousal of un-Christian positions, we can't presume to pick and choose the positions that warrant such treatment.
Rob
Monday, September 20, 2004
Jessica Wilen Berg, a law prof at Case Western, has a new paper titled "Owning Persons: The Application of Property Theory to Embryos and Fetuses." (Thanks to Larry Solum's blog for the tip.) The title pretty much says it all, as confirmed by the abstract:
Embryos are all over the news. According to the New York Times there are currently 400,000 frozen embryos in storage. Headlines proclaim amazing advances in our understanding of embryonic stem cells. And legislation involving cloning and embryos continues to be hotly debated. Despite the media attention, theoretical analysis of embryos' legal status is lacking.This article advances a number of novel arguments. First, recognition of property interests does not preclude the recognition of personhood interests. Embryos, fetuses and children may be both persons and property. Second, property law is conceptually more suited to resolving debates about embryos than procreative liberty, as the latter is strongest in those cases where procreation has not yet occurred - e.g., sterilization and contraception. Finally, this article is the first to provide a substantive evaluation of the application of property theories.
The approach is sure to challenge commentators on all sides of the debate. For those who argue that embryos and fetuses are persons, the strong property interests will likely be unpalatable. Similarly, the implications of the combined framework for limiting those property rights as the entity develops will likely be unacceptable to advocates of extensive procreative choice during pregnancy. Nevertheless, this framework provides a more accurate understanding of the legal issues, and therefore may facilitate the eventual resolution of the protracted battle regarding the legal status of embryos and fetuses.
Rob
Get Religion has an interesting post on the media's coverage of the death of an "unborn child" in the wake of Hurricane Ivan.
Rob
Sunday, September 19, 2004
If you're harboring any doubts over the degree to which Planned Parenthood relishes the opportunity to transform the culture, check out the organization's suggested paths of individual activism in the abortion rights battle for hearts and minds. (Thanks to Evangelical Outpost for the link.) These are among the more egregious suggestions; I couldn't let them pass without some interpretive commentary:
"Talk to your clergy about pro-choice topics; encourage them to play a leadership role on these issues in the community and suggest they give a sermon on the ethical value of choice on every Mother's Day or Roe anniversary." (The tough part for ministers, of course, is finding a Gospel passage on which to build this particular Mother's Day sermon.)"Bring up reproductive rights with your friends and family, including your children. Be loud and proud in your perspective." ("See Johnny? Now do you understand how lucky you are to have been born at all?")
"Ask obstetrician/gynecologists whether they provide abortions and patronize only those who provide the full range of care to their patients." (Individual choice is sacred, of course, except when it comes to physicians, for whom there is only one acceptable choice.)
"Send pro-choice greeting cards for holidays, birthdays, Mother's Day." (Nothing says "I love you, Mom" like a Mother's Day card extolling the virtues of abortion on demand.)
Rob
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