Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Kristof on evangelicals

By Rob Vischer

In the NY Times, Nicholas Kristof has some strong words for liberals' treatment of evangelicals:

Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.

With Rick Warren and other evangelical leaders pushing social justice agendas, Kristof observes:

Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Dilulio on Compassionate Conservatism

By Rob Vischer

Christian Century has a review of John Dilulio's new book, Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future.  Here's one provocative excerpt:

White House aides, to DiIulio's chagrin, seemed more interested in photo opportunities with black preachers than in actually refining policies that could pass Congress. On this point, DiIulio's account echoes David Kuo's lamentation over the politicization of religion in the White House.

In his rhetoric Bush spoke often of harnessing the "armies of compassion" to attack the ills of society, but that vision proved difficult to realize with federal grants. As an alternative, Bush could have proposed a new tax credit for contributions to nonprofit charities. In contrast to the modest $1-2 billion available in potential grants, a credit for millions of taxpayers would pour many billions into faith-based agencies, including international relief and development organizations. Since the money would flow from private citizens, few entangling strings would be attached; faith-saturated nonprofits would qualify along with secular organizations. But because this would result in a loss of revenue to the federal government, it collided with Bush's fiscal agenda of reducing tax rates and eliminating the estate tax. Serving the business class crowded out meaningful compassionate conservatism.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

3 Cheers for the GOP

By Rob Vischer

Growing tired of the sleepy tones of NPR, I've switched over to conservative talk radio for my commute over the past couple of weeks.  I have to say, I have found the genre to be entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and horrifying -- often at the same time.  I've only listened to a few dozen callers, I admit, but I've observed a common theme to their comments: the unborn are part of the human community; illegal immigrants and "terrorists" are not.  In this regard, let me give a hearty "Amen!" to the GOP faithful in Florida for making John McCain the clear front-runner for the nomination.  On talk radio, at least, he gets hammered most aggressively for his stances on immigration and torture (as well as campaign finance).  I don't agree with his unwavering support for the war, but I'm glad to see that the voters will support a candidate who speaks unpopular truths about the human persons in our midst.

UPDATE: In response to reader reaction, let me clarify: I am not suggesting that recognizing the human person in our midst requires supporting any particular policy stance on immigration, nor would I morally equate opposition to illegal immigration with support of torture.  I'm making a much less ambitious claim.  I have heard similar rhetoric employed regularly, but not universally, on conservative talk radio in debates on immigration and terrorism.  That rhetoric is, in my view, profoundly dehumanizing.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Free Exercise v. Parental Rights

By Rob Vischer

Howard Friedman comments on a recent Oregon Supreme Court case dealing with a dispute between divorced parents over whether their 12 year-old son should be circumcised.  The court ended up remanding the case for further fact findings (which is probably what I would want to do as an appellate judge in a case like this) and thus did not take the opportunity to address whether a 12 year-old has free exercise rights. 

I'm not sure we've ever discussed this question on MoJ.  Courts have spoken of children as religious believers and actors -- e.g., in the Gobitis dissent (the case in which the Supreme Court upheld a compelled flag salute statute as applied to 10 and 12 year-olds), Justice Stone asserted that it would deny the children's "faith as well as the teachings of most religions to say that children of their age could not have religious convictions."  In such cases, the children are on the same side of the dispute as the parents, and thus there is no need to navigate the tension between religious liberty and parental rights.

How would Catholic legal theory address this tension?  I presume that neither value (the children's religious liberty nor parental authority) would serve as an absolute trump, but that there would have to be some sort of context-driven sliding scale.  I'm not exactly sure what the sliding scale would look like, though.  I also presume that the Church would not support free exercise rights for a child based on the same criteria by which courts would defer to a child's articulated preferences in custody disputes, and that there would need to be a much greater level of maturity shown.  For older children, would it matter what the child aims to preserve or attain through the invocation of free exercise rights?  If a 16 year-old child wants to attend church, but her atheist parents have forbidden her from having any exposure to religious teachings, does Catholic legal theory side with the parents or the child?  Does anything change if the 16 year-old wants to stay home, but her parents compel her to attend church?

Friday, January 18, 2008

Skeel (Again) on Christian Legal Scholarship

By Rob Vischer

Penn law prof David Skeel's earlier paper, The Unbearable Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship, provoked some sharp critiques for claiming that "the scope of Christian legal scholarship is shockingly narrow." He has posted a new paper, The Paths of Christian Legal Scholarship.  Here's the abstract:

The history of twentieth century Christian legal scholarship- really, the absence of Christian legal scholarship in America's elite law schools- can be told as a tale of two emblematic clashes: the first an intriguing historical footnote, the second a brief, explosive war of words. In the first, a tort action in Nebraska circa 1890,William Jennings Bryan and Roscoe Pound served as opposing counsel; the second was a war of words in the 1940s between a group of neo-Thomist scholars and defenders of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Using these two incidents to frame as a starting point, this essay briefly chronicles the disappearance of Christian legal scholarship from the elite law reviews for much of the twentieth century. In the past few years, however, there have been signs of a possible renaissance. The second half of the essay focuses on the signs of renewal. To organize the discussion, I address three very basic questions: What?, Who?, and How? - What are the most promising directions for Christian legal scholarship? Who is a Christian legal scholar? And how can Christian legal scholarship best be facilitated?

Prof. Skeel does not back away from his earlier claims, but he does seem to soften them a bit.  And as one sign of the Christian legal scholarship "renaissance," I'm happy to note, he cites MoJ as "an important voice on faith-inflected issues."

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Schutt on Rush

By Rob Vischer

Regent law prof (and author of a wonderful new book) Mike Schutt offers this response to my question about Rush Limbaugh's embrace of self-reliance:

I think you have it pegged about right (and I think Michael hit this, too) so maybe this isn't even worth saying, but there is an awful lot of this "autonomy" stuff going around, even in "Christian" thinking about politics, and it's a problem. I'm a conservative because I think government is a generally a lousy vehicle through which to love one's neighbors and, as you point out, is not the most effective way to meet human needs. Charity itself is denatured and community destroyed when human beings begin to rely on government to care for the poor, house orphans, take care of widows, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and the like. It's also wasteful, but that is a secondary problem. The trouble is that community is also destroyed-- and charity made impossible-- by a vision of the human person that says community is not a necessary part of humanness. So Rush has it wrong. Body life is a fundamental Christian and biblical concept that is lost on modern conservatism. I think conservatism has capitulated to modernism, which holds radical autonomy as fundamental tenet. I guess the bottom line for me, as a Christian conservative living in the midst of modernity, is that we aren't fully human beings without meeting the needs of others and having our needs met by others, yet the vehicle for this interdependence is properly the body of Christ in ministry both within and to outsiders, rather than the state.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

A question for my conservative friends . . .

By Rob Vischer

I know Rush Limbaugh does not speak for all conservatives, but he does seem to speak for a lot of them.  National Review, for example, quoted a long excerpt from Rush's show yesterday with praise for this "steady voice of conservatism."  Here's a snippet:

But if we're going to keep this notion that everybody's entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society. You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don't depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn't want to be obligated. I didn't want to be dependent. I didn't want to owe anybody. I don't buy into insurance plans because it's a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don't have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that's conservatism again.

Here's the question for my conservative friends: Is Rush correct that conservativism stands for complete self-reliance and independence?  I understand -- and agree with, in many contexts -- conservatism's skepticism toward government as the most effective provider for human needs.  But Rush seems to be taking that skepticism to another level, turning it into a principle that stands in direct conflict with the nature of the human person, as expressed through the ideas of solidarity, reciprocity, subsidiarity, and the common good.  I know there are many different currents within the mighty conservative river, and so I'm likely to get many different answers, but let me try to simplify the question: is Rush disconnected from mainstream American conservatism, or is mainstream American conservatism disconnected from an authentic understanding of the human person?

Friday, January 11, 2008

Muslim Theology (GOP Style)

By Rob Vischer

A few months ago I chastised Howard Dean for his injection of theological claims into his depiction of Democratic Party politics.  At least his was well-intentioned and aimed at affirming the good civic standing of members of minority faith traditions.  The same cannot be said for Fred Thompson in last night's debate suggesting his willingness eagerness (?) to send Iranian sailors to meet their beloved virgins.  Watch Thompson's theological red-meat-to-the-masses line here.  (Apparently all members of the Iranian military are also Islamic terrorists.)  Mike Huckabee also had an arguably theologically presumptuous line about the Iranian sailors seeing "the gates of hell," but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was speaking figuratively.  (As an aside, I earlier indicated that I found Huckabee to be "huggable."  I no longer do.)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Your weekend plans . . .

By Rob Vischer

. . . should -- indeed, must -- include a trip to the local multiplex to catch the newest Veggie Tales movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.  I'm not sure what it has to do with Catholic legal theory, but we have an obligation to support popular culture that is grounded in the moral truth about the human person vegetable world. (And besides, the Chicago Tribune / LA Times gave it three stars.)

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Stuntz on Christians and Criminal Justice

By Rob Vischer

A belated note of gratitude to John Breen, Bob Cochran, and the other organizers of the Law Professors' Christian Fellowship, which convened this past Saturday in New York.  There was way too much intriguing content throughout the day to comment on in a single post, so I'll highlight one of the talks.

Harvard law prof Bill Stuntz set out a Christian perspective on the American criminal justice system.  He used to believe that the core problem with American law is that it is not sufficiently grounded in moral truth.  Now he believes the problem is its severity.  He cited a litany of depressing statistics, including the increase of our prison population from 300,000 in 1970 to 2.2 million today.  American Christians, he believes, are partially responsible for the current state of affairs, not just because of the stances we've taken, but because of the issues we have neglected and the political alliances we've made.  We've gone off-track, in his view, by being too optimistic about what the law can accomplish and by underrating the importance of mercy. 

I'd like to hear more from Prof. Stuntz about whether mercy is a quality capable of implementation as national policy, as opposed to a disposition of individual actors within the criminal justice system.  (Is he advocating for laws that are merciful, or for laws that are less severe?  Is there a difference?)  There was much to ponder in his presentation, and I'm hoping it finds its way into published form soon.  It deserves a wide audience.

There was a strong showing by MoJ-ers, both at the podium (Michael S.) and in the audience, so I'll let others chime in with their reactions to the day's events.

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