by Thomas S. Hibbs

Spence, 316 pages, $27.95

It has been said that cinema has become just another American religion, with multiplexes for cathedrals and auteurs for priests. Let’s grant the hyperbole but also concede that every religion, no matter how dubious, needs something approaching a theologian, a doctor communis , to interpret its revelation. In his new book, Arts of Darkness , philosopher Thomas Hibbs nominates Blaise Pascal, who enters the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by shedding light on that darkest of movie genres: noir .

Film noir has both fascinated and confounded critics and film lovers since the 1940s, when foreign cineastes began to remark on how dark and depressing American films had become. Most scholars and filmmakers agree that it is not a genre proper, with clearly defined conventions that the Western or the romantic-comedy or the sci-fi adventure enjoy. As writer-director Paul Schrader wrote in his seminal 1972 essay, “Notes on Film Noir,” it is defined more by “subtle qualities of tone and mood.” Or, as Foster Hirsch added in his Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen , it’s about “the city at night,” with its dens of iniquity, secret identities, and lost souls.

Rent some classic representations of noir” Naked City, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Third Man ”and witness the chiaroscuro lighting, canted camera angles that skew the audience’s view, and shady heroes who defy easy good-guy categorizations. It’s a world of marginalized figures”detectives who walk the fine line between lawman and outlaw, boxers in on a fix, and syndicates that operate sub rosa. It is a world of pseudonyms, hidden motives, and truth as a slippery, relative thing.

Hibbs acknowledges early on in Arts of Darkness the difficulty in defining noir: “It is stylistically and dramatically complex. Its emphasis on darkness and shadows, absence over presence, and the duality of the personal identity underscore the depth and mystery inherent in the most mundane of experiences. Into such a disorienting, threatening, and uninviting world, noir thrusts its protagonist, who sets out on a quest to solve a particular mystery.”

That quest is the real focus of Hibbs’ critical analysis. In fact, the subtitle of Hibbs’ book” American Noir and the Quest for Redemption ”proves to be the compass that keeps the reader on track: Noir is so plastic, so elusive, it’s easy to lose one’s way in trying to discern its defining features and just which films qualify as genuine examples. And when movies as diverse as It’s a Wonderful Life , Vertigo , Chinatown , and The Matrix all qualify in some sense as noir (or its progeny, neo-noir), one can ask only whether every film that exhibits some level of moral ambiguity can be filed under the rubric”making the term virtually useless as a descriptor.

Hibbs opens the book with a quotation from Flannery O’Connor, whose “religious sensibility . . . was particularly sensitive to the gap between contemporary religious platitudes and the deeper realities to which she wanted to point her own fiction.” Hibbs, too, wants to go deeper and show what he calls the convergence between the noir film and the religious film, by demonstrating that the unspoken quest in noir”as opposed to such apparent quests as solving (or committing) the perfect crime, finding the missing person, or awakening from a nightmare of unreality”is nothing less than the quest for redemption. Hibbs cites liberally other commentators who have already explored the moral universe of noir and its “pattern of desire for a kind of communication” (J.P. Telotte), as well as those who have already pinned their hopes on Pascal as a key cultural interpreter (Lucien Goldmann). Hibbs’ signal contribution, however, consists in bringing these insights together to view noir through a religious lens.

Fade in on Blaise Pascal, seventeenth-century mathematician, in-ventor, and lay Christian apologist, whom Hibbs styles as quite possibly the first postmodern writer: “In his trenchant and aphoristic observations on the ‘monstrous’ character of the human condition, Pascal anticipates many a noir theme . . . . [He] is acutely aware of the fragmentation of our knowledge and of the vulnerability of the self to forces, internal and external, beyond its control or even its critical consciousness.”

And just as noir was an antidote of sorts to “the populist films of the 1940s” that offered “affirmative visions of American life,” Pascal too offered an alternative theological conception to that of an easily ­accessible heavenly father who left footprints in the sand. Though a Christian himself, he did not believe that Christianity taught “that the existence of God is obvious; instead, it teaches that ‘God is a hidden
God’ . . . a God of ironic distance and violent, surprising intervention in the human world.”

Hibbs’ noir survey begins with The Maltese Falcon , Double Indemnity , The File on Thelma Jordan , and what many consider Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest achievement, Vertigo . All these films feature double-crosses and femmes fatales , the self-deceived and the duped. What they also have in common is an attempt finally to make things right: right with the law, right with themselves, right with a lost loved one”in short, a hidden desire for redemption. “Even where desire appears to operate in accord with laws of mechanical necessity,” writes Hibbs, “the characters evince an awareness of their situation that bespeaks a transcendence of it,” or at least the possibility of transcendence. We are “incapable of certain knowledge or absolute ignorance,” wrote Pascal, and so are left to struggle.

In The Maltese Falcon , for example, Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart) is “a fusion of seeming contradictions,” one who “eschews dreams” but is nevertheless unable to detach himself from personal involvement in his cases, which are “not solved . . . until he has made a moral assessment of those implicated.” He avoids the traps most noir protagonists fall into, but only at the cost of a heart-wrenching solitude. He is not an existentialist hero, however, who finds ultimate freedom by fashioning a moral code of his own. “The noir universe does not offer such naïve consolations [as] freedom.” And an “arbitrary creation of values” is a concession to nihilism, offering no solution to “the crisis of meaning.” Noir characters remain trapped in webs of deceit and doubt, left straining for meaning, even when a level of enlightenment enables them at least to acknowledge their predicament. Knowledge is not power in noir.

Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity opens with insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) offering a taped confession that also functions as the film’s voice-over narration. “The voiceover,” writes Hibbs, “typically represents a partial transcendence of the mechanical necessity that seems to dominate the action.” On a routine call to a client, Neff is introduced to the classic noir femme fatale , Phyllis Dietrichson, played with inimitable deadpan earnestness by Barbara Stanwyck. Dietrichson wants Neff to help her bump off her husband so she can cash in on his hefty insurance policy.

The lure of sex and money, interchangeable commodities, reel Neff into an unreal world, in which affections are mere affectations. The “perfect crime” goes awry, of course, and when Neff announces that he’s going to the police, his so-called lover shoots him”but not before Neff has composed what has become the film’s overriding narrative frame”the confession”an attempt to put the narrative of his own life story right. It is Neff’s boss, played by Edward G. Robinson, who functions as Neff’s conscience, reminding him of what he already knows”that something is out of joint in this phony world of lovers conquering all”but not before it’s too late. Redemption delayed is redemption denied.

It should be noted that the high noir era of the 1940s and 1950s was also that of the Production Code, which demanded that all criminals be punished (a scruple noticeably absent from, say, Chinatown ). One wonders if Wilder’s script would have ended differently shorn of such restrictions (think Body Heat , where Kathleen Turner’s femme fatale winds up sunning herself on a beach). Says Hibbs: “An appropriate philosophical anthropology for noir would have to capture both the way in which we are prey to the machine-like workings of the passions and the way in which we retain a residual freedom and distance from those passions. It needs a dialectical philosophy.” And who better than Pascal to supply it: “Man’s greatness comes from knowing he is wretched””he is both a monster and a “dispossessed king.”

Not all noir films, or films that exhibit noir elements, necessarily end unhappily. Perhaps the most unexpected example of noir that Hibbs adduces is It’s a Wonderful Life . Hibbs posits that George Bailey’s despair over his apparently meaningless existence threatens to destroy him until an unseen power”in this case, divine providence as personified by the angel Clarence”breaks in and grants him new eyes through which he can see the salutary, almost salvific, effect his “ordinary” life has had on a wide variety of people. Hibbs then immediately cuts to an analogous theme in Pulp Fiction , in which a gangster named Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) should have died in a hail of bullets but escapes untouched. “God got involved,” he concludes, granting him the motivation to reverse the direction of his life. “Chance,” Hibbs asserts, even when construed as the unexpected intervention of the Almighty, plays a significant role in the noir narrative.

In a chapter entitled “Beyond Good and Evil,” Hibbs introduces neo-noir, in which the ideas of transcendence and redemption are more superficially exploited and rendered more problematic. The 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s proved to be rich in neo-noir types, films with noir contours but in which the protagonist is no longer an “everyman” in an everyday calling but superheroes who comprise an elite, a chosen few whose gnosis grants them special powers”both physical and mental.

Neo-noir undoes what Hibbs calls “the democratic ethos of noir.” Surpassing the limitations of the human body as given, and possessing unique powers of discernment, neo-noir’s protagonists obtain access to a reality hidden from the masses. The laws of man”not to mention physics”become irrelevant, as what it means to be human is now an open question. In short, the good guys are once again indistinguishable from the bad guys but for their good intentions. Thus Neo in The Matrix exhibits supernatural powers”he even rises from the dead”but not before ­forsaking the mundane realm as experienced by others. The price of enlightenment, redemption, is the abandonment of kinship with one’s own to become Other. Hibbs denounces this “shallow nihilism,” which “often afflicts neo-noir.”

It should be noted that this ­concept of an unseen “power” that presides over apparently free creatures”one of the controlling themes of both noir and its progeny”is one of the reasons a Jansenist such as Pascal is a natural guide through its various manifestations. Jansenism taught a version of predestination similar to that of Calvin’s, which construed salvation as conferred only on an elect.

I wish Hibbs had spent more time on noir’s use of surreal settings, which often conjure up images of hell. There are also noir classics that Hibbs ignores that I would have thought were ripe for exploration ( Kiss Me Deadly, Touch of Evil ). On the other hand, I could have lived without the interminable chapter on Buffy the Vampire Slayer : a one-joke advertisement for girl-power that I could not possibly take as seriously as Hibbs does.

As for Taxi Driver , which Hibbs reads as neo-noir, Robert Kolker, in his classic Cinema of Loneliness , interprets it as a citified Western , a kind of perverse reimagining of John Ford’s The Searchers set in 1970s Manhattan. This doesn’t negate Hibbs’ analysis of Scorsese’s now classic descent into urban angst, but it does make one wonder whether noir as a concept is so broad that, again, you could pick almost any film at random and find a “quest for redemption,” broadly defined.

My quibbles are those of an admirer, however. Hibbs makes a unique and valuable contribution to this endlessly fascinating subject, offering an interpretative grid for understanding the neo-gnosticism of so many popular films. Hibbs deserves much credit here for thickening the moral conscience of moviegoers beyond counting the number of dirty bits or blasphemies uttered. He is not afraid to talk religion and thereby give some recognizable content to the concept of redemption: “The religion of a humiliated, crucified God”inconceivable to natural reason”accounts for the paradoxes of human nature.”

“Man does not know the place he should occupy,” Hibbs quotes Pascal. “He has obviously gone astray; he has fallen from his true place and cannot find it again. He searches everywhere, anxiously but in vain, in the midst of an impenetrable darkness.” And what better way to ­smuggle a little light into the secular classroom than through the voice of a theologian on the margins of the Church”an irony any noirist would love.

Anthony Sacramone is managing editor of First Things .

The post A Mirror Darkly appeared first on First Things.

by Jean-Pierre Vernant

Zone, 505 pages, $25

The superciliousness of Vernant’s approach to Greek myth is evident in the author’s introduction, in which we are affronted with the unquestioned presumption that homo religiosus is a primitive creature who concocts myths as a product of his ignorance. Similarly, we are informed blithely about “the progression from mythical to rational thought and the gradual development of the idea of the individual person.”

In making these presumptions, Vernant is guilty of sundering fides from ratio and, in so doing, has created a gap between himself and the men of whom he writes. There was no schism between fides et ratio , or between myth and reason, in the eyes of Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, or for that matter in the eyes of Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. The whole legacy of civilized culture down the ages has been a synthesizing of art and philosophy in the service of reality.

Myth and Thought Among the Greeks is also characterized by the author’s imposition of his own dogmatic relativism upon the Greeks. We are told, for instance, that “there is not, nor can there be, a perfect model of the individual, abstracted from the course of the history of mankind, with its vicissitudes and its variations and transformations across space and time.” This betrays nothing less than illiteracy. Homer gives us Penelope, Dante gives us Beatrice, and Shakespeare gives us Cordelia, all of whom disprove Vernant’s dogmatic denial of the existence of perfect models of the individual. This blessed trinity of idealized femininity is itself a reflection, either via prefigurement or representation, of the Marian archetype, and, of course, we have Christ himself as the perfect model of the individual. One does not need to be a Christian to see this mythical truth. Vernant is seemingly incapable of either empathy or sympathy. He is left, like Pilate, washing his hands of the moral passion of the myths unfolding before his unseeing eyes.

In a better reading of the timeless myths of antiquity we do not find distance and dissonance between ourselves and our ancestors but resolution and resonance. We can be at home with Homer because Homer is as homely as we are. He experiences the exile of life and desires the community and communion of home, in both its physical and metaphysical sense. Homer knew this, and so did Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolkien”all of whom knew the connection between Everyman and the Everlasting Man.

As a veritas -vampire, Vernant sucks the spirit of truth from myth, leaving only the dust and ashes of materialistic psycho-babble. Switching metaphors, he can be said to be a cheapened Midas: Everything he touches turns to dross. Whereas such analogies may transform myth into mere metaphor, Vernant turns myth into mere mechanics. He does not present us with a living myth, nor even with the corpse of a myth, but merely a lump of broken machinery. His work is truly abysmal”literally, in the sense that it creates an abyss between us and the Greeks. Far from moving “from myth to reason,” which is the title of the last part of Vernant’s book, we should follow more trusted guides and find the reason in the myth.

”Joseph Pearce

Biomedical Research and Beyond: Expanding the Ethics of Inquiry

by Christopher O. Tollefsen

Routledge, 229 pages, $95

Though Aristotle taught that “all men by nature desire to know,” surprisingly little attention has been paid to how we should go about fulfilling this desire. What are the norms that should govern our pursuit of knowledge? May medical researchers withhold facts from clinical test subjects? Can they use embryos? Is it permissible for intelligence agents to torture those they interrogate? May journalists hide their true identities and infiltrate closed communities to write exposés? Is there a truth for humanities scholars to seek, and, if so, can they avoid pushing political agendas?

While some of these questions are considered in disparate fields”medical ethics and bioethics, military and journalistic ethics”there are few integrated, systematic discussions of them. Christopher Tollefsen’s carefully argued new book is an attempt at developing such an “ethics of inquiry.”

Tollefsen’s project draws deeply from several disciplines: philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, meta-ethics, normative ethics, and political theory. He builds on recent work in natural-law theory, identifying the constitutive aspects of human well-being and the moral principles needed to protect those goods. He also integrates these foundations with insights from virtue ethicists about the centrality of developing the virtues that promote human flourishing. With this eudaemonistic approach, Tollefsen defines five core values that should guide the ethics of inquiry: autonomy and privacy (rightly understood), bodily integrity, fairness, and personal integrity.

He begins by applying these values to generate moral principles that protect the well-being of both inquirers and the subjects of their inquiries. Here Tollefsen examines the necessity of informed consent in biomedical research; the moral status of unborn (especially embryonic) test subjects; how humans degrade themselves by mistreating animal subjects; how the prohibition on lying and principles of fairness apply to military reconnaissance, undercover police work, and investigative journalism; and the threats that coercion, torture, and biotech enhancement pose to bodily integrity. In rigorous yet remarkably clear prose, Tollefsen surveys competing values and moral principles, proposes his solutions, and addresses the best counterarguments from leading scholars. Besides developing norms for individual inquirers, Tollefsen also analyzes the role the state should play in supporting and regulating their work.

Tollefsen closes with an extended discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre’s key insights on social practices, professions, and progress in inquiry. Here he focuses not so much on the people affected by inquiry, but on the good to be sought: namely, the truth. If truth is the ultimate aim of all authentic inquiry, then inquirers need to develop certain virtues that dispose them to arrive at it. Building on Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, Tollefsen identifies and discusses the virtues he considers central: honesty, courage, moderation, studiousness, justice, prudence, and integrity. One can easily see, for example, how fear of rejection or disapproval, or love for one’s own opinion even in the face of contrary evidence, could skew an honest inquiry.

It is within this context that Tollefsen focuses particularly on how modern universities can foster authentic searches for truth, even on controversial topics. Lastly, he considers the vocational implications of inquiry: the overall shape that a life committed to the search for truth should take. What becomes clear throughout is that Tollefsen himself has been practicing the intellectual virtues he preaches.

”Ryan T. Anderson

The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175“1375

by Robert Shaffern

University of Scranton Press, 275 pages, $25

The Penitents’ Treasury is a work of Catholic revisionist history in the line of Eamon Duffy, even if it lacks the magisterial character and depth of Duffy’s work. Shaffern challenges the reigning historical orthodoxies to say that instead of terrorizing and stultifying the medieval populace, indulgences served as “a reminder of God’s generosity and the help of ‘fellow evenchristens.’” They were not imposed by the church hierarchy as a means of controlling or extorting the masses. Instead, they harmonized with a lively popular piety, arising from within the medieval emphasis on how corporal works’ reflected the state of the soul. Shaffern is uncritically pro-indulgence in his approach, but his new perspective adds to the debate surrounding one of church history’s most divisive topics.

”Nathaniel Peters

Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family

by Alexander Waugh

Nan A. Talese, 480 pages, $27.50

Alexander Waugh’s Fathers and Sons recounts the relationships that built one of the great English literary dynasties of the twentieth century. After an opening meditation on the death of father Auberon, Alexander looks back to great-great-grandfather Dr. Alexander Waugh, justly nicknamed “the Brute.” The doctor’s savagery toward son Arthur helps explain the latter’s limitations as a father. Subsequent chapters record his sentimental preference, resented by the young Evelyn, for elder son Alec. Evelyn would later take revenge by lampooning his father’s worst traits in successive novels, but he in turn showed a shocking aloofness toward his own children. Alexander does record moments of familial harmony, however: Several letters from Evelyn to son Auberon reveal a loving father who encouraged his son’s literary ambitions, and Alexander describes his own bond with father Auberon.

Many readers will be irritated, and sometimes repulsed, by Alexander Waugh’s crude and prurient handling of the less noble episodes in his family’s history. Equally frustrating is his religious semiliteracy: For example, he claims that Evelyn was “falling out of love with the Catholic Church” in the 1960s”a misreading of the novelist’s distaste for the decade’s liturgical reforms. The book contains a number of fascinating letters and anecdotes, but the author’s own attempts to provide an insight into the nature of literary genius and father-son relationships, concluding with a contrived letter to the next generation, frequently sound pat and self-serving.

”Francis Murphy

The Freedom of a Christian: Grace, Vocation, and the Meaning of Our Humanity

by Gilbert Meilaender

Brazos, 192 pages, $23.99One of the wisest Christian thinkers of our time borrows his title from Martin Luther’s book dedicated to Pope Leo X, in which Luther made bold to say: “It is a small book if you regard its size. Unless I am mistaken, however, it contains the whole of Christian life in a brief form.” Meilaender does not say whether Luther was mistaken, but he makes a point of saying that he would not presume to make a similar claim for the present book in which he brings together essays published here and there, including in these pages. The connecting themes are freedom, obligation, and vocation, with supplementary essays on aspects of biotechnology and a truly human understanding of living the end of life. For those not familiar with the author’s work, the book will be a discovery; for those already indebted to him, it will be a reminder of their reasons for gratitude.
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of ­Religious Freedom in America

by Steven Waldman

Random House, 304 pages, $26
A popular account of what the American founders meant by religious freedom, with strong and ­necessary correctives of conflicting misunderstandings of “the separation of church and state.” James Madison is, with justice, the hero of the story. Founding Faith is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the inevitable, and for the most salutary, interaction of religion and politics in our common life.
Cities of God

by Rodney Stark

Harper, 288 pages, $24.95

Sociologist Rodney Stark’s latest in his series of revisionist accounts, including The Rise of Christianity and, more recently, The Victory of Reason . The present book focuses on the statistical evidence helping us to understand, from a sociological perspective, why and how Christianity grew from a peripheral cult into a movement that conquered the Roman Empire. Key to the story is the movement’s concentration on urban centers (hence “Cities of God”) and the strategy of Paul”misleadingly called “the apostle to the gentiles””who built upon the synagogue-centered Jewish communities in those centers. Stark sharply challenges now-fashionable treatments of Gnosticism as a more sophisticated version of Christianity and calls for a greater appreciation of the ways in which various mystery cults opened the way for the Christian gospel.
The Rule of Benedict

by David Gibson

HarperOne, 400 pages, $24.95

Liberal Catholicism, said Francis Cardinal George a few years ago, is an “exhausted project.” Yet it is kept on life support by journalists such as David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church , which is a church whose arrival has been announced by hundreds of similar books over the last four decades. Pope Benedict, we are told in his most recent book, is at war with the “modern world,” and Gibson is clearly on the side of the modern world. Your not being surprised is not surprising.
Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections

by Thomas Hopko

Conciliar, 128 pages, $12.95

Father Hopko is Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York and offers in this little book a clear and caring perspective on same-sex attraction that should be warmly welcomed by those coping with the experience and those who want to help them. While in solid agreement with the lowercase orthodoxy of all communions, Hopko draws on the distinctives of uppercase Orthodoxy in providing angles of vision that will be new to many readers.
God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition

by John Witte Jr.

Eerdmans, 498 pages, $32

The title joins a statement by Martin Luther”“History is God’s theater, God’s jousting place””and another by St. Augustine”“All things are ruled and governed by the one God as he pleases, but if God’s reasons are hid, are they therefore unjust?” Witte is professor of law and ethics at Emory University and has made many contributions to understanding the intersection of law and religion. The present work mainly addresses the American founding and the first freedom of the First Amendment, with additional essays on marriage and family in the law.
Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Exploring Our Commonalities and Our Differences

by Isaac Rottenberg

Hebraic Heritage, 275 pages, $25

The anodyne subtitle to the contrary, this book takes on all the hard questions: revisionist views of anti-Semitism, Messianic Judaism, and, throughout, the Christian stake in Israel. Rottenberg, who has appeared in these pages, is a veteran of ­Jewish-Christian dialogue who regularly provides fresh and provocative insights on familiar disputes.
Five Germanys I Have Known

by Fritz Stern

Farrar Straus Giroux, 560 pages, $15

Columbia’s emeritus professor of European history was born in Weimar Germany and provides an extremely detailed account of his relations with that country up through the present. The chronologies and itineraries related to the many studies he has done and speeches he has delivered for the Ford Foundation and similar institutions, along with a thorough accounting of honors bestowed on him, cry out for an editor. Peppered throughout are intimations that “fundamentalism” in America portends something dreadful, maybe something like the Third Reich. The book is much more about Fritz Stern than about Germany. The first section, on the cultural and religious complexities of being a baptized Jew in the Weimar period is frequently poignant and instructive.
The Regensburg Lecture

by James V. Schall

St. Augustine’s, 176 pages, $20

A thoughtful and important reflection on Pope Benedict’s lecture of September 12, 2006, at the University of Regensburg, Germany, including the full text of the lecture. Father Schall’s well-chosen epigraph is from Nietzsche: “The greatest events and thoughts”but the greatest thoughts are the greatest events”are comprehended last: the generations which are their contemporaries do not experience such events”they live past them.” Schall is determined that we not live past the pope’s bold analysis of religion, reason, the challenge of Islamic Jihadism, and the possibility of civilization.
Reasonable Ethics: A Christian Approach to Social, Economic, and Political Concerns

by Robert Benne

Concordia, 341 pages, $14.99
Benne is the founder and director of the Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke College in Virginia. Here he brings together essays, both academic and based on his various life experiences, written from a distinctly Lutheran perspective. The ethical position proposed is instructive, morally serious, and devoid of illusions. In a word, reasonable. Strangers and Neighbors

by Maria Poggi Johnson

Thomas Nelson, 160 pages, $13.99
This fascinating little book began with a First Things article in November 2004, “Us and Them.” The author and her family moved into a neighborhood of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with a strong contingent of Orthodox Jews, and she describes in a very winning manner how that made her a stronger but a very different Christian.
Saints Behaving Badly

by Thomas J. Craughwell

Doubleday, 191 pages, $15.95

The premise of this charming and informative book is that saints are not born but made. From St. Augustine, who is an obvious candidate for inclusion, to lesser knowns such as St. Mary of Egypt who was, for lack of a better term, a street walker, Craughwell tells the stories of sinners forgiven and sanctified all the way to heaven. Which, for sinful readers, meaning all of us, should be a great encouragement. Sacred Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word

by Francis Martin

Sapientia, 304 pages, $26.95

Noted scholar Francis Martin brings critical scholarship into conversation with theology and spirituality in reflecting on a wide array of themes, from the paradox of the Beatitudes to scriptural feminism and the role of tradition and traditions in understanding the Bible. The book is a wonderful display of what it means to read the Scriptures on the liberating far side of academic specialties.
The Future of the United Nations

by Joshua Muravchik

AEI, 175 pages, $20

A sober and sobering assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the U.N. and of the reforms that are needed if it is to serve world peace in the future. Includes informative appendices on voting patterns, financial contributions, and other data correlated with the democratic politics, or lack thereof, of member nations.

The post Briefly Noted 246 appeared first on First Things.

Cold is the only word for it, as the nineteen-year-old Waldo confessed when he wrote, “I have not the kind affections of a pigeon” and “There is not in the whole wide Universe of God . . . one being to whom I am attached with warm & entire devotion.” Of course, he had to study divinity at Harvard and be ordained for the ministry, but doing both caused him to suffer inexplicable seizures, as if he were allergic to the cloth.

He was also penniless until, in 1828, he made the acquaintance of Ellen Tucker. She was a rich merchant’s daughter already dying of tuberculosis. In between pledges of his undying love, Emerson nagged her to tears over what she called “the ugly subject”: her will and estate. They married in 1829. She died in 1831. Her father contested the will, but Waldo prevailed to the tune of $23,000, a small fortune in those days. He promptly claimed conscience forbade him to continue as pastor of Boston’s Second Church, and he sailed off to Europe. By the time he came home, Waldo had reinvented himself as a comfortable prophet disparaging the worship of money.

Emerson’s status as self-reliant, self-appointed prophet of a uniquely American philosophy was at least as dubious. An insatiable reader, he knew all the ancient and modern classics and returned from Europe especially taken with Carlyle, Coleridge, Blake, ­Shelley, Wordsworth, Kant, Goethe, and the mystical ­Swedenborg. Even Emerson’s “The American Scholar,” a speech Oliver Wendell Holmes would nail as America’s intellectual declaration of independence, was a “comprehensive raid on Romantic articulations” well established abroad. One auditor thought the speech echoed the “misty, dreamy, unintelligible style of ­Swedenborg, Coleridge, and Carlyle . . . . I must question whether he himself would have written such an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address, had he not been familiar with the writings of the authors above named.”

Emerson’s essays were written to be spoken aloud, like an Athenian peroration, for their effect. Glib aperçus—a disciple called them “dots of thought”—tumbled over each other in defiance of the rules of logic. Years later, Lowell wrote to a friend: “Emerson’s oration was more disjointed than usual, even with him. It began nowhere and ended everywhere, and yet . . . it was all such stuff as stars are made of . . . . I felt something in me that cried, ‘Ha, ha, to the sound of the trumpets!’” Exactly so: Whether on the lyceum circuit or in print, Emerson told Americans that they were unique individuals in touch with divinity, infinite in their possibilities, laws unto themselves—and told them in language so abstruse and uplifting that consumers of culture suspended their critical faculties. Emerson pioneered the career of public intellectual.

New England’s Transcendentalist movement made a fetish of Kant’s notion that certain basic realities transcend human experience and reason, and thus can be apprehended only through intuition. The preachers and pantheists of the era said the same. But devolved Unitarians embellished their personal sense of the divine with Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim Sufi mysteries carried to Boston on merchants’ ships. In 1836 they formed a Transcendental Club, and they later published The Dial, edited by Margaret Fuller and then by the cult’s high priest, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

No one gainsaid Emerson’s way with words. Every day he recorded in the journal he called his savings bank everything interesting that he read, heard, thought, or felt; then he made withdrawals whenever he was called on to indulge his “passionate love for the strains of eloquence.” He enriched the American lexicon with such turns of phrase as whosoever would be a man, must be a nonconformist; for what is man born but a reformer; to be great is to be misunderstood; things are in the saddle and ride mankind; genius is sacrificed to talent every day; foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds; and hitch your wagon to a star.

Behind the aphorisms lurked a brilliant, voracious ego blind to any truths the human race may have learned by revelation or hard experience. Emerson’s first essay, the 1836 “Nature,” began: “Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation with the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”

He taught only two realities: the Me and the Not Me or Other, which is nature. The Me was as free as Adam to access the mind of the Creator and unlock “the palace of eternity.” As it stands, “man is a god in ruins . . . the dwarf of himself.” But man need only gaze on the world with new eyes to answer the timeless inquiry “What is truth?” and build a “kingdom of man over nature.” The following year, Emerson proclaimed that “the world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature . . . in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all . . . . [The] unsearched might of man, belongs by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.” Once Americans walk on their own feet, a “nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”

In his “Divinity School Address” (1838), Emerson came right out and pronounced that man’s religious sentiment made him divine, beatified, illimitable. Jesus gave us holy thoughts, but to suggest he had to die for humanity’s sins degraded all parties. The very word miracle is a “monster.” Away with preachers, pulpits, churches! Away with a historical Christianity that obscures “the moral nature of man, where the sublime is.” Preachers claimed that the truth gave life, but mankind is called “to convert life into truth.” What! Shall we found a new cult with new rites and forms? Not at all. “Faith makes us, and not we it, and faith makes its own forms.”

And so on and so on in essays such as “The Over-Soul,” “Spiritual Laws,” and “Circles.” Emerson taught the postmodern creed that truth is accessible to all through the divine over-soul, the assurance of truth being simply one’s feeling of certainty. “We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.” Hence the only sin man can commit is to limit himself through a failure to realize that he is “masterless.” No wonder Friedrich Nietzsche, who conceived of a superman “beyond good and evil,” carried a volume of Emerson wherever he went. It was Emerson who warned in “Circles”: “Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.”

In fact, Emerson put nothing at risk that his disciples had not already discarded, and his broader influence was so feeble that his most representative disciple was the bathetic David Henry Thoreau (he later transposed his given names). When Emerson ­settled in Concord, he invited Thoreau—a timid, tubercular, Harvard-trained teacher—to join his household and pursue a literary career. Thoreau made a minor splash in the magazine trade, thanks to assistance from Horace Greeley, but won lasting fame by camping out at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847.

Thoreau’s self-reliance was less than heroic. He went into town almost every day, sponged off friends, and hosted regular picnics at his cabin. Mountain men such as Jim Bridger would have guffawed at the pretense. But Thoreau’s little book Walden; or, Life in the Woods tugged New Englanders’ heartstrings: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau in fact ­experienced little of life. He never married and never traveled beyond the Northeast. His greatest adventure was spending one night in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax. Even his signature essay “Civil Disobedience” was ignored until after his death.

Thoreau was standoffish and timid. Was he talking about himself in Walden when he (brilliantly) observed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”? Caroline Sturgis Tappan likened him to a porcupine. Emerson thought him fit only to lead a huckleberrying party. But no one was chillier than the Sage of Concord himself. Emerson did remarry and had four children, but confessed that this marriage was another practical match devoid of romance. His few friendships—for instance, those with Amos Bronson Alcott (Louisa May’s father)—were purchased with loans and patronage.

George Santayana considered Emerson’s Transcendental method peculiarly sympathetic to the American mind: “It embodied, in a radical form, the spirit of Protestantism as distinguished from its inherited ­doctrines; it was autonomous, undismayed, calmly revolutionary; it felt that Will was deeper than Intellect; it focused everything on the here and now. . . . These things are truly American . . . and they are strikingly exemplified in the thought and person of Emerson.”

No doubt all that is so. But it is also hard to resist concluding that Emerson’s Transcendentalism was a manic effort to transcend himself because he was never comfortable in his own skin.

What a relief to move on to an author of real fiction who told real stories rooted in history, an American who admitted his “imagination was a tarnished mirror” and had real doubts about his countrymen’s headlong flight into the future. Nathaniel Hathorne (he added the w when he was in his twenties) was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts.

Sure enough, one of his Puritan forebears adjudicated the Salem witch trials. He had the usual childhood tragedies, including the death of his father when he was four and a serious athletic injury when he was nine. But thanks to the money and love of a large extended family, the boy grew up happy with plenty of chances to indulge his love for books and the outdoors alike.

He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1825, having made lifelong friends of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. He had also made a decision: He would follow the pioneering steps of James Fenimore Cooper and try to earn a ­living as an author. For twelve years, Hawthorne was “the obscurest man of letters in America,” but between dancing and card games he redeemed the time by poring over New England’s history and literature.

Twice-Told Tales (1837) made his reputation, thanks in part to a rave notice in the North American Review by Longfellow. But the royalties did not ­suffice, so Hawthorne tapped his Democratic party connections (Pierce was already a U.S. senator) to win a post in the Boston customhouse. That allowed him to marry his “dove,” the invalid artist Sophia Peabody, and settle in Concord.

Needless to say, he fell in with the Transcendentalists, losing $1,000 in their utopian venture at Brook Farm but gaining the inspiration to write such denunciations of self-obsession as “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and “Egotism; or, the Bosom-Serpent.” Ousted by his landlord in 1845, Hawthorne again tapped his connections for a job in the Salem customhouse.

There he reconnected with his Puritan heritage. So when a Whig victory left him unemployed in 1849, he moved to Lenox ready to write The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and The Blithedale Romance (1852), an exposé of the “phantasmagorical antics” at Brook Farm. In 1852 he wrote the presidential-campaign biography for Pierce; he was rewarded with four exciting years as U.S. consul in Liverpool.

Emerson had contempt for the past. Hawthorne swam in it. Emerson imagined the human soul as a sun radiating power and light. Hawthorne sensed the “dark side of the force” as keenly as Cotton Mather and John Bunyan. Emerson buried a crystalline gospel in obscure, prolix prose. Hawthorne excavated hellish recesses in transparent prose. Just roll this over the tongue from The Blithedale Romance : “Bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and crannies, where Nature, like a stray partridge, hides her head among the long-established haunts of men. . . . There is far more of the picturesque, more truth to native and characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater suggestiveness, in the back view of a residence, whether in town or country, than in its front. The latter is always artificial; it is meant for the world’s eye, and it is therefore a veil and a concealment. Realities keep in the rear, and put forward an advance guard of show and humbug.”

Pride and its symbols were Hawthorne’s fixation: pride born of status, power, wealth, moralism, and not least intellect. He felt such pride, or the desire for pride, in himself—that is why one finds in Hawthorne a humility rare among his New England contemporaries. He shared the era’s faith in democracy and the individual—indeed, he was far more of a patriot than Emerson and Thoreau—but could not bring himself to believe Americans were somehow released from the human condition. He rejected the Puritan theology even as they did but could not deny the unwelcome truths that made the Puritans anxious.

The Scarlet Letter is rightly Hawthorne’s most famous work (though he preferred The House of the Seven Gables). Even people who have never read it, or have only skimmed it in high school, know that it paints a scathing portrait of the authoritarian, guilt-ridden Calvinist culture. But not only was the real message relevant to his own culture; it also anticipated the twentieth century’s obsession with sex and ­sublimation.

The earthy Hester Prynne, who must wear a red letter A, repents of and atones for the pride that threw her into the arms of the handsome young pastor. Hers is a long and productive life enriched by the love child Pearl (of great price?). Her prideful lover, by contrast, is consumed by guilt, and her prideful father is devoured by a lust for vengeance.

Nor was Hawthorne just purging himself of the burden of his ancestry by implying that Calvinism, not sin, was the cause of their troubles. Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse are replete with themes pricking his own ­society. “The Great Carbuncle” (1837) tells of a legendary gem of enormous brilliance and size hidden away in the White Mountains. Obsessed adventurers have thrown their lives away in vain pursuit, never even sure if it really exists. The Seeker discovers the carbuncle only to perish in the effort to reach it. The Cynic cannot see it through his tinted spectacles, and is cursed to spend the rest of his life wandering in search of light. The newlyweds Matthew and Hannah come to their senses, turn their backs on the gem, and walk away bathed in the light of their love, not for riches or nature, but for each other.

“The Celestial Railroad” (1843), a hilarious allegory published by the Democratic Review, made it obvious that Hawthorne was damning his own time from the standpoint of the seventeenth century rather than damning the Puritans from the standpoint of the nineteenth century. The narrator dreams an up-to-date ­version of A Pilgrim’s Progress wherein the souls bound for the Celestial City are provided with every convenience. Railroads and steamboats can speed them to heaven. Luxury hotels await them in the towns. But Mr. Take-it-Easy, his guide, has no desire to reach a destination where there is “no business doing, no fun going on, nothing to drink, no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of church music from morning till night. I would not stay in such a place if they offered me house-room and living free.” The greatest pitfall is the town of Vanity Fair. Persecution of Christians has ceased; indeed, clergymen such as the Reverend Shallow-Deep and Dr. Wind-of-Doctrine preside over the pleasure dome in league with its capitalist stockholders. None of its pilgrims complete their journeys; they are said to sell off large estates in the Celestial City in order to lease a small tenement in Vanity Fair.

No humor disturbed the nightmarish mood of Hawthorne’s masterpiece “Young Goodman Brown” (1835). We are back in colonial Massachusetts to observe an upright young husband deceive his wife, Faith, in order to sneak off into the woods after dark. He is bound for some rite of passage administered by the pastors. He arrives late (“Faith kept me back a while”) to find the whole town gathered for a black mass during which he—and Faith—are to be initiated into the coven. “Welcome my, children,” says the dark leader, “to the communion of your race . . . . There are all whom ye have reverenced since youth. Ye deeded them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin . . . . This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how the hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of the households; how many a woman, eager for widow’s weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their father’s wealth; and how fair little damsels—blush not, sweet ones—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant’s funeral.”

Perhaps it was all a nightmare, but Goodman Brown could never rest easy, or lift up his heart to a psalm, for the rest of his life. But the Romantics were always excessive! One must not jump to the conclusion that Hawthorne thought human nature as utterly debased as Emerson thought it sublime. Hawthorne just took everything to an extreme in order to make a point. Human beings all suffer temptation; all sin; all lie about it. So they had better temper their self-congratulations and utopian ambitions with some candor, truth, and love.

While residing in Lenox, Hawthorne met and befriended Herman Melville, another young Yankee struggling with fiction, Puritanism, and finances. Melville’s paternal grandfather was a veteran of the Boston Tea Party, his maternal grandfather a Dutch patroon who served as a general in Washington’s army, and his father a prosperous importer in New York. Herman, the second of eight children (all of whom lived to adulthood, beating the odds), seemed destined for a good, conventional education and career until 1827, when his father was swindled by a confidence man. The family fled to Albany, and then the children were orphaned by the death of their father in 1832. The boy Herman worked as a clerk, farmhand, and teacher until 1839, when he decided to go to sea on a Liverpool packet (the voyage later recounted in Redburn in 1849). Upon his return, he briefly roamed in Illinois, then signed on to the whaler Acushnet bound in 1841 for the South Seas.

Melville returned after three and a half years of ­rollicking adventures. He deserted the whaler in the Marquesas Islands to escape its brutal skipper, took nervous refuge with the allegedly cannibalistic Typees, signed with an Australian whaler, and jumped ship again in Tahiti. Another American whaler carried him to Honolulu, where he worked as a clerk and pinsetter in a bowling alley before enlisting in the U.S. Navy just to get home.

The first literary fruit was Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, initially published in England because Harper Brothers refused to credit Melville’s “anxious desire to speak the unvarnished truth.”

Typee was both a success and a scandal because its praise for the taboo-ridden culture of tattooed Polynesians broke so many Yankee taboos. The sailors drop anchor off the island of Nukuheva to be greeted by a “picturesque band of sylphs” dressed only in flowers and eager to satisfy “the unholy passions of the crew.” Melville takes care to deplore this “grossest licentiousness and most shameful inebriation,” but not only does he relate serial orgies in Typee and its sequel Omoo; he also savages missionaries intent on destroying the unaffected good nature of Polynesians (they have no money!) and saddling them with guilt. Contrasting the so-called savage with the civilized man, he asks himself, “Insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier of the two?”

Melville’s reviews were decidedly mixed. He was a wonderful spinner of yarns, mixing action with descriptive color and tongue-in-cheek humor. But what a terrible influence on the morals of young Americans! Wanton sex was shocking enough; sex with colored savages was intolerable. Greeley called the books morally diseased. George Washington Peck called Melville a “sharp scamp” of a Yankee whose saturnalias could not be true. First, no manly mind would boast of sexual conquests; only a fraud would do so. Second, absent an “Epicurean elixir” it was physically impossible to perform the sexual athletics described. Third, everyone knew that Polynesian females were not half so attractive as the book suggested.

In fact, the stories were only slightly embellished. In fact, Melville was abashed by “the sinful propensities of his nature” and “had seen enough to doubt the chances that reason, that celestial power, could conquer sexual temptation.” In 1847, Melville married and set up house in New York with his bride, mother, sisters, brother, and sister-in-law. Three more sea stories ­followed with no prurient content at all. Mardi was a tale of heroic love, White Jacket an indictment of navy life, and Redburn a coming-of-age reminiscence of Melville’s voyage to England. They sank like stones.

Then Melville met Hawthorne, devoured his stories, and lived with him for a time in the placid Berkshires. In Hawthorne, Melville discovered a mentor who pried for “that which is beneath the seeming” and bade him engage in “ontological heroics.” Melville determined to pour all his experience and talent into a mighty book that told truth, as he saw it, about life and the psychology of his countrymen.

He already had in mind its “hook”: the familiar South Sea legend about a great alabaster whale named Mocha Dick. He worked furiously, not least because he was desperate for money, completing the whale-sized manuscript by the fall of 1851. Melville, who was then just thirty-three, dedicated it to Hawthorne, assuring his friend that it was “broiled in hellfire.”

The book, destined to become a classic of world ­literature, received generally favorable reviews, though no one quite knew what to make of a tale more complex than a brig’s rigging. Clearly, Captain Ahab’s obsessive hunt for the elusive white whale that had bitten off his leg doomed not only himself but the Pequod and its piebald crew of sinners, saints, pagans, and salty philosophers. Beyond that the meaning was anyone’s guess, and still is. But so pervasive were Melville’s allusions to current American traits and trends that it is hard not to think Ahab is Emerson’s “representative man” playing God, chasing a millenarian utopia with all the ruthless, conquering passion of Andrew Jackson; enlisting the manifold virtues and credulity of the crew in his mad quest; and taking everyone down with him.

F.O. Matthiessen summed it up with his usual eloquence: “Melville did not achieve in Moby-Dick a Paradise Lost or a Faust. The search for the meaning of life that could be symbolized through the struggle between Ahab and the White Whale was neither so lucid nor so universal. But he did apprehend therein the tragedy of extreme individualism, the disasters of the selfish will, the agony of a spirit so walled within itself that it seemed cut off from any possibility of salvation.”

Americans did not want to contemplate that. They had far too much on their plate in 1851, too many worlds to conquer, too many dreams to fulfill. Moby-Dick sold about two thousand copies, many of which no doubt went unread. Melville’s literary career never recovered. Since Typee, he had fallen into the sin of “revolting against the reader.” Lewis Mumford understood what had happened. “It is hard to refute Melville’s black words,” he wrote, “difficult to find an antidote for this spiritual nightshade. Melville’s contemporaries did not try. They applied to the book the same medicine that worked so well in life: they agreed to forget it. Most of the sweetness and decorum of society rests on an agreement to forget it.”

McCune Smith, that African-American doctor who dreamed of a race-blind society, wrote a long, admiring review of Moby-Dick. He had no difficulty decoding the allegory. The Pequod was the American ship of state, hell-bent on vain pursuit of whiteness.

Just so. For the burst of great literature in the ­United States around 1850 proved not to be a renaissance or a flowering. It was the last glow of a sunset draping long shadows over the republic declared in 1776.

Walter A. McDougall is professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of many books. This essay is drawn from Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era.

The post Our Stillborn Renaissance appeared first on First Things.

This reduction of Pentecostalism to a specimen shuts down the articulation of Pentecostalism as any kind of theological voice. Indeed, the sociological account of Pentecostalism implies that “Pentecostal theology” is an oxymoron. Which is a shame because, over the last century, an interesting theology has been developing in such classical Pentecostal traditions as the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ, as well as in charismatic movements within the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. (The shared sensibility of Pentecostal and charismatic traditions is often described under the umbrella of small -p pentecostalism.)

At the heart of this Pentecostal theology is an ontological claim: that the same Spirit who animated the apostles at Pentecost continues to be actively, dynamically, and miraculously present both in the ecclesial community and in creation. Pentecostal theology is a theology of the Creed’s third article and is predicated on the belief that the Spirit is a spirit who surprises us by continuing to speak, heal, and manifest God’s presence in ways that counter the shut-down naturalism of modernity. As a result, following in the wake of the Spirit, it is a nimble theology that seeks to explicate and understand the controlled chaos of charismatic worship—a faith seeking understanding of the experience of the Spirit’s surprising ways.

Although Pentecostalism sometimes gets a space on the table as a subject of study, it rarely gets a seat at the theological table as a contributor to the conversation, even among serious theologians. On one level, this is not surprising. The Pentecostal movement emerged largely from an underclass with little access to formal education. In an often-told story, one of its saints embodied this marginalization: Willie J. Seymour—the preacher at the center of the Azusa Street revival in 1906, a son of former slaves—received his theological education in Texas while listening in a hall outside the classroom that white students alone could enter. Pentecostalism is a tradition of preachers and evangelists, not scholars and doctors.

And yet, though Pentecostalism is clearly focused on an embodied spirituality, this does not mean that it lacks a reflective theology. Granted, early Pentecostals never produced academic theology or attempted a synthesis of biblical revelation and philosophical frameworks. But we can distinguish between an implicit or low theology embedded in a spirituality and an explicit or high theology that articulates the implicit theology as an intellectual vision of the world. While early Pentecostalism lacked the latter, it was rich with the former. And as the twentieth century unfolded, Pentecostalism gradually developed a more explicit, academic theology.

This apology for the early Pentecostals’ low theology has been the consistent refrain of church historian Douglas Jacobsen of Messiah College. In his 2003 book, Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement, Jacobsen invited us to see that constructive theological voices were always at work in Pentecostalism. He has now supplemented his historical monograph with a helpful Reader in Pentecostal Theology, which provides opportunity for firsthand encounters with early voices—including some who are well-known (Charles Fox Parham, Willie J. Seymour, A. J. Tomlinson, C. H. Mason, and the inimitable Aimee Semple McPherson) and others who have been underrecognized (G. F. Taylor and David Wesley Myland).

This is theology forged at the pulpit and in prayer, in the heat of revival and the swelter of the camp meeting—a theology that bears the stamp of its liturgical origins. Early Pentecostal theology could not marshal the categories of high intellectual theology, but Jacobsen’s Reader in Pentecostal Theology demonstrates that it was not, therefore, essentially atheological or anti-intellectual. (Although, admittedly, anti-intellectualism does manifest itself within Pentecostalism from time to time.) Indeed, Jacobsen argues, “one might even go so far as to argue that, apart from theology, pentecostalism would not exist. It is not necessarily the uniqueness of their experiences that sets pentecostals apart; it is the way those experiences are theologically categorized and defined.”

The miraculous phenomena that manifested themselves at the Azusa Street revival, for example, compelled serious and sustained reflection. The events needed explanation, and the Pentecostal preachers and leaders turned to the resource that was most important to them: the narrative of Scripture. The resulting implicit theology was not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy but rather a synthesis trying to make sense of experience in light of the narrative of Scripture.

Thus early Pentecostal preachers found themselves regularly citing the narrative of Acts and the Gospel of Luke in order to interpret tongues-speech and other “signs and wonders.” Their theological conclusion was that, as the early outpouring of the Spirit empowered the apostles to be witnesses to Jerusalem, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, so the outpouring at Azusa Street primarily constituted an empowerment for mission. They did not simply revel in the experience of the supernatural; the phenomena pushed them to seek answers for hard theological questions.

The rigor and seriousness of early Pentecostal theology was embedded in the experience of revival and the work of mission, preaching, and pastoral care. But the centrality of Pentecostal experience would eventually push Pentecostal theology into its central philosophical insights with the development of an implicit Pentecostal epistemology: a vision of human understanding. This is perhaps best summarized in Steven Land’s groundbreaking 1993 book, Pentecostal Spirituality. Pentecostalism is primarily a spirituality that embodies a worldview, Land argues, even if that worldview was not originally articulated in intellectual categories.

In other words, Pentecostalism remains, first and foremost, a spirituality: a rhythm of rituals and practices, prayers and altar calls. But that produces a position of theological and philosophical significance. ­Pentecostals take the central point of the narrative of Acts 2 to be Peter’s courage and willingness to recognize in strange phenomena the operation of the Spirit and declare it to be a work of God. To declare “this is that” (Acts 2:16) was to be open to God working in unexpected ways and to make a theological claim about the phenomena. Thus at the heart of Pentecost is a radical openness to God—especially an openness to a God who exceeds our horizons of expectation and comes unexpectedly.

Still, there is no denying that the early writings left most of Pentecostal thought entirely implicit. What has emerged in recent years is the attempt to make the ideas explicit”and to test them in the arena of high theology. Tan-Chow May Ling’s Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century and Michael Welker’s collection The Work of the Spirit are two recent books that tell the story of Pentecostal theology’s emergence from an implicit folk theology to its articulation as an explicit scholarly theological agenda.

Pentecostalism is usually traced to the Azusa Street revival that ran from 1906 to 1913. (Similar but independent revivals were happening at this time around the world.) With deep roots in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition and African spirituality, the Azusa Street revival engendered the classical Pentecostalism associated with denominations such as the Assemblies of God, the Church of God in Christ, and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee). Classical Pentecostalism was also usually distinguished by a distinct emphasis on speaking in tongues. Taking up second-work theologies from their Wesleyan heritage, Pentecostals identified speaking in tongues as “the initial physical evidence of baptism of the Holy Spirit.” (Though they also emphasized the continued manifestation of all the gifts of the Spirit.)

The resulting energy was initially directed almost entirely toward mission work. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pentecostal-like phenomena and experiences began to be seen in more mainline denominations and traditional churches. This was identified as the “charismatic renewal” and signaled a spillover of Pentecostal spirituality into traditional communions, including the Catholic charismatic renewal (first begun at Duquesne) and renewal movements in Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian traditions.

While the spirituality and practices shared certain similarities, especially an emphasis on the Spirit’s surprise and the continued operation of even the miraculous gifts, the charismatic movement did not adopt the notion of tongues as “initial evidence” of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Thus capital- P Pentecostalism is usually taken to refer to classical Pentecostalism, whereas “charismatic” identifies those traditions and theologians who also emphasize a central role for the Spirit’s surprise, but within existing liturgical and theological frameworks. These were later followed by what is often called the third-wave charismatic movement associated with Peter Wagner. This refers to the growth of nondenominational charismatic churches such as Vineyard Fellowship. Like the charismatic renewal, third-wave ­charismatics do not affirm initial evidence, but neither do they identify with traditional denominations or ­communions.

Among all these small-p pentecostals, there are important similarities, particularly regarding the shape of religious practice. And, as the recent theological work has begun to make explicit, a unique understanding of God, persons, and the world is embedded and implicit in Pentecostal worship and practices.

Several aspects of the Pentecostal worldview are worth noting—beginning with the radical openness to God and, in particular, God doing something different or new. This engenders an emphasis on the continued, dynamic presence, activity, and ministry of the Spirit, including continuing revelation, prophecy, and the centrality of charismatic giftings in the ecclesial community. Included in this ministry of the Spirit is a distinctive belief in the healing of the body as a central aspect of the work of the Atonement. In contrast to rationalistic evangelical theology, Pentecostal theology is rooted in an affective epistemology. And contrary to common assumptions about the otherworldliness of Pentecostals, the movement is characterized by a central commitment to mission, with a strong sense that mission includes concern for social justice. Here, I think, Pentecostal theology is poised to make unique contributions to broader discussions. Indeed, the charismatic movement has already influenced liturgical renewal within the Catholic tradition.

The core affirmation of the Spirit’s continued activity touches further spheres of thought. Theologians, for instance, have begun to tease out the implications for cosmology and ontology, considering the dynamic, active presence of the Spirit in the whole of creation. With a pneumatological understanding of creation, there follows an affirmation of the Spirit’s ongoing activity in nature as well as in human culture. (This is hinted at in John Polkinghorne’s essay in the Welker volume but expanded and deepened in Yong’s contribution to the book.) The same presence and activity of the Spirit in humanity’s cultural work also needs to be considered (along lines suggested by ­Vincent Bacote’s 2005 volume, The Spirit of Public Theology).

The Spirit’s healing ministry also has interesting theological consequences: Implicitly embedded in this central claim that God cares about our bodies is a radical affirmation of the goodness of creation that translates into a radical affirmation of the goodness of bodies and materiality as such.

Here, I think, is one of the most underappreciated elements of a Pentecostal worldview, for the move from the Spirit’s physical work to a new understanding of physicality offers possibilities for overcoming some of the most pernicious dualisms of modern times. Pentecostal worship involves the body: arms raised or outstretched, bodies prostrate on the floor or dancing in the aisles, the laying on of hands, bodies kneeling at the altar, banners waving, etc. (Cartesian “minds” could never engage in Pentecostal worship!) This is why some Pentecostal theologians such as Frank Macchia and Simon Chan have suggested that a Pentecostal worldview is a sacramental ­worldview. It emphasizes the goodness, necessity, and instrumentality of material elements: God’s Spirit is active through concrete and material phenomena. It is a gritty spirituality—one that affirms all the messiness and awkwardness of embodiment, because it is in and through such embodiment that God’s Spirit is at work.

Pentecostals have often accepted rejections of the world, but the core elements of a Pentecostal worldview aim toward an affirmation of the fundamental goodness of spheres of culture related to embodiment, such as the arts. This deserves much more attention than we can give it here. We might note, however, that it is precisely this aspect of Pentecostal spirituality that explains why Pentecostal spirituality is also often attended by a prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel—whether preached in Africa, Brazil, or suburban Dallas—is, we must recognize, a testament to the very worldliness of Pentecostal theology. It is one of the most un-Gnostic moments of Pentecostal spirituality, which refuses to spiritualize the promise that the gospel is “good news for the poor.” Granted, this means something different and far less admirable in the comfort of an air-conditioned megachurch in suburban Dallas than it does in famished refugee camps in Uganda. But, in both cases, the implicit theological intuition that informs Pentecostal renditions of the prosperity gospel is evidence of a core affirmation that God cares about our bellies and bodies.

The Pentecostal affirmation of materiality is intimately linked with an understanding of the human person as embodied spirit. For Pentecostals, while we are more than our bodies, we are also never less than our bodies. Implicit in Pentecostal practice is a distinct epistemology that privileges an affective mode of knowing. This intuitive, even emotional knowing (“I know that I know that I know” is a common Pentecostal testimony) is more literary than logical; we are the kind of creatures who make our way in the world more by metaphor than by mathematics. The way we know is more like a dance than a deduction.

Finally, Pentecostals have always emphasized that the empowerment of the Spirit is first and foremost an empowerment for mission that is tethered to an eschatological expectation (well illustrated by Ling in ­ Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century). Pentecostal scholars such as Doug Peterson and Eldin Villifañe have emphasized that the Pentecostal movement has been consistently (though not uniformly) characterized by a central commitment to social justice, with a preferential option for the marginalized. The Azusa Street revival remains, for Pentecostals, the ­paradigm—a revival in an abandoned stable, led by a ­one-eyed African-American preacher locked out of his previous charge. This stems, I think, from Pentecostalism’s first principle: The revolutionary activity of the Spirit always disrupts and subverts the status quo of the powerful. Within this revolutionary community of the Spirit, one finds not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble (1 Cor. 1:26).

Increasingly, theologians have begun to explicate these implicit elements of Pentecostal worship and religious experience. In the middle of the twentieth century, as Pentecostals sought to train up new generations of missionaries and ministers, Bible schools and colleges began to emerge. These forays into higher education required the training and formation of teachers who could then return to train the faithful. Since Pentecostal traditions lacked the resources to train their own professors, this was a catalyst for Pentecostals to become engaged in theological formation in more traditional and academic contexts—including early generations who went on to do doctoral work in biblical studies and history at Ivy League institutions, though most were trained at mainstream evangelical institutions. (The uneasy relation of Pentecostalism to evangelicalism is a story for another time.)

About this time, the charismatic renewal brought classical Pentecostals into conversation with charismatics from Catholic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian traditions, which had a long legacy of scholarly theological formation. And those Pentecostals whose formation had been in evangelical contexts were familiar with the sorts of conversations fostered by the Evangelical ­Theological Society (established in 1949).

Growing out of these engagements and conversations, a number of scholars in 1970 formed the Society for Pentecostal Studies. While many of the chartered members were from classical Pentecostal denominations, the society quickly became a venue for conversations between Pentecostal and charismatic scholars across the disciplines. Conversations are also hosted by academic societies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The increasing depth of the tradition has now generated two doctoral programs: a Ph.D. program in “Renewal Studies” at Regent University (directed by Amos Yong) and a doctoral program in Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham (directed by historian of global Pentecostalism Allan ­Anderson).

Until recently, the conversation remained largely in-house—Pentecostal theologians talking to one another. But over the past decade, ­Pentecostal theologians and biblical scholars have increasingly found themselves in conversation with evangelicals. (Though many Pentecostal theologians, especially from Wesleyan traditions, are eager to ­distance themselves from evangelical cessationism—the doctrine that the charismatic gifts ceased with the death of the last apostle, thus calling into question both ­Pentecostal experience and Pentecostal theology.)

This outward move has expanded into conversations with other non-evangelicals as well—nicely ­illustrated by a series of articles and responses in the Journal of Pentecostal Theology over the past decade. Bringing in such non-Pentecostal theologians as Jürgen Moltmann, ­Walter Brueggemann, Clark Pinnock, and Harvey Cox, the journal has pushed Pentecostal scholars to more-explicit theological formulations of the ­Spirit’s presence and activity in our contemporary context.

The center of gravity for these conversations remained solidly within Pentecostalism: These scholars were invited into the Pentecostal conversation in order for Pentecostals to listen and then discuss among themselves. More recently, however, Pentecostal theology has, I believe, begun to reach a stage of maturity that impels them not only to listen to external conversations but also to contribute to them. Such Pentecostal theologians as Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (a Finnish theologian at Fuller Seminary), Amos Yong, and Simon Chan (a liturgical theologian in Singapore) are engaged in mainstream theological conversations as Pentecostals.

A key factor in this development has been the ecumenical movement. Led especially by the work of church historian Mel Robeck of Fuller Seminary, Pentecostals have been actively and widely engaged in ecumenical dialogue—and actively sought out for such participation. Long and productive dialogues with the Vatican, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the World Council of Churches (including important contributions to Faith and Order), and others have brought distinctly Pentecostal voices to the fore and emboldened their sense of making a distinctive contribution to the church catholic.

This shift—the shift that has both enabled and encouraged Pentecostals to pull up a seat at the bigger theological table—is nicely illustrated in Welker’s ­volume, The Work of the Spirit. The fruit of a consultation that brought together both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal theologians, historians, sociologists, and scientists, the book exhibits both why the wider conversation wants to hear from Pentecostals and what Pentecostals can contribute to the conversation.

Of course, the fact that Pentecostal theologians are taken seriously also means that they must make their claims open to critique. There are serious theological questions that Pentecostal theologians must face: Is charismatic worship and religious experience rooted in a sound explication of Scripture? Does Pentecostal ­theology have the internal resources to critique the prosperity gospel that so often attends it? Can Pentecostal theology resist primitivism and provide a constructive account of its own catholicity? How can the fantastic claims of Pentecostal miracles be squared with accounts of the world offered by quantum physics and evolutionary biology?

We’re already beginning to see work done on these sorts of questions. A cadre of Pentecostal scholars—including Yong and Wolfgang Vondey—are diving into the dialogue between science and theology, working from an explicitly Pentecostal standpoint. In some cases, following suggestions from Polkinghorne, they see recent developments in quantum physics as providing spaces that make room for the Spirit’s mysterious activity. Others are pushing back on the regnant ­paradigms in the sciences—particularly prescientific assumptions regarding metaphysical naturalism—arguing that the orthodoxy of science is open to ­challenge and making room for a uniquely Pentecostal ontology. (One might hear echoes of Teilhard de Chardin in such a project.) Other charismatic scholars, such as biologist Jeff Schloss, are marshaling the ­frameworks of evolutionary biology to understand Pentecostal spirituality further (drawing on “signaling theory” to help explain Pentecostal and charismatic manifestations in worship).

These and many other sorts of questions will be put to Pentecostal theologians, and they will struggle to answer some of them. As they pull up a seat at the table, however, we would do well just to listen for a while. Perhaps Pentecostal theology has a unique apostolate: to remind the body of Christ that it is a body born on Pentecost and, at the same time, that Pentecost is a vocation for the whole church.

The post Thinking in Tongues appeared first on First Things.

Throughout the Western world, 1968 was a bad year, a moment in which history seemed to careen out of control. It was worse in Europe, and the impact of 1968 there was more profound. In Western Europe, the agitations of 1968 aimed to effect a deep rupture with the past, and if those who took to the Paris barricades failed politically, they succeeded culturally; the disspirited Western Europe that languishes in a crisis of civilizational morale today is a reflection of the exhausted politics of 1968, as Nicolas Sarkozy, Marcello Pera, Giuliano Ferrara, Joseph Ratzinger, and others have recognized.

Still, the year is remembered differently in the United States. It was, to be sure, a terrible year, replete with political violence; but it is the 1960s as a whole, the entire Sixties , that has had an enduring impact on our culture and our politics.

I don’t propose to revisit the question of whether what we call the Sixties was in fact born in the Fifties, or whether it unfolded its full plumage in that low decade, the Seventies. Rather, I want to examine six crucial moments in the Sixties with an eye to how they reshaped American political culture, with effects still being felt today. What a large segment of American political culture learned from those moments constitutes the issues-beneath-the-issues in 2008, and in that important sense, America is still fighting battles begun in the Sixties, like it or not.

The First Moment: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963

John Fitzgerald Kennedy would be ninety years old today, a circumstance nearly impossible to imagine. When Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets struck on November 22, 1963, the national memory of the thirty-fifth president was frozen in a kind of memorial amber. It’s hard enough to picture a sixty-year-old Kennedy as the proprietor of a great newspaper (a post-presidential career he was considering); it is simply impossible to conjure up images of him at ­seventy-five or ninety. He remains forever young in the national consciousness.

Do we understand why he died, though? In Camelot and the Cultural Revolution , James Piereson argues that the answer is, in the main, no. According to the Authorized Version of the Kennedy story advanced by biographers (and former Kennedy aides) Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy’s assassination was the by-product of a ­culture of violence that had infected the extreme American right wing. Right-wing paranoia about communism and civil-rights activism was abroad in the land, and this paranoia had turned the city of Dallas into a seething political madhouse. Something awful was likely to happen there, and it happened to John F. Kennedy, who had gone to Dallas to defend the politics of reason against the politics of irrational fear. Kennedy was martyred by unreason.

Thus the account from the court historians, which, interestingly enough, is also the story told to visitors of the museum on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, from which Oswald fired the lethal shots. Schlesinger and Sorensen were not operating in a vacuum, of course. As Piereson usefully reminds us, they followed the lead of a mainstream media that bathed Kennedy’s assassination and Oswald’s subsequent murder in a torrent of introspection about an America fearful of the world, terrified of social change, and addicted to violence.

The Schlesinger-Sorensen interpretation was congenial to Jacqueline Kennedy, and it may well have owed something to her understanding of what had happened and why. After Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and identified, Mrs. Kennedy lamented that her husband hadn’t even had the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights; his murderer had been a “silly little communist,” a fact Mrs. Kennedy thought had robbed Kennedy’s death of “any meaning.” So meaning would be created—and thus was born (with the help of popular historian Theodore White and Life magazine) the familiar imagery of the Kennedy White House as an Arthurian Camelot, a “brief shining moment” that must “never be forgot” (as Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics, from the contemporary Broadway musical, put it).

Yet certain stubborn facts remain, as Piereson points out: Lee Harvey Oswald was a convinced communist, a former defector to the Soviet Union, and a passionate supporter of Fidel Castro; the Kennedy administration was a sworn foe of Castro’s communist regime, had authorized the Bay of Pigs operation, and had negotiated the removal of Soviet IRBMs from Cuba, much to Castro’s chagrin. Hatred of Kennedy’s Cold War policies was Oswald’s motivation. John F. Kennedy was not a victim of the irrational American right wing; he was a casualty of the Cold War—a Cold War, Piereson reminds us, that he prosecuted vigorously, if not always wisely or successfully.

The failure to acknowledge this in a country still jittery over the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is perhaps understandable. But too long an indulgence of the Camelot myth has had serious effects on our political culture. By turning John F. Kennedy—the embodiment of pragmatic, rationalist, results-oriented anticommunist liberalism—into a mythical figure whose idealism could never be recaptured, the hagiographers helped undermine the confidence in progress that had once characterized the liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Kennedy himself. When that confidence dissolved, conspiracy-theorizing migrated from the fever swamps of the extreme right and began to infect American liberalism. And since the glorious Camelot past could never be recaptured, American liberalism became less a matter of substantive change than of style—and eventually of lifestyle. The result is the liberalism we know today: a liberalism for which the legal recognition (indeed, promotion) of lifestyle libertinism remains the paramount concern.

The Kennedy assassination was the event that ignited the firestorm in American political culture that we call the Sixties. Of course, some of the tinder was already there, waiting to be lit. A year before the president’s death, Students for a Democratic Society issued what would become a key text for the New Left, the Port Huron Statement. The Kennedy assassination seemed to confirm Port Huron’s lament for a generation’s lost political innocence: As Tom Hayden and his SDS colleagues put it, “What we had originally seen as the American Golden Age was actually the decline of an era.” With Kennedy dead, there were no answers left in the old pragmatic liberalism—hence the New Left’s loathing of two of the last standing pragmatic liberals, Hubert Humphrey and Henry M. Jackson (not to mention the New Left’s rabid hatred of the most legislatively successful liberal president in history, Lyndon Johnson).

Take two measures of lost innocence, one large jigger of demonology, infuse that mix with the half-baked Marxist political theory of Herbert Marcuse, and what do you get? Within a few years after Port Huron and the Kennedy administration, what you got was the lethal political cocktail that took to spelling America with a k—Amerika, a Nazi-like authoritarian polity built on injustice at home and posing a grave danger to the world.

This rapid decline of the political imagination and discourse of the American left in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination led, in time, to another surprise: a reversal in the gravitational field of American political ideas. In 1949, Lionel Trilling, the literary embodiment of the old liberalism, deplored those American conservatives who “express themselves” only in “irritable gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Less than twenty years later, it was the New Left that embodied Trilling’s grim description, while a revitalized conservative movement was taking its first steps in developing the economic, cultural, social-­welfare, and foreign-policy ideas that would dominate American public life from 1980 through the attacks of September 11, 2001. During that period and down to today, conservatives and neoconservatives challenged Americans to bear great burdens to “assure the survival and the success of liberty,” as Kennedy had put it in his inaugural address, while many liberals who claimed the Kennedy mantle promoted various forms of neo-­isolationism.

All of which, one suspects, was not quite what Jacqueline Kennedy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ted Sorensen, and Teddy White had in mind when they created the myth of Camelot. Irrespective of what the courtiers thought, we can be quite sure that John F. Kennedy did not think of his administration the way SDS did: as the American analogue to Weimar ­Germany.

The Second Moment: Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965

In 1961, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, Estelle Griswold, opened a birth-control clinic in New Haven in collaboration with Dr. C. Lee Buxton, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Their purpose was to test the constitutionality of Connecticut’s 1879 law banning the sale of contraceptives, a law that had never been enforced and which the U.S. Supreme Court had recently declined to review.

What appears to have been a carefully crafted strategy then unfolded: The state authorities acted; Griswold and Buxton were charged, tried, convicted, and fined $100 each; and the lower court decision was upheld by the relevant Connecticut appellate courts (including the splendidly named “Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors”). Griswold and Buxton then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which accepted the case and, in the 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut , struck down both the convictions and the Connecticut statute on the ground that the law violated what Justice William O. Douglas’ majority opinion called “the right to marital privacy.” Justice Douglas conceded that the Constitution did not mention a “right to privacy,” marital or otherwise, but famously opined that such a right was to be discerned in “penumbras formed by emanations” from the Constitution’s enumerated rights.

In dissent, Justice Potter Stewart described the Connecticut law he believed constitutional as “uncommonly silly,” which, in retrospect, was a phrase he could have used to describe Griswold v. Connecticut , adding “pernicious” to “silly.” For in terms of our legal culture, Griswold was the Pearl Harbor of the American culture war, the fierce debate over the moral and cultural foundations of our democracy that has shaped our politics for two generations.

As Edward Whelan has neatly put it, who knew that contraception could have such generative power? Griswold begat Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 decision in which the court extended the protections of the “right of privacy” to nonmarried couples. Then Eisenstadt begat Roe v. Wade , in which the “right to privacy” was cited to strike down state abortion laws from sea to shining sea, in what Justice Byron White described as an exercise in “raw judicial power.” Roe , in turn, begat Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which positioned the “right to abortion” as a Fourteenth Amendment liberty right. Roe and Casey then begat the 2003 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas , which struck down a state antisodomy statute, with Justice Anthony Kennedy making an explicit reference to Griswold ‘s “right to privacy” as “the most pertinent beginning point” for the line of reasoning that led the Court to Lawrence . And if Eisenstadt , Roe , Casey , and Lawrence were the direct descendants of Griswold , it is not difficult to see how Goodridge v. Department of Public Health , the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision mandating so-called “gay marriage,” was a collateral descendant of Justice Douglas’ discovery of a constitutional “right to privacy.”

This judicial artifact of the Sixties has had tremendous impact on our political culture. Just as the oral contraceptive pill facilitated the sexual revolution technologically, Griswold facilitated it constitutionally. Governmental indifference to contraception was soon construed to imply governmental indifference to abortion, via the misconstrual of abortion as a matter of ­sexual privacy rather than as a matter of public justice; and the “right to abortion” soon became a defining issue in our politics. “The ‘right to abortion,’ with its theme of sexual liberation,” as Hadley Arkes puts it, “has become the central peg on which the interests of the Democratic party have been arranged,” just as, “since the days of Ronald Reagan, the Republican party has become . . . the pro-life party in our politics.”Careful observers will note here a profound inversion. If abortion and related life issues are in fact the great civil-rights issues of our time—in that they test whether the state may arbitrarily deny the protection of the law to certain members of the human community—then Griswold eventually led to a situation in which the Democratic and Republican positions on civil rights flipped, with members of today’s Democratic party playing the role that its Southern intransigents played during the glory days of the American civil-rights movement.

The Supreme Court was not the only actor in these momentous changes, of course. The invention of the oral contraceptive pill must rank with the splitting of the atom and the unraveling of the DNA double helix as one of the three scientific achievements of the twentieth century with world-historical impact. The sexual revolution was also influenced by trends in philosophy, particularly existentialism’s emphasis on authenticity. The inability of many modern moral philosophers to get beyond Hume’s fact-value distinction in order to think their way through to a contemporary form of natural-law moral reasoning (which would in turn have helped discipline the public debate on abortion) also played its role. The supine surrender of most religious authorities to the sexual revolution removed one cultural obstacle to the sexual revolution’s triumphant progress, which was in turn supported by developments (or, perhaps better, deteriorations) in popular culture.

Still, in measuring the impact of the Sixties on the politics of 2008, the legal consequences of Griswold must be underscored. Here the Supreme Court began to set in legal concrete the notion that sexual morals and patterns of family life are matters of private choice or taste, not matters of public concern in which the state has a legitimate interest. That this trend should have eventually led to claims that marriage is whatever any configuration of adults-sharing-body-parts declares it to be ought not have been a surprise.

Nor should it have been a surprise that the Court, having successfully claimed for itself the authority to write a “living Constitution” based on penumbras and emanations, should assume the roles of National Metaphysician and National Nanny (as it did in Casey , with its famous “mystery of life” passage and its hectoring injunction to a fractious populace to fall into line behind the Court’s abortion jurisprudence). The royal road to the imperial judiciary may not have begun with Griswold , but Griswold certainly accelerated the pace of the coronation procession.

The Third Moment: The Tet Offensive in 1968

The American war in Vietnam spanned the entire decade of the Sixties. The American war over Vietnam continues to this day, as President Bush found out last fall when he used the Vietnam analogy to warn against the likely consequences of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. “A risky gambit,” Time called it. “Nonsense,” said historian Robert Dallek. “Irresponsible and ignorant,” harrumphed Senator John Kerry. “Ludicrous,” sneered the Nation ‘s Robert Scheer. “Surreal,” opined the editors of the New York Times. Why, asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, was Bush tying his “flawed strategies” to “one of the worst foreign-policy blunders in our nation’s history”?

To judge by the bludgeoning the president took, you’d have thought he committed blasphemy. Which, in a sense, he had—for if there is any conviction on the left today that resembles the most stringent interpretation of biblical inerrancy among certain Protestant fundamentalists, it’s the left’s commitment to its narrative about Vietnam. That narrative, according to historian Arthur Herman, rests on four theses.

The first holds that an America obsessed with communism blundered mindlessly into an internal Vietnamese struggle in which no vital American interest was at stake. That obsession led the United States to fight a war against an indigenously supported native guerrilla movement for which the U.S. military was unprepared (the second thesis); so American forces resorted to barbaric tactics and then lied to the American people about them.

According to the third thesis in the canonical narrative, a losing struggle in the fetid jungles of Vietnam destroyed American troop morale and discipline; this disintegration led to rampant drug abuse, the murder of unpopular officers, atrocities like the My Lai murders, and a generation of physically and psychologically scarred veterans. Finally, in the fourth thesis of the left, America’s failure led to desirable effects, such as the reunification of Vietnam; and if atrocities happened after the communist takeover of South Vietnam and Cambodia, well, those atrocities were triggered by our meddling in affairs that were none of our business.

The Vietnam fundamentalists of the left have a serious problem, however, for the last decade’s worth of work by historians using primary-source materials from former Vietcong and North Vietnamese figures suggests that each of these four theses is wrong. The details of these historians’ work are interesting, for they point toward the sad conclusion that America seized defeat from the jaws of victory in Southeast Asia; but however one assesses that judgment, the ongoing effect of the canonical account of Vietnam on contemporary politics is unmistakable.

The antiwar domestic American politics of the Sixties were a volatile expression of what might be called, following the existentialist fashions of the time, the “politics of authenticity.” In the politics of authenticity, what counts is the nobility of my feelings; what does not count is evidence, and what is not required is an examination of conscience in light of the evidence. The politics of authenticity lead us by a short route to a public morality of feelings, impervious to data and dismissive of a moral calculus of possible consequences. Or to put it in Max Weber’s terms, the morality of intentions trumped the morality of responsibility in the American debate over Vietnam. The irresponsibility that characterized the Carter and Clinton administrations’ responses to the threat of global Jihadism—a fecklessness deeply influenced by the canonical Vietnam narrative—is one obvious result.

This irresponsibility in the name of putatively superior moral intentions and sensibilities has gotten worse in recent years, having been goaded to hitherto unimaginable extremes by the distorting psychological impact of what the American left has considered an illegitimate presidency since December 12, 2000. Harry Reid’s premature proclamations of defeat in Iraq—a defeat the impact of which the majority leader seemed to relish—is difficult to explain unless you understand that. For Reid and those of his persuasion, George Bush’s suggestion that a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq would lead to bloodbaths similar to those in postwar Vietnam and Cambodia is blasphemy by a political heretic and usurper against the canonical account of America’s Vietnam and its revelation of the perils of American hubris.

The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was the point at which the liberal canonical account of America’s Vietnam, which was already shaping American journalism, began to have a marked impact on policy. Lyndon Johnson, taking Walter Cronkite’s misreporting of Tet seriously, lost heart; the Democratic party largely abandoned the war that John F. Kennedy had begun; public opinion, shaped by what now appears to have been some of the worst reporting of the television age, turned decisively against the war. Today, no responsible historian considers Tet anything other than a colossal military defeat for North Vietnam and the end of the Vietcong as a major force in the struggle for Vietnam’s future. But when David Halberstam (who, with Neil Sheehan, did more than anyone else to create the canonical narrative of Vietnam) died tragically this past year in an auto accident, not a single obituary notice I read suggested he had been terribly wrong about Tet or that his wrongheadedness had helped create a political situation that had had lethal consequences for millions.

The point here is not media-bashing. The point is that the canonical narrative continues to distort the worldview of many of those charged with responsibility for our national security. Senator Barack Obama may, for perfectly understandable political reasons, wish to “get beyond” the Sixties. But here is a question for Senator Obama, or anyone seeking the awesome burden and responsibility of the American presidency at this moment in history: With whom do you stand on the question of Vietnam and its relationship to our global responsibilities today? Do you stand with the fundamentalists, impervious to evidence? Or would the new, evidence-based historical-critical approach to understanding America’s war in Vietnam shape your thinking about American responsibilities in the ­twenty-first-century world?

The Fourth Moment: The Kerner Commission in 1968

The Sixties began with the American civil-rights movement at the height of its classic phase; the Sixties ended with the leaders of classic civil-rights activism dead or marginalized. A movement for national reconciliation in a color-blind society had been seized by race-baiters who preached a gospel of victimization and identified the struggles of black America with the revolutionary theories of such Third World ideologues as Frantz Fanon.

This happened in an astonishingly short period of time. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he shared presidential pens with Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins; within half a decade, King was dead, men like Wilkins were charged with being “Oreos” by the new black militants, and a culture of victimization had settled like a thick fog over America’s inner urban areas. Dr. King’s dream of a nation come to the mountaintop of justice had been displaced by chants of “Burn, baby, burn!” Equality of opportunity was passé; racial quotas masqueraded under the euphemism of “affirmative action”; King’s righteous demand that his children be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin was inverted by race-hustlers and shakedown artists—an inversion subsequently validated by activist judges. The result was the alienation of the majority population and the descent of American inner cities into a miasma of broken families, illegitimacy, crime, substance abuse, and poverty.

Why and how one part of the American drama of race played out this way can be debated. But the fact that it happened continues to shape the American politics of the early twenty-first century. Perhaps the pivotal moment was the Kerner Commission Report of 1968, more formally known as the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, created by President Johnson to determine the cause of the racial riots that had burned across America in the summer of 1967.

By 1967, the United States had faced the original sin of its founding and was making immense strides in building what is today the most racially egalitarian major nation on the planet. Segregation of public ­institutions had been declared unconstitutional and segregation of public facilities outlawed. The poll tax in federal elections had been banned by the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, Americans of African descent had been rapidly enfranchised, and, as the 1964 Democratic National Convention demonstrated, black America had begun to play a significant role in national politics. That all this had been accomplished by a religiously grounded movement of national moral and legal reform, in which blacks and whites worked, marched, and bled together, held out the prospect of further progress in sustaining racial equality before the law, creating equality of economic opportunity, and strengthening the culture of responsibility throughout American society

The Kerner Commission, however, seemed blind to many of these positive dynamics, proposing an analysis in which black “frustration” and white “racism” were the two forces shaping American urban life. Black America was a victim, and a victim could not be held morally responsible for lashing out against his victimization. According to the Kerner Commission’s analysis, racist white America was similarly bereft of moral resources, such that government, rather than the institutions of civil society that had been so central to the classic civil-rights movement, had to become the principal agent of enforced social change in order to deal with the crisis of an America “moving toward two societies . . . separate and unequal.”

While the Kerner Commission was rewriting the national narrative on civil rights in favor of a storyline of racial victimization and irresistible irresponsibility—precisely what King, Wilkins, and others of their generation had fought against—what all this meant was being played out in the furious 1968 controversy over local control of public-school faculty appointments in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. By the time things simmered down, Brooklyn’s inner-city schools were in considerably worse shape, white liberals had become accustomed to making excuses for black violence, and the old alliances between the civil-rights movement, on the one hand, and the American labor movement and organized American Jewry, on the other, had been put under severe strain. Albert Shanker and the American Federation of Teachers may have won some of the battles in Brooklyn, but they lost the larger war, as American liberalism, forced to choose between maintaining its classic emphasis on a race-blind society and keeping pace with the new black militancy, eventually chose the latter. As for the black-Jewish alliance, that, too, shattered over time, to the point where Jesse Jackson could refer to New York as “Hymietown” and still remain both a player in Democratic politics and a feared figure in corporate board rooms intimidated by racial blackmail.

The emergence of what presidential historian Steven Hayward has called a “therapeutic victim culture,” which would have a profound impact on American politics, began with the collapse of the classic civil-rights movement in the mid-Sixties: which is to say, at its greatest moment of triumph. The classic civil-rights movement was determined to reshape America through moral reason; distorted into a twisted parody of itself through the victim culture, it was followed by a moralism self-consciously detached from reason that would prove incapable of calling anyone, black or white, to the great cause of equal justice for all.

As usual, those who paid the heaviest price were those with the least resources to withstand the breakdown of moral reason and the culture of responsibility in entire neighborhoods: the underclass. But among those with the resources to indulge irresponsibility, the new, late-Sixties’ culture of victimization would eventually set in motion two trends in American public life that are with us in 2008: the gay movement (which successfully, if quite implausibly, identified itself with pre-civil-rights-era black America) and leftist celebrity activism (which would end up providing political cover for the likes of Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chavez).

The Fifth Moment: The Publication of The Secular City in 1965

At the beginning of the Sixties, the National Council of Churches, ecumenical embodiment of mainline Protestantism, was as secure in the pantheon of influential American institutions as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. Thirty years later, to cite Richard John Neuhaus’ familiar formula, the mainline had become the oldline and was on its way to being the sideline.

That unenviable position now achieved, the National Council of Churches has been reduced to renting a few offices at 475 Riverside Drive, the famous “God Box” it had once occupied to capacity. As mainline Protestantism ceased to be a culture-forming force in American public life, the void was filled by a new Catholic presence in the public square and, perhaps most influentially in electoral terms, by the emergent activism of evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Protestantism in what would become known as the Religious Right, a movement that has formed a crucial part of the Republican governing coalition for more than a quarter-century. The pivotal moment in this tectonic shift in American religion’s interface with American public life came in the Sixties, when the mainline imploded, theologically and politically.

The political side of the tale is a familiar one. What had begun as mainline Protestant support for the classic civil-rights movement quickly morphed into liberal Protestant support for black militancy, the most strident forms of anti-Vietnam protest, the most extreme elements of the women’s movement and the environmental movement, the nuclear-freeze and similar agitations, and, latterly, the gay-liberation movement. All of which must be considered a sadness, for it was the mainline that provided moral-cultural ballast to the American democratic experiment from the colonial period through World War II.

The theological side of the ledger was embodied by Harvey Cox’s 1965 bestseller, The Secular City, with its argument for a radically secularized Christianity in which the world sets the agenda for the Church. Cox’s book has not worn well over time; hardly anyone reads it today, save as a period piece. In its time, however, The Secular City put into play nearly all the major themes that, while they led mainline Protestantism into religious marginality, nonetheless had a decided influence on the politics of the Sixties, and of today.

The cult of the new; the fondness for revolutionary rhetoric; evil understood in therapeutic categories; worship conceived as self-realization; the celebration of action detached from either contemplation or ­serious intellectual reflection; insouciance toward ­tradition; moralism in place of moral reasoning; the identification of human striving with the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God—whatever Harvey Cox’s intentions, these are the things that people learned from The Secular City and its sundry offspring in the world of liberal American religious thought. By the time the Hartford Appeal for Theological Affirmation tried to redress the balance in 1975, the damage had been done. The Secular City helped accelerate the secularization of American elite culture, which created not only new openings in the public square for more-traditional religious bodies but also new fault lines in our politics—fault lines that are as visible as this morning’s headlines and op-ed pages.

The Sixth Moment: The Rise of Environmentalism in 1969

That human beings cannot live without transcendent points of spiritual and moral reference is nicely illustrated by the fact that, as liberal mainline Protestantism was collapsing, those who previously might have been expected to have been among its staunch adherents found a new god: the earth. The transformation of the quite sensible and admirable American conservation movement into an “ism”—environmentalism—is best understood, I suggest, as a matter of displaced religious yearning. Having found the God of liberal Protestantism implausible or boring, American liberal elites discovered a new deity, the worship of which involved a drastic transformation of nearly every sector of American life by the new liberalism’s favorite instrument of salvation, the state.

Inspired in part by bestsellers such as Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring , conservation-become-environmentalism evolved in the Sixties into a movement highly critical of technology and its impact on global ecology and deeply skeptical about markets; it also cross-pollinated politically with the antiwar movement. Which is at least a bit strange, in that it was an artifact produced by the much-deplored military-industrial complex—the photographs of Planet Earth taken by the astronauts of Apollo VIII on their Christmas 1968 circumnavigation of the moon—that gave the new environmentalism its icon and something of its emotional power.

That irony notwithstanding, antiwar activist John McConnell, having seen the pictures taken by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders from the command module windows of Apollo VIII, created the “Earth Day flag” from one of those photos and in 1969 proposed a global holiday in celebration of the earth to a UNESCO conference being held in San Francisco. The Earth Day Proclamation signed by U Thant, Margaret Mead, and others followed, as did the now ­annual celebration of Earth Day.

The new environmentalism was peopled by many of the same activists who had been instrumental in the anti-America’s-war-in-Vietnam movement, and, in subsequent decades, the new environmentalism has displayed characteristics similar to the fundamentalism or fideism of those who cling to the wreckage of the conventional narrative of America-in-Vietnam. Among those characteristics (in addition to a certain apocalypticism) is an imperviousness to contrary data and scientific evidence. As the Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg has shown in study after study, life expectancy is increasing on a global basis, including in the Third World; water and air in the developed world are cleaner than five hundred years ago; fears of chemicals poisoning the earth are wildly exaggerated; both energy and food are cheaper and more plentiful throughout the world than ever before; “overpopulation” is a myth; and the global picture is, in truth, one of unprecedented human prosperity.

Acknowledging this, however, would call into question the revelation vouchsafed to another of the new environmentalism’s ideological allies, the population-control movement: namely, that people are a pollutant, a pernicious idea, born of the earlier progressivist eugenics movement and brought to a popular boil in the Sixties by evidence-light propagandists like Paul Ehrlich, that continues to affect U.S. foreign-aid policy to this day. Now, as always, the worship of false gods tends toward bad politics.

A Decade Still Much with Us

Taken together, these six moments suggest that something of enduring consequence happened to liberal politics, and thus to American political culture, during the Sixties. A politics of reason gave way to a politics of emotion and flirted with the politics of irrationality; the claims of moral reason were displaced by moralism; the notion that all men and women were called to live lives of responsibility was displaced by the notion that some people were, by reason of birth, victims; patriotism became suspect, to be replaced by a vague internationalism; democratic persuasion was displaced by judicial activism. Each of these consequences is much with us today. What one thinks about them defines the substratum of the politics of 2008, the issues-beneath-the-issues.

That this trajectory was unaffected by the victory of democracy and the free economy in the Revolution of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire tells us something important about the post-Sixties phase of the story. Beginning in the late Sixties, American liberalism followed the path of the global Left, substituting social issues and lifestyle libertinism for its previous concerns with economics and participatory politics. American liberalism, like its European counterpart, adopted the strategy of the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci and began a long march through the institutions—first the universities, the media, the philanthropies, the religious communities; today the institutions of marriage and the family. That this has had the most ­profound impact on our politics is obvious: The American culture war, which is one of the preeminent issues-beneath-the-issues, shapes the public discourse on both domestic and foreign-policy questions every day.

The transformation of the pragmatic, results-­oriented, rationalist liberalism of John F. Kennedy, first into the New Left and subsequently into postmodern American liberalism, put the imperial autonomous Self at the center of one pole of American public life, where it displaced the notion of the free and virtuous society as the goal of American democracy. This raises the most profound and urgent questions about the future. Can a common culture capable of sustaining institutions of self-governance be built out of a congeries of autonomous selves? Can a politics detached from moral reason give reasons why toleration, civility, and persuasion are superior to coercion in doing the public business? What can the politics of autonomy—which is the distillation of the politics of the Sixties—say in the face of the existential threats that will confront the next president of the United States and the next Congress: the threat of Jihadism (which has a very clear, and very different, idea of the good society), and the threat of a slow descent, via biotechnology, into the stunted humanity of the brave new world? Is freedom understood as autonomy, and is willfulness a freedom worth sacrificing for? Or will only a renewal of the idea of freedom for excellence—freedom tethered to moral truth and ordered to goodness—see us through the political and cultural whitewater of the early twenty-first century?

The Sixties are indeed much with us, both for good and for ill. We should not forget that part of the Sixties that called the American people to live nobly in the defense and promotion of liberty, rightly understood. But the large question facing us today—the issue-beneath-the-issues in 2008—is whether the admirable legacy of the Sixties will win out over the less happy residues of that turbulent decade.

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author, most recently, of Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism. This essay is adapted from the William E. Simon Lecture of 2008.

The post The Sixties, Again and Again appeared first on First Things.

The superciliousness of Vernant’s approach to Greek myth is evident in the author’s introduction, in which we are affronted with the unquestioned presumption that homo religiosus is a primitive creature who concocts myths as a product of his ignorance. Similarly, we are informed blithely about “the progression from mythical to rational thought and the gradual development of the idea of the individual person.”

In making these presumptions, Vernant is guilty of sundering fides from ratio and, in so doing, has created a gap between himself and the men of whom he writes. There was no schism between fides et ratio , or between myth and reason, in the eyes of Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, or for that matter in the eyes of Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. The whole legacy of civilized culture down the ages has been a synthesizing of art and philosophy in the service of reality.

Myth and Thought Among the Greeks is also characterized by the author’s imposition of his own dogmatic relativism upon the Greeks. We are told, for instance, that “there is not, nor can there be, a perfect model of the individual, abstracted from the course of the history of mankind, with its vicissitudes and its variations and transformations across space and time.” This betrays nothing less than illiteracy. Homer gives us Penelope, Dante gives us Beatrice, and Shakespeare gives us Cordelia, all of whom disprove Vernant’s dogmatic denial of the existence of perfect models of the individual. This blessed trinity of idealized femininity is itself a reflection, either via prefigurement or representation, of the Marian archetype, and, of course, we have Christ himself as the perfect model of the individual. One does not need to be a Christian to see this mythical truth. Vernant is seemingly incapable of either empathy or sympathy. He is left, like Pilate, washing his hands of the moral passion of the myths unfolding before his unseeing eyes.

In a better reading of the timeless myths of antiquity we do not find distance and dissonance between ourselves and our ancestors but resolution and resonance. We can be at home with Homer because Homer is as homely as we are. He experiences the exile of life and desires the community and communion of home, in both its physical and metaphysical sense. Homer knew this, and so did Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolkien”all of whom knew the connection between Everyman and the Everlasting Man.

As a veritas -vampire, Vernant sucks the spirit of truth from myth, leaving only the dust and ashes of materialistic psycho-babble. Switching metaphors, he can be said to be a cheapened Midas: Everything he touches turns to dross. Whereas such analogies may transform myth into mere metaphor, Vernant turns myth into mere mechanics. He does not present us with a living myth, nor even with the corpse of a myth, but merely a lump of broken machinery. His work is truly abysmal”literally, in the sense that it creates an abyss between us and the Greeks. Far from moving “from myth to reason,” which is the title of the last part of Vernant’s book, we should follow more trusted guides and find the reason in the myth.

––Joseph Pearce

Biomedical Research and Beyond: Expanding the Ethics of Inquiry
by Christopher O. Tollefsen
Routledge, 229 pages, $95

Though Aristotle taught that “all men by nature desire to know,” surprisingly little attention has been paid to how we should go about fulfilling this desire. What are the norms that should govern our pursuit of knowledge? May medical researchers withhold facts from clinical test subjects? Can they use embryos? Is it permissible for intelligence agents to torture those they interrogate? May journalists hide their true identities and infiltrate closed communities to write exposés? Is there a truth for humanities scholars to seek, and, if so, can they avoid pushing political agendas?

While some of these questions are considered in disparate fields”medical ethics and bioethics, military and journalistic ethics”there are few integrated, systematic discussions of them. Christopher Tollefsen’s carefully argued new book is an attempt at developing such an “ethics of inquiry.”

Tollefsen’s project draws deeply from several disciplines: philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, meta-ethics, normative ethics, and political theory. He builds on recent work in natural-law theory, identifying the constitutive aspects of human well-being and the moral principles needed to protect those goods. He also integrates these foundations with insights from virtue ethicists about the centrality of developing the virtues that promote human flourishing. With this eudaemonistic approach, Tollefsen defines five core values that should guide the ethics of inquiry: autonomy and privacy (rightly understood), bodily integrity, fairness, and personal integrity.

He begins by applying these values to generate moral principles that protect the well-being of both inquirers and the subjects of their inquiries. Here Tollefsen examines the necessity of informed consent in biomedical research; the moral status of unborn (especially embryonic) test subjects; how humans degrade themselves by mistreating animal subjects; how the prohibition on lying and principles of fairness apply to military reconnaissance, undercover police work, and investigative journalism; and the threats that coercion, torture, and biotech enhancement pose to bodily integrity. In rigorous yet remarkably clear prose, Tollefsen surveys competing values and moral principles, proposes his solutions, and addresses the best counterarguments from leading scholars. Besides developing norms for individual inquirers, Tollefsen also analyzes the role the state should play in supporting and regulating their work.

Tollefsen closes with an extended discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre’s key insights on social practices, professions, and progress in inquiry. Here he focuses not so much on the people affected by inquiry, but on the good to be sought: namely, the truth. If truth is the ultimate aim of all authentic inquiry, then inquirers need to develop certain virtues that dispose them to arrive at it. Building on Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, Tollefsen identifies and discusses the virtues he considers central: honesty, courage, moderation, studiousness, justice, prudence, and integrity. One can easily see, for example, how fear of rejection or disapproval, or love for one’s own opinion even in the face of contrary evidence, could skew an honest inquiry.

It is within this context that Tollefsen focuses particularly on how modern universities can foster authentic searches for truth, even on controversial topics. Lastly, he considers the vocational implications of inquiry: the overall shape that a life committed to the search for truth should take. What becomes clear throughout is that Tollefsen himself has been practicing the intellectual virtues he preaches.

––Ryan T. Anderson

The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175“1375
by Robert Shaffern
University of Scranton Press, 275 pages, $25

The Penitents’ Treasury is a work of Catholic revisionist history in the line of Eamon Duffy, even if it lacks the magisterial character and depth of Duffy’s work. Shaffern challenges the reigning historical orthodoxies to say that instead of terrorizing and stultifying the medieval populace, indulgences served as “a reminder of God’s generosity and the help of ‘fellow evenchristens.’” They were not imposed by the church hierarchy as a means of controlling or extorting the masses. Instead, they harmonized with a lively popular piety, arising from within the medieval emphasis on how corporal works’ reflected the state of the soul. Shaffern is uncritically pro-indulgence in his approach, but his new perspective adds to the debate surrounding one of church history’s most divisive topics.

––Nathaniel Peters

Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family
by Alexander Waugh
Nan A. Talese, 480 pages, $27.50

Alexander Waugh’s Fathers and Sons recounts the relationships that built one of the great English literary dynasties of the twentieth century. After an opening meditation on the death of father Auberon, Alexander looks back to great-great-grandfather Dr. Alexander Waugh, justly nicknamed “the Brute.” The doctor’s savagery toward son Arthur helps explain the latter’s limitations as a father. Subsequent chapters record his sentimental preference, resented by the young Evelyn, for elder son Alec. Evelyn would later take revenge by lampooning his father’s worst traits in successive novels, but he in turn showed a shocking aloofness toward his own children. Alexander does record moments of familial harmony, however: Several letters from Evelyn to son Auberon reveal a loving father who encouraged his son’s literary ambitions, and Alexander describes his own bond with father Auberon.

Many readers will be irritated, and sometimes repulsed, by Alexander Waugh’s crude and prurient handling of the less noble episodes in his family’s history. Equally frustrating is his religious semiliteracy: For example, he claims that Evelyn was “falling out of love with the Catholic Church” in the 1960s”a misreading of the novelist’s distaste for the decade’s liturgical reforms. The book contains a number of fascinating letters and anecdotes, but the author’s own attempts to provide an insight into the nature of literary genius and father-son relationships, concluding with a contrived letter to the next generation, frequently sound pat and self-serving.

––Francis Murphy

The Freedom of a Christian: Grace, Vocation, and the Meaning of Our Humanity
by Gilbert Meilaender
Brazos, 192 pages, $23.99

One of the wisest Christian thinkers of our time borrows his title from Martin Luther’s book dedicated to Pope Leo X, in which Luther made bold to say: “It is a small book if you regard its size. Unless I am mistaken, however, it contains the whole of Christian life in a brief form.” Meilaender does not say whether Luther was mistaken, but he makes a point of saying that he would not presume to make a similar claim for the present book in which he brings together essays published here and there, including in these pages. The connecting themes are freedom, obligation, and vocation, with supplementary essays on aspects of biotechnology and a truly human understanding of living the end of life. For those not familiar with the author’s work, the book will be a discovery; for those already indebted to him, it will be a reminder of their reasons for gratitude.

Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of ­Religious Freedom in America
by Steven Waldman
Random House, 304 pages, $26

A popular account of what the American founders meant by religious freedom, with strong and ­necessary correctives of conflicting misunderstandings of “the separation of church and state.” James Madison is, with justice, the hero of the story. Founding Faith is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the inevitable, and for the most salutary, interaction of religion and politics in our common life.

Cities of God
by Rodney Stark
Harper, 288 pages, $24.95

Sociologist Rodney Stark’s latest in his series of revisionist accounts, including The Rise of Christianity and, more recently, The Victory of Reason . The present book focuses on the statistical evidence helping us to understand, from a sociological perspective, why and how Christianity grew from a peripheral cult into a movement that conquered the Roman Empire. Key to the story is the movement’s concentration on urban centers (hence “Cities of God”) and the strategy of Paul”misleadingly called “the apostle to the gentiles””who built upon the synagogue-centered Jewish communities in those centers. Stark sharply challenges now-fashionable treatments of Gnosticism as a more sophisticated version of Christianity and calls for a greater appreciation of the ways in which various mystery cults opened the way for the Christian gospel.

The Rule of Benedict
by David Gibson
HarperOne, 400 pages, $24.95

Liberal Catholicism, said Francis Cardinal George a few years ago, is an “exhausted project.” Yet it is kept on life support by journalists such as David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church , which is a church whose arrival has been announced by hundreds of similar books over the last four decades. Pope Benedict, we are told in his most recent book, is at war with the “modern world,” and Gibson is clearly on the side of the modern world. Your not being surprised is not surprising.

Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections
by Thomas Hopko
Conciliar, 128 pages, $12.95

Father Hopko is Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York and offers in this little book a clear and caring perspective on same-sex attraction that should be warmly welcomed by those coping with the experience and those who want to help them. While in solid agreement with the lowercase orthodoxy of all communions, Hopko draws on the distinctives of uppercase Orthodoxy in providing angles of vision that will be new to many readers.

God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition
by John Witte Jr
Eerdmans, 498 pages, $32

The title joins a statement by Martin Luther”“History is God’s theater, God’s jousting place””and another by St. Augustine”“All things are ruled and governed by the one God as he pleases, but if God’s reasons are hid, are they therefore unjust?” Witte is professor of law and ethics at Emory University and has made many contributions to understanding the intersection of law and religion. The present work mainly addresses the American founding and the first freedom of the First Amendment, with additional essays on marriage and family in the law.

Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Exploring Our Commonalities and Our Differences
by Isaac Rottenberg
Hebraic Heritage, 275 pages, $25

The anodyne subtitle to the contrary, this book takes on all the hard questions: revisionist views of anti-Semitism, Messianic Judaism, and, throughout, the Christian stake in Israel. Rottenberg, who has appeared in these pages, is a veteran of ­Jewish-Christian dialogue who regularly provides fresh and provocative insights on familiar disputes.

Five Germanys I Have Known
by Fritz Stern
Farrar Straus Giroux, 560 pages, $15

Columbia’s emeritus professor of European history was born in Weimar Germany and provides an extremely detailed account of his relations with that country up through the present. The chronologies and itineraries related to the many studies he has done and speeches he has delivered for the Ford Foundation and similar institutions, along with a thorough accounting of honors bestowed on him, cry out for an editor. Peppered throughout are intimations that “fundamentalism” in America portends something dreadful, maybe something like the Third Reich. The book is much more about Fritz Stern than about Germany. The first section, on the cultural and religious complexities of being a baptized Jew in the Weimar period is frequently poignant and instructive.

The Regensburg Lecture
by James V. Schall
St. Augustine’s, 176 pages, $20

A thoughtful and important reflection on Pope Benedict’s lecture of September 12, 2006, at the University of Regensburg, Germany, including the full text of the lecture. Father Schall’s well-chosen epigraph is from Nietzsche: “The greatest events and thoughts”but the greatest thoughts are the greatest events”are comprehended last: the generations which are their contemporaries do not experience such events”they live past them.” Schall is determined that we not live past the pope’s bold analysis of religion, reason, the challenge of Islamic Jihadism, and the possibility of civilization.

Reasonable Ethics: A Christian Approach to Social, Economic, and Political Concerns
by Robert Benne
Concordia, 341 pages, $14.99

Benne is the founder and director of the Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke College in Virginia. Here he brings together essays, both academic and based on his various life experiences, written from a distinctly Lutheran perspective. The ethical position proposed is instructive, morally serious, and devoid of illusions. In a word, reasonable.

Strangers and Neighbors
by Maria Poggi Johnson
Thomas Nelson, 160 pages, $13.99

This fascinating little book began with a First Things article in November 2004, “Us and Them.” The author and her family moved into a neighborhood of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with a strong contingent of Orthodox Jews, and she describes in a very winning manner how that made her a stronger but a very different Christian.

Saints Behaving Badly
by Thomas J. Craughwell
Doubleday, 191 pages, $15.95

The premise of this charming and informative book is that saints are not born but made. From St. Augustine, who is an obvious candidate for inclusion, to lesser knowns such as St. Mary of Egypt who was, for lack of a better term, a street walker, Craughwell tells the stories of sinners forgiven and sanctified all the way to heaven. Which, for sinful readers, meaning all of us, should be a great encouragement.

Sacred Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word
by Francis Martin
Sapientia, 304 pages, $26.95

Noted scholar Francis Martin brings critical scholarship into conversation with theology and spirituality in reflecting on a wide array of themes, from the paradox of the Beatitudes to scriptural feminism and the role of tradition and traditions in understanding the Bible. The book is a wonderful display of what it means to read the Scriptures on the liberating far side of academic specialties.

The Future of the United Nations
by Joshua Muravchik
AEI, 175 pages, $20

A sober and sobering assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the U.N. and of the reforms that are needed if it is to serve world peace in the future. Includes informative appendices on voting patterns, financial contributions, and other data correlated with the democratic politics, or lack thereof, of member nations.

The post Briefly Noted 246 appeared first on First Things.

The subject is bishops as theologians and theologians as bishops. The Christian world is much indebted to N.T. (Tom) Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham. His big and eminently readable The Resurrection of the Son of God, published in 2003, is just the thing to get a firm grip on the unbreakable connection between real-time history and salvation history. The latter is not only connected to the former, the latter is the former, and vice versa. To be sure, others have made a convincing case for the historical character of the resurrection of Jesus and its ramifications for all of history. In contemporary theology one thinks, for instance, of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s very scholarly Jesus—God and Man, published in 1968. But Wright has a knack—a knack that some would say is more typical of British writers—of reworking the wissenschaftlich into a form that is generally accessible, even popular. This gift is on display, albeit more ambiguously, in his new book, Surprised by Hope, just out from HarperCollins. (The reason for the title’s play on C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy is, I admit, elusive.)

Reading Wright again got me to thinking also about the teaching office in the Church. John Henry Newman wrote of three dimensions, or three offices, of leadership in the Church: the intellectual, the devotional, and the political. The first office is exercised by theologians, both clerical and lay, the second is expressed in popular piety and the lives of the saints, while the third is the office of governing the Church. All three are indispensable, and sometimes, although not too often, all three are exercised by the same person.

Hans Urs von Balthasar came up with a similar typology in his reflections on the Pauline, Johannine, and Petrine dimensions of ecclesial leadership. The theologian penetrates deeply into the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of the faith, sometimes probing and experimenting. Sometimes, as we say today, pushing the envelope. The saints exemplify the lived power of the faith in the holiness of service to God and neighbor. And the bishops draw on both in holding the community together in advancing with apostolic zeal the common mission of Christ through his Church. Of course, these are “ideal types,” and the various dimensions of leadership frequently overlap.

The Church has known many outstanding bishops who were also theologians and also saints. One thinks, for instance, of Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, and, in our time, John Paul the Great. Certainly Benedict XVI is a theologian of great distinction and may one day be acknowledged as a saint. But, as I say, the combination is rare. Among the almost two hundred Catholic bishops who are ordinaries—meaning that they are responsible for dioceses—in this country, there are many who are well educated and manifestly intelligent, but there is not one who is a theologian of distinction or has published books of intellectual note. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is different in Europe. To cite obvious examples, there is Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), and Walter Kasper, prefect of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, all of whom were distinguished academics before becoming bishops. In other communions, one thinks of figures of the last century such as Gustaf Aulen, Nathan Söderblom, and Yngve Brilioth of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Admittedly, the moribund state of Christianity in Sweden is not a strong argument for having theologian bishops. The more interesting case, pertinent also to our reflection on the work of N.T. Wright, is the Church of England.

One recalls, for instance, the very impressive Michael Ramsey, archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974, and several equally impressive predecessors in Anglican history. In recent decades, however, the record of theologian bishops in the C of E is a decidedly mixed bag. There was, for instance, John A.T. Robinson’s Honest to God in 1963, which caused a sensation (once again) by pretty well chucking most of the articles of the catholic creeds, and the former bishop of Durham—whom N.T. Wright calls his “distinguished predecessor”—who opined that the dust of Jesus’ bones is somewhere in Palestine and was glad to report that it didn’t make the slightest difference in his faith, which is possibly true.

And Canterbury?

Then there is the current unhappy circumstance of Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury. Like Wright, he studied and taught at Oxford and Cambridge, and, like Wright, he is given to stirring controversy by impromptu punditry on publicly disputed questions without benefit of careful thought. Most recently, Williams sparked a storm of outrage when, in a BBC interview, he suggested that the English were too attached to the notion that there must be only one rule of law applying to everyone, and maybe it’s time to make room in the legal system for aspects of Shari’a law to which Muslims are particularly attached. This he called “plural jurisdiction.” It was a rambling, convoluted reflection, as Dr. Williams’ public offerings tend to be, befitting an Oxford don exploring interesting possibilities from the lecture-hall podium, but it has prompted accusations of treason and calls for his resignation as archbishop.

His ruminations were particularly unwelcome among Anglican bishops in Africa, who represent the great majority of the Anglican Communion and are in many instances quite literally under the gun of those promoting Shari’a law. It does seem that Rowan Williams is sadly miscast in his present role, but it is very doubtful that, if he steps aside, he will do so before the Lambeth Conference scheduled for this summer. In any event, his tenure at Canterbury has not enhanced the case for academic distinction and intellectual curiosity as qualifications for being a bishop.

Which brings us back to N.T. Wright and Surprised by Hope. The first part of the book is a reprise of his argument for the historicity of the resurrection, which will be helpful for those not prepared to take on his more comprehensive Resurrection of the Son of God. Most of the book is devoted to making the case for a greater accent in Christian piety and liturgy on the final resurrection of the dead and the coming of the Kingdom of God. Or, as Wright likes to put it, we need to recover the biblical focus on “life after life after death.” I believe Wright is right about that. As he is also on target when he insists that the resurrection “is not the story of a happy ending but of a new beginning.” But his argument is grievously marred by his heaping of scorn on centuries of Christian piety revolving around the hope of “going to heaven,” and his repeated and unseemly suggestion that he is the first to have understood the New Testament correctly, or at least the first since a few thinkers in the patristic era got part of the gospel right.

Unseemly, too, is the pervasive edge of anti-Catholicism, although I suppose that is to be expected from those who must justify their separation from the centering authority of the ancient Church. In refuting Catholic ecclesiology, Wright invokes the authority of what he calls the “magisterial work” of Canadian theologian Douglas Farrow in the 1990s, apparently unaware that Farrow has long since become a Catholic. Both unseemly and risible is Wright’s claim that Pope Benedict is coming around to his own view of the traditional doctrine of purgatory, which Wright mockingly repudiates. Paraphrasing a text by Cardinal Ratzinger, Wright claims that it is “a quite radical climb-down from Aquinas, Dante, Newman, and all that went in between.” Bishop Wright would do well to consult Ratzinger-Benedict’s encyclical Spe Salvi and what it says about purgatory. As the pope recently said in a meeting with Italian clergy: “God creates justice. We must keep this in mind. For this reason, it also seemed important to me to write about purgatory in the encyclical, which for me is such an obvious truth, so evident and also so necessary and comforting, that it cannot be omitted.” It appears that Bishop Wright’s tutelage of the pope still has a way to go.

In the familiar manner of many British academics, Wright takes the mandatory potshots at capitalism and the United States. The answer to world poverty, he writes, is the remission of the debt of poor countries. In fact, America is in the lead in remitting such debts, but debt remission is hardly the solution for 60,000 percent inflation in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or for the tribalism, thuggery, and corruption that afflict most African countries. Nothing daunted, Wright says that those who disagree with him will “stand condemned by subsequent history alongside those who supported slavery and those who supported the Nazis.” Bishop Wright, as it is said, doesn’t do nuance. “Reading the collected works of F.A. Hayek in a comfortable chair in North America,” he writes, “simply doesn’t address the moral questions of the twenty-first century.” I’m not sure what the bishop reads on economic development, but the last time I checked the accommodations at Durham Cathedral were very comfortable indeed.

Closer to the gravamen of his new book, Wright debunks traditional ideas of heaven by noting that Jesus could not have been referring to heaven when he said that the good thief would be with him today in paradise because Jesus still had to descend to hell and be resurrected and therefore was not himself in heaven on that day. Gotcha. Now why didn’t Thomas Aquinas and all those other smart theologians think of that? Here and elsewhere, N.T. Wright is as literalistic as the staunchest of fundamentalists.

Everything is in support of his central claim that the entire mission of the Church is to proclaim “the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made.” The imagery is more suggestive of Joseph Smith than of St. Paul and falls rather short of the traditional understanding of the Beatific Vision, in which the whole creation, composed of micro and macro realities beyond our imagining, is fulfilled in union with the Absolute Being of God who is “all in all” (1 Cor. 15). Surprised by Hope is, if one may put it delicately, a very uneven book. Those who have read with justified appreciation The Resurrection of the Son of God will likely be very disappointed.

But we were discussing the merits of having bishops of intellectual and academic distinction. The experience of the Church of England and the Scandinavian countries is not encouraging. As for Catholic bishops in Europe, the contrast is not as striking as one might hope. Which brings us back to the American scene. Our episcopate, still Irish-dominated, is not fairly described as anti-intellectual, but neither is it intellectually distinguished, nor, in too many instances, is it even intellectually attentive. Bishops are drawn from the clergy available and, if one may say so without offense, priests are not generally noted for their interest in ideas, whether theological or otherwise. (I suspect that is related to the structure of seminary formation, but that is a subject for another time.)

I recently watched several videos produced by diocesan offices for priestly vocations. They are excellent in many respects, offering lively portrayals of the many important things priests do. None of them, however, mentioned preaching as one of the very important things priests do, or even hinted at priests studying, as, for example, in reading books. It is often remarked that we have the best-educated Catholic laity in history, and one has to wonder how they are being helped in their understanding of the faith by their preachers and teachers.

Admittedly, and unlike those in England and Europe, priests and bishops here do not usually have a lot of time on their hands. Pastoral and administrative responsibilities are onerous, with dioceses typically numbering Catholics in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes in the millions, and an average-size parish trying to care for two thousand or more people. (The average Protestant congregation with a full-time minister has two hundred members.) Catholic clergy are kept busy enough just “servicing the Catholic population,” as it is commonly put. Who has time to read, never mind engage in serious study? Of course, there are exceptions, possibly many exceptions, but that is the general picture.

Newman is instructive on the distinction between the intellectual, devotional, and political offices in the Church. And the examples of bishops elsewhere who combine these roles is both suggestive and cautionary. Of course, Catholic bishops are protected by the Magisterium from going off the doctrinal rails. All that having been said, one wonders whether in this country Newman’s distinction of office between thinkers, saints, and administrators has not become a division of labor altogether too strict. Bishops are ordained to “teach, sanctify, and govern,” and one might venture the suggestion that intellectual distinction is not necessarily a hindrance in the exercise of the first of those responsibilities. Nor, needless to say, holiness in the exercise of the third.

While We’re At It

• Here he goes again. Born in Canada, Ronald Sider has for decades been America’s most influential evangelical on the port side of religion’s rough ride in the seas of political change. Founder of Evangelicals for Social Action and long-time professor at Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, his latest book is The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World? (Baker Books). Ah, at last a chance to really change the world. Author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Ron Sider is a regular scold. But he is indefatigably dialogical, he means well, he loves Jesus, and I believe he really does believe that he is politically and ideologically nonpartisan. In good evangelical fashion, he insists that every position be supported by explicit biblical mandate. On economics and the environment: “Finally, wealthy nations must be ready to slow down economic growth, if such is necessary to restore a sustainable environment for our grandchildren. . . . There is no question about the need for major economic growth in all of Africa, and much of Asia and Latin America. . . . But does another expensive gadget or another thousand-dollar raise really add significantly to the genuine happiness of already wealthy North Americans or Europeans?” Perhaps not, but economic growth is interconnected, as in, to coin a term, globalization. On immigration policy: “Does a rich nation have the moral right to refuse entry to poor immigrants from needy nations seeking economic opportunity? There is nothing sacred about current national boundaries. They have emerged over time as the result of wars, often fought because of human greed and pride. There is no biblical or theological reason for saying that they dare not be changed or crossed.” And so forth. There is no hint of recognition that concerns about immigration might be related to anything other than indifference or hostility to “poor persons wishing to enter the country who are also brothers and sisters of the one heavenly Father who has given the wealth of this world to promote the common good of all people.” On immigration, Sider sides with the Wall Street Journal in celebrating globalization unbounded. On abortion, however, Sider is commendably unambiguous: “Except in the case of abortion, nobody argues that one person should be free to take the life of another merely because the first person truly believes that the other person is not truly human. That would allow Nazis to kill Jews. We must act on the assumption that unborn babies and handicapped newborns are truly human. Therefore abortion and infanticide are murder. In a pluralistic society, people should be free to do many things that others consider stupid or sinful. But tolerance toward others does not extend to allowing them to kill other people.” That statement witnesses to the solidity of evangelical commitment to the culture of life and distinguishes Ron Sider from some prominent evangelicals who bend or abandon that commitment in order to advance the fortunes of the Democratic party. I like and respect Ron Sider, but The Scandal of Evangelical Politics evidences, once again, the limitations in moving from explicit biblical texts to public policies in dispute. This too frequently results either in pious generalities or in bending the Bible to sacralize one among several morally defensible options. Part of the scandal, and not only in evangelical politics, is the failure to engage public policy with arguments that, while supported by biblical faith, employ and advance a capacity for moral reasoning that is not limited to those who share that faith.

• It is a question that has been addressed frequently here, but it is good to see the distinguished sociologist James Q. Wilson take it up in City Journal, the publication of the Manhattan Institute. The question is why Jews are so hostile to evangelical Christians who are in this country the largest base of support for the State of Israel. The article is titled, “Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?” and this is Wilson’s conclusion: “Whatever the reason for Jewish distrust of evangelicals, it may be a high price to pay when Israel’s future, its very existence, is in question. Half of all Protestants in the country describe themselves as evangelical, or born-again, Christians, making up about one-quarter of all Americans (though they constitute only 16 percent of white Christian voters in the Northeast). Jews, by contrast, make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and that percentage will shrink as many as half of all Jews marry non-Jews. When it comes to helping secure Israel’s survival, the tiny Jewish minority in America should not reject the help offered by a group that is ten times larger and whose views on the central propositions of a democratic society are much like everybody else’s. No good can come from repeating the 1926 assertion of H.L. Mencken that fundamentalist Christians are ‘yokels’ and ‘morons.’” Of course, few who call themselves evangelicals today are fundamentalists, but the reference to Mencken is to the point. “Whatever the reason for Jewish distrust of evangelicals” leaves the question dangling. A contemporary version of Occam’s razor states that, when stupidity suffices, do not seek other explanations. But that can’t be the answer to Wilson’s question, Why don’t Jews like the Christians who like them? All kinds of studies, appearing with great regularity, tell us that Jews are, generally speaking, very smart.

• One is forced, again and again, to return to the depressing subject of the sex-abuse crisis. How earnestly one wishes that Archbishop Wilton Gregory, then president of the bishops’ conference, was right when he announced to the press several years ago, “That is history.” The best book-length treatment of this unhappy business to date is Philip F. Lawler’s The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture, recently published by Encounter. The book is about Boston but, more comprehensively, it is about what Lawler describes as the corruption of Catholic leadership in this country. The crisis goes back long before it hit the front pages of the Boston Globe in January 2002. Journalists such as Jason Berry had been writing about it for years. Their claims were frequently ignored or derided as strident and sensationalistic. That was a big mistake. I am among those who should have paid closer attention at the time. Lawler says the crisis was and is about three things: the sexual abuse of young people, homosexuality in the priesthood, and the malfeasance or complicity of bishops in great wrongs. The first problem has been acknowledged and addressed; the second was briefly acknowledged, was later denied, and certainly has not been addressed; the third has been neither acknowledged nor addressed. In protecting children from abuse, the Catholic Church is now squeaky clean, probably more so than any other major institution in our society. As Lawler and others have observed, some measures aimed at protecting children are over the top and constitute an abuse of common sense, of privacy, and, in the case of abuse-avoidance education, of the sexual innocence of children. The necessary focus on protecting children and young people has distracted attention from other dimensions of the crisis. The prevalence of homosexuality in the priesthood is sometimes exaggerated but is more often ignored. As is the connection between homosexuality and sex abuse regularly denied, even though there is no dispute over the finding that more than 80 percent of reported cases of abuse involved teenage and younger boys. The third dimension, the culpability of bishops, is at the heart of what is aptly described as institutional corruption. There is no effective exercise of fraternal correction among bishops, and oversight by Rome is manifestly deficient. The discussion of episcopal responsibility inevitably raises questions of deceit and complicity, questions that Lawler addresses with a candor that is tempered but not compromised by discretion. I have quibbles and more than quibbles with Philip Lawler on this or that particular, but every bishop and priest, and every Catholic who loves the Church and wants to know what went so very wrong, should read The Faithful Departed.

• I am hardly a disinterested party when it comes to commenting on the work of George Weigel. We first met when he was a brash young man in whom one could discern, with effort, the potential for his becoming the sage that he is. Over the years we have worked together on a thousand or so projects and discussed everything under the sun, agreeing and disagreeing with almost equal profit. But even were he not such a friend, I would wholeheartedly recommend to your attention his new book, Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace (Crossroad). The subtitle indicates the range of subjects addressed in the informed and pungent manner to which Weigel readers are accustomed. The twelve chapters would serve as excellent grist for a discussion group. Some of the material is reworked from essays appearing in these pages; all of it is developed into the kind of coherent argument to which these pages are dedicated. Not for nothing am I not, with respect to the work of George Weigel, a disinterested party.

• Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican from Iowa, is venturing onto very thin constitutional ice. “Jesus comes into the city on a simple mule,” he says, “and you got people today expanding his gospel in corporate jets. Somebody ought to raise questions about whether it’s right or wrong.” Well, a lot of people raise questions, and more than questions, about ministries of vulgar opulence, but this should be the subject of an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, of which Grassley is ranking minority member? “Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, corporate jets, $23

,000 commodes in a multimillion-dollar home,” Grassley said on CNN. “You know, just think of a $23

,000 marble commode. A lot of money going down the toilet, you might say.” Actually, I’m told it’s not a commode but an antique cabinet in the headquarters of Joyce Meyer’s Ministries. From an editorial in the evangelical magazine Christianity Today: “But churches—even ones that spout heresies like the health-and-wealth gospel—are protected by the First Amendment in ways that the Nature Conservancy and Smithsonian are not.” It is a different matter if the health-and-wealth entrepreneurs are doing something illegal, but it is not illegal to preach a false gospel. The editors observe that the celebrities of this wing of the Pentecostal movement “know that any real government intervention would be met with massive opposition, and there’s little fear of donor backlash when your donors see opulence as a sign of God’s blessing.” The editors continue: “For evangelicals, it’s ‘I once was lost, but now I’m found.’ For the health-and-wealth types, it’s ‘I once was poor, but now I’m rich.’
. . . Whether they’re proclaiming the true gospel is a separate question. And it’s a question that the church, not the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, should answer.” Christianity Today is right about the constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion. And its editorial is striking in the way it draws such a bright line between evangelicalism and an important part of Pentecostalism, which is usually seen as a part of evangelicalism. The concluding remark about “the church” addressing false gospels might be read as a challenge to Pentecostal groups such as the Assemblies of God and the Church of God. These might strike some readers as exotic disputes within marginal communities, but they involve millions of our fellow citizens who are, not incidentally, brothers and sisters in Christ. And the question of religious freedom, which requires unwearied vigilance, obviously involves us all.

• It is an unpleasant subject, but it is not unimportant. I have commented before on the way Bartholomew I, patriarch of Constantinople, has in recent years been touring the West pandering to eco-sophists and global-warmists of varieties from the wrongheadedly sane to the downright kooky. In such circles he is celebrated as the “Green Patriarch.” Now he has a book from Random House, Encountering the Mystery: Perennial Values of the Orthodox Church, which, writes Charlotte Allen in the Wall Street Journal, majors not in spiritual mysteries but in lefty platitudes. This is a great pity, says Allen, when Orthodox and other churches in the Middle East are on the verge of extinction, and Christianity in Turkey, which is 99 percent Muslim, is a tiny and besieged minority of a few thousand people with only a few elderly priests and no priests in prospect because the government refuses to permit the reopening of the only seminary, which was closed in 1971. Bartholomew is now sixty-eight, and, since Turkish law requires the patriarch to be a Turkish citizen, it is quite possible that the two-millennium history of the patriarchate will soon be extinct. Allen alludes to one possible reason for Bartholomew’s pandering to the secular left in the West. He is a strong proponent of EU membership for Turkey, and he knows that, while the ruling circles centered in Brussels don’t give a rip about religion, they do insist that Turkey “modernize,” and modernization includes religious freedom. There are other factors in play, however. The commanding heights of Orthodoxy are controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate, and some observers believe that Moscow is not at all unhappy about the decline and possible death of the patriarchate of Constantinople. Orthodoxy in Russia is eagerly cooperating with Vladimir Putin in restoring old caesaropapist habits in the name of a renewed Russian nationalism. Meanwhile, Benedict XVI is following John Paul II in cultivating close and cordial relations with Bartholomew, also in mediating between Constantinople and Moscow, and thus exercising de facto a measure of the universal leadership that Rome claims de jure. It is a very complicated set of relationships that some might describe as Byzantine.

• Here’s a wonderful little book. True, it’s 222 pages, but the pages are very small, about 3 by 5 inches, just the right size for pocket or pocketbook. I’ve been carrying it around for those moments between things. Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? 23 Questions from Great Philosophers, a translation of mini-essays published in Poland, is by Leszek Kołakowski and has just been published here by Basic Books. Kołakowski is one the great wonders of our age. Author of the classic Main Currents of Marxism and of many books on philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas, he is one of the very last of those Central European intellectuals whose learning is such as to force most of us to confess that our education is, by comparison, slapdash at best. Why begins with Socrates and goes on to Heraclitus, Epictetus, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Kierkegaard, and up through Husserl. Each little essay is a masterpiece of exquisitely refined intellectual summary and judgment. One may not always agree, but, in disagreement, one is prompted to think again. For instance, the reflection on Aquinas is titled, “Knowledge, Faith, and the Soul: Is the World Good?” Kołakowski writes: “[Aquinas] was concerned with the problem that preoccupied all Christian thinkers: since man participates in both orders, the temporal and the eternal; since he has a body but his chief concern is supposed to be his soul; since he lives in a world of sense-experience but his proper home is heaven; since he makes use of his faculty of natural reason but his source of illumination in the most important matters is faith; since he belongs to various temporal collectivities and communities, and is a participant in the secular, but also belongs to the Church, the mystical body of Christ, and is also a participant in sacred history—how are these two orders of man’s existence related, and how are they reconciled?” That nicely summarizes the problem, and nobody proposed a reconciliation so thorough and systematic as that proposed by Aquinas. But then there is the problem of evil, says Kołakowski, on which Aquinas agrees with Augustine that evil is a deprivation of good. “Evil is the absence of what should be; it is not an evil for man that he does not have wings, but it is an evil for him to lack a hand. However, Aquinas does not share Augustine’s notorious belief in the ubiquity of moral evil, which seeps through into every aspect and domain of our existence. Nor does he share Augustine’s view that, after the Fall, the human will is capable only of doing evil unless guided by God’s gratuitously bestowed and irresistible grace. Aquinas believed that each of us is where he should be in the order of being; we all have our allotted place. He does not seem much interested in the demonic side of human existence” (emphasis added). I hear howls of protest from Thomists of the strict observance—those who believe that Aquinas is the hardware that will run any software—but others who are inclined to think that Augustine’s view is not “notorious” but true may believe that Kołakowski gets it just about right. For my present purpose of drawing attention to this splendid little book, I’m not taking sides on that one.

• The comedian Bill Maher recently delivered himself of some rather decided views on religion in general and Catholicism in particular. On a late-night talk show he said, “You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god. That doesn’t make you a person of faith. That makes you schizophrenic.” He added that anyone who is religious is schizophrenic, “sort of.” As might be expected, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League blasted Maher for his “twisted mind” and “hatred of Christians.” That’s Dr. Donohue’s job. He likes to describe himself as a street fighter with a Ph.D., and the Catholic League is as inevitable as it is useful. Those of us with different vocations, however, might ask whether the Mahers, at least at times, do not, however inadvertently, render a service in pointing to the astonishing nature of Christian truth claims. Astonishing if they are not true, and more astonishing if they are. We are not schizophrenic, but we are keenly aware of the tension and, at times, the conflict between the gospel and culturally conventional understandings of reality. Christianity is indefatigably dialogical but never without an edge. Matthew Lickona puts it nicely in his memoir of a young Catholic, Swimming with Scapulars: “Let’s be open and clean. Let’s drag this out into the light and discuss. Let’s not be shocked and resentful; let’s love the lonely. Perhaps, coming from a fanatic, the message of God’s love will regain some of its wonderful outrageousness. ‘Listen. I have a secret. I eat God, and I have His life in me. It’s the best thing in the world; it leads to everlasting life. But first, you have to die to yourself.’”

• The hold that Freud and Freudianism(s) have on the minds of many intellectuals is a cause of continuing wonder. Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist and cultural critic, reviews George Makari’s new book, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. Dalrymple writes: “Despite Freud’s many shortcomings—his deficiencies as a scientist, his urge to dominate, his intolerance of opposition, his lack of intellectual scruples—an aura of greatness still hangs over him. . . . No one could dispute that he was a highly intelligent and cultivated man, and a writer of such beguiling talent that he can still be read with pleasure even by those who expect to extract no truth from him. He was one of those figures who, in the wake of the collapse of religion, appeared to many, at least for a short time, to explain humanity to itself. The Freudian claim of explanatory power was false, as was the Marxist claim, and as the Darwinist claim, the most popular such explanatory claim today, will prove to be false. Freud’s fundamental flaw was an overweening ambition, in combination with intellectual impatience. . . . Mr. Makari’s conclusion, that, out of all the sordid maneuverings he chronicles in such detail, there nevertheless emerged ‘the richest systematic description of inner experience that the Western world has produced’ is nonsense. Its very systematization is an impoverishment, not an enrichment, as anyone who has listened to psychoanalysts discuss anything will know. In such discussions, theory trumps description every time. Shakespeare is infinitely richer.” Perhaps it is unfair to play the Shakespeare card, thus setting the bar almost impossibly high. The sad failure of Freud is demonstrated by much less exacting tests.

• It is the sadness of this failure that comes through most poignantly in Mark Edmundson’s recent book, The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days. Edmundson, professor at the University of Virginia, is not out to debunk Freud. Like Makari, and unlike Dalrymple, he thinks Freud’s contribution is lasting. “Freud, one might say, triggered a large-scale transference in the mind of the West. That is, people have aimed at him all the hopes and hatreds that have in the past infused their relations to authority.” Freud should be read, he says, with irony, humor, and detachment but also with “due openness when what he has to say proves to be illuminating—as it so often is.” Edmundson goes further, describing Freud as “perhaps the most potent and influential intellect of his century, the man who had probably done more than any other to change the way people in the West thought about who and what they were.” Edmundson very effectively depicts the extreme physical suffering of Freud’s last days, after fleeing Nazi-occupied Vienna in June 1938, in order “to die in freedom,” which he did in London a little over a year later. He had suffered from a fierce cancer of the mouth and jaw that required a metal contraption (“The Monster”) which held his mouth open in order to hold his cigar, of which he smoked twenty per day. As the suffering became unbearable, he asked his doctor to assist his suicide by means of a lethal morphine overdose. Edmundson writes: “Freud, the longtime atheist, never called out to God; he never asked celestial forgiveness; he never recanted his lack of faith; he was a stubbornly secular man to the end. When he was sick and dying, he stuck to his arduously created views and values, affirming what he had in other, better days. Freud was true to himself through to the end.” One is reminded of the tragic banality of the song made popular by Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” Freud died on Saturday, September 23, 1939, the day of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. He had lived just long enough to write his last book, Moses and Monotheism, in which, in his excruciating physical pain, he gleefully deconstructed the central “myth” of Jewish faith.

• Freud made a point of not reading philosophers and other seminal thinkers, says Edmundson, lest he discover that his own ideas were not so original as he wanted to believe them to be. Very notably, he avoided reading Nietzsche. He devoted his life to crafting his persona as the high priest of a new revelation. Writes Edmundson: “He died in a way that would enhance his reputation as a leader, that would engender people’s loyalty over the years, that would move them in the way that kings’ and potentates’ passing can do, move them with the majestic sense that here was a man who was more than a man. This was someone worth believing in with fervor and worth following into the future. Freud wanted to create belief and adherence down through time and—though it is not entirely tasteful to say as much—he arranged his death in such a way as to help him to do exactly that.”

• Wittgenstein found Freud both alluring and misleading and credited him with having produced “a very powerful mythology.” Auden said, “He would have us remember to be enthusiastic over the night.” Edmundson writes, “Freud’s thinking moved backward into the dark past—rather than forward into the highly reasoned future.” He was enamored of pagan rituals, superstitions, and black magic. And, of course, the ancient Egyptian rites were key to his debunking of the founding biblical story in Moses and Monotheism. Freud was anything but a modern Enlightenment rationalist. It is commonly said that the three great modern masters of suspicion are Darwin, Marx, and Freud, each exposing that the world is not what it seems to be, and certainly not what the Christian West mistook for reality. Like Darwin and Marx, Freud claimed to be a scientist, and desperately wanted to be recognized as such, but constructed his supposed science on prescientific and even antiscientific foundations. Contradictions abounded. Carl Jung, among the more prominent of the disciples with whom he broke, was sympathetic to the Nazi takeover and developed theories about the singularity of the Aryan psyche. “The Aryan unconscious,” wrote Jung, “has a higher potential than the Jewish; that is the advantage and the disadvantage of a youthfulness not yet fully estranged from barbarism.” Thus did he excommunicate Freud who had excommunicated him from the church of psychoanalysis. Freud was not averse to the charms of barbarism. In 1934 he inscribed for Mussolini a little book he had written with, of all people, Albert Einstein, Why War? The inscription reads, “From an old man who greets in the Ruler the Hero of Culture.” (That is an item that Jonah Goldberg might have used in his recent book, Liberal Fascism.) Freud did not disguise what might be described as his disgust with humanity. “Freud’s deep affection for dogs,” Edmundson writes, “sometimes resembles that of his great precursor, Schopenhauer, who said that he would rather converse with his dogs than he would with most people. Like Schopenhauer’s, Freud’s dog obsession probably arose in part from a mild misanthropy. (Hitler’s dog obsession signaled a misanthropy that was not so mild.)” Freud wrote to a friend: “It really explains why one can love an animal like Topsy (or Jo-Fi) with such extraordinary intensity, the beauty of an existence complete in itself. . . . Often when stroking Jo-Fi I have caught myself humming a melody which, unmusical as I am, I can’t help recognizing as the aria from Don Giovanni: ‘The bond of friendship/Unites us both.’”

• Freud famously, or infamously, ruled his household and his collaborators with an iron fist. “One might say,” writes Edmundson, “he was a patriarch who worked with incomparable skill to deconstruct patriarchy. He wrote and lived to put an end to the kind of authority that he himself quite often embodied and exploited.” One might well sympathize with the Viennese wit Karl Kraus who quipped, “Psychoanalysis is the disease of which it purports to be the cure.” Freud had a dim view of human possibilities, once remarking that the purpose of psychoanalysis is to transform hysterical misery into common, everyday unhappiness. God is love, says the First Letter of John in the New Testament. In a curiously convoluted way, late in life Freud came to agree, but, in the absence of God, those seeking everyday unhappiness would have to settle for Freud. Edmundson describes a case in which the patient was making no progress after many weeks, and Freud cried out, “You do not think that it is worth your while to love an old man.” “In the final phase of therapeutic practice—the mode of healing that Freud finally settled upon after trying a number of others—love was, in fact, at the heart of everything. Having made use of hypnotism and free association and dream interpretation, Freud now put himself, the physician, at the center of the drama.” This was the theory of “transference” in which the patient brings all his (or, more often, her) longings for love and meaning, twisted and torn by years of hysterical misery, and lays them at the feet of the Master. And this, says George Makari in Revolution in Mind, is “the richest systematic description of inner experience that the Western world has produced.” I don’t think so. Others may dismiss it as mere coincidence, but I cannot shake the thought that the deepest sadness of Freud and his project is signified by death by suicide on the day of repentance, forgiveness, and the world made new, Yom Kippur.

• Glenn Tinder, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, is an undervalued treasure. He has published with some regularity in these pages, and his 1986 book, Political Thinking: The Perennial Questions, is a standard reference deserving of its reputation as a classic. Yet Tinder is a demanding author who requires of his readers an intellectual steadiness of purpose similar to his own. This is evident again in his latest work, Liberty: Rethinking an Imperiled Ideal (Eerdmans). In his intensely Augustinian insistence upon human sinfulness and the limits of history, Tinder contends against every form of political utopianism premised upon unearned certitudes. Liberty is known in the “unsheltered life” of historical contingency animated by a hope that is rightly named the eternal. While Tinder makes no secret of his Christian faith, a strength of the argument is in his determined effort to engage the secular humanist in reflecting on the inescapably eschatological nature of all human hope. The book was obviously written before Benedict XVI’s encyclical of November 2007, Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope), but the similarity of the argument is striking. The Augustinian strain is manifest in both thinkers, as is the appreciation of, and effort to appropriate, what is true in the Enlightenment tradition. There is a remarkable eclecticism in Tinder’s way of taking one thing from Kant and another from Wittgenstein and yet another from Thomas, but it is of a piece with his understanding of the unsheltered life that is unsheltered also by any system. There is more than a dash of Reinhold Niebuhr in Tinder’s thinking, especially with respect to “moral man and immoral society,” but it would be a mistake to call him a Niebuhrian. He is more explicitly and penetratingly Christian than was Niebuhr, and he grounds more deeply Niebuhr’s celebrated misgivings about the possibilities of history. Tinder writes, “The estranged individual, even though in solitude, must, for the sake of community, establish and maintain his own inner community.” This may sound forbiddingly doleful, but it is a solitude-in-community that is illumined by the words of 1 John, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all,” and is sustained by the promise of the prologue of John’s gospel that the darkness has not and will not extinguish the light. There is in Tinder’s understanding of the “unsheltered life” a determined, one might say a very Protestant, resistance to the proleptic power of the Church’s sacramental life, a resistance that is reminiscent of Kierkegaard, although he certainly does not share Kierkegaard’s indifference to the political. Liberty: Rethinking an Imperiled Ideal is an exercise in political philosophy, with the emphasis on philosophy, and on the ways in which serious philosophy cannot—although it is certainly not for the lack of trying—disengage itself from the questions that are rightly called theological. I don’t expect the book to make the Times’ bestseller list, but I am confident it will be of intense interest to many readers of First Things.

• The English language is so very rich, and not least when it comes to language about language. I confess to having a weakness for the aphorism. I like to quote them, and have even tried my hand at a few. A friend tells me I mean epigram, not aphorism. Maybe so, but the distinctions are subtle. It could be that my weakness is for the epigram, the maxim, the axiom, the adage, the apothegm, the pithy saying, or any of these in combination. But I think I’ll stay with calling it the aphorism. An aphorism, as I understand it, is a succinct statement of a general truth distilled by particular experience. A further confession: The above comments are but an excuse to quote something said by Alfred Polgar, a Viennese writer of the early twentieth century. “The striking aphorism requires a stricken aphorist.” Lovely. And, while I’m at it, this from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Fame is the sum total of all the misunderstandings that can gather around a new name.” You might want to keep that handy for the next time the conversation turns to our celebrity culture.

• Here’s a forceful editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The editors say in no uncertain terms that nobody should think “that the medical profession will be available to assist in the taking of human lives.” When called upon to kill, doctors should “remember the Hippocratic Oath and refuse to participate.” The editorial is, as you might expect, in opposition to capital punishment. There is, of course, no mention of abortion or doctor-assisted suicide. About the latter, the NEJM is ambivalent, while it is unequivocally in support of the former. It is encouraging to see the reference to the Hippocratic Oath—which, unfortunately, is not taken in most American medical schools—but the editors’ reading of that venerable text is, to put it gently, very selective.

• Some fifteen years ago, Eamon Duffy of Cambridge published The Stripping of the Altars, and the historical understanding of the Church in England has not been the same since. Of course, not everybody has heard the news. In a more recent conversation with a Church of England bishop, I was assured that secularization in England was neither surprising nor anything to worry about, since the English had never been Christianized to begin with. Eamon Duffy demonstrated in exacting detail that England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was deeply and richly Catholic and that those who cheered Henry VIII’s break with Rome, and indulged in the subsequent factionalisms, were in a distinct minority centered in London. The Stripping of the Altars came to mind while reading a marvelous new book by Augustine Thompson, O.P., Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125-1325 (Penn State). Most writing about that period has focused on monks, mystics, heretics (the Cathars in particular), and the Inquisition. Like Duffy, Thompson has dug into archives and dusty attic trunks to find out what everyday and holy-day life was for the ordinary Christians of the time. The result is a feast of charming, and sometimes alarming, minutiae, and, of course, larger themes are engaged as well. We had in these pages a little exchange a while back about the war of liturgical correctness against kneeling at Mass. It seems the same thing was going on in the thirteenth century, with laypeople insisting upon kneeling, despite the directives of their clergy. (It was popularly believed that a refusal to kneel could be an indication of heresy.) There was no disagreement about the importance of churches, along with clergy and people, facing east. It was not a matter of the clergy turning their backs on the people as it was a matter of everyone facing the Light of the World signified by the rising sun. But there is everything in Cities of God from marriage and burial rites to competition (sometimes unseemly) between religious orders, especially Dominicans and Franciscans, to contentions over bequests. Perhaps an inordinate number of the last, since, as Thompson notes, “Lawsuits leave paper trails, friendly relations do not.” The more than five hundred pages do not have one big thesis, and some might find the book altogether too detailed. But if you have ever wondered what it was like to be a Christian in the High Middle Ages, at least in central and northern Italy, Cities of God is a book that invites you to come in and look around.

• Here’s a new thing under the sun. American Theological Inquiry is a big thick journal of “theology, culture, and history” available online at www.atijournal.org. Scheduled to appear twice a year, it is thoroughly ecumenical, welcoming submissions from writers committed to the conciliar tradition of the patristic era. Volume 1, no. 1 has a fine article by Father Thomas Weinandy, director of the doctrine committee of the bishops’ conference, on why attention to the fathers is imperative in our day, and another interesting article by John W. Cooper that is, to my mind, a bit too sweeping in its critique of “panentheism” in Christian thought. Theologians, would-be theologians, and the theologically attentive will want to check out American Theological Inquiry.

• A friend tells of his grandfather who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a young man moved to a small town in South Carolina, where he reared a large family and was a leading member of the community for more than sixty years. On his tombstone, the citizens of the town had respectfully inscribed: “It is as though he were one of us.” Real community takes time. Harvard’s Robert Putnam is the author of the much-discussed 2000 book Bowling Alone, in which he popularized the idea of “social capital.” He has now issued a report on social diversity titled E Pluribus Unum. In an interview with the American Interest, he says: “Many things affect civic participation—how much education you’ve had, how long you’ve lived here, and so on. So it’s clear that factors other than diversity account for some of the data. It’s just that everybody, well-educated and not well-educated, old-timers and newcomers alike, is affected negatively by increasing diversity. Holding constant socioeconomic resources, mobility, and many other things, as well, everybody is less likely to be engaged when they’re living in a more diverse town or city. That’s the research conclusion I found most startling: It’s not just that in the context of diversity people are less trusting of people who look different. It’s that in the context of diversity people are less trusting even of folks who look just like them.”

• Not surprisingly, Putnam’s findings have met with a mixed response. In our intellectual culture, diversity is a Very Important Thing. Most Americans, however, do not live in the culture designated as intellectual, and those who do are typically hostile to diversities that offend against their homogeneity on things that really matter, such as dissent from enthusiasm for diversity. And, of course, the question of diversity does touch in important ways on heated disputes over immigration. Putnam’s research took him to a suburb of Detroit where a large Latino population gets along swimmingly with those of European extraction, who are about equal in number. The Latinos arrived about sixty years ago. The trust and mutual respect that makes for civic vitality takes time. More than ten years ago, Alan Ehrenhalt published The Lost City, a study of Chicago neighborhoods in the 1950s, which was very thoughtfully reviewed by Mary Ann Glendon in our November 1995 issue. Neighborhoods flourished as enclaves of people who viewed themselves as being alike, and neighborhoods collapsed with the disappearance of alikeness. Only ideologues need a sociological study to inform them that like attracts like. And only ideologues view a dynamic so deeply set in human nature as a problem in need of fixing. There was a very real problem that needed fixing with legally enforced racial segregation. Yet more than forty years after the civil-rights acts, America is, except for the professional class among blacks, as racially segregated as ever. Biblical teaching strongly underscores respectful engagement with, and concern for, the “other.” Witness Jesus’ dealings with Samaritans or Paul’s insistence on the inclusiveness (i.e. catholicity) of the Church. Such moral examples and injunctions are necessary precisely because they go against opposing dynamics in the human grain. That is usually the way it is with morality. And, we do well to remember, the Church is, in this and many other ways, a society distinct from the society in which it lives. It is a great confusion of realms to think that society can or should be constructed on the model of the Church. Robert Putnam is not suggesting that diversity is not a good thing. He speaks of communal “bonding” and communal “bridging.” Shared social capital makes possible the bonding with people who are like ourselves and creates the confidence necessary to engage in bridging with those who are unlike ourselves. I expect most people find that rather obvious. As history testifies, the distinction between “us” and “them” can turn very nasty, and that is a necessary cause for concern. Without that distinction, however, the result is anomie and the death of community. The contribution of Putnam and his researchers is to help us think more clearly about the shibboleth of “diversity,” and to work harder at the bonding that makes bridging possible. Such work takes time. Although perhaps not as much time as is suggested by that South Carolina tombstone.

• That exemplary sociologist of religion, David Martin, is mainly puzzled by John Gray’s new book, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. Gray is notorious for popping up in ideologically surprising places, usually in the mode of outraged indignation. This time Gray follows in the now well-worn path of Norman Cohn’s 1957 classic, The Pursuit of the Millennium, a book I regularly recommend to those who need it, which means most people interested in the interaction of politics and religion. Martin says of Gray that “the ferocity of his indignation suggests that, occasionally, what is so obvious simply takes his breath away.” Yet Black Mass provides some interesting twists. Martin writes: “In recent rhetorical practice the expansion of what we mean by religion to include all fanaticism (for example, secular utopianism) is a tactic normally deployed in order to discredit religion and assert the speaker’s own innocence—say, as a tolerant, objective, scientific fellow who has put away childish things. What Gray does in Black Mass and several earlier works is to reverse the thrust of this tactic. Instead of simply transferring the category of religion to cover the horrors of the twentieth century to avoid their being blamed on secular thinking, Gray holds to account the Enlightenment and its dependent ideologies, from Liberal Imperialism to Communism, as being simply what T.E. Hulme would have called ‘spilt religion,’ malformed theology in an eschatological mode without the restraints still kept in place by mainstream Christianity. The Enlightenment fused the two cities of Augustine and the two kingdoms of Luther to create, not the heavenly city, but hell on earth. At least (so Gray seems to say) the Christian story is clearly a form of solid poetry, whereas its secular translation fails to recognize its own mythic character, including the utopias envisaged by contemporary scientism.” John Gray says he is an atheist, and his grim view of the world is that we are all “straw dogs.” An earlier book by Gray is Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, in which other animals generally come off looking good by comparison. Where we go wrong, according to Gray, is in thinking that we are touched by a special light by virtue of being created in the image of God. Martin writes: “It is not just that the Enlightenment is parasitic on the Christian metaphor of light, but that disgust is parasitic on the idea of a chronic disjunction: ‘the evil that I would not that I do,’ as St Paul put it. Lions do not throw up, shaken to the core, at not being adequately leonine. Elephants do not roll in the mud to vent their desolation at being so grossly elephantine. Whatever else does or does not separate us from animality, the potential to imagine and body forth transfiguration and to acknowledge disfiguration, is what makes us human. Our sense of indignity is the essence of our dignity. Non sum dignus. Even our contemporary filleted liturgies admit as much.” John Gray, Martin concludes, puts one in mind of the “‘terrible sonnets’ of Gerard Manley Hopkins, in which the poet contends with God over the sheer waste of his supposedly good creation, and in particular contemplates Man as a shattered potsherd, only to ask how he could even have entertained the idea of a ‘beacon, an eternal beam’ if such did not exist. How come a ‘straw dog’ never imagined a burning bush, even for a moment?”

• “We are all evangelicals now.” That’s the message of Dagmar Herzog, professor of history at City University of New York, whose new book is Sex in Crisis, published by Basic Books, which, as publishing houses go, has a reputation for being serious. Liberals, says Dr. Herzog, have become “confused and defensive” as a consequence of the successful evangelical promotion of great sex—“soulgasmic” sex—between married men and women. Says Herzog: “There has never been so much pressure on what we are ‘supposed’ to feel about our relationships, our sexual choices, and our desire to feel pleasure. We wonder constantly whether our sex lives could be better, or whether we’re doing something wrong, or abnormal or inadequate. This is a radical new development—it just wasn’t this way even fifteen years ago.” Let’s see, that would have been 1993, a time, as Herzog would have it, celebrated as a period of national tranquility, security, and satisfaction in matters sexual. Now, says Dr. Herzog, evangelicals have ushered in a period of sexual chaos by campaigning for abstinence and monogamy, opposing gay rights, and even telling women that “abortions ruin self-esteem.” Dr. Herzog is not going to take it any more. “All of this is morally unconscionable,” she declares, “but it is also an effective and dangerous distraction—the bread and circuses that redirect the national conversation away from major issues like war and the economy.” To move our attention back to the really big issues like war and the economy, Dagmar Herzog has written Sex in Crisis. If I understand her correctly, she is saying that it would be morally unconscionable to read her book. That’s putting it a mite strongly, but I expect she has a point.

• One imagines French executives sitting around the boardroom table and brainstorming how to break in big-time to the American market. What do we have that the Americans don’t have? What do we have that we could make the Americans want to have? “Voilà!” exclaims a junior executive at the far end of the table. “Water!” The others think he’s gone mad. “What? America doesn’t have water?” “Yes, they have water,” he explains, “but they don’t have French water!” Thus was born the great success of Perrier, soon to be followed by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and others in the multibillion-dollar bottled-water business. Actually, it didn’t happen quite that way. Perrier water is from a spring in Vergeze in the Garde département of France, which belonged to Louis Perrier, a local doctor, and was bought in the early twentieth century by Sir St. John Harmsworth, an English aristocrat, who had an unflattering—and, as it turned out, correct—view of the gullibility of the English bourgeoisie who admired things French. He bottled the stuff in green bottles in the shape of the Indian clubs he used for daily exercise, and, many years later, the company (now owned by Nestlé) discovered that the English appetite for buying something that had been free was as nothing compared to the enthusiasm of the Americans. Bottled water is a very big business, and very big business is a very bad thing in the activist lexicon of women religious orders in search of a mission to replace the mission for which they were once constituted. “Religious Orders Bring Clout to War on Bottled Water” is a headline in the National Catholic Reporter. “Concerns about bottled water are bubbling up in Catholic organizations, adding clout to a growing number of cities and secular organizations worried about the issue—with women religious strongly in the lead.” They are joined by what is called the eco-justice division of the National Council of Churches. Says the director of the program: “Water should be free for all. The moral call is not to privatize water.” As in the old Prohibition movement, people are being asked to take the pledge, promising not to drink bottled water. A group called Presbyterians for Restoring Creation is actively engaged, and the United Church of Christ has produced a documentary on the topic, “Troubled Waters.” But it does seem the sisters are in the lead. The very progressive National Coalition of American Nuns has made the battle against the bottle a major priority. The 115-year-old motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity in Dubuque, Iowa, is “a recently renovated geothermal building [and] is a bottled water free campus with bottled water removed from vending machines.” The concern is not, or not chiefly, with environmental problems in disposing of plastic bottles. The campaign is not targeting the other products Coke and Pepsi put in bottles. The outrage is directed at the violation of “the sacramental system” when companies “privatize water and sell it for a profit.” The scandal is the “commodification” of something that should be free for all. Since nothing is sold except for a profit, the campaign is against a market economy. Or, to frame it more positively, it is a campaign in favor of socialism—an idea that we are given to understand has not been tried and found wanting but, to paraphrase Chesterton on Christianity, has been found difficult and therefore not tried. As an admirer of New York’s famous tap water, I have no problem with taking the pledge. I raise a glass to another of Chesterton’s insights, which is, being paraphrased, that the problem with religious orders that forsake their founding mission is not that they will do nothing but that they will do anything and call it a mission.

• In 2005, Lenn E. Goodman, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt, was invited to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. This time the format was different. Four scholars—a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, and an agnostic (atheist?)—were asked to deliver two lectures each on the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Goodman, a very thoughtfully observant Jew, has brought together his lectures, plus his extended commentary on the questions raised, in a book just out from Oxford, Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. The book is rich in philosophical and rabbinical wisdom. There is this, for instance, on what is meant by equality before the law. “Thomas Hobbes measures power by the potential for violence. His aim is to quiet the pretensions of vainglory, his deeper foe. But what a nasty sense of equality his mating of power with violence breeds, and how revealing is his vision of law as the source not of equity but of inequality—a thought still echoed when Rousseau writes, ‘Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.’ Hegel does little better when he identifies as Master and Slave those who are less and more afraid to die. That grounds political relations not on our moral recognition of one another’s personhood or even on our capacity to aid and befriend one another, but on mutual threats of death. But, in the Mosaic tradition, equality is a matter of right and thus of law. And it extends beyond the law of the courts. For the Torah makes moral equality both a premise and product of its legislation. As the Talmud admonishes: ‘One who exalts himself at his fellow’s expense has no share in the World to Come.’ Ethics cannot give us all equal skill or power, stature, wealth, or fame. But it does demand recognition of existential desert, the bare desert of personhood, a dignity that does not utterly vanish while we live, or in some ways even after death.” There is frequent skepticism expressed about the existence of a Judeo-Christian moral tradition, but it is surely one tradition in seeing that the dignity of the human person is the bedrock of justice. In papal teaching, it is said that the entirety of the Church’s social doctrine is based on that dignity. In this and other connections, Lenn Goodman is critical of the Christian in the Gifford project, John Hare of Yale Divinity School, who, in a manner typical of many Christian thinkers, tends to denigrate the human in order to exalt the divine. In the hope that he is not offended by my saying so, on this Goodman the Jew is the better Christian. Of course, he would likely say that Christians who understand the moral centrality of the dignity of the human person are good Jews. To which the response is that we are both right.

• It is hard for us to appreciate, writes George McKenna in his fine new book, The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism (Yale), just how alien Catholicism appeared to most Americans from the seventeenth through the early twentieth century. “Anti-Catholicism was not an adventitious element in American patriotic rhetoric, a prejudice that sometimes got attached to it, like racial prejudice or anti-Semitism (both of which actually contradict it), but a foundational premise in the American narrative handed down by the Puritans. . . . Historically, American patriotism and American anti-Catholicism are joined at the root.” After all, the Puritan “errand into the wilderness” was an errand undertaken to escape the tentacles of popery, which was identified with the Antichrist. Also those who were several steps away from Puritan religious fervor were alarmed by the Catholic threat. An 1856 essay in the distinguished North American Review described the intellectual faculties of Catholics as “cabined, cribbed, and confined,” their conduct being “guided by a single will,” that of a foreign potentate. Theodore Parker, a leading Unitarian minister and social reformer, described Catholics as an “ignorant and squalid people, agape for miracles, ridden by rulers and worse ridden by their priests, met to adore some relic of a saint.” McKenna writes: “This kind of language was used commonly in the writings and speeches of progressive intellectuals. . . . It was, as we would say today, no big deal. They would be as shocked at the accusation of bigotry as any decent, law-abiding southerner would have been for casually using a term like nigger.” Among the charms of The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism is McKenna’s skillful tracing of the ironies by which “outliers” in the American experience assume a central role in articulating a national narrative that has been largely abandoned by those he calls progressive intellectuals. The convergence in the public square of Catholics and evangelical Protestants over the last twenty years is a striking case in point. McKenna, a regular contributor to First Things, has a sharp eye for the historically unexpected and with this new book enhances his reputation as one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the strange story that is America.

• Do You Believe? is a collection of interviews by Antonio Monda that has now been translated from the Italian and published by Vintage. Billed as “conversations on God and religion,” most of the interviews are brief, some of them no more than sound-bites, which in a few cases (e.g., Jane Fonda, Spike Lee, Salman Rushdie) is a mercy. The West Indian poet Derek Walcott, who has lived most of his life in the United States, says, “I would say I believe that I believe.” And what is this God like? “It is difficult, in fact impossible, to separate it from the image inculcated in me during my childhood. A white man with a beard. Wise and old.” But beyond that image what do you see? “I see only the risk of banality.” For centuries religion was a dominant theme in art. Today it’s much rarer to see a religious image. “I would say, rather, that in these times the meaning and the manifestation of the divinity are to be found in a more indirect approach. It seems to me further that today we are witnessing the phenomenon of a revival of attention paid to religion, a situation that will find greater and greater expression in art.” In his interview, Elie Wiesel is unequivocal about his faith in God. Wiesel says this: “When I am thinking of my personal experience, there comes to mind, as a luminous example, François Mauriac. I, a Jew, owe to the fervent Catholic Mauriac, who declared himself in love with Christ, the fact of having become a writer. . . . Once Mauriac dedicated a book to me and he wrote: ‘To Elie Wiesel, a Jewish child who was crucified.’ At first I took it badly, but then I understood that it was his way of letting me feel his love.”

• Now here is an apparent conundrum, and maybe more than apparent. (In what follows one may also read simply Church for Catholic Church.) The conundrum is posed by Bruce Marshall, a former Lutheran and now Catholic theologian who teaches at Southern Methodist University, and it appears in a valuable and just published book of essays, John Paul II and the Jewish People, edited by David Dalin and Matthew Levering (Rowman & Littlefield). So here is Marshall’s poser: “If God in Christ wills the salvation of all by calling every human being into the Catholic Church, then it seems as though God cannot will that the practice of Judaism continue permanently. If God calls every human being into the Church, therefore, it seems that God does not will the permanent election of Israel. If, conversely, God wills the permanent election of Israel, then it seems as though God does will that the practice of Judaism continue permanently. In that case, God must will that there always be human beings who remain outside the Catholic Church. If God wills (positively desires and does not simply permit) that there always be those who remain outside the Church, then God does not call every human being into the Church, or will the salvation of all in that way. The Church’s mission is not, therefore, genuinely universal.” You might want to read that again just to get a handle on the problem. It is a problem that many thinkers have recognized but not stated so clearly. The problem has been addressed, says Marshall, in three different ways. One is to propose that there are “two covenants,” one for Jews and another for Christians. Although it is not what those who make that proposal intend, the proposal can easily end up by finding itself in league with the nineteenth-century liberal supersessionism of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who taught that Christianity had no inherent relationship with Judaism and Jews. What once was a historical connection was long ago severed. “By treating Christianity as a wholly gentile religion,” writes Marshall, “the ‘two covenants’ approach comes to basically the same conclusion, although for different ends.” A variation on this way of resolving the apparent conundrum is to say that, while there is one covenant and all salvation is through Christ, the Church has no mission to the Jewish people because God intends that they practice Judaism and not embrace faith in Christ until the eschaton, the final End Time. In response to that, Marshall writes, “It seems questionable whether we can suppose that God genuinely intends for the Jews, or for anyone else, an ultimate good already available in the world (life in Christ), which at the same time he actively wills them not to reach, or prevents them from reaching—quite apart from Paul’s insistence that the gospel of Christ is for the Jew first (Romans 1:16).” So the first proposed resolution is put back on the shelf.

• There is a second approach to the problem, and Marshall describes it this way: “Linking the old covenant to the new as ‘figure’ to ‘reality’ or ‘shadow’ to ‘truth’ is . . . a way of insisting that the Church and her faith do have an inherent connection to the Jewish people and their faith. This approach goes quite deep in the Christian tradition, and admits of many variations. Its advocates are characteristically committed to the unity of God’s saving purpose in Christ, enacted ‘figurally’ under the old law, then with temporally unsurpassable clarity in the incarnation of the Word, who brings forth in his Passion and Resurrection the saving sacraments of the new law. Those who follow this approach are also typically committed, often deeply so, to God’s love for Abraham’s fleshly descendants as an irrevocable element of his saving design in Christ.” Yet, says Marshall, it is hard to see how this second approach in its several variations leaves room for the thought that God wills the permanent practice of Judaism. Moreover, to the extent that election depends upon practice, this approach would seem to leave the permanent election of Israel without support. The third response to the problem is proposed by Messianic Judaism. I agree with Marshall when he says this approach deserves more attention than it has received to date. Messianic Jews are those who accept Jesus as the Messiah and, at the same time, are Torah-observant Jews. A question posed to the small but growing number of Messianic Jewish congregations is how they deal with Paul’s assertion that Christ has united Jews and Gentiles in one body (Eph. 2). In the Messianic Jewish proposal, Marshall observes, “It sometimes seems that Christ has two bodies—two churches—neither of which has a universal saving mission. With that, the sense in which Christ himself has a single saving purpose for all ceases to be apparent.” So where does this leave us? Marshall concludes: “We may be tempted to give up on what is surely a very difficult question and invoke St. Paul’s appeal, on just this matter, to the unsearchable will and ways of God (Romans 11). There is of course a mystery here, but we should resist the temptation to invoke it prematurely. The mystery of God’s will and ways is not a substitute for the intellectus fidei, but precisely what faith seeks to understand. Here, as elsewhere, we will only begin to appreciate the unfathomable mystery of God’s ways when we have searched them out to the fullest extent we can.” I am sure Bruce Marshall would agree that that is an unsatisfactory conclusion, but that conclusion is not the end of the matter. There have been exploratory conversations between some Christians, including Catholics, and Messianic Jews. The challenging task is to envision a way in which there might be a permanent practice of Judaism within one Church of Jesus Christ. Such conversations, it is important to emphasize, cannot be permitted to jeopardize the ongoing conversation with Jews who do not accept Jesus as Messiah but who are, as Marshall and other authors in John Paul II and the Jewish People rightly insist, inherently related to Christians and Christianity in God’s covenantal fidelity.

• Former president Jimmy Carter’s “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant” was launched in Atlanta, with thousands of folks showing up, including the leaders of the four major black Baptist conventions and former president Bill Clinton, along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore. (The connection between global warming and world peace has continued to elude many observers, but there must be one, seeing as how global warming is allegedly responsible for just about everything else.) The purpose of the New Baptist Covenant is to give Baptists an alternative to the culture wars and political divisiveness for which the huge Southern Baptist Convention is notorious. The Rev. Bill Shoulta explained to the New York Times: “It is so nice to be part of a group where your theological and political leanings are not an issue. And that has been the whole issue plaguing our denomination: that your beliefs become a measure of fellowship.” In truth, that’s been a problem from the beginnings of the Christian movement, this notion that belief is a measure of fellowship. The Times says that “many participants at the meeting said that they had to push for political solutions and that their commitment to fighting poverty so far overrode theological differences over homosexuality or the ordination of women.” Said one participant, “We can all agree that Jesus worked against poverty and oppression. It takes us away from all the ____.” She struggled for the word to describe the theological differences, and finally said, “From all that fluff.” The sense of the meeting was that “they could pool their resources and voices to push” for things that really matter, like “universal health coverage and fighting global warming.” In recent years, there has been much discussion about whatever happened to mainline/oldline/sideline liberal Protestantism. The news from Atlanta is that resuscitation procedures are progressing satisfactorily under the direction of the renowned political and religious prestidigitators Drs. Carter, Clinton, and Gore.

• Congress Monthly, the magazine of the American Jewish Congress, selects Richard V. Pierard to review a book that smites hip and thigh this magazine and all its works and all its ways (never mind its pomps). Pierard is an evangelical historian who teaches at Gordon College in Massachusetts, and he thinks the book’s alarums about the country succumbing to a vast theocratic conspiracy are entirely on target. I expect there is nothing I can say to relieve his distress. He writes that I launched Evangelicals and Catholics Together with “evangelical luminaries Charles Colson and Carl Henry.” Carl F.H. Henry, who died in 2003, was indeed an evangelical luminary. Among many others things, he was the founding editor of Christianity Today. He was also a dear friend with whom I and others discussed ECT, but he was not part of the project and reluctantly declined to sign its initial statement. Mr. Pierard, as a historian, will no doubt welcome this correction of his error. He notes in Congress Monthly that in 1984 he reviewed my book The Naked Public Square and “was one of the few Christian scholars at the time who called attention to its specious argumentation.” So he was one of the first to recognize the “stealth campaign” by which my friends and I managed to take over the country. Mr. Pierard is apparently very excitable. Why the American Jewish Congress wants to encourage his fantasies is anyone’s guess.

• Much attention was rightly paid when a small minority of faculty and students at Rome’s La Sapienza University promised a confrontation and the pope decided against giving the lecture he had been invited to deliver. There was, subsequently, a mass outpouring of support for the pope. The text of the undelivered lecture has been released. In it Benedict refers to the famous lecture at Regensburg in September 2006, where “I indeed spoke as pope but I spoke above all in the guise of a former professor of the university.” La Sapienza, however, invited him to speak as pope. In fact, and as is often the case with Benedict, there is no bright line between pope and professor. The lecture deals with John Rawls’ understanding of “comprehensive accounts” in public discourse and with Jürgen Habermas’ understanding of open argument in response to truth. Benedict gives the German, wahrheitssensibles Argumentationsverfahren, to which he adds, “This is well said.” Well said, although for non-Germans, one might note, not easily said. He observes that it is “of the nature of the university [that it] must always be exclusively bound to the authority of the truth. In its freedom from political and ecclesiastical authorities, the university finds its special role, and in modern society as well, which needs institutions of this nature.” I would not be surprised if some jump on that statement, claiming that it is in tension, if not conflict, with the 1990 apostolic constitution of John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which holds Catholic universities accountable to the Church and the Christian faith. It is evident, however, that at La Sapienza Benedict is speaking of the proper “autonomy” of the “secular university.” Of particular interest in the lecture is Benedict’s assertion that the pope is “a voice of the ethical reasoning of humanity.” In affirming this “form of ethical reasoning,” he claims the support of John Rawls, who said that, while religious doctrines do not qualify as public reason, they may be the bearer of wisdom that cannot be publicly ignored. Benedict: “[Rawls] sees a criterion of this reasonableness in, among other things, the fact that such doctrines are derived from a responsible and well grounded tradition in which over a long span of time sufficiently strong arguments have been developed in support of the respective doctrines. This statement recognizes that experience and demonstration over the course of generations, the historical background of human wisdom, are also a sign of their reasonableness and their lasting significance. In the face of an a-historical form of reason that seeks to construct itself in an exclusively a-historical rationality, the wisdom of humanity as such—[including] the wisdom of the great religious traditions—should be viewed as a reality that cannot be cast with impunity into the trash bin of the history of ideas.” As he did at Regensburg, Benedict champions the Christian synthesis of faith and reason in the understanding of the Word ( Logos). He here invokes the Christological language of the Council of Chalcedon in affirming that the relationship between philosophy and theology is “without confusion and without separation.” In conclusion, he asks, “What does the pope have to do or say in a university?” He answers that he cannot impose his faith, “which can only be freely offered.” Rather, “his task is to keep alive man’s responsiveness to truth [and] again and always invite reason to seek out truth, goodness, and God, and on this path urge it to see the useful lights that emerged during the history of the Christian faith and perceive Jesus Christ as the light that illuminates history and helps find the way toward the future.” If it is asked, as it inevitably is asked, what is new in the La Sapienza lecture, I expect the answer is his engagement of Rawls’ account of public reason and—against ahistorical rationalism—his making the case for religion, and Christianity in particular, as “a voice of the ethical reasoning of humanity.” It is too bad an illiberal minority prevented the university from hearing the lecture, but they, too, are endowed with the gift of reason, and one hopes that, perhaps just because their unseemly protest turned it into a cause célèbre, the lecture will be the more widely read and discussed.

• A reader has very helpfully supplied a complete listing of the dates of Easter from the year 326 through 4099. This will be welcomed by people who plan ahead. The next occurrence of a March 23 Easter will be in the year 2160. Easter on March 22, which is the earliest date possible, will occur in 2285, 2353, 2437, and 2505. For the Easter Vigil on the second-to-last date, we are told by a usually unreliable source, the final revised version of the New American Bible will be available. These are things I thought you might want to know.

• First Things gift subscriptions to students—perhaps a son, daughter, niece or nephew?—have been known to change lives. Think about it. And, if you know someone who is a likely subscriber—student, senior, or somewhere in between—we will gladly send a sample issue and mention that you’re the one who thinks so highly of their intelligence. Just send us names and addresses.

Sources:

James Q. Wilson on Jews and Christians, City Journal, Winter 2008; Grassley, Christianity Today, Jan 2, 2007; Patriarch Bartholomew, Wall Street Journal, Jan 25, 2007; Catholic League on Maher, Jan 7, 2008; Dalrymple in New York Sun, Jan 16, 2007; capital punishment in New England Journal of Medicine, Jan 7, 2007; Putnam in the American Interest, Jan/Feb 2008; Martin on Gray in the Times Literary Supplement, Aug 10, 2007; Herzog in Basic Books catalogue, spring 2008; bottled water, National Catholic Reporter, Jan 11, 2007; Baptist Covenant, New York Times, Feb 2, 2008; Pierard in Congress Monthly, Sept/Oct 2007.

The post The Possibilities and Perils in Being a Really Smart Bishop appeared first on First Things.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, recently raised a commotion by trying to educate his country’s youth: Every fifth grader, he said, should adopt the story of one of France’s 11,000 Jewish children killed during the Holocaust, in order to teach them about prejudice and the evils of genocide. But the idea immediately came under attack-first from French nationalists, who would prefer that dark chapter in history remain forever obscure; and second (more honorably) from those who worry that children that age are simply unprepared, psychologically and emotionally, to deal with such horrors. “Adding to the national fracas,” reports the New York Times, is that “Mr. Sarkozy wrapped his plan in the cloak of religion, placing blame for the wars and violence of the last century on an ‘absence of God.’”[[<1>See “By Making Holocaust Personal to Pupils, Sarkozy Stirs Anger,” by Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, February 16, 2008. Due to the controversy, the proposal, has apparently been abandoned: See “Sarkozy’s Holocaust Study Idea Buried,” Reuters, February 29, 2008.]]

That may have been the most controversial aspect of all. In many quarters, and not just secular France, it is still accepted as wisdom that the Holocaust was caused by devotion to God—specifically, the Christian God. Never mind that the Nazis murdered millions of Christians, and that it was Christians who primarily defeated the Nazis; and put aside that Nazi hatred of Christianity often rivaled its insane hatred for Jews. (“The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity,” railed Hitler in his Table Talk, “was the coming of Christianity”).[[<2>Hitler’s comment during the night of July 11-12, 1941, as reported in Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944 (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), p. 7.]] Many opinion makers—academics, journalists, and even religious leaders—continue to draw a line, however crooked, from the teachings of the New Testament to the death camps at Auschwitz.

Among them is James Carroll, the well-known ex-priest (and notorious Catholic dissenter),[[<3>For a biting critique of Carroll’s clash with the Church, see “Vichy Catholic,” by C.J. Doyle, Catholic World Report, March 2000; also available online via the Catholicculture.org website. Contrast Doyle’s well-documented critique with the wholly uncritical profiles of Carroll which have appeared in the secular media, e.g., “Devout Catholic Answers a Call to Challenge Church,” by Gina Piccalo, Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2007.]] whose controversial book Constantine’s Sword (2001) lays out this thesis in detail. At nearly eight hundred pages, the book is heavy—and repetitious—reading. Worse, it “is a book driven by theological animus and padded with irrelevant, distracting material from Carroll’s own obsessively chronicled life,” as Robert Wilken wrote in a devastating critique for Commonweal.[[<4>See “Dismantling the Cross,” by Robert Wilken, Commonweal, January 26, 2001, pp. 22-28.]] (Writing in National Review, Daniel Moloney added “the book has factual mistakes and errors in interpretation on almost every page.”[[<5>See “Sins of the Fathers,” by Daniel P. Moloney, National Review, March 5, 2001, pp. 50-52.]]) That said, anguish and sorrow about anti-Semitism is understandable. No one with a conscience can study Jewish history and feel anything but shame at the suffering endured by God’s chosen people-especially when their abusers claimed to be followers of Christ.[[<6>For a thoughtful and sensitive history of anti-Semitism, written from a balanced Catholic perspective, see: The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism by Edward H. Flannery (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1985). See also the obituary, “The Rev. Edward Flannery, 86, Priest who Fought Anti-Semitism,” by Eric Pace, New York Times, October 22, 1998.]] And because anti-Semitism has been tragically present throughout Christianity, Carroll is able to focus on Christian hypocrisy and guilt, compiling just enough evidence to make his argument appear plausible.

Plausible but not convincing. In preparing for Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate declaration On Non-Christian Religions, Augustin Cardinal Bea, its chief architect, frankly acknowledged prejudice among Christians but stated: “We are all aware that there are many reasons for anti-Semitism which are not religious at all but are political, national, psychological, social and economic.”[[<7>See The Church and the Jewish People by Augustine Cardinal Bea, S.J. (New York: Harper and Row Publishers).]] Add to that the often overlooked fact that anti-Semitism began well before the onset of Christianity,[[<8>For evidence of this, see Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World by Peter Schafer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).]] and that quite anti-Christian phenomena-such as the French Revolution, Darwinism, and the eugenics movement[[<9>For evidence of this connection, see Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1990), especially, pp. 57-84 on the French revolution; see also From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany by Richard Weikart (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).]]—have a much better claim to paving the way for Hitler than does Christianity, and the Carroll thesis begins to come apart. But it persists. A few years ago, the U.S. Holocaust Museum drew serious objections after sponsoring a film that blamed the Holocaust on Christianity. In an editorial asking “Did Christianity Cause the Holocaust?” the editors of Christianity Today rebuked the museum for defaming a whole faith and people: “As a museum of conscience, the U.S. Holocaust Museum has a responsibility to report how Jews have suffered, in large part because of morally repugnant stereotyping. How ironic and sad that its own film should foster inaccurate stereotypes of Christianity!”[[<10>See “Is the Holocaust Museum Anti-Christian?” by Mary Cagney, Christianity Today, April 27, 1998, as well as the accompanying editorial in the same issue, “Did Christianity Cause the Holocaust?”]] Even before that controversy, Milton Himmelfarb published an essay in Commentary assailing the notion that Christian anti-Semitism led to the Final Solution. His title said it all: “No Hitler, No Holocaust.”[[<11>See “No Hitler, No Holocaust,” Commentary, March, 1984, pp. 37-43; also, “Milton Himmelfarb,” by Joseph Bottum, First Things online, January 7, 2006; and “Milton Himmelfarb, 87, Witty Essayist on Jewish Themes,” New York Sun, January 11, 2006.]] And in response to Rosemary Reuther’s claim that the Holocaust was the inevitable result of oppressive Christian legislation during the Middle Ages, Professor Yosef Yerushalmi commented: “Between this and Nazi Germany lies not merely a ‘transformation’ but a leap into a different dimension. The slaughter of Jews by the state was not part of the medieval Christian world order. It became possible with the breakdown of that order.”[[<12>“A Response to Rosemary Reuther,” Auschwitz: Beginning of an Era? (New York: Ktav, 1977), p. 104.]]

Undeterred by such correctives, Carroll has forged ahead, now starring in a new documentary, Constantine’s Sword, based on his book. It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival last year and has now been released nationally.[[<13>The film’s official website is: http://www.constantinessword.com.]]

Carroll’s partner in making the film is Oren Jacoby, who has a reputation as a thoughtful, accomplished filmmaker. His previous documentaries include an enjoyable tribute to Benny Goodman,[[<14>See Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing (1993), available on DVD.]] as well as the Academy Award-nominated Sr. Rose’s Passion, about the late Sr. Rose Thering,[[<15>For a description of Sr. Rose’s career, as well as Jacoby’s documentary about her, see the obituary, “Sister Rose Thering, Nun Dedicated to Bridging Gap with Judaism, Dies at 85,” New York Times, May 8, 2006.]] a feisty Catholic nun who devoted her life’s work to strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations. Why Jacoby suddenly decided to make a film about James Carroll’s far less inspiring story is anyone’s guess, but his talents have not been well served.
¨C11CConstantine’s Sword wastes no time getting to its bottom line: the violent nature of Christianity and the threat it poses to non-Christians, especially Jews. Focusing on anti-Semitism as Christianity’s original sin (and the source of its alleged modern intolerance)—“Why do we blame the Jews? Generation after generation, where does this contempt come from?”—Carroll points to his own experience as a young Catholic raised in the preconciliar Church: “I knew who the Jews were: They had killed Our Lord, then they had refused to believe in Him.” Whether this emotion was typical of American Catholics—who’ve had much better relations with Jews than European Christians—is never questioned, only assumed. So too is the anti-Semitism of the Catholic liturgy: “At every Good Friday service, with the reading of that Passion narrative-‘the Jews, the Jews, the Jews,’ it really hits the ear. . . . Jesus is against the Jews. I don’t know how else Christians can hear this story.” ¨C12C¨C13CBut of course they can, and do. Carroll makes the mistake of projecting his own apprehensions onto Catholics in the pews; it doesn’t occur to him that Catholics who’ve participated in the Good Friday liturgy have always asked forgiveness for their sins and taken responsibility for the crucifixion themselves. After all, long before Vatican II the Catechism of the Council of Trent put the onus for Christ’s death on humanity, not any one group: “In this guilt [for Jesus’ death] we must deem all those to be involved who fall frequently into sin; for as our sins compelled Christ to undergo the death of the Cross . . . certainly those who wallow in sins and iniquities, as far as in them lies, crucify again the son of God, and make a mockery of him.”[[<16>As cited in Three Popes and the Jews by Pinchas Lapide (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1967), p. 76.]] [italics mine]¨C14C¨C15CIn his book The New Encounter Between Christians and Jews, Monsignor John Oesterreicher, a pioneer in ecumenical relations, underscores the point:

The Church prefers that the Passion be read in dialogue form to make us realize our personal involvement. We-our sins-nailed Jesus to the Cross; they are forgiven because Jesus freely suffered the anguish and pain of death for us. Hence, it is not only important, but necessary, that we acknowledge our part in Christ’s death. Were we to pretend that we are without guilt, we would not be redeemed. Christ came to save sinners, not those who think themselves righteous. That the Lord’s passion is of our making, and not the work of the Jews or the Romans, is the teaching of the Church. . . . Even the best of popular devotion upholds this thought, thus giving the Passion narrative its true significance. The German original of the moving hymn “O Sacred Head Surrounded” contains this stanza:

O Lord, what You endured is all my doing
I caused [the pain] you bore.
Wretched sinner, deserving but Your wrath
Your mercy and Your grace I do implore.

Another Passion Chorale asks:

Who was the guilty?
Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, has undone Thee.
‘twas I, Lord Jesus,
I it was denied Thee;
I crucified Thee![[<17>The New Encounter Between Christians and Jews by John M. Oesterreicher (New York: Philosophical Library, 1986), pp. 410-411. For more on this great priest, a survivor of Hitler’s Europe, see the obituary “J.M. Oesterreicher, Monsignor Who Wrote on Jews, Dies at 89,” by Wolfgang Saxon, New York Times, April 20, 1993.]]

Carroll cannot appreciate any of this because his theology is trapped in modernity, and thus is ahistorical and anachronistic. But the gospels cannot fairly be assessed by a post-Holocaust liberal sensibility; they have to be understood in the context of a passionate inter-Jewish struggle over Jesus and Judaism, carried out in a time when both sides were guilty of overheated polemics. (David Klinghoffer is particularly frank about this in Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.[[<18>Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History by David Klinghoffer (New York: Doubleday, 2005).]])

The documentary does not even try to offer balance on these controversies. Of all the people one might select to offer a thoughtful Jewish perspective on Biblical matters—Jacob Neusner and David Novak come to mind—Constantine’s Sword settles on Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic, who once wrote that the shadow of the cross at Auschwitz, “with all due respect, is sickening.”[[<19>“At Auschwitz, Decency Dies Again,” by Leon Wieseltier, New York Times, September 3, 1989.]] His comments in the documentary are no more charitable.[[<20>In the film, Wieseltier stands before a statue of Christ and says, “When I stand before a figure like this I can appreciate them and be moved by them only on condition that I shut down a piece of my heart, and that I obliterate something of what I know about the actual consequences in the real world of these images and of these figures.” He also assails “the supremacy of the cross in European culture [which] was responsible for the death of many of my people, for centuries before I was born, and eventually for the death of my own family in Southeastern Poland.” Later, Carroll attacks the site of the cross at Auschwitz. Wieseltier and Carroll may wish to consider the testimony of Marianne Sann, a Polish Jewish survivor of the death camp, who stated:
“As a Jewish woman and a survivor of Auschwitz, I am deeply disturbed by the feud over the crosses there…. Because the Nazis preferred to incinerate more Jews than Roman Catholic Poles does not mean that Polish non-Jewish victims do not deserve a cross of remembrance and place of honor among their fellow Jewish victims. The Polish inmates felt the icy winds of doom just as acutely as I did. I want to, and must attest to the fact that I was saved by Catholic fellow prisoners, at their great personal risk, in Auschwitz and again in Mauthausen, Austria. I hope the Polish government will not be pressured to remove these symbols of respect….” (Letter to the Editor, New York Times, December 27, 1998).]] The film’s chief authority on the New Testament, Elaine Pagels, is best known for her strange theories about Gnosticism, not respect for orthodoxy.[[<21>See Pagels’ book, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979) and, for a sharp critique of it, Raymond E. Brown, “The Christians Who Lost Out,” New York Times Book Review, January 20, 1980, pp. 3, 33; also, “The Gospel According to Pagels: Reconsiderations,” by Bruce Chilton, New York Sun, April 2, 2008.]] Following the notorious Jesus Seminar, she suggests that the apostles fabricated the series of events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, shifting blame away from the Romans and onto “the Jews.” Calling the Passion narrative “an extraordinary twist” on what actually happened, she concludes: “It looks completely at odds with what we know about history.” That, however, is not the view of more accomplished exegetes, notably N.T. Wright,[[<22>Wright’s views on the Passion, defending the accuracy of the New testament, are outlined in Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), comprising volume 2 of his acclaimed trilogy, Christian Origins and the Question of God. Volumes one (The New Testament and the People of God, 1992) and three (The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003), also published by Fortress, are well worth reading.]] and the late Raymond E. Brown.[[<23>Brown’s two-volume magnum opus on the subject is The Death of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1994). For Brown’s stature and accomplishments, also see the obituary, “Raymond E. Brown, 70, Dies; a Leading Biblical Scholar,” by Gustav Niebuhr, New York Times, August 11, 1998.]] Both have affirmed the essential historicity of the Passion narrative while warning against abusing the text. “The recognition that important Jewish figures in Jerusalem were hostile to Jesus and had a role in his death,” writes Brown, “need not of itself have produced anti-Judaism, any more than the fact that the Jerusalem priests and prophets plotted Jeremiah’s death would produce such a result.” He continues: “We Christians cannot dismiss or deny what happened to Jesus—that would be the easy way out. It would be wrong. In liturgically celebrating the truth and power of the Passion narratives, however, we must be equally energetic in proclaiming, as did Pope John Paul II in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz death camp: ‘Never again anti-Semitism!’”[[<24>“The Death of Jesus and Anti-Semitism: Seeking Interfaith Understanding,” by Raymond E. Brown, S.S., available online at: http://americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0397.asp.]] Vatican II, thirty years earlier, taught this another way: “Even though the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (cf. John 19:6), neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during His Passion” (Nostra Aetate, 4).

Brown’s testimony is important because, if anything, he tends toward the liberal school of exegesis—criticizing a “literalist” approach toward Scripture but rebuking radical skeptics for theirs: “The other view I judge unacceptable discredits the Gospel passion narratives as almost totally the product of Christian imagination. Under the mantle of scholarly objectivity, advocates assert firmly but without proof that the early Christians knew little about how Jesus died and simply invented their narratives on the basis of Old Testament imagery. Indeed, some scholars (of Christian upbringing!) would paint the early Christians as creating lies precisely to vilify the Jews. . . . [T]his ‘imagination interpretation’ can have the effect of portraying Christianity as a false and hateful religion. Religiously sensitive Jews and Christians recognize that if either group of our respective first-century ancestors—Jews or Christians—is presented as liars who wanted to destroy their opposites, nothing has been gained in the ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue. A careful examination suggests that the situation in the first century was far more complex than such overly simple reconstructions allow.”[[<25>Ibid]]

Carroll conveniently skips over the persecutions of the early Christians; their sufferings do not interest him. What grips his imagination most is the story of Constantine’s conversion, which he sees as catastrophic for the history of the Church. Recounting the well-known story of Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky, at the battle at the Milvian Bridge, the film quotes Constantine’s own words: “It bore the inscription, ‘By this sign, you will conquer.’ I described the marvel and its meaning to my men. I told them to reproduce it. A long spear crossed by a transverse bar forming the figure of a cross, to be carried at the head of all my armies.” Carroll then comments, mockingly: “They’re carrying their spears in the sign of a cross, and he comes onto this bridge, meets the enemy and—against all the odds—wins. Constantine goes into Rome, declares himself emperor, and-on the strength of that vision-he becomes a Christian!” The historian Jan Drijvers is brought on to question Constantine’s conversion, and ridicule every aspect of his “legend,” reminding us that he was a brute, dispatching one of his wives and son after suspecting them of incest. “It makes you actually wonder,” says Drijvers, “what kind of person Constantine was . . . quite another person from the ‘saint’ Constantine, the image a lot of people have. There’s even a source which says that Constantine had committed so many sins that there was no religion that could forgive his sins, only Christianity.” Drijvers is right about the boundlessness of Christian forgiveness but not for the cynical reasons he implies. That God sometimes works through broken vessels is never considered, nor is any value given to the relief Constantine provided persecuted Christians. Displaying frescoes honoring him in an old Roman convent, Carroll dismisses their message: “The great emperor falls to his knees as he shares his crown with the pope. This is the moment,” he intones dramatically, “when the cross and the sword become one: Christianity turns violent!” As proof, he notes, “When Constantine converted, there were almost the same number of Christians and Jews. Today, there are around 2 billion Christians—and only 15 million Jews.” How’s that for a non sequitur?

Still relying upon Drijvers, Carroll builds to a crescendo: “The cross had never been an important Christian symbol until Constantine in the year 326. For two and a half centuries, Christians had used symbols of life—the fish, the lamb, the shepherd—now this image of execution is brought in to unify the empire under a single orthodox doctrine.” But here Carroll stumbles yet again. He just finished telling us that the poison inherent in Christianity began with the New Testament texts; now he is suggesting that Christian life was sweet and gentle until Constantine came along and ruined everything. Which is it? The contradiction never fazes him. Moreover, his claims about the supposed unimportance of the cross to Christians before Constantine are demonstrably untrue. In his aforementioned critique for National Review, Daniel Moloney commented: “Carroll is wrong to maintain that the Cross became important only after Constantine’s conversion. That’s why the death of Christ takes up so much of each Gospel, and why Paul’s letters are packed with such lines as ‘we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’ (1 Corinthians 1:23).”[[<26>“Sins of the Fathers,” op. cit.]] In his History of Christianity, the eminent Owen Chadwick has this to say about the burial sites of nascent Christianity: “The catacombs contain the first surviving Christian art and symbols. There are paintings and carvings on tombs dating from about 230. . . . The Cross is the symbol most often seen in the catacombs.” [italics mine][[<27>A History of Christianity (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 56.]] Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy adds: “In 298, pagan priests conducting the auguries at Antioch complained that the presence of Christian officials was sabotaging the ceremonies (the Christians had defended themselves from demons during the ceremony by making the sign of the cross).[[<28>Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) p. 17.]] Thus, well before Constantine’s rise in the fourth century, the cross was at the very heart of Christianity, exalted and affirmed by its believers. What are we to make of a documentary whose central thesis is based on a historical lie?

As if that isn’t bad enough, Carroll feels the need to end his revisionist history on a note of blasphemy: “And why wouldn’t Constantine—a man who had murdered a son—be drawn to a God who required the death on the cross of his Son?” Even for an ex-priest, this is beyond the pale.

Because Christianity is not of this world, a case can always be made against church-state collaboration, but Carroll doesn’t make it. That discussion—if it is to shed any light at all—has to take place on a much higher plane. A good starting point might be the debate between Oliver O’Donovan and Stanley Hauerwas over the politics of Christendom.[[<29>See the brilliant essay, “A Kingdom of Martyrs: The Politics of Christendom,” by Davey Henreckson, available online at: www.agnology.com/2007/05/a_kingdom_of_martyrs_the_polit.html. I’m indebted to Mr. Henreckson for bringing my attention to the Hauerwas-O’Donovan debate.]] In response to Hauerwas’ charge that Christians under Constantine attempted to “further the kingdom through the power of this world,” O’Donovan replied:

I am afraid I think it is simply wrong. That is not what Christians were attempting to do. Their own account of what happened was that those who held power became subject to the rule of Christ. Of course, clear-sighted individuals could see the temptations this situation posed. Criticism of worldly championship or papal pretension did not begin with the dawn of modernity. But they did not think this danger a reason to refuse the triumph Christ had won among the nations.[[<30>The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 216.]]

The cultural and religious changes Constantine brought about, he continued, were compatible with Christianity—even if subject to its judgment:

With the vast changes of context catalysed by the Edict of Milan the question of how to understand the obedience of rulers came high on the church’s agenda. There is no point regretting this. The church of that age had to do contextual theology just as we do; nor did the evolution of the missionary questions into political ones strike anybody at the time as constituting a volte-face. This was the logical conclusion of their confidence in mission, the confirmation of what they had always predicted.[[<31>Ibid, p. 194]]

In other words, the success of the early Christians, in establishing “Christendom,” need not be seen as a betrayal of their faith, or capitulation to the powers of this world; rather, it was the fulfillment of Christ’s command to evangelize and transform it. As O’Donovan puts it: “Christendom is response to mission, and as such a sign that God has blessed it. It is constituted not by the church’s seizing alien power, but by alien power becoming attentive to the church.”[[<32>Ibid, p. 195]]

Blind to any of this, Carroll presses his case further, employing the zeal of an out-of-control prosecutor: “In an empire united under the cross, Jews were now in danger. They might well have been wiped out right then, but Church Fathers decided the Jews should wander in misery forever, without a home. The Roman Empire fell, despite its embrace of Christianity. The Western world descended into chaos that lasted for six centuries. Then the pope cried, ‘God wills it!’ calling for a crusade, a war of the cross, against Islam. Europe’s princes and their armies stopped fighting each other; they set out to fight Muslims in the Holy Land but turned first on the infidels they knew [Jews] along the Rhine.”

Carroll is confused, and a bit off here-by over half a millennium. The myth of the “Wandering Jew” did not take hold until the thirteenth century[[<33>“The ‘Wandering Jew’ is a figure from medieval Christian folklore whose legend began to spread in Europe in the thirteenth century….” (“Wandering Jew,” wikipedia.org). The earliest dating of the anti-Semitic legend “is recorded in the Flores Historiarum by Roger Wendover in the year 1228” (“Wandering Jew,” by Joseph Jacobs, JewishEncyclopedia.com).]]—but what’s seven or eight hundred years when you’re trying to score a cheap point against the Church Fathers? And the idea that the Crusades rose out of the blue (“then the pope cried, ‘God wills it!’”) is possible only if one ignores the Islamic aggression against Christians that preceded them. The pope who cried “God wills it!” had his reasons for doing so, even if they remain debatable. As Robert Spencer argues, “Pope Urban II, who called for the First Crusade at the Council of Claremont in 1095, was calling for a defensive action-one that was long overdue.” One of the biggest misperceptions of history, he says, “is the idea that the Crusades were an unprovoked attack by Europe against the Islamic world. In fact, the conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression, and Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution.” What ensued was “the destruction of churches, the burning of crosses, and the seizure of church property. . . . Untold number of Christians converted to Islam simply to save their lives.”[[<34>“Modern Aftermath of the Crusades: Robert Spencer on the Battles Still Being Waged,” Zenit News Agency, March 11, 2006. For the latest scholarship on the Crusades, see also, “Crusaders and Historians,” by Thomas F. Madden, First Things, June-July 2005, pp. 26-31.]] Is Carroll not aware of these assaults against human dignity, or has he simply chosen not to mention them? The crimes committed by Christians during the Crusades were evil and inexcusable, but to assail Christian abuses-and only Christian abuses—while airbrushing Islam, reveals either ignorance or bad faith. Ex-Father Carroll is obviously on his own unholy Crusade.

Further, his claim that the Christian West “descended into chaos” after the fall of Rome is right out of the Enlightenment school of anti-Christian propaganda. No one who has read Peter Brown’s Rise of Western Christendom[[<35>The Rise of Western Christendom (Second Edition) by Peter Brown (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003).]], or studied the brilliant works of Christopher Dawson[[<36>For an overview of Dawson’s many works and his unique contribution to Christian history, see Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson by Bradley J. Birzer (Front Royal: Christendom Press, 2007).]], can accept the myth of the Christian “Dark Ages.” Dawson, in particular, makes a point of stressing the inner dynamics, and irresistible nature, of Christianity, especially in its early development. If faith in Christ produced nothing but cruelty, intolerance, and fanaticism, it would have lost its appeal long ago. That it has survived—indeed flourished—even at times of great duress, indicates something more has been at work. Among the many failures of Constantine’s Sword is its refusal to acknowledge Christianity’s achievements. One would never know, watching this tract, how Christianity built on Judaism’s unique concept of monotheism and divine love. One would learn nothing about Christianity’s elevation of women, care for the poor, challenge to slavery, advances in science and medicine; nothing about its educational system, wondrous art, extraordinary religious orders-and yes, its philo-Semitism which has been documented every bit as much as have its sins.[[<37>“We can find plenty of instances among Catholics of a similar lack of prejudice towards the Jews—from the far-sighted popes of the time of the Council of Trent right down to the present day. Leo XIII, for instance, in his Encyclical of 15 February 1882 urges both clergy and laity to treat all derogatory generalizations about the Jews as things to be condemned out of hand and energetically to reject anti-Semitism as something wholly contrary to the spirit of Christ.” (The Jews: A Christian View by F. W. Foerster, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961, p. 101); for additional evidence of this, see the books by Flannery and Oesterreicher noted above.]] All one gets here are one-sided stories of horror and lament, inducing a feeling of revulsion in the viewer. Determined to expose anti-Semitism, and Christianity’s “teaching of contempt” against Jews—never mind how often its been repudiated—Constantine’s Sword succeeds only in the reverse: of creating a new teaching of contempt—a contempt for the Christian creed.[[<38>Carroll is not the only one who offends. In a special “Director’s Statement” from Oren Jacoby, part of the publicity material provided to reviewers of Constantine’s Sword, Jacoby goes so far as to ask: “Is there something in the DNA of Christianity—the majority religion in our country—that demonizes ‘the other’ and is inclined toward violence?”]]

That hostility is very much on display in the film’s treatment of the so-called religious right. Interspersed throughout the documentary, alongside its revisionist history, are attacks against conservative Christians, depicted as the final, awful result of Christianity’s exclusiveness. Early in the film we are taken to Colorado Springs, Colorado, headquarters of the U.S Air Force Academy—a place, we soon learn, that brings back difficult memories for Carroll, reminding him of his own misguided desire to become a cadet: “Being here makes me remember how very much I wanted to be in this world, this world of the Air Force,” he says—that is, before he freed himself from the grip of nationalism and militarism. But there is more. Colorado Springs is the home of many prominent evangelicals—Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and the now fallen Ted Haggard—and thus “a scene of controversy over one of the biggest religious revivals in our country,” warns Carroll. The documentary accuses evangelicals of proselytizing at the Academy—of pursuing “a mission to convert cadets.” Given that the academy was once troubled by a number of sexual-harassment incidents, many wouldn’t consider that a bad thing.[[<39>See “Commanders Faulted on Assaults at Academy,” by Thom Shanker, New York Times, December 8, 2004. As a result of these scandals, significant reforms were adopted by the Academy. Today it has a model policy against sexual harassment and assault, praised by leaders in the field: see: “Experts Praise AFA’s Steps Against Sex Assault,” by David Kassabian, Scripps Howard News Service, October 7, 2005.]] Faith-based values can enhance any institution, properly applied. But Carroll sees things differently, accusing evangelicals of creating an atmosphere of intolerance and coercion there. Casey Weinstein, a Jewish cadet, is brought on to allege prejudice at the academy, and his father, we later learn, actually sued the Air Force over its alleged religious bias.[[<40>Casey Weinstein’s father, Mikey, also a graduate of the Academy, sued the Air force: See “Air Force Sued Over Religion,” Associated Press, October 6, 2005; also “Marching as to War: Former Air Force Officer Mikey Weinstein Zeroes in on Proselytizing in the Military,” by Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, July 16, 2006. Mikey Weinstein also coauthored a book (with Davin Seay), With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006). As noted, the lawsuit was dismissed, but Weinstein continues to lead the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He is an articulate and forceful spokesman for it, but his views are not beyond challenge. A debate between Weinstein and Jay Sekulow, the well-known evangelical lawyer, took place at the Air Force Academy in 2007. It was covered by the Forward, and revealed this interesting exchange: “Addressing a sea of blue uniforms, Weinstein and Sekulow traded barbs over the extent to which military personnel, including Jews, should be permitted to express their religion when on duty. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said he agreed with a 1986 Supreme Court ruling that an Air Force member could not wear a yarmulke on duty, as it interfered with the uniformity of dress. ‘This is where we disagree,’ Sekulow responded. ‘I think he should have been able to wear the yarmulke.’” (The Forward, April 27, 2007). Who sounds more open to religious freedom here?]] To the extent any problems existed, it was good they came to light.

But the story does not end there. After the allegations surfaced, the Pentagon immediately launched an investigation and found that the accusations were largely exaggerated. As the New York Times reported: “The panel said it had found no ‘overt religious discrimination’—only ‘insensitivity’—and praised the academy leadership for working aggressively to confront religious problems.”[[<41>“Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion,” by Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, June 23, 2005.]] A federal judge subsequently agreed, throwing out the related lawsuit.[[<42>See “Ruling Upholds Air Force on Religious Issue,” the Associated Press, October 27, 2006; also, “Air Force Academy Religion Suit Dismissed: Graduates Allegations of Bias, Evangelizing Vague, Judge Says,” by Bill Vogrin, The Gazette (Colorado Springs), October 28, 2006.]] Nonetheless, lest there be any doubt about its commitment to religious freedom, the academy soon implemented a mandatory class in religious tolerance for all 4,000 cadets and 5,000 other personnel;[[<43>“Air Force Academy Wrestles with Alleged Religious Bias,” by Patrick O’Driscoll, USA Today, May 3, 2005. ]] the superintendent of the academy delivered a well-received address to the Anti-Defamation League in Denver;[[<44>See “Remarks of Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa, Jr., Superintendent, U.S. Air Force Academy, ADL National Executive Committee Meeting, Denver, Colorado, June 3, 2005,” available on the Anti-Defamation League’s website: www.adl.org.]] and a prominent rabbi was brought in to oversee the academy’s relationship with Jews and other non-Christians.[[<45>See “Air Force Names Rabbi to Bias Post,” Associated Press, June 27, 2005.]] Any fair evaluation of the religious policies at the academy would mention these important facts; Constantine’s Sword does not mention a single one.

Melinda Morton, a former Air Force chaplain at the academy, is the one—and evidently only—chaplain to claim religious bias at the academy; but it soon becomes clear she has a larger target: “When a conservative Christian evangelical ideology becomes the norm for the Air Force,” she says ominously, “then anything that appears other needs to be at least moved to the side, if not banished and denigrated and humiliated. And what is most visibly other to conservative Christian evangelicals is Jewishness.” These demeaning generalizations, ascribing bigotry to evangelicals, are reminiscent of the Washington Post’s crude stereotype of them as “poor, uneducated and easily led.”[[<46> For an analysis and rebuttal of this prejudice, see In Defense of the Religious Right by Patrick Hynes (Nashville: Nelson Current, 2006). Morton’s claims have always been disputed: See, for example, “On a Wing and a Prayer,” by Sara Lipka, The Chronicle of Higher Education,” April 7, 2006; and the earlier report, “Religious Bullying at US Academy,” by Mathew Wells, BBC News, June 17, 2005. Quoted in the latter story was Phil Guin, a Methodist minister who also served as a chaplain at the Academy: “The picture has been painted that we’re holding a big tent revival here…its not that at all.”]] They also diminish the Jewish roots of Christianity, which evangelicals are well aware of. Apparently, Morton doesn’t know—or care—that faithful evangelicals read and cherish the Old Testament as well as the New, and therefore believe anti-Semitism is anti-Christian, a sin that strikes at the very heart of their faith.

In an interview with the present writer, Johnny Whittaker—a graduate of the academy, on active service for thirty years, and now civilian director of communications there—disputed its depiction in Constantine’s Sword and said the documentary did not give proper time for a rebuttal: “I personally was interviewed for the documentary in February 2006 and for more than an hour on camera addressed the issues and incidents James Carroll cited as examples of religious intolerance at the academy. I did my best then to correct the record. However, the final documentary used less than 15 seconds of my interview, and, in my estimation, my statement in the film—and a TV clip of [former superintendent] General Rosa commenting on the situation at the time—were out of place and out of context.”

He continued: “Everyone here—cadets, staff, and faculty alike—are educated on the religious-respect issues, regulations, and policies. It’s mandatory training. As a result of this education and the new programs we have in place, we have not had any complaints of religious insensitivity over the last two years. Should we get some, they will be dealt with swiftly and fairly.”[[<47>Statement from Johnny Whitaker, Director of Academy Communications, US Air Force Academy, email, March 13, 2008.]]

Even when the documentary raises legitimate questions, it tries to prove too much. Back in 2004, after The Passion of the Christ came out, fliers promoting the film were placed on the dining-hall plates of every cadet, including those who disliked it. The documentary properly criticizes this overly aggressive marketing technique but doesn’t stop there; it feels the need to attack the film itself and question the motives of anyone who admired it. Thus, Casey Weinstein and his wife express their mutual disgust with the film, with Casey commenting: “I felt terrible watching that movie, just absolutely terrible. I look at how they portray Jews—these are my people; we are being portrayed as the people who killed Christ. How can believers look at that and not get pissed and angry at the Jews?” Apparently, quite easily. The first comprehensive survey taken after the film’s release, by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, showed an actual decrease of anti-Jewish feelings among Christians who saw it.[[<48>See “The Passion of Christ Having Unexpected Impact: Film and Surrounding Debate Might be Lessening Hostility Toward Jews, Says IJCR Poll,” March 15, 2004 news release from International Communications Research.]] And no one should be surprised. Film critic Roger Ebert—hardly a member of the religious right—commented: “A reasonable person . . . will reflect that in this story set in a Jewish land, there are many characters with many motives, some good, some not, each one representing himself, none representing his religion. The story involves a Jew who tried no less than replace the established religion and set Himself up as the Messiah. He was understandably greeted with a jaundiced eye by the Jewish establishment while at the same time finding his support, his disciples and the founders of his church entirely among his fellow Jews.” The Passion of the Christ, concluded Ebert, “is not anti-Semitic, but reflects a range of behavior on the part of the Jewish characters, on balance favorably. The Jews who seem to desire Jesus’ death are in the priesthood and have political reasons for acting. . . . The other Jews seen in the film are viewed positively; Simon helps Jesus to carry the Cross. Veronica brings a cloth to wipe his face. Jews cry out against his torture.”[[<49>See Ebert’s review of The Passion of the Christ, February 24, 2004, available online at www.RogerEbert.com.]] Similarly, Vatican Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos commented:

Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light. This film does nothing of the sort. It draws out from the historical objectivity of the Gospel narratives sentiments of forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation. It captures the subtleties and the horror of sin, as well as the gentle power of love and forgiveness, without making or insinuating blanket condemnations against one group. This film expressed the exact opposite, that learning from the example of Christ, there should never be any more violence against any other human being.[[<50>See “The Cardinal and the Passion,” by Antonio Gaspari, National Review online, September 18, 2003.]]

The Weinsteins’ concerns about the film is undoubtedly sincere and shared by a number of Christians. But as the cardinal’s comments demonstrate, there are equally sincere people who loved The Passion of the Christ and found it deeply moving. The inability to recognize this as a good-faith debate undercuts the stated purpose of Constantine’s Sword: to respect and even appreciate those who disagree with you.

Putting on his professor’s cap, Carroll tries yet again to offer another history lesson, only to fall on his own sword—and not Constantine’s. Carroll accuses the Church—and in particular Pope Benedict—of trying to rewrite the history of the Third Reich. Visiting a Cologne synagogue in 2005, says Carroll, the pope did address “the tragedy of the Shoah, the Holocaust [but] his acknowledgement of the Shoah was incomplete. He said Nazi hatred of Jews was ‘born of neo-paganism’—as if that’s the only source of it. Well, it was born of Nazi neo-paganism; but that hatred had two parents, and the other one—the long tradition of Christian anti-Judaism—he didn’t mention.” But as anyone who reads the speech can see, he did. In the very paragraph quoted by Carroll, the Pope also said: “The Jewish community in Cologne can truly feel ‘at home’ in this city. Cologne is, in fact, the oldest site of a Jewish community on German soil, dating back to the Colonia of Roman times. The history of relations between the Jewish and Christian communities has been complex and often painful. There were times when the two lived together peacefully but there was also the expulsion of the Jews from Cologne in the year 1424.”[[<51>See “Pope’s Address in Synagogue in Cologne,” (second paragraph), Zenit News Agency, August 19, 2005. For the favorable Jewish reaction to the pope’s address—not mentioned in the film—see “Pope Notes ‘Insane’ Ideology of Nazis During Synagogue Visit,” by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, August 19, 2005; and “Pope Visits German Synagogue and Warns of Growing Anti-Semitism,” by Ian Fisher, New York Times, August 20, 2005. Pope Benedict XVI delivered a similar address at Auschwitz in May 2006: On that visit, see “Auschwitz is Always,” by Joseph Bottum, First Things online, May 29, 2006.]]

If this is not a clear acknowledgement of “Christian anti-Judaism,” what is? And the comment was made in the very city in which the abuse occurred. Aside from distorting the pope’s address, Carroll misses its purpose. Benedict’s emphasis at the Cologne synagogue was on our Judeo-Christian heritage, which the Nazis sought to eradicate[[<52>Recently released archives reveal just how determined the Nazis were to annihilate Christianity, along with Judaism: see: “The Case Against the Nazis: How Hitler’s Forces Planned to Destroy German Christianity,” by Joe Sharkey, New York Times, January 13, 2002.]]—not the sins of individual Christians, which have been acknowledged many times. In October 1997, when Pope Benedict was still serving as John Paul II’s principle adviser, the Vatican sponsored a three-day conference on anti-Judaism—the very topic Carroll claims is being avoided. At that conference, John Paul II delivered a very moving, and properly balanced, address: “In the Christian world—I do not say on the part of the Church as such—the wrong and unjust interpretations of the New Testament relating to the Jewish people and their presumed guilt circulated for too long, contributing to a feeling of hostility toward these people. These contributed to soothing consciences to the point that when a wave of persecutions swept Europe fueled by a pagan anti-Semitism—next to those Christians who did everything to save the persecuted at the risk of their own lives—the spiritual resistance of many was not that which humanity expected from the disciples of Christ.” The following March, the Holy See issued its historic teaching We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, expressing similar regrets while defending righteous Christians who lived up to their faith. These statements are more than ten years old and have received extensive publicity.[[<53>For John Paul’s address at the 1997 conference, see “Pope Ties ‘Unjust’ Teachings to Anti-Semitism,” by Celestine Bohlen, New York Times, November 1, 1997. The text of We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (March 16, 1998) is available online via the Vatican’s official website: www.vatican.va. See also “The Vatican and the Holocaust: The Overview,” by Celestine Bohlen, New York Times, March 17, 1998.]] Carroll doesn’t mention either. Who’s rewriting history here?

Carroll’s treatment of the fascist-Nazi period is similarly skewed. He highlights Italy’s anti-Semitic decrees under Mussolini without describing how the Church combated them: denouncing racialism, taking in Jews expelled from their jobs, and providing protection[[<54>For evidence of this assistance, see Church and State in Fascist Italy, by Daniel A. Binchy (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); also “Scholars at the Vatican,” Commonweal, December 4, 1942.]]. Commenting on the Vatican’s 1933 Concordat with Germany, he asserts: “The Vatican became the first foreign power to enter into a bilateral treaty with Hitler. It included a secret provision in which the Church defended Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but indicated it would have nothing to say about Nazi assaults against other Jews.” This is shameful. First, the Concordat was not an endorsement of the ruthless German regime but a defense mechanism against it; it explicitly asserts that the agreement “does not involve any sort of limitation of official and prescribed preaching and interpretation of the dogmatic and moral teachings and principles of the Church.”[[<55>From Article 32 of the Supplementary Protocol to the Concordat; for full text, see Controversial Concordats, edited by Frank Coppa, (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999), pp. 205-214.]] That this and other provisions in the Concordat were at least partially effective is proven by Hitler’s later fulminations against it,[[<56>See Hitler’s outburst against the Concordat, on July 4, 1942, in Hitler’s Table Talk, op. cit., 553-554.]] realizing it had become a means of anti-Nazi subversion. Second, by using the term “bilateral,” i.e., between two entities, Carroll is able to avoid revealing that the first international treaty with Hitler’s Germany, was not the Vatican-German Concordat but the Four-Power Pact between Germany, France, England, and Italy, which preceded it by a full month. Even before that, the Soviets and the British had accepted friendship and trade agreements with Germany; Germany was recognized by the League of Nations; and in August 1933, one month before the Concordat was ratified, Palestinian Jews signed the Haavara agreement with Germany, relating to emigration.[[<57>The German-Vatican Concordat was signed on July 20, 1933, and ratified on September 10, 1933. The Four-Power Pact was initialed on June 7, 1933, and formally signed on July 15, 1933. The Soviet and British agreements with Germany were made on the same day, May 5, 1933; the Haavara Agreement, also known as the “Transfer Agreement,” was signed on August 25, 1933. For details, see “Four Powers Sign Mussolini Act,” by Arnaldo Cortesi, New York Times, June 8, 1933; The 1933 Concordat Between Germany and the Holy See: A Reflection of Tense Relations by Ronald J. Rychlak, The Digest, 2001 (National Italian American Bar Association Law Journal); and Hitler’s Rise to Power by Denis Barton (Birkenhead: Church in History Information Center), available online at: www.churchinhistory.org. On the Haavara (also known as the Transfer) Agreement, see The Third Reich and the Palestine Question by Francis R. Nicosia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).]]

Third, Carroll’s attack about the Concordat and its supposed indifference toward Jews is disingenuous. The agreement concentrates on the specific rights of the Church, appropriate to her nature; but those concerns certainly didn’t exclude non-Catholics. This was understood at the time. On September 13, 1933, the Palestine Post ran the headline “Pope Signs Pact with Germany: Jews Must be Treated with Christian Charity” atop a story that read, “Jews must be treated with Christian charity, is the injunction which the Vatican has transmitted to Germany in the memorandum accompanying the ratification of the Concordat.” Speaking directly to Carroll’s point, it continues: “It is understood here that negotiations will begin shortly between the Vatican and the German government to secure the reinstatement of the rights of baptized Jews in Germany. The Vatican is also pressing for the charitable treatment of non-baptized Jews.” Zolt Aradi, a Hungarian diplomat stationed in Europe during the 1930’s, wrote a biography of Pius XI contending that the clergy and hierarchy used the Concordat “to save as many persecuted Jews as could be saved.”[[<58>Pius XI: The Pope and the Man by Zsolt Aradi (Garden City, New York: Hanover House, 1958), p. 222.]] This was in keeping with papal teaching, which had condemned anti-Semitism repeatedly, notably in a decree of March 25, 1928—five years before the Nazis came to power—declaring that the Church “condemns with all its might the hatred directed against a people which was chosen by God; that particular hatred, in fact, which today goes by the name of anti-Semitism.”[[<59>This condemnation was cited by Catholics fighting the Axis during World War II: See “Italy: Anti-Semitism,” The Tablet (London), July 25, 1942.]] The very first protest lodged with Germany by the Vatican, on April 4, 1933, was made on behalf of Jews, not Catholics.[[<60>See “New Proofs of Pius XII’s Efforts to Assist Jews: 1933 Letter Targets ‘Anti-Semitic Excesses’ in Germany,” Zenit News Agency, February 17, 2003.]] In May of that year, Pius XI met with a Jewish delegation in Rome, with the Jewish Chronicle reporting: “It is understood that the pope was extremely concerned about the sufferings imposed on the Jews and expressed his sympathy with them and his desire to help.”[[<61>“The Popes Desire to Help,” The Jewish Chronicle, May 12, 1933.]] In September, the same paper called attention to a new papal denunciation of Nazi anti-Semitism, quoting Pius XI as having “recalled the fact that Jesus Christ, the Madonna, the apostles and the prophets and many saints were all of the Hebrew race, and that the Bible is a Hebrew creation. The Aryan races, he declared, had no claim to superiority over the Semites.”[[<62>“Pope Denounces Anti-Semitism,” The Jewish Chronicle, September 1, 1933.]]

Perhaps Carroll and Jacoby are unaware of these rarely cited facts. But surely they are aware of Pius XI’s famous public condemnation of anti-Semitism, on September 6, 1938, aimed at Hitler and Mussolini: “Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is Our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.”[[<63>See “The Holy Father on the Jews,” The Tablet, September 24, 1938.]]

“This statement,” writes Ronald Rychlak, “was made while the most powerful nation in Europe had an officially anti-Semitic government and was poised only a few hundred miles to the north of Rome. Everyone understood their significance, especially the victims.”[[<64>From Rychlak’s review, “Daniel Kertzer’s The Popes Against the Jews,” The Catalyst, December 2001, available online at http://www.catholicleague.org/research/kertzer.htm.]] It is a statement still quoted today. But Constantine’s Sword makes no mention of it. The omission is striking, as 2008 marks the seventieth anniversary of these historic words. Also missing is any mention of the Vatican’s support for Cardinal Hinsley’s public condemnation of German anti-Semitism in the wake of Kristallnacht—an intervention in which Pacelli was directly involved. That intervention, documented in volume six of the Holy See’s wartime collection,[[<65>See Actes et Documents du Saint Siege Relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1972), volume 6, pp. 12-13 and 539.]] was accompanied by a message of papal support for Jewish refugees attempting to escape Germany.[[<66>See “Pope Backs Britons on Aid to Refugees,” New York Times, December 10, 1938.]]

In his book on which this documentary is based, Carroll repeatedly assailed Pius XII, drawing heavily from John Cornwell’s notorious tract Hitler’s Pope. Perhaps aware of how badly that book has fared under scholarly examination, Carroll now pretends to qualify his thesis: “Cardinal Pacelli went on to become Pope Pius XII. While it may be unfair to call him Hitler’s Pope,” he says now, thinking he is being charitable, “it’s not too much to call him Hitler’s cardinal.” This is not only false—Pacelli was despised by the Nazis, and it was he who drafted Pius XI’s famous anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (1937)—it’s another rip-off of Cornwell, who used the same line back in 2002. Reviewing Daniel Goldhagen’s book A Moral Reckoning, Cornwell concluded by describing “important lessons for subsequent generations. Pacelli did not need consciously to espouse Hitler’s cause to be Hitler’s cardinal if not his pope.”[[<67>“Catholicism in the Dock,” by John Cornwell, reviewing Daniel Goldhagen’s book, A Moral Reckoning, in the Sunday Times (London), October 27, 2002.]] Interestingly, two years after he wrote this, Cornwell further tailored his thesis by writing: “I would now argue, in light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope, that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the War, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”[[<68>The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II by John Cornwell (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. 193; see also, Cornwell’s remarks to interviewer John Hinton in, “I Never Accused Pius of Being a Nazi,” the Catholic Herald (Britain), July 27, 2007.]]

Apart from the error about Pius XII’s “silence,” this is quite a concession. Carroll cannot be unaware of Cornwell’s reversal, because he—Carroll—reviewed the very book in which Cornwell announced it. In that review, published in the Washington Post, Carroll made no mention of Cornwell’s change of heart but did write: “In 1999, John Cornwell published Hitler’s Pope. . . . The book caused a sensation, driving a stake through the pope’s reputation. Pius XII’s defenders dismissed Cornwell, but when new lists of people being promoted toward sainthood were published after that, Pius XII’s name was conspicuously absent. He isn’t mentioned much for sainthood anymore.”[[<69>“The Pope and His Legacy,” by James Carroll, reviewing John Cornwell’s book, The Pontiff in Winter, in the Washington Post, January 30, 2005.]] Carroll is clueless. Even as he wrote these words, Pacelli’s cause was proceeding undisturbed; the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints was putting the finishing touches on a 3,000-page positio, or dossier, covering every aspect of Pius’ pontificate, incorporating firsthand testimony, new archival evidence, and drawing on the latest historical scholarship, answering the allegations of his detractors. The result was a unanimous vote by the Congregation’s judicial committee to recognize the “heroic virtues” of Pius XII and a formal recommendation to the Holy See to advance his cause.[[<70>See “Sainthood Congregation Recommends Pope Pius XII be Named Venerable,” by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service, May 14, 2007.]] The Catholic world now awaits the next stage, which will come when Pope Benedict formally declares Pius XII “Venerable.” The Catholic League recently sent the Holy See a petition with 15,000 signatures calling for just that.[[<71>On March 2, 2008, the 50th anniversary of Eugenio Pacelli’s election as Pope Pius XII, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights announced 15,000 of its members had signed a letter in support of Pius XII’s cause; the appeal was sent to the Holy See: see the release, “Thousands Show Support for Pius XII; Petition Pope for Beatification,” available at the Catholic league’s website (www.catholicleague.org).]] That independent historians of the rank of Martin Gilbert[[<72>See Gilbert’s book, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), especially chapter 15, “Italy and the Vatican,” pp. 356-380. See also my long interview with Gilbert in “The Untold Story: Catholic Rescuers of Jews,” by William Doino Jr., Inside the Vatican, August 2003, pp. 26-36.]] and Michael Burleigh[[<73>See Burleigh’s book Sacred Causes (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), especially pp. 218-283.]] now praise Pius XII is further evidence of a sea change regarding his pontificate. People do indeed talk about Pius XII’s sainthood, and chances are that many of us will live to see it.

One Catholic who has been canonized is Edith Stein, now St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who perished at Auschwitz in 1942. Carroll recounts her well-known conversion but attacks her elevation, viewing it as a convenient way for the Church to salve its conscience and “Christianize” the Holocaust. The “real story,” Carroll assures us, has never been told. And what exactly is that? In 1933, shortly after entering the Carmelite order, Stein wrote a letter to Pope Pius XI, imploring him to take a stand against Nazi anti-Semitism. As we have seen, he did just that, and his efforts were covered by the Jewish press. But Carroll claims nothing was done, citing an entry in Stein’s diary, from 1938, suggesting that Stein never received a reply. Obtaining a copy of the 1933 letter from an elderly German nun, who knew Stein, Carroll asserts he is “the first person to ask to see it.” In a haunting voiceover, the actress Natasha Richardson, reads the letter—but only a portion of it, conveniently omitting the part that speaks about Nazi persecution of Catholics.[[<74>The full text of the letter includes these two sentences: “For the time being, the fight against Catholicism will be conducted quietly and less brutally than against Jewry, but no less systematically. It won’t take long before no Catholic will be able to hold office in Germany unless he dedicates himself unconditionally to the new course of action.” These lines are omitted in the film. For the full text of the letter, complete with analysis about its significance, see “Edith Stein’s Letter,” by William Doino Jr., Inside the Vatican Magazine, March 2003, pp. 22-31.]] The film presents the letter as a dramatic revelation. Director Oren Jacoby even told the Jewish Journal: “I got goosebumps when the nun shared the letter with us. It’s thrilling when you discover that the story you thought was there actually does exist.”[[<75>As quoted in “L.A. Film Festival Features a History of Hate and an Israeli Spy,” Jewishjournal.com, June 22, 2007. Jacoby also told Bloomberg News that his hunt for Stein’s letter “became kind of a detective story.” (“’Constantine’ Follows Murderous Christian Soldiers,” by Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg.com, April 24, 2008.)]]

The letter is real, but the “discovery” is a hoax. Five years ago, I obtained a copy of Stein’s 1933 letter, shortly after the archives from Pius XI’s pontificate were released.[[<76>The release of Pius XI’s archives, including Stein’s letter, were well-publicized at the time: See “Stein Letter Emerges from the Vatican Archives,” Associated Press, February 19, 2003, available on CNN’s website (www.cnn.com) and many other places.]] Those archives revealed that Stein’s plea was answered—in a sympathetic reply by none other than Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII). Pacelli’s letter was sent to Stein’s abbot, Raphael Walzer of the Beuron Abbey, because it was he who had mailed the letter to the Vatican. (Following protocol, Stein had her abbot forward it.) The reply correspondence may have been blocked by Nazi surveillance (hence, the likely explanation for her diary entry wondering about the Vatican’s reaction). Also revealed, in the new archives, were actions taken by the Holy See on behalf of Jews, even before Stein sent her letter. My dossier explaining all these facts was published in the March 2003 issue of Inside the Vatican magazine and has been available online for some time.[[<77>See “Edith Stein’s Letter,” by William Doino, available at: http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=5078. My article was cited by Susanne Batzdorff, Edith Stein’s niece, in her book Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint, second edition (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 2003); and also by Michael Burleigh in his Sacred Causes, op. cit., pp. 179 and 495, note 94.]] Couldn’t Carroll and Jacoby have spent five minutes on Google finding this information out? That the documentary also fails to reveal the crucial reason Stein was sent to Auschwitz—because the Dutch bishops, citing papal teaching,[[<78>For a description of these statements by the Dutch Bishops, see Pinchas Lapide’s Three Popes and the Jews (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1967), pp. 197-209.]] publicly condemned the deportations, triggering the Nazi round-up of Catholics of Jewish descent, including Stein—only adds to the deception.

Carroll concludes his meditation on Auschwitz by trying to appeal to Jewish sensitivities, and the Christian conscience, but only succeeds at offending: “If Jesus had died here, it would not have been as a Savior of the world, but as an unknown Jew, with a number on his arm.” Of course, Christ did die a brutal death, on the cross; and Christians believe that he was, is, and shall forever remain the Savior of the world—a belief Edith Stein unforgettably testified to.[[<79>The best biography of Stein, testifying to her profound Catholic faith and witness, is Hilda Graef’s, The Scholar and the Cross: The Life and Work of Edith Stein (Westminster: Maryland, Newman Press, 1955).]]

Carroll concludes his indictment of the wartime Church by depicting it as utterly indifferent to the fate of Jews. Nowhere is that clearer, says Carroll, than in the Vatican’s supposedly passive reaction to the Nazi round-up of Rome’s Jews on October 16, 1943—which he calls “the episode that made me, as a Christian, feel most ashamed.” But if the Vatican was so indifferent to the Holocaust, then why did the Palestine Post write in September 1942: “In their sermons, Catholic priests have cited the warning by the Vatican Radio that anyone furthering the persecution of Jews is an accomplice to murder”?[[<80>“Vatican Condemns Vichy Anti-Jewish Measures,” Palestine Post, September 20, 1942.]] And why, just a few months later, did Pius XII deliver a famous Christmas address, provoking the Nazis to brand him a “mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals”?[[<81>As quoted from wartime German documents, in Anthony Rhodes book, The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pp. 272-273.]] As for the Vatican’s reaction to the round-up of Rome’s Jews, far from being its most “shameful” moment, it was one of its finest. As Michael Tagliacozzo, the leading authority on the round-up and a survivor of it himself, has pointed out, Pius XII was the only leader who did take forceful action against it, helping save three-quarters of Rome’s Jews.[[<82>See “Jewish Historian Praises Pius XII’s Wartime Conduct,” Zenit New Agency, October 26, 2000. Also note the extensive profile, “Witness to a Miracle: Michael Tagliacozzo, a Jewish Historian and Holocaust Survivor who Lives in Israel, Says Pius XII Was the Only One Who Intervened to Impede the Deportation of Jews from Rome on October 16, 1943,” by Sister Margherita Marchione, Inside the Vatican, April 2008, pp. 88-93.]]

Anne O’Hare McCormick, who covered these events for the New York Times, wrote after the liberation: “The Romans give credit to the Pontiff for the sparing of the city . . . the Vatican was a refuge for thousands of fugitives from the Nazi-Fascist reign of terror, Jews received first priority . . . but all the hunted found sanctuary in the Vatican and its hundreds of convents and monasteries in the Rome region. What the pope did was to create an attitude in favor of the persecuted and hunted that the city was quick to adopt so that hiding someone ‘on the run’ became the thing to do.”[[<83>See her column “Position of Pope in Italy has Been Enhanced by War,” August 21, 1944, published in Vatican Journal, 1921-1954 by Anne O’Hare McCormick (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957), pp. 117-120.]] Even cloistered nuns were aware of Pius XII’s orders to rescue Jews. “Having arrived at this month of November [1943] we must be ready to render services of charity in a completely unexpected way,” wrote one of them, in a recently discovered diary. “The Holy Father Pius XII, of paternal heart, feels in himself all the sufferings of the moment. Unfortunately with the Germans entry into Rome, which happened in the month of September, a ruthless war against the Jews has begun, whom they wish to exterminate by means of atrocities prompted by the blackest of barbarities. They round up young Italians, political figures, in order to torture them and finish them off in the most tremendous torments. In this painful situation the Holy Father wants to save his children, also the Jews, and orders that hospitality be given in the convents to these persecuted, and that the cloisters must also adhere to the wish of the Supreme Pontiff.”[[<84>See “The Unpublished Memorial of the Augustinian Nuns of the Convent of the San Quattro Coronati in Rome,” in the Italian journal, 30 Days, August 2006, available online at: http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=11037. See also the accompanying article “The Jews Hidden in the Convents: The Holy Father Orders” at: http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=11035.]] After the war, the Jewish community in Rome was so grateful that they paid special tribute to Pius XII. In March 1946, the Museum of Liberation unveiled a plaque that reads: “The Congress of Delegates of the Italian Israelite communities, held in Rome for the first time after the Liberation, is obliged to pay tribute to Your Holiness, and to express the deepest sense of gratitude from all Jews, for the show of human brotherhood by the Church during the years of persecution and when their lives were put in danger by Nazi-Fascist atrocities.”[[<85>A photograph of the tribute appears in Inside the Vatican magazine, June 1997, p. 25. For a full-scale response to the leading critics of Pius XII, see The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII, edited by Joseph Bottum and David G. Dalin (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004).]]

If Constantine’s Sword teaches us little about history, it reveals a great deal about James Carroll. Anyone who has read his memoir, An American Requiem: God, my Father, and the War that Came Between Us,[[<86>An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us (New York: Mariner Books, 1996).]] knows about his love-hate relationship with his father, Joe, an Air Force lieutenant general who helped prosecute the Vietnam War. Critics have drawn a connection between James’ paternal rebellion and his revolt against the Church.[[<87>“It doesn’t take a doctorate in psychology to see that Carroll’s disenchantment with the Church, which he once regarded with wide-eyed idealism, is deeply intertwined with his personal issues with his father,” (Harry Forbes, reviewing the film version of Constantine’s Sword, for the Catholic News Service); also, Sister Mary Boys, a leader in Catholic-Jewish relations, said that the film is “skewed by the fact that its so tied personally to James Carroll,” paying “insufficient attention to the many generations of people who have worked for justice for the Jews in the Church, and (for) a corrected self-understanding in our own (faith) tradition.” (Catholic News Service, April 22, 2008).]] Freudian analysis aside, what strikes one most about this documentary is how much Carroll puts himself at its center. Constantine’s Sword appears to have meaning only to the extent it illuminates James Carroll’s own tormented life. Describing how he was misled into the priesthood, he points to the sacred Catholic relics he was shown as a child—only to learn that they were “fiction” and “pure invention”[[<88>In the film, Carroll describes his youthful devotion to the relics of Christendom—especially those associated with St. Helena, Constantine’s mother (for example, the True Cross, the Robe of Christ)—only to learn, from unnamed experts (“scholars now tell us”), that they are pious legends, with no evidence behind them. What he does not tell the viewer is that such relics, however famous and honored, are not, and have never been, a fundamental part of Catholic belief; and according to Catholic teaching, faithful Catholics are free to disbelieve in them.]]—and ultimately blames his parents: “My mother told me that she was the Blessed Mother’s representative here on earth—that is to say, her name was Mary; and she made me understand that she was associated with Mary. Of course, I was aware my father’s name was Joseph; my initials were J.C. I just came of age in a relationship with my mom and dad that very much included God in the family circle.” Such religious doting, combined with a special audience his family arranged with Pope John XXIII, induced Carroll to enter the religious life. But when he did, he says, he knew nothing about the violent history of his Church. “I didn’t know any of it when I made the most important decision of my life.” The problem, you see, was that Carroll bought into the Church’s own propaganda: “I was a young Catholic brought into this perfect Church—it was the place that human beings were entirely pure. We had saints; we knew who they were; and our priests and our bishops and our popes were holy, holy men. I hadn’t a clue about the failure.”

This narrative defies belief. Faithful Catholics believe that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ; as such they hold that it is sinless, in its spiritual essence. But the Church does not teach, and has never taught, that all its members are perfect—quite the contrary. Original sin and human imperfection are core elements of Catholic teachings; so pronounced are they that an enormous body of literature exists, among disaffected Catholics, accusing the Church of saddling them with feelings of “guilt” and “shame.” Yet Carroll wants us to believe that the preconciliar Church taught that all Catholics were sinless, holier than angels. Are we to believe that Carroll never heard of the sacrament of penance until he entered the priesthood? Perhaps he did but wasn’t aware that popes and bishops attend to it as well. Even more incredible is the idea that Carroll had no idea about Catholic history when he decided to become a priest. Sixty years before Carroll was even born, Leo XIII had opened the Vatican’s archives, asserting that the Church “has nothing to fear from the truth.”[[<89>“Historical Scholars are indebted to him [Leo XII] for the opening of the Vatican Archives (1883), on which occasion he published a splendid encyclical on the importance of historical studies, in which he declares that the Church has nothing to fear from historical truth.” (“Pope Leo XIII,” Catholic Encyclopedia, available online at the newadvent.org website).]] And when Carroll was growing up in the fifties and sixties, historians like Henri Daniel-Rops[[<90>Henri Daniel-Rops (1901-1965), the eminent French historian, published his multivolume, Histoire de l’Eglise du Christ (History of the Church of Christ) from 1948-1956; these books were translated into English well before Carroll became a priest, in 1969.]] and Hubert Jedin[[<91>Hubert Jedin (1900-1981) was among the greatest Catholic historians of the twentieth century; his best-known work is A History of the Council of Trent (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1957).]] were publishing massive church histories, leaving no stone unturned regarding the sins of Catholics, including high-ranking prelates. If Carroll was unaware of these facts, at the moment he made “the most important decision” of his life, that’s an indictment of his own ignorance—and lack of preparation for the priesthood—not the fault of the Church.

Obviously unsuited for the religious life, Carroll became easy prey for the Church’s secularizers, though he now credits them with helping him slough off (as he sees it) the dead carcass of preconciliar thinking: “I began to think about religion more critically. Instead of making me more obedient and accepting, the seminary gave me the ability to challenge some of the things I’d never questioned about my Church and about America.” Among them was what he sarcastically calls “America’s struggle against godless Communism.” The crimes of communism are of course real—all too real[[<92>“In 1995 a Russian government commission found that more than 200,000 priests and nuns of various denominations had been killed, and half a million imprisoned or deported in Soviet purges of the 1920s and 1930s, a period now described as the worst persecution ever inflicted on Christians. Russian school textbooks state that 20 million Soviet and East European citizens perished in communist labor camps; another 15 million died during famines, deportations, and mass executions.” (National Catholic Register, November 2-29, 1997). This is just in the Soviet Union; for the full extent of Communist horrors around the globe, see The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, edited by Stephane Cortois, et. al. (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1999).]]—but Carroll acts as if they’re a concoction of the military-industrial complex, a product of far-right paranoia. In his eyes, the real nobility was fighting anticommunism, not communism itself. As the documentary relates, one of the defining moments in his life was his participation in the antiwar movement: Joining it was a thrill, more satisfying than anything an old catechism could deliver, and it had the added benefit of humiliating his conservative father. Carroll describes his transformation—from pious young Catholic to radical priest-activist—as a story of someone who finally found his calling, until, one assumes, his next prophetic impulse: leaving the priesthood itself. He believes opposing the Vietnam War was an epic achievement and proudly places himself among the luminaries who dared speak against it.

Of course, speaking out against the Vietnam War—given the way it was being fought, the enormous sacrifices involved, and the limited prospects for victory—may have been morally prudent, even necessary, but there was nothing exceptional about protest in 1969, the year Carroll was ordained. By that time, most Americans, including many conservatives, were demanding an end to the conflict, hoping (alas, unsuccessfully) for “peace with honor.” But Carroll, ever the egotist, feels the need to present his own opposition as heroic: “Its 1969, and I’m to be ordained as a Catholic priest. I’m saying my first Mass in the chapel at Boling Air Force base, because that’s where my parents live; it’s the tradition. And in the chapel [are] my mom and dad’s neighbors, friends colleagues, the general officers of the United States Air Force. . . . But we are in the middle of a war, and I knew that the intelligence assessments in Vietnam where coming from the Defense Intelligence Agency—from my father. Vietnam tore this country apart, set one generation against another, and my father and I had long since stopped discussing it. But I have to give a sermon, and I preached on the text from Ezekiel, where he describes the valley full of dead bones. I said that the bones he was looking at had been burned, scorched by the sun [pause, for dramatic effect] and then I said, ‘and by napalm.’ It was as close as I could get to referring to the war in Vietnam, but it was plenty close—believe me—the word napalm, in that chapel, on that day, was a deep offense, and my father never forgave me for it.”

Not exactly the stuff of martyrdom, but Carroll makes it sound as if he endured worse torments than St. Isaac Jogues under the Iroquois.

One of the men Carroll says inspired him was Daniel Berrigan, the famous Jesuit and Catholic peace activist. But Father Berrigan is made of a different cloth: Unlike Carroll, he has remained in active ministry and challenged the left as well as the right. Long an outspoken opponent of abortion, he has been arrested for protesting it. Reporting on one such incident, the New York Times commented: “Father Berrigan was among five people found guilty after they demonstrated against a plan to open a new abortion clinic last October. The protest was sponsored by the Faith and Resistance Community, an organization in the Rochester area that supports the ‘seamless garment’ philosophy of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, linking war, capital punishment and abortion on moral grounds. Among those who testified on Father Berrigan’s behalf was Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an auxiliary of Detroit, who told the court, ‘For us, the violence of abortion is equivalent to the violence of bombing a city.’”[[<93>Quoted in, “Religion Notes,” by Ari L. Goldman, the New York Times, February 8, 1992. Fr Berrigan has also withdrawn his long-time support for Amnesty International, because of its recent embrace of abortion “rights”: See “No Amnesty for the Unborn,” National Catholic Register, by Tom McFeely, June 17-23, 2007.]] Somehow, one just can’t imagine anyone associated with Constantine’s Sword making a similar statement.[[<94>The violence of abortion is not mentioned once in the film, much less condemned.]]

Agree with him or not, Father Berrigan was a powerful presence on the antiwar scene, as he had an authenticity and sincerity seemingly absent in Carroll.[[<95>For Berrigan’s support of the Baez protest, and his other appeals against Communist persecution, see, Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Phillip Berrigan by Murray Polnar and Jim O’Grady (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 335. For more on Berrigan’s eventful life, see his autobiography, To Dwell in Peace (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).]] Berrigan’s appearance in the documentary is fleeting but leaves an impression. In watching it, I couldn’t help but feel that Berrigan’s activism sprang from deep Christian convictions, whereas Carroll comes across as the perpetual adolescent, involved in protest simply because it was The Thing to Do. In any event, Constantine’s Sword would have more credibility if it spoke out not just against America’s war in Vietnam but also against the horrors of the communists who took over there—as indeed Father Berrigan did in a famous ad sponsored by Joan Baez. In the 1980s, Berrigan also signed an ad proclaiming, “American dissenters demand amnesty for dissidents in Communist countries. . . . To protest U.S. policies in Indochina but to acquiesce in the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia would not only be immoral but would quite properly call into question the sincerity of our commitment at home.” [[<96>William Grimes, reviewing Carroll’s book, House of War (2006), in the New York Times, June 7, 2006.]]

It is precisely such intellectual honesty and consistency that Constantine’s Sword lacks. Intelligent critics of America are at least aware of the good things this country has achieved, and the possibilities it offers for reform. But Carroll appears blind to any of this. His recent book, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, is so smoldering in its anger toward the United States that even the liberal New York Times remarked: “It is hard, really, to understand what Mr. Carroll wants from the United States, since he detests the very notion that it has power and sometimes seems to be suggesting that the wrong side came out on top in the Cold War.”[[<97>See, for example, The Return of Anti-Semitism by Gabriel Schoenfeld (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004); and Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 by Matthias Kuntzel (New York: Telos, 2007).]]

Silent about the crimes of communism, the film is equally silent about radical Islam and the toxic anti-Semitism that often rises in the Arab world.[[<98>Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman (New York: Random House, 2008).]] Even critics of the wartime Catholic Church have acknowledged the defamation of Pius XII; but no one questions the pro-Nazi record of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the subject of a new book, Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman.[[<99>In the film, Carroll says: “Every religious person has to take responsibility for the way in which their tradition encourages intolerance, suspicion, hatred of the other,” but never explicitly criticizes Islam, much less holds any of its leaders responsible for extremism or anti-Semitism. It is a different case, however, with Christianity: “In the Christian tradition, both in relation to Muslims and Jews, we have some very clear reckoning with history to do.”]] If Carroll and Jacoby want to learn about real (as opposed to imaginary) collaboration with the Third Reich, they should read it. And in a documentary examining the religious roots of violence, lasting almost two hours, there is not a single mention in Constantine’s Sword—not one—of September 11, quite an achievement. Passing reference is made to the Taliban and al-Qaida,[[<100>In the wake of September 11, some critics of President Bush have become so angry with his reaction to it that they have downplayed or excused the worst aspects of Jihadism. For a sharp critique of this attitude, see Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2004).]] without describing their heinous activities, and only in the context of decrying the West’s alleged Christian imperialism. The Jihadists, we are given to understand, may have a point.[[<101>For bin Laden’s declarations and fatwas against America, see The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: WW Norton), pp. 47-70.]]

Constantine’s Sword comes down hard on President Bush’s reaction to September 11, suggesting it stems from his overt evangelical faith. Carroll is beside himself that the president actually used the word crusade in a speech against America’s jihadist enemies. But one does not have to accept George Bush’s religion, or every aspect of his administration’s “War on Terror,” to realize the danger Islamic extremism poses. Commenting on its fanatical hatred for America and its allies, a hatred that long preceded George W. Bush—Osama bin Laden issued his infamous fatwa against America in 1998, two years before Bush became president[[<102>9/11 Commission Report, op. cit., p. 362.]]—the bipartisan 9/11 Commission concluded: “Bin Laden and other Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the ‘head of the snake,’ and it must be converted or destroyed. It is not a position with which America can bargain or negotiate. With it, there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated.”[[<103>“A Center Called McCain,” by Roger Cohen,” New York Times, January 17, 2008.]]

What do Jacoby and Carroll think of this analysis? Do they have an alternative view, a better way to confront and defeat the Jihadists? We don’t know, because they don’t address the issue or even acknowledge a threat exists. Apparently, the greatest threat to Western civilization are overzealous cadets in Colorado Springs, passing out fliers on The Passion of the Christ.

Constantine’s Sword takes a strong stand against the Iraq War, as is its right. But that view would have greater weight if it considered the strongest, not weakest, arguments for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In a recent column for the , columnist Roger Cohen, a centrist, excoriated the Bush administration’s handling of the war but also called attention to Hussein’s horrifying record (“this death-and-genocide machine killed about 400,000 Iraqis in internal persecutions and another million or so people in Iran and Kuwait”), concluding, “I still believe Iraq’s freedom outweighs its [the war’s] terrible price.”[[<104>See, for example, “Pope Worried Over Christian Exodus from Iraq,” by Philip Pullella, Reuters, June 21, 2007, which reveals Benedict’s concern, and comments: “The United Nations said in a report…that of the 1.5 million Assyrian Christians living in Iraq before 2003, half had fled the country and many of the rest were moving to ‘safe areas’ in the north of Iraq.”]] It is a measure of the extreme evil of Saddam Hussein that, even at this late date, with all the things we now know and all the sacrifices made, people of goodwill still support America’s intervention. Yet, from a Christian perspective, one must admit, apart from the intense sufferings all wars bring, the Iraq War has proved very painful for the Christian minority there.[[<105>For papal and Vatican statements leading up the War in Iraq, see the archives of the Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org) from 2002-2003. Also Papal Diplomacy: John Paul II and the Culture of Peace by Bernard J. O’Connor (St. Augustine’s Press, 2005).]] And so one would think, given its political views, Constantine’s Sword might invoke John Paul II and Benedict as natural allies, since they both warned against the consequences of invading Iraq.[[<106>For Fr. Pawlikowski’s negative assessment of Mel Gibson’s film, see his comments in, “The Passion—a Forthcoming Movie,” by Lynn Ballas, Compassion (Newsletter of the Passionists), Autumn 2003; and also his essay, “Gibson’s Passion: The Challenges for Catholics,” Shofar, Spring 2005, pp. 96-100.]] Remarkably, however, their opposition to the war is totally missing from this documentary, as that might put the papacy—at least from the film’s perspective—in a favorable light, which would defeat one of its purposes.

The documentary’s most embarrassing episode occurs when Carroll meets up with an old acquaintance, Father John Pawlikowski, who sounds much like the kind of priest Carroll would have become had he remained in ministry. Pawlikowski, a professor of ethics at the Catholic Theological Union, is perhaps best known for leading an unsuccessful campaign against Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.[[<107>Fr. Pawlikowski might want to ask this question to himself, since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting selected The Passion of the Christ as one of the ten best films of 2004: See “The Top 10 Films of 2004—and the Picks for Families Too,” by Harry Forbes and David DiCerto,” Catholic News Service, January 5, 2005.]] The exchange involving the two is illuminating:

Carroll: In Rome, I sought out my old friend, Father John Pawlikowski, who stayed when I left, and fought for the very things that now matter so much to me. . . .

Pawlikowski: Good to see you again . . . was it ‘73, I think, was the first time?

Carroll: We were young priests together. . . . I think you know what a definitive summer that was for me—

Pawlikowski: You confessed to me that perhaps you weren’t going to stay around.”

Carroll: I was deciding to leave the priesthood right then. Confession is not a bad word for the feeling I have. I don’t feel that way so much now, but at the time, as you know, it was a real struggle. You stayed in the trenches [and] you’ve done tremendous work over the years.

Pawlikowski: Well, thank you.

Carroll: What’s it been like?

Pawlikowski: Well, its been very positive, I would say . . . then you get a Gibson film, a Gibson film that kind of destroys it, and then you get people who are supposedly speaking for the Church or something coming up and saying, oh, this is totally wonderful, there is no contradiction here between [this and] what Nostra Aetate says, and you’re staring into space, and saying: ‘What planet are you on?’[[<108>See “Contrition in the Age of Spin Control,” by Mary Ann Glendon First Things, November, 1997, pp. 10-12.]] If you want to make religion a constructive force in society, religions must begin with an honest admission of those moments when they haven’t been a constructive force, when they’ve been a destructive force. And the thing that frustrates me [to] no end, is when religious leaders get up and give the impression that religion’s always been on the side of good and virtue. It hasn’t—let’s be honest.

Yes, let’s be honest. If you want to know why certain members of the Church not only desire Christian contrition but also act as if Catholics should “apologize themselves into nonexistence,” to quote Mary Ann Glendon’s quip,[[<109>On the postconciliar crisis of American Catholicism—including a penetrating critique of the nuttiness ushered in by “Catholic progressives”—see Joseph Bottum’s much-discussed essay “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America,” First Things, October 2006, pp. 27-40.]] look no further than priests like Father Pawlikowski. And, by appearing in this film, he has allowed himself to be used by Carroll, serving as his enabler, permitting the ex-priest to adopt the role of a secular confessor—which, in a way, perfectly encapsulates the “progressive” madness of the conciliar era.[[<110>This particular postscript states: “Rev. Ted Haggard stepped down as President of the National Association of Evangelicals, and pastor of the New Life Church, calling himself a ‘liar and deceiver’ for carrying on a three-year relationship with a male prostitute. Rev. Haggard’s agenda, using politics to advance Christian religion, and vice versa, is carried on today by other groups in Colorado, like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.” But the film ignores the statement Dobson made after Haggard’s resignation, which was both responsible and Christian: “The possibility that an illicit relationship has occurred is alarming to us and to millions of others. He will continue to be my friend, even if the worst allegations prove accurate. Nevertheless, sexual sin, whether homosexual or heterosexual, has serious consequences.” (“Church Forces out Haggard for ‘Sexually Immoral Conduct,” CNN.com, November 4, 2006). Further, those on the “religious left” have never been shy about advancing their own political agendas: See, for example, “Left Wing and a Prayer,” by R. Scott Appleby, reviewing two books (by Amy Sullivan and E.J. Dionne, advocating just such an approach) in the New York Times Book Review, February 10, 2008.]] Introducing this segment, Carroll actually says, without a hint of irony: “Thousands of young priests like me left our orders. I wonder if the liberal reform would have taken hold if we’d stayed.” At that point, a faithful Catholic watching this just might be tempted to exclaim, “Good riddance!”

Constantine’s Sword ends with several loaded and misleading postscripts: one on the religious right, the other concerning Pope Benedict. The film reminds us of the sex scandal that forced Ted Haggard from his influential post at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, near the Air Force Academy. (It also tries to taint James Dobson, quite unfairly, by linking him to Haggard).[[<111>For a recent reflection on Hart’s career, see “ ‘Those Aren’t Rumors:’ Two Decades Ago an Anonymous Telephone Caller Sank Gary Hart’s Presidential Campaign and Rewrote the Rules of Political Reporting,” by Dick Polman, Smithsonian magazine, April 2008.]] But it says nothing whatsoever about the scandal that ended the presidential hopes of former Colorado senator Gary Hart[[<112>On the transformation of Donna Rice, see “Enough is Enough: Donna Rice Hughes,” by Ramona Cramer Tucker, Today’s Christian Woman, September/October 1996.]]—a significant omission, as Hart is brought on to accuse evangelicals at the Air Force Academy of trying to usher in a “theocracy.” Nor does it say anything about Donna Rice, the woman at the center of Hart’s political downfall, who has since become a born-again Christian and children’s-rights advocate, as well as a noted opponent of pornography.[[<113>See, as an example, “Muslims, Christians Consider Faith-Reason Dynamic,” Zenit News Agency, April 30, 2008.]] The last thing Constantine’s Sword wants, apparently, is any evidence that evangelical Christianity might actually be a positive force in this world, transforming people’s lives and elevating our culture.

But the film stoops to its lowest level by launching a disingenuous attack upon Pope Benedict: “Months after associating Islam with ‘things only evil and inhuman’ Benedict XVI reversed reforms of Vatican II to authorize a Good Friday Mass that includes a previous disavowed prayer—for the conversion of Jews.” What Benedict actually did, at his now-famous Regensburg address, was quote (not endorse) a fourteenth-century emperor, in order to highlight the relationship between faith and reason—a bold move that has ultimately resulted in an unprecedented level of Catholic-Muslim dialogue.[[<114>In expanding use of the traditional Latin Mass, Pope Benedict wrote, contrary to what some believe, “this Missal was never juridically abrogated and consequently, in principle, always permitted.” (Letter of Pope Benedict to the Bishops of the World to Present the ‘Motu Proprio’ on the Use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the Reforms of 1970.” (July 7, 2007) This letter accompanied the pope’s Apostolic Letter, Summorum Pontificum.]] Moreover, there is no such thing as a “Good Friday Mass.” On Good Friday, the day Christ died, Catholics have a service but they do not celebrate Mass—something every priest, even a disgruntled resigned one like Carroll, should know. The traditional Latin Mass, recently expanded by Pope Benedict, was celebrated by Carroll’s favorite pope, John XXIII, at the beginning of Vatican II—and was never abrogated by the Council, as the pope made clear in his recent motu proprio.[[<115>See “Pope Reformulates Tridentine Rite’s Prayer for Jews,” by John Thavis, Catholic News Service, February 6, 2008.]] The old Rite’s Good Friday liturgy does indeed carry a prayer for Jews, but its language has been revised by Benedict, precisely to avoid unnecessary offense;[[<116>For an explanation and defense of the Catholic concept of Evangelization, see “Covenant and Mission,” by Avery Dulles, America magazine, October 21, 2002.]] and were the Church to formally “disavow” evangelization, it would betray its very mission.[[<117>See “Catholics Have a Right to Pray for Us,” by Jacob Neusner, The Forward, February 28, 2008.]] Rabbi Jacob Neusner, among others, has strongly defended Pope Benedict, pointing out that observant Jews, too, pray for those outside their faith, and have been doing so for many years.[[<118>See “In Another Historic Act, Pope Benedict Visits a Manhattan Synagogue,” by Paul Vitello, New York Times, April 19, 2008.]] As recently demonstrated by his visit to an America synagogue, Pope Benedict’s outreach to Jews is a central feature of his pontificate.[[<119>“The Heritage of Abraham: The Gift of Christmas,” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, L’Osservatore Romano, December 29, 2000.]] He has written extensively on the subject and once published an essay, “The Heritage of Abraham,” that is among the most beautiful Catholic tributes ever penned to Judaism.[[<120>In his autobiography, Carroll admits that by the time he left the priesthood to get married, “I was, by the lights of the Roman Catholic Church, an excommunicant,” even as he received a formal dispensation “less than two months later.” (An American Requiem, op. cit., p. 260). In a recent profile of Carroll in Salon.com, Andrew O’Hehir wrote that, even though he has left the priesthood, and is frequently criticized by “defenders of the faith,” Carroll “is still a Catholic, still a communicant and still a weekly Mass attendee.” (“The Pope, the Jews and Repentence,” by Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com, April 18, 2008). But Carroll’s conception of the Catholic Church and its teachings is quite different from that of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Back in 1989, as the Soviet empire was coming apart, Carroll lamented: “For many Catholics, the effect of John Paul’s papacy has been profoundly—and often literally—demoralizing. Should the Communist rulers of Rumania ever be deposed, the Pope may be left as the last absolute authority in Europe.” He went on to call for “restructuring the government of Catholicism itself, so that authority is shared, not only among clergy, but among all people.” (“Catholicism with a Human Face,” New York Times, December 1, 1989). More recently he spoke of the Church as “an institution in serious transition….I think that Pope Benedict is the last of the old order, not the beginning of something new.” (Quoted in “Film Revisits Catholic anti-Semitism,” by Ben Harris, Jewish Telegraph Agency, April 15, 2008). This sounds like wishful thinking. Even secular outlets have noted the revival of orthodoxy under JP II and Benedict, pointing to a more traditionalist future for the Church: See “Priests of the 60’s Fear Loss of Their Legacy,” by Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, September 10, 2000; and “Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?” by David van Biema, Time, May 3, 2008.]] Any suggestion that he has turned his back on the Jewish community is not only wrong; it is inexcusable.

Carroll claims still to be a Catholic, of sorts, but his faith is of a kind that no traditional Catholic would recognize, as it eviscerates orthodoxy and abandons Christian hope and fortitude.(121) He sums up his newfound religion in wholly negative terms: “Once, I focused on the good the Church could do. Now, my faith hangs on facing directly the worst.” Equally depressing is the opening scene of Constantine’s Sword, yet it is a scene which is unintentionally revealing, about both Carroll and this film.

“I used to be a Roman Catholic priest,” he says somberly. “That was a long time ago. Now I’m married and father of two grown kids, and I make my living as a writer and journalist. . . . I cover a lot of stories. But there is one that haunts me, probably because it hits so close to home. It’s the things people are doing in the name of God.”

After watching Carroll’s wholesale abuse of history and Christianity in this appalling documentary, one feels compelled to agree.

William Doino Jr. writes for Inside the Vatican and published an 80,000-word annotated bibliography on Pius XII in The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII (Lexington Books, 2004).

The post James Carroll’s Unholy Crusade: A Critique of the Film Constantine’s Sword appeared first on First Things.

Reading Robert George’s “Law and Moral Purpose” (January 2008), I found myself nodding in agreement. His brief critique of libertarianism helped me cement my own thoughts about what is fundamentally missing from that otherwise admirable position, and his analysis of embryo research is on the mark. Nevertheless, his defense of marriage left me puzzled; though we agree totally on this critical issue, there was something about his argument I fear would smack of sophistry to the general populace. He began strongly enough, but his later development wanders into some tall grass. Fine distinctions between Aristotelian primary and secondary goods, and monistic and dualistic modes of reasoning, will not divert this coming juggernaut, and it would be a shame to lose the conflict owing to the country’s collective attention deficit.

“Societal cost” arguments fare only marginally better. Heterosexuals such as myself could not be induced to consider homosexual unions were every state in the nation to grant them tax privileges, nor do I suspect there would be any fewer children born to heterosexuals. I also think we must reluctantly confess that there is no cost-benefit analysis likely to sway the masses. Nor is there a strictly logical basis for denying same-sex unions, for there are too many and varied exceptions to the norm among traditional marriages for us to single out this one class of union for special abhorrence. George seems to recognize this dilemma and attempts to counter it, but I think in the end he is unconvincing. You simply cannot on logic alone hold reproduction to be the overriding interest of the state in sanctioning unions while maintaining exclusive exemptions for sterile heterosexual families.

So what is wrong with “nontraditional” marriage, other than that we now have to explain it to people old enough to vote? The answer has nothing to do with costs, philosophy, or syllogisms and is the path I thought George was surely taking before he chased the lion into its lair. He rightly champions a truth that is “luminously powerful” (a wonderful expression), but, in his attempt to illuminate the moral basis for marriage without the benefit of being able to use moral language, he already concedes too much to those who prefer to split legal hairs. Yes, I realize we must ultimately join the fray in the courts, but I would pursue a more mundane strategy even there. To wit, for the same reason I cannot meaningfully declare myself a horse, I cannot, if words mean anything, “marry” one.

Caligula famously declared his horse a senator, but, mad as he was, he had no delusions that his horse was not a horse. For five thousand years, the concept of marriage has been synonymous with heterosexual, though not always monogamous, union, predating government in some cases by centuries. Even in those cultures where homosexuality was rampant and generally accepted, no one until now thought of using the word marriage to describe any relationship other than that between a husband and a wife, the basic unit of civilization. Having blithely kicked away the pillars of civilization over the past century, we are now digging furiously at its foundation stone. So the first objection to same-sex “marriage” under any rubric is that it destroys, literally, a key concept of society by debasing the language.

This is not quibbling over semantics, for once we grasp its full implications we recognize a powerful argument rooted in our founding and common law. George ever so briefly alludes to this and is at his most convincing in what appears almost as a coda, where he forcefully argues the need for a national resolution on the issue. With the virtues of federalism in view, he laments the need for a preemptive strike against “judicial usurpation,” an unchecked power that could subject us all to radical upheavals. Marriage is sacred if anything is and constitutes the society that in turn legitimizes the state, which may only affirm and protect it. That is, it is not in the state’s domain to define marriage away by fiat. It simply does not own the term. We rightly charge the state to stand surety for our marriage contracts, safeguarding but one of its dimensions (the legal), but there are other dimensions beyond the purview of the state, and we the people do not implicitly grant it power to destroy that ancient institution. Tragically, society may do just that through neglect or self-indulgence, but there are other repositories of authority, independent of and complementing the state, that can provide a bulwark. (Church, anyone?)

The article began down this path but then turned aside to what, in my mind, were far weaker arguments, diluting the full force of what might otherwise have been delivered. Perhaps we can view this moment as a golden opportunity to reeducate the public on the checks and balances between autonomous societal constructs. I trust that George will receive this light criticism as a stone on which to sharpen his indispensable pen in the ongoing battle to restore sanity before marriage is surreptitiously defined to be congress between any two humans. Or between three. Or with a horse.

Vincent Owens
Canton, Ohio

Lacking the referents, reason consumes itself. It is not enough to rely on reason operating against the referent of nature (when seen as an amalgamation of purposeless laws) to justify man’s inherent dignity. Rather, a second referent is needed, namely, what man can become.

What can man become? Godlike, yes, but only at a cost that renders the prize more costly than the status quo ante. And there’s your second referent: God, but only as he’s revealed himself, beginning with “I am,” which also means, “I’m not one of you, nor are you one of me.”

Human reason seeks God but does not find him unless it relies on revelation as one referent and nature/human nature as the other. Along this path we find the natural law.

Note, therefore, that while relying on reason and nature, we find only substantive law in nature for lack of purpose and positive law in human nature for purpose. Is this not inverted when one accounts for the second referent?

Robert Bennett
Corseaux, Switzerland

Many of Robert George’s arguments reveal a tortured logic that shows why marriage is in the difficult position we find it in today. He starts by saying, “Our task should be to understand the moral truth and speak it in season and out of season.” But there is no “the” moral truth, and there never has been with respect to marriage. This institution has changed drastically over the years”and centuries.

At one time, women were prohibited from being anything other than wives and mothers. They were subject to beatings and treated despicably, actions sanctioned by both church and state. Today that is generally not the case. And, as George is no doubt aware, there are about 700,000 interracial couples today. This was illegal in many states until the mid-1960s. So the mere fact that marriage is changing is not an argument that change is wrong.

George says, “The central and justifying point of sex is not pleasure, however much sexual pleasure is rightly sought as an aspect of the perfection of marital union; the point of sex, rather, is marriage itself.”

But this is simply wrong. Sex is a pleasurable act in and of itself, and there is nothing immoral in a nonmarital sexual act. His “moral truth” of sex is capricious and without merit. Other than appealing to religious values, there’s little objective logic in saying the point of sex is marriage.

Robert Puharic
Famersville, Texas

Robert P. George replies:

I am grateful to Vincent Owens for his kind words. He, too, wants to build a culture in which marriages flourish because people understand what marriage is (and isn’t) and why it is so profoundly valuable. I hope he will agree, however, that there is no magic bullet. Much needs to be done, by many different people, making contributions of many different types, if the goal we share is to be accomplished.

The rigorous philosophical explication of marriage is among the things needing to be done. It is not the only thing, nor do I pretend that it is the most important one. But it cannot be left off the “to do” list. And that means some of us will have to shoulder the task of demonstrating that marital communion is an intrinsic (and not merely instrumental) human good whose contours are what they are because human persons are what they are, namely, unities of body, mind, and spirit rather than nonbodily persons (minds, spirits, centers of consciousness or feeling) who merely inhabit and use nonpersonal bodies. Will this involve drawing “fine distinctions”? Yes, unavoidably. Will these distinctions “smack of sophistry” to some people? I suppose so. But only to partisans of the redefinition of marriage who have closed their minds to intellectual argument and are unwilling to consider the possibility that the conjugal conception of marriage as the union of husband and wife is true and good. Such people are, in my own experience of debating the marriage issue, still in the minority.

A sound account of marriage, one that attends to the meaning and implications of the sexual-reproductive complementarity of men and women, will help us to understand not only why marriage is intrinsically a male-female union, but also why same-sex and polyamorous unions cannot, in truth, be marriages. To really understand why the conjugal conception of marriage is the correct conception, it is insufficient simply to advert to the historical fact that “for five thousand years, the concept of marriage has been synonymous with the heterosexual.” We need to think about what marriage actually is; we need to understand that marriage is not a merely instrumental good (as advocates of the redefinition of marriage implicitly believe) but is rather an intrinsic one (as defenders of conjugal marriage rightly insist). We also need to grasp how it is that marriage, as a unique and uniquely valuable form of interpersonal communion, fulfills human persons and serves in various ways (and indispensably) the common good of the larger community.

All this may sound abstruse to people who have no patience for philosophy. I fear that Owens may be such a person. He says, “You simply cannot simultaneously hold reproduction to be the overriding interest of the state in sanctioning unions while maintaining exclusive exemptions for sterile heterosexual families on logic alone.” But he would not be asserting any such thing if he were to consider thoughtfully the philosophical arguments that have been presented by many defenders of conjugal marriage (and never successfully answered by critics) to show why the law has always, and rightly, considered spousal infertility to be no impediment to marriage, while at the same time treating consummation by a sexual act fulfilling the behavioral conditions of reproduction to be necessary for the legal completion of a marriage (rendering it nonannullable). The state’s primary (though not exclusive) interest in marriage is indeed a concern for the rearing of children. But, for reasons explained by sociologists as well as philosophers, that concern itself gives the state reason to give special recognition and support to marital unions, including the marriages of spouses who cannot have children, and to avoid recognizing as “marital” (or the equivalent) sexual partnerships that are intrinsically nonmarital.

I wonder if Robert Bennett shares a bit of Owens’ impatience with philosophy, though perhaps for reasons of his own. It is true that philosophers sometimes make the mistake of viewing their craft as self-sufficient and standing in no need of illumination by God’s revelation. If I have fallen into that error, I’m happy to be corrected. If I understand Bennett correctly, however, he thinks that human purpose cannot be discovered or understood, even imperfectly, apart from the light of revelation. I disagree. I would affirm, with St. Paul, that God has created man in such a way that “even the Gentiles who have not the law of Moses have a law written on their hearts,” that is, an understanding of purpose and the human good that is sufficient for moral accountability. And I would affirm with Pope John Paul the Great that faith and reason are the “two wings on which the human spirit ascends to contemplation of the truth.”

Robert Puharic seems to be a man given to sweeping ex-cathedra-style declarations. For example, he announces that “there is no ‘the’ moral truth, and there never has been with respect to marriage.” His evidence? “This institution has changed drastically over the years and centuries.” As a logical matter, however, evidence of the diversity of moral opinions and practices cannot establish the absence of moral truth. Consider the case of slavery. In different times and in different places various forms of slavery and involuntary servitude have been practiced and even treated as laudable. Alas, forms of slavery exist in some places even today. Would Puharic conclude from these facts that there is no such thing as the moral truth that slavery is wrong? If so, he would be guilty of the same elementary logical fallacy he is committing in the case of marriage. As for his pronouncement that “there is nothing immoral in a nonmarital sexual act,” I would note only that he neither offers arguments for his view nor addresses the counterarguments that I and others have advanced against it. I set forth my own arguments regarding sexual morality, and respond in detail to arguments that have been advanced by people who share Puharic’s views, in several chapters of my book In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 1999), as well as in Self-Body Dualism and Contemporary Ethics , written with Patrick Lee (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Digging Through Nietzsche

Presumably “Nietzsche’s Deeper Truth” (January 2008) has something to do with morality! But the Genealogy of Morals itself is more or less a lab experiment of ideas connected with morality. An engaging writer, Nietzsche can nevertheless oscillate wildly from one thought to another so that his work sometimes reads like a psychological “tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But, in lucid moments, amid all his talk about the noble ideal, asceticism, and the “slave morality,” he does provide a clear idea of where he is heading, which R.R. Reno doesn’t bring out sufficiently. Nietzsche clearly states his moral ideal, by depicting what he considers to be a moral genius, in the final paragraphs of part two of the Genealogy : “This tocsin of noon and of the great verdict, which renders the will again free, who gives back to the world its goal and to man his hope, this Antichrist and Antinihilist, this conquerer of God and of Nothingness” he must one day come . . . . Zarathustra the godless.”

If this does not exactly sound like the sort of thing we usually connect with “morality,” the ideal is spelled out more clearly in some of Nietz-sche’s other works. In Beyond Good and Evil , he declares: “At present . . . when throughout Europe the herding animal alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when ‘equality of right’ can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong: I mean to say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness”at present it belongs to the conception of ‘greatness’ to be noble, to wish to be apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live by personal initiative.” In other words, at the very least, the Nietzschean ideal has to do with rising above the “herd mentality” of socialism and other egalitarian movements overtaking Europe. In Steppenwolf and Demian , the novelist Hermann Hesse, a disciple of Nietzsche, portrayed the Zarathustran personality as the highly individualized and uniquely principled person who does not kowtow to any extant morality but works harder than anyone else in formulating or, more precisely, creating his own distinctive values”bringing about the “transvaluation” of values.

In his posthumous Will to Power , Nietzsche counters not only socialist egalitarianism but what he perceived as the leveling effect of Darwinian evolution”achieving survival of the fittest by reproduction”with the anti-Darwinian idea of the possible success of evolution’s producing just one Übermensch ”a moral superman who had completely conquered himself to become the supreme individual, creating a morality that is uniquely his own and can never be a rule for anyone else. It is not clear whether Nietzsche believed this lofty state would ever be attained, but he may have thought that even approximations would make all of evolution worthwhile. In any case, the ideal state is so sui generis that not even a card-carrying relativist would be able to adopt it as a norm.

Howard P. Kainz
Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

While Reno’s essay on Nietzsche is well done and avoids the usual pitfall of Nietzsche as “The Atheist,” the question needs to be asked whether atheism for Nietzsche should be understood in its usual strict sense or in a metaphorical sense. We know that Nietzsche declares the Plato-Augustinian conception of life, culture, and therefore God to be exhausted, and that a revaluation is required. The following quotation might help here:

If, however, we place ourselves at the end of this colossal process, at the point where the tree finally matures its fruits, when society and its morality of custom finally bring to light that to which it was only a means, then we find as the ripest fruit of its tree, the sovereign individual , that resembles only himself, that has got loose from morality of custom, the autonomous “super-moral” individual . . . in short, the man of the personal, long, and independent will, competent to promise ”and we find in him a proud consciousness become vivified in him, a genuine consciousness of power and freedom, a feeling of human perfection in general. ( On the Genealogy of Morals ; emphasis mine)

Who is this “ sovereign individual , that resembles only himself”? And what is the competency to promise? Can such a sovereign individual be found within the ascetic ideal? Does Nietzsche think that the ancient ascetic ideal has the energy to mold modern man as it successfully did previously? The ascetic ideal by its very nature posited a dual reality, a reality that was metaphysical”beyond the here and now and the physical. The human being found his identity only through that dichotomy of metaphysical and physical. In the Christian world, it was God who saw all events, and it was he who would judge the living and the dead. This metaphysical (and now religiously interpreted) picture was the consolation and recompense for all those who suffered and endured pain. Just think of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus is given peace while the rich man is in a place of torment. Divine justice indeed! But you will notice that Lazarus is compensated only through the divine mercy. Thus, he is not sovereign but dependent on someone else (God) to grant him justice. He does not confer justice on himself!

Nietzsche decries the ascetic ideal as preventing modern man from achieving sovereignty. Might this not be what he means metaphorically by atheism? Man’s competency to promise is a self-realizing and self-identifying activity. Man receives his identity by fidelity to promises and ruins himself by denying his promises. Nietzsche rejects the ascetic ideal as unworkable and wrong, because it keeps man from achieving his sovereignty”God still is the judge, man is not his own judge. In his rejection of Western religion and its older viewpoint of God, Nietzsche is an atheist, but perhaps as Socrates was an atheist in Meletus’ understanding. It is at this point that I would differ with Reno. Nietzsche disengages morality from God and religion and makes man the judge”of himself. It is only when man has responsibility for himself, to make or break himself, that we can find “the sovereign individual, that resembles only himself.”

Rev. William R. Sokolowski
Wolcott, Connecticut

R.R. Reno replies:

I wish I could write more clearly. Both Howard Kainz and William Sokolowski seem to think I have failed to recognize Nietzsche’s true moral and spiritual ambitions. Professor Kainz describes this ambition as the “Zarathustran personality,” a life lived out of the inner resources of the individual, unbound by moral systems. Rev. Sokolowski rightly quotes Nietzsche’s affirmation of “the sovereign individual,” the person capable of legislating right and wrong for himself.

This is all very familiar. Read a little Emerson and one has the vision of the “super-moral” person well in hand. Or read Jean-Paul Sartre in his existentialist phase. Or Erich Fromm. Or Herbert Marcuse. Or Norman O. Brown. The side of Nietzsche that so passionately denounces the leveling, dehumanizing effects of inherited morality is a twentieth-century commonplace. It is now a dogma of postmodern philosophy. Critiquing “power” and giving priority to “difference” is just another way of furthering Nietz-sche’s main project: to midwife a new era in which human beings can simply live as they are rather than as God or the categorical imperative or bourgeois morality would have them. Rev. Sokolowski is quite right. The Nietzschean ideal”the postmodern ideal”is to escape from the religious and metaphysical and moral projects of the past, all of which want us to live for the sake of something other than ourselves.

So I grant the point. I thought I had granted it in the essay. It’s the standard reading of Nietzsche, based on an accurate assessment of what Nietzsche seems to have wanted, both for himself and for others. Prof. Kainz, Rev. Sokolowski, and armies of scholars could multiply the quotations many times. Nietzsche longed for the possibility of living without reference to truths or ideals or principles that inevitably seek to exercise authority over our inner lives.

But I wrote the essay because a closer reading of the Genealogy of Morals shows that Nietzsche was neither a street-corner existentialist nor a jet-setting professor sermonizing about “the Other.” He understood the human condition. He saw that the soul is given life by the invasion of demand into the depths of the human psyche, and he suspected (to his horror and dismay) that a life worth living requires an ascetic submission of individuality to something higher. I never claimed that Nietzsche wanted to see this deeper truth. Nor did I argue that it accorded with his eschatological dreams. I only claimed in my essay that Nietzsche’s integrity of mind freed him from easy modern pieties about human flourishing in a secular, disenchanted culture”and forced him toward an Augustinian view of the restless human heart.

Nietzsche thought of himself as a Seer. To a certain degree, I’m inclined to agree. He certainly saw the strange paradoxes of post-Christian culture: the high demands of authenticity, the rigorous self-discipline of Zarathustra, the attractive deceptions of modernity. Yet, like all Seers, Nietzsche could not control what was revealed to him. This master of suspicion seems to have had suspicions about his own suspicion of the ascetic ideal. That he suppressed them should not surprise us. It is very difficult to live without lies. But we need not lie to ourselves about ourselves. In fact, if we would be genuine humanists, then we cannot.

Scorn for Porn

Thank you to Jason Byassee for his essay on the pornography problem (“Not Your Father’s Pornography,” January 2008). This topic receives too little attention, and even less intelligent attention. Despite Byassee’s apparent envy of evangelical and Catholic statements against pornography, these seldom amount to more than denouncements. After years of hearing evangelical sermons, and subsequent years of Catholic homilies, I can recall this issue being addressed fewer than five times”and the message was pretty much the same: “Pornography is bad, fellas”don’t do it.”

We are becoming more anesthetized to the influence of pornography, obviously, but most of us still know it is wrong. Consider the evidence of our shame. As Byassee points out, the places of consumption are more private than ever before. Men still endeavor to hide their cyber-fornications from their wives and families. Despite all my attempts at filtering software, even my kids’ computer still gets advertisements disguised as “warning” messages advising them to cleanse their computer (and their conscience) of any potential records of pornographic forays.

We do not know how to escape pornography, or at least we are unwilling to take the drastic steps necessary to escape it. During more than one Lent, my family has given up television, only to turn it back on two months later to find that Byassee is right. Pornography is everywhere. Not just TV: It’s in the language, the music, the dancing, the revealing attire, the magazines, the billboards, the office conversations, the high schools, and the junior high schools. We eat, drink, clothe ourselves with, and bathe in sexuality. When Byassee makes the statistical case for how many men use pornography, I wonder if he means that we should be surprised. We should, in fact, be surprised that the statistics are not worse.

The fact that so many good men are falling should not cause us to stand agape; it should move us to face the problem with more than finger wagging or ignorance. People, mostly men, need help. A Google search for “porn addiction” returns more than half a million results.

Many of these offer assistance, though there is something ironic about getting support for pornography addiction online. I confess ignorance regarding the best solution on an individual level. Perhaps support groups at the parish and congregational level, seminars, or frequent and constructive sermons and homilies might help. But the problem must also be addressed on a societal level and on much more aggressive terms. How many times can one man turn away from the billboard, shut off the TV, or throw away the magazine before succumbing to temptation? The popular perception of pornography as a private sin, even by Christians, has contributed to pornography taking root in our culture and our homes. Before anyone will fight a war on pornography, they will have to acknowledge that there is a war to be fought.

David Eron
Wichita, Kansas

I am writing to express my disappointment in Jason Byassee for his opinion piece in the January 2008 issue, and my disappointment in you for publishing it.

I found the article to be hysterical, and not in the comic sense. There were, I counted, nine references to statistical proof of the epidemic of pornography in this country, but only two of those statistics had any sort of reference, and those two were Christianity Today and Pastors.com ”not exactly models of scientific objectivity. One statistic struck me as so wild that I wondered whether anyone had edited this article at all. Byassee writes, “One survey suggests that 90 percent of eight- to sixteen-year-olds have viewed pornography online.”

In order for this claim to be true, 90 percent of eight- to sixteen-year-olds would have to have access to computers with high-speed Internet capability. Do you really think that this is the case? While hard numbers on pornography may be “hard to find,” as Byassee says (though he seems to have found a lot), hard numbers on the rates of childhood poverty are rather extensively available. Here in Houston there are still people”working people with full-time jobs”who suffer through the misery of a summer without air-conditioning because they can’t afford the electricity bills. Do you think that 90 percent of children in those households are surfing the Internet?

Courtney Guest Kim
Houston, Texas

I am happy to see the article by Jason Byassee about pornography. I work in campus ministry and have seen how destructive sexual addiction can be with our college students. The statistics are frightening, but the consequences of the pornification of our culture are only now being realized. With the growing number of regular users and addicts, we will continue to see a rise in the staggering number of people who cannot function regularly in an intimate relationship.

Byassee says that evangelical churches haven’t dealt with the subject as well as Catholics. While I cannot speak for the evangelical side of the issue, I do not believe that Catholics have addressed the issue all that well either. Some dioceses and bishops have met the issue with a strong response, but others have done nothing at all. Regardless, we need to take a firm and consistent stand against pornography”across the Body of Christ.

In my opinion, we already have the antidote for the poison, and it is found in John Paul II’s theology of the body. It is the affirmation of our sacredness that is discovered in our sexuality. Yet, without sound teaching, training, prevention, and treatment, I don’t see that this issue will get better anytime soon. This will require the combined efforts of bishops, clergy, and lay leaders. I pray that a conversation can be started in both Catholic and evangelical circles that can accomplish such a solution. Otherwise, I fear the problems have only started to come to light.

Marcel LeJeune
Texas A&M
College Station, Texas

The opinion piece by Jason Byassee put me in mind of Shakespeare’s untaught, unread, and unknown Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action .

Frederick Wagner
Columbus, Ohio

Jason Byassee replies:

Most of these letter writers share my sense of the scale of pornography as a growing social problem. My suggestion of a liturgical response should not be taken as an alternative to the sorts of legislative ones for which David Eron calls; I’m just not sure how it would work legally. I’m also less interested in passing laws than I am in the faithfulness of the Church”one hopes the world will be inspired by that faithfulness in ways we can’t now imagine.

I struggled with how many statistics to include”there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, as Disraeli said. One thing I could not do is properly document even the small number I did use”it would look cumbersome and readers would tune out. (Most come from Pamela Paul’s book Pornified , others from articles at Slate.com and the various ecclesial statements I reference.) Courtney Guest Kim clucks her tongue at one in particular, about how 90 percent of eight- to sixteen-year-olds view porn online. Sure enough, I should have been more careful to say Internet users of that age, as bishop of Kansas City Robert Finn’s pastoral letter more specifically reports.

But I am confused by why Kim thinks so few kids have Internet access”schools and public libraries are eager to provide it, cell phones are not far behind, and, as I argue throughout, pornography is increasingly found everywhere, not just online. I’m curious as to exactly who the unbiased observers of this problem might be”many of the sources I use, such as Slate.com, The Atlantic , the Covenant Church, and so on are not exactly sources of socially conservative demagoguery. Kim seems to think one could either oppose poverty or oppose pornography”a dichotomy not only false but ridiculous.

Kim hints at the problem that animates me: Why is this a “conservative” issue? It is liberal-mainline church leaders who tell me it’s a problem for their parishioners and colleagues. Feminists have long rallied against porn. These sorts of arbitrary conservative/liberal divisions in American culture and church life should simply be ignored rather than glorified. Kim could give thanks to God that this is not one of the problems that threatens the goodness of her life or that of people she loves”but she also ought not assume everyone else is so blissfully carefree.

Jesus’ Friends Respond

In his article “No Friend in Jesus,” Meir Soloveichik has written one of the most significant contributions to Jewish-Christian dialogue since . . . well, since David Novak last wrote on this theme. That said, however, I cannot help but think he has trapped himself in an unnecessary bind by accepting too uncritically C.S. Lewis’ famous “trilemma,” which allows only three possible responses to claims of Christ’s divinity: either Jesus was right, mad, or lying. Rabbi Soloveichik clearly rejects the first option but delicately”and no doubt wisely”declines to call Jesus either mad or demonic, although by his own account it would seem he has no other choice.

But the New Testament narrates another option. To be sure, the gospels recognize something like a trilemma, since they report that Jesus’ own family (however defined) thought he was mad (Mark 3:21), while his opponents claimed he came from the devil (Mark 3:22). But even among Jesus’ closest followers, the most common reaction was incomprehension . It would do great violence to the evidence of the gospels (including the Fourth Gospel) to assert that the disciples accepted Jesus as God simpliciter by the mere fact that they were his disciples. For one thing, important strains in the New Testament tradition assert that Jesus was made Lord and Christ in the Resurrection (Acts 2:36, Rom. 1:3-4), however that “making” is to be understood.

Let us call this, then, the New Testament “quadrilemma.” I draw attention to this theme of incomprehension not so much to criticize Rabbi Soloveichik’s article as to point out the inadequacy of Lewis’ more truncated and simplistic trilemma. For one thing, Christians hardly want to box Jews into either accepting Jesus or calling him mad or demonic. After all, who does not, ultimately, find Jesus baffling?

Edward T. Oakes, S.J.
University of St. Mary of the Lake
Mundelein, Illinois

I have admired Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s theological writings for some years. He is the future of theology in Judaism. His fine commentary (“No Friend in Jesus,” January 2008) on the exchange between my A Rabbi Talks with Jesus and Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth favors dialogue between Judaism and Christianity limited to a shared contemporary program of social reform and rejects theological disputation on religious truth set forth in the gospels and the Torah. On that basis, he takes exception to the critique of the Sermon on the Mount that I constructed out of the teachings of the Torah of Sinai as handed on by the rabbis of oral tradition.

To engage in dialogue is to affirm the integrity of the other, even while insisting on the unique truth of one’s own position. I think he is entirely correct in his observation and do affirm that much in the teaching of Jesus derives from the Torah of Moses and forms the grounds for interfaith disputation, not merely secular dialogue.

Jacob Neusner
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Meir Soloveichik’s discussion of the dialogue between Jacob Neusner and Pope Benedict XVI about Jesus reminds me of comments made by Martin Buber in 1930 to a conference on Christian missions to the Jews (published as “The Two Foci of the Jewish Soul” in The Writings of Martin Buber ):

What have you [Christians] and we [Jews] in common? If we take the question literally, a book and an expectation. To you, the book is a forecourt; to us, it is the sanctuary. But in this place, we can dwell together, and together listen to the voice that speaks here . . . . Your expectation is directed toward a second coming, ours to a coming which has not been anticipated by a first . . . . But we can wait for the advent of the One together, and there are moments when we may prepare the way before him together.

Pre-messianically, our destinies are divided . . . . This is a gulf which no human power can bridge. But it does not prevent the common watch for a unity to come to us from God, which soaring above all of your imaginations and all of ours, affirms and denies, denies and affirms, what you hold and what we hold, and replaces all the creedal truths of earth by the ontological truth of heaven which is one.

Daniel Love Glazer
Northbrook, Illinois

As a former Jew and now a Catholic, I read Meir Soloveichik’s “No Friend in Jesus” with both interest and agreement. I appreciate his sincerity and honesty, and I agree with him completely in his conviction that the potential accord of Jews and Catholics lies in their shared resistance to relativism rather than in any kind of agreement on Jesus. It is precisely our disagreement about Jesus, after all, that divides us. We cannot expect to agree there. Dialogue will be much more profitable to both religions if it focuses on topics where agreement is at least possible.

I agree with Soloveichik’s point that A Rabbi Talks with Jesus , which receives such concentrated attention from Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth , is “problematic.” Its author, Jacob Neusner, imagines himself in conversation with Jesus, and, according to the pope, Neusner “is constantly moved by the greatness of Jesus, departing from him only with great respect and reverence.” Soloveichik rightly points out that such a response would be impossible: Jesus claimed to be God. How could a Jew possibly respond to such a claim with “respect and reverence”?

Soloveichik uses the words of C.S. Lewis to clarify the “problem” he has with Neusner’s assumed response to Jesus: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a ‘great moral teacher.’ . . . He would either be a lunatic”or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” Neither possibility would evoke respect or reverence.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that Lewis was not writing for a Jewish audience. In a sense, using his words in this context does them a bit of a disservice, just as Neusner’s “respect and reverence” does some disservice to Judaism. Indeed, if a Jew of Jesus’ day did not become a disciple, the only possible response to Jesus would be horror. And, while the pope may focus too much on Neusner’s book, Soloveichik himself may rely a bit too heavily on Lewis for his criticism. Lewis was not so much imagining what could have been a Jewish response to Jesus as he was attempting to evoke a response from a contemporary Gentile reader.

Judaism is the expression of highly advanced ethical thinkers. The claim of Jesus to be the Son of God”God himself”violates the most basic foundation of the Sh’ma. No believing Jew can ever accept it without completely abandoning his own religion, nor could he ever regard such a claim with anything like respect or reverence, even if he could admire the claimant’s ethics. Christianity, however, is not composed of highly advanced ethical thinking alone, and it is in the arena beyond ethics that the two religions can never become one, no matter how closely related they are.

Dena Hunt
Valdosta, Georgia

In “No Friend in Jesus,” Meir Soloveichik takes the relationship of Jews and Christians back to the Middle Ages when he argues that only “a friendship founded on our mutual resistance to relativism can unite us despite our theological differences.” Such a statement, if true, would be the basis for friendship not only between Christianity and the Jewish faith but also for friendships with radical Islam, communism, and Nazism, since all these ideologies are also opposed to relativism. Solovei-chik makes his case partly using rhetorical quotes from C.S. Lewis, who once stated, in effect, that Jesus was either God or a lunatic. Lewis and other writers, however, were calling attention to the seriousness of the issue at stake”not giving ultimatums to non-Christians. It is inconceivable, for example, that Pope Benedict XVI would propose such a binary choice of Jesus as God or lunatic to his friend Rabbi Jacob Neusner or to anyone else.

What is appropriate as a challenge to the Christian, or to the prospective Christian, would be severely disrespectful as a condition of friendship to those committed to other faiths, including agnostics and atheists. In the end, Soloveichik would have Christians accept as friends for serious discussion those who openly label Jesus Christ a madman. One only wonders how he would label Muhammad for a discussion with his Muslim friends.

Can anything, then, be used as the basis for friendship? Perhaps this: the acknowledgment that the life of Jesus was heroic even in tragedy. As such, the life of Jesus is worth emulating, even if he were only a man who thought”perhaps through imaginings”that men and women were worthy of redemption through a love that suffers.

Camus describes such a man as our true friend, one who sleeps on the cold ground while we are in prison, hoping for our release through his effort. Only the Spirit can take us further than this in our belief, but first we must accept and admire the man. Meir Solovei-chik needs to encounter the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, courageous and misunderstood, forsaken even by God at the cross, a Jesus who forgives even those who think him foolishly insane.

Daniel J. Biezad
San Luis Obispo, California

The post April Letters appeared first on First Things.

Consider this fact: In every African country in which HIV infections have declined, this decline has been associated with a decrease in the proportion of men and women reporting more than one sex partner over the course of a year”which is exactly what fidelity programs promote. The same association with HIV decline cannot be said for condom use, coverage of HIV testing, treatment for curable sexually transmitted infections, provision of antiretroviral drugs, or any other intervention or behavior. The other behavior that has often been associated with a decline in HIV prevalence is a decrease in premarital sex among young people.

If AIDS prevention is to be based on evidence rather than ideology or bias, then fidelity and abstinence programs need to be at the center of programs for general populations. Outside Uganda, we have few good models of how to promote fidelity, since attempts to advocate deep changes in behavior have been almost entirely absent from programs supported by the major Western donors and by AIDS celebrities. Yet Christian churches”indeed, most faith communities”have a comparative advantage in promoting the needed types of behavior change, since these behaviors conform to their moral, ethical, and scriptural teachings. What the churches are inclined to do anyway turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention.

This good news is often lost on organizations that purport to represent churches and the faith-based response to AIDS. The Berkley Center at Georgetown University, for instance, issued a report late last year called Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis . The report is worth taking seriously, as it reflects the thinking of many international organizations, including many of the faith-based organizations that respond to AIDS. This thinking is often drastically out of sync with the culture and values of the beneficiaries. The Georgetown report claims to explore “development issues from the perspective of faith institutions,” but in fact the report betrays a deep ambivalence about whether faith communities, particularly Christian churches, are part of the problem or part of the solution to AIDS.

Katherine Marshall and Lucy Keough, lead authors of the report, are clearly uncomfortable with approaches to HIV prevention that emphasize sexual responsibility, behavior change, and morally based messages. They praise the work and compassion of faith communities in treating and caring for people ­living with AIDS and their families, yet harshly ­criticize the messages of faith communities for increasing the stigma of AIDS. Their discomfort with attempts to change sexual behavior is evident early in the report, when, for example, they muse: “Should the focus be on changing the behaviors that contribute to HIV/AIDS? (Is that possible? Desirable ? How? With what assurance?)”

If Marshall and Keough are undecided as to whether changing sexual behavior is even desirable in the context of an epidemic driven by people who have more than one sex partner, they then need to become educated in the basic epidemiology of HIV transmission. One must ask whether they are more concerned with upholding a Western notion of sexual freedom or with saving lives. Their concern over any prevention approach that might be “moralistic” causes them to miss entirely the evidence for the remarkable success of sexual-behavior change in reducing HIV infections. They miss, as well, the crucial contribution of faith communities to HIV prevention, even while they are producing a report on the role of faith communities in the HIV crisis.

Marshall and Keough reflect conventional wisdom when they blame poverty, gender inequality, powerlessness, and social instability for the spread of AIDS. Yet epidemiological evidence is increasingly challenging this wisdom. In Africa, for instance, the wealthy are more likely to be HIV-infected (as a 2007 study in AIDS and a 2005 report in The Lancet have both noted). The countries of southern Africa are both the wealthiest on the continent and the worst affected. Meanwhile, within many countries, the wealthy are most likely to be HIV-infected”and, surprisingly, it is often among women that the greatest difference in HIV prevalence between poor and wealthy is seen. For instance, in Tanzania, women in the wealthiest quintile of the population are more than four times more likely to be infected than women in the poorest quintile. Poverty may make some individuals prone to risky sexual behaviors that can spread HIV; yet wealth can facilitate lifestyle choices that increase HIV risk, such as living in an urban area, abusing alcohol, and having the mobility and opportunity to acquire extramarital sexual partners.

While gender inequality may severely circumscribe a woman’s right to choose or refuse sex, and while faithful women can be and are infected by their husbands, new data are showing that women also bring HIV into marriage, putting husbands at risk. Last year the researcher Damien de Walque showed that, for 30 to 40 percent of infected couples in five African countries, the woman alone was infected. Vinod Mishra similarly reported that in some African countries, among couples in which one partner was infected and the other was not, the woman, not the man, was infected in more than half of couples. Both studies conclude that women’s extramarital sex must be the predominant factor behind these surprisingly high rates of female-­discordant couples”and thus “be faithful” messages must be targeted to women as well as to men.

Although turmoil and instability may make people more vulnerable to HIV, it does not follow that an HIV-prevention strategy aimed at changing sexual behavior is doomed in circumstances of turmoil and instability. Many of the greatest successes in HIV prevention have been in situations of social, political, and economic turmoil, such as Uganda in the late 1980s and Zimbabwe in the early 2000s. Experts predicted that the HIV epidemic would explode in Rwanda, but it did not, in spite of extreme violence and instability and tremendous numbers of rapes. Sexual behavior in Rwanda has remained conservative, and, at 3 percent, HIV prevalence is low for the region.

Of course, many other reports”and more alarmingly, peer-reviewed articles”make the same mistake of repeating conventional wisdom that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. But the report from Georgetown is guilty not only of poor epidemiology but also of ignoring the perspectives of faith institutions that it claims to put forth. Fortunately, faith communities seem to be going forward with what they can address”influencing sexual behaviors and norms in their own parishes and communities”and not heeding the warnings of experts that such efforts are doomed as long as poverty, gender inequality, and less-than-ideal political and economic conditions persist. But the blessing and backing of the AIDS establishment would surely energize this work.

Uganda provides an illustrative example of the central role of faith communities (among others) in bringing about behavior change. In a sidebar in Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis , Marshall and Keough give credit to the work of faith communities in Uganda, but they get most of the story wrong. Their account emphasizes the role of increased condom use in bringing down Uganda’s HIV rates and downplays the dramatic increases in the number of people reporting abstinence and faithfulness behaviors. In making their case, Marshall and Keough cite a little-known (and non-peer-reviewed) World Bank report written by Keough herself, and they ignore the wealth of peer-reviewed literature showing that the critical factor in Uganda was not increased condom use but reductions in the number of sexual partners.

The list of countries that have seen both changes in sexual behaviors and declining HIV prevalence is growing and now includes Uganda, Kenya, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Thailand, and Cambodia, as well as urban areas of Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Malawi. Many countries that have not seen declines in HIV have seen increases in condom use, but in every country worldwide in which HIV has declined there have been increases in levels of faithfulness and usually abstinence as well.

Arguably, every community and institution has been guilty of some fear, stigma, discrimination, and marginalization of those living with HIV. No faith community, including the Catholic Church, should claim to be immune, and, where stigma and fear exist, they should be openly admitted and confronted. Yet the Georgetown report treats faith communities particularly harshly, claiming that churches impose “retribution for ‘sinful behavior’” and that “religion has been used to foster stigma, exclusion, and marginalization related to HIV/AIDS.” Indeed, the report continues, “faith hierarchies, leaders, and communities have in the past often been promoters of stigma associated with HIV and AIDS, partly because of their difficulty in confronting aspects of human sexuality and partly because they often assume a link between AIDS and what they regard as sinful activities.”

Faith communities are, in fact, facing the challenge of upholding orthodox beliefs about sexuality without contributing to stigma. Rather than accurately reporting this, however, Marshall and Keough offer only their own perspective, insisting that religious beliefs about sexuality are “values structures” that “have tended to perpetuate stigmatization.”

This language is reminiscent of the campaign that appeared immediately after the Fourteenth International AIDS Conference in Barcelona in 2002. Such comments as “Religion kills” and “The only good priest is the priest who distributes condoms” flooded many of the more ideologically driven HIV/AIDS email listservs and online discussion groups. Within the international community, a religious group’s willingness to promote condoms was the unsubtle litmus test for funding in AIDS prevention until the United States Congress changed the discriminatory practice by law in 2003.

In Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS ­Crisis , Marshall and Keough make a particular effort to discredit the ABC approach for preventing the sexual transmission of HIV ( A bstain, B e faithful, or use C ondoms). They write, “Many faith-based groups, like many governments, have been attracted to an approach to HIV/AIDS prevention, first articulated in Uganda, that has come to be known as the ABC model . . . . While aspects of this approach are incontrovertibly effective in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, the current consensus is that it does not go far enough.”

Whose consensus, one must ask? Are the authors truly representing the consensus of the world’s faith communities, or rather the consensus of a public-health community that is deeply uncomfortable with an approach that calls, in a simple and straightforward manner, for sexual responsibility? A more cynical view is that simple behavior changes such as mutual fidelity do little to contribute to a robust and ever-expanding multibillion-dollar “risk-reduction” AIDS industry focused on medical services, drugs, and devices such as condoms while leaving the true driver of the pandemic, sexual behavior, alone.

Since the beginning of the global epidemic, most AIDS programs have been designed solely with high-risk groups in mind. Risk reduction seems to have had some success among high-risk groups. (Although, in certain groups, such as American gay men, HIV is once again rising.) But a risk-reduction approach ignores a central epidemiological fact: The great majority of people worldwide are not at much risk for HIV infection, which in fact does not occur easily. Thus, encouraging the majority to maintain low-risk behaviors is the great missing piece of AIDS prevention.

The criticisms that Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis levies against the ABC approach are hardly original and do not face up to the evidence that this approach has proved effective in various settings”so much so that it was endorsed by a landmark 2004 statement in The Lancet signed by more than 150 public health experts and leaders from around the world. Marshall and Keough claim that an ABC approach is insufficient because it does not ­recognize the role of voluntary counseling and testing (a measure that has been shown to have no effect in preventing new HIV infections, however important it is as a gateway to treatment); does not address prevention of mother-to-child transmission (a matter that the ABC approach, which targets sexual transmission, makes no claims to address); does not address the care of orphans and vulnerable children (clearly also beyond the scope of a prevention approach); and does not address women’s risk of becoming infected even if they do practice faithfulness. This is akin to criticizing smoking-cessation programs because they do not ­provide chemotherapy for those suffering from lung cancer or do not impose regulations on secondhand smoke and air pollution.

The Georgetown report clearly gets it wrong when it states that, for the ABC approach “to be effective, abstinence and fidelity must be practiced by both partners.” In fact, abstinence is always 100 percent effective in preventing sexual transmission when practiced by an individual . As for fidelity, it is certainly true that sexually faithful people may be infected by unfaithful partners”but this is true for men as well as for women. Proponents of the ABC approach do not claim that it confers total protection”for one thing, even consistent condom use reduces risk by, at best, 80 to 90 percent. Yet people (even women whose husbands are unfaithful) can reduce their own risk by choosing to practice faithfulness. More important, when ABC behaviors are promoted at a population level, risky ­sexual behaviors (particularly multipartner sex) are reduced, and a population-level decline in HIV infections is seen.

Marshall and Keough promote the SAVE approach, developed by ANERELA+, a network of African clergy led by Gideon Byamugisha. ( SAVE stands for S afe sexual practices, A ccess to treatment, V oluntary counseling and testing, and E mpowerment.) “The objective in developing such a new approach,” the authors explain, “is to move away from judgmental, moralizing stigma, and towards a more positive approach.” The problem with SAVE, however, is that three of the four components have already been demonstrated to have no effect on reducing new HIV infections. Only the S , safe sexual practices, truly addresses prevention”and in a sufficiently vague way that it provides no clear call for changes in sexual behavior that will actually reduce transmission. Moreover, in the AIDS world, “safe sex” is understood to mean condom use. Criticizing the ABC approach has evidently been something of a crusade for Byamugisha, an Anglican priest, as he has made clear in multiple public statements. Byamugisha does not represent the views of most Ugandan or African clergy, and the SAVE approach is more a political statement than a guide to AIDS prevention.

The Georgetown report tells us: “While the ‘mainstream’ HIV/AIDS program and global communities accept that widespread availability of condoms and promotion of condom use are major elements in successful HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, a focus on condoms is contentious for some religious communities because it contradicts the core recommended strategy of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.”

In fact, the mainstream HIV/AIDS community has continued to champion condom use as critical in all types of HIV epidemics, in spite of the evidence. While high rates of condom use have contributed to fewer infections in some high-risk populations (prostitutes in concentrated epidemics, for instance), the situation among Africa’s general populations remains much different. It has been clearly established that few people outside a handful of high-risk groups use condoms consistently, no matter how vigorously condoms are promoted. Inconsistent condom usage is ineffective”and actually associated with higher HIV infection rates due to “risk compensation,” the tendency to take more sexual risks out of a false sense of personal safety that comes with using condoms some of the time. A UNAIDS-commissioned 2004 review of evidence for condom use concluded, “There are no definite examples yet of generalized epidemics that have been turned back by prevention programs based primarily on ­condom promotion.” A 2000 article in The Lancet similarly stated, “Massive increases in condom use world-wide have not translated into demonstrably improved HIV control in the great majority of countries where they have occurred.”

Faith communities are not shutting their eyes to evidence when they choose to emphasize the “core recommended strategy of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.” These behaviors have, in fact, proved far more effective than condom use in curbing HIV transmission for the vast majority of any population. A 2001 study of condom use in rural Uganda found that only 4.4 percent of the population reported consistent usage in the previous year, a rate that is probably typical of much of Africa. In contrast to the estimated 95 percent or more of Africans who did not practice consistent condom use in the past year, studies from all over Africa show a solid majority of men and women reporting fidelity over the past year, with a majority of unmarried young men and women reporting abstinence.

The Georgetown report devotes several paragraphs to the position of the Catholic Church on condom usage and the apparent “nuance” within Catholic communities on the issue. The report seems to imply that the Church’s teaching on condom usage is detrimental to the fight against AIDS, while recognizing the Church’s contribution to prevention through promotion of abstinence and faithfulness. (For instance, the authors note that Pope John Paul II chose to emphasize abstinence and faithfulness rather than directly criticizing condom use.)

The report also erroneously claims that Protestant evangelicals are “among the staunchest supporters of the U.S. Government PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) earmark for ‘abstinence only’ prevention programs.” This is mistaken. There is no such “abstinence only” earmark within PEPFAR, nor are the great majority of Protestant groups who receive PEPFAR funds implementing abstinence-only programs. Current PEPFAR guidance recommends that two-thirds of funds for the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV be allocated to abstinence-until-marriage and faithfulness or partner-reduction programs. This amounts to less than 7 percent of PEPFAR funds. Among recipients of these funds, faith-based organizations such as World Vision, World Relief, and Samaritan’s Purse implement programs that emphasize abstinence and faithfulness but also include accurate information on condoms”in other words, a comprehensive ABC approach, the approach known to work best.

Marshall and Keough are right to call faith communities to action in defending the rights of women and protecting women and girls from violence, coercion, and exploitation. Yet the presence of gender inequality does not negate the need for, and effectiveness of, approaches that focus on sexual responsibility and behavior change. On the contrary, central to faithfulness interventions”as stated clearly in the PEPFAR Guidance document for implementing “B” programs within a context of ABC”is the focus on changing male behavior in particular.

If protecting highly vulnerable women and girls in patriarchal societies is a genuine goal rather than a political posture, then there must be explicit strategies for discouraging men from sexual abuse, rape, infidelity, and seduction of minor females. Furthermore, women must be empowered to refuse unwanted sex (as one of us, Edward Green, has been arguing in publications since 1988), not simply to “negotiate condom use.”

Thus far, research has produced no evidence that condom promotion”or indeed any of the range of risk-reduction interventions popular with donors”has had the desired impact on HIV-infection rates at a population level in high-prevalence generalized epidemics. This is true for treatment of sexually ­transmitted infections, voluntary counseling and ­testing, diaphragm use, use of experimental vaginal microbicides, safer-sex counseling, and even income-­generation projects. The interventions relying on these measures have failed to decrease HIV-infection rates, whether implemented singly or as a package. One recent randomized, controlled trial in Zimbabwe found that even possible synergies that might be achieved through “integrated implementation” of “control strategies” had no impact in slowing new infections at the population level. In fact, in this trial there was a somewhat higher rate of new infections in the intervention group compared to the control group.

The one medical intervention that has now been proven effective according to the highest standards of scientific research is male circumcision, which reduces a man’s risk of HIV transmission by more than half. Lack of male circumcision, along with high rates of long-term concurrent sexual partnerships, likely accounts for the hyperepidemics of southern Africa. But even many advocates of male circumcision believe that it needs to be promoted along with partner ­reduction.

Meanwhile, the other interventions that have generally been called “best practices” simply do not seem to work in generalized epidemics, even though they are still applauded loudly at global AIDS conferences, while mention of fidelity and abstinence is received by booing, as Bill Gates discovered at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto in 2006. If we are to progress beyond science-by-popular-acclaim, we must accept that the evidence is much stronger for fidelity or partner reduction than for any of the standard-package HIV-prevention measures”in Africa at least”and so we need to rethink and reprogram AIDS-prevention interventions.

Admittedly, changing direction is hard when there has been massive investment in these “best practices.” It is not in the interest of a multibillion-dollar global AIDS industry to endorse interventions that are low-cost and homegrown and that rely on simple behavior change rather than medical products or services provided by outside experts. And so the major donors of AIDS programs continue to do the same things, expecting different results. The authors of the Georgetown report reflect this popular but misguided opinion, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

That’s a shame, for a report like Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis offered an opportunity to rethink the failing group consensus and to point toward the central fact that has emerged from all the recent studies of the HIV epidemic: What the churches are called to do by their theology turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention.

Edward C. Green is the director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, where Allison Herling Ruark is a research fellow.

The post AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right appeared first on First Things.

Immersed in the work of early interpreters, Kugel noticed a strange feature of modern biblical study. The critics today seem to have a great appetite for any new piece of evidence or striking theoretical insight that promises a fresh approach to the Bible. Given the importance of twentieth-century archeology for the remarkable advances in our knowledge of ancient Near Eastern history, one could say quite literally that no stone has been left unturned. Except one: To this day, modern biblical scholars ignore all interpreters of the Bible except other modern biblical scholars.

This oversight has not been accidental. In his recent How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now , James Kugel identifies four assumptions that all ancient readers implicitly adopted, none of which find welcome in the modern approach. The first and most important assumption was that the Bible taught “lessons directly to readers in their own day.” This assumption is closely related to a second one: Ancient readers “believed that the entire Bible is essentially a divinely given text.” Call it inspiration or infallibility or whatever you want, but the point is again fairly obvious. Ancient Jews and Christians wanted to live in accord with God’s will, which could hardly be done by way of old books unless they took them to be divinely authorized for that purpose. Two further assumptions follow directly from the expectations created by the first two: The Bible has no contradictions or mistakes, and it has hidden meanings that must be ferreted out by all sorts of creative interpretive strategies.

Ancient Jews and Christians eventually parted ways in their reading of the Scriptures of Israel. Christians came to treat Jesus of Nazareth as the great new fact that guided a massive rereading of what came to be called the Old Testament. At nearly the same time, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans accelerated an equally decisive rereading of Scripture by Jews, which was guided by the accumulated legal and interpretative traditions called the Oral Torah.

The difference cannot be understated, but Kugel makes the astute observation that ancient Christians and Jews still read Scripture in much the same way. They argued about what the prophecies of Isaiah meant. They did not argue about whether one should look for prophetic fulfillments. Jews rejected Paul’s allegory of Sarah and Hagar in his Letter to the Galatians, but they insisted on an allegorical reading of the Song of Songs. Christians came to affirm the New Testament as part of Scripture, but this did not call into question the four assumptions they shared with Jews: the living voice of the text, the confidence that Scripture comes from God, affirmation of its perfection, and the assumption that hidden meanings reside in the text.

The more fundamental break comes with the rise of modern historical study. Kugel compares the basic assumptions of the ancient approach with a new set of assumptions first clearly formulated by Spinoza in the seventeenth century.

Should we say, as did ancient interpreters, that Scripture is cryptic and allusive? Not at all, replies Spinoza. Scripture should always be assumed to mean (unless clearly proven otherwise) exactly and literally what it says. Does Scripture have lessons for us today? On the contrary, Scripture can be understood only in the context of its own time, and presumably some portion, perhaps most, of what it says was never intended as “eternally valid” but only applied to people living then (or even just some people living then”“a few”). Is Scripture perfectly harmonious and without error? Hardly. Prophets contradict one another and seem to agree only on a few essentials; moreover, some of the things the Bible says contradict our current understanding, including modern science. Is all Scripture divinely given or divinely inspired? Spinoza was cagey in answering this question, but the subsequent tradition has clearly come to view belief in divine inspiration as a pious impediment to genuinely critical attitudes.

The great bulk of How to Read the Bible offers a readable and informative introduction to the Hebrew Bible from Genesis to Daniel. Throughout, Kugel allows both ancient and modern interpreters to have their say. Over hundreds of pages, readers have a chance to judge for themselves. Is the old way of reading nothing more than piety posturing as interpretation? Are the efforts of modern historical scholars interesting, relevant, or even trustworthy? Which assumptions should we adopt when reading the Bible”the ancient commitments to the Bible as a divinely given text, or the modern view that the Bible is best understood as documentary evidence for inquiry into an ancient culture?

For all its wonderfully learned accounts of ancient and modern interpretations, How to Read the Bible is transparently autobiographical, because these questions are the author’s own. Kugel has spent his adult life trying to live as an Orthodox Jew and read as a modern scholar. It has not been easy. He sees that the modern tradition of scholarship does little to help him make sense out of the Bible that he chants as Scripture at synagogue. And yet he finds many results of historical study compelling. Something like the documentary hypothesis (the idea that texts such as Genesis were formed out of older strands of tradition, such as the J source and the P source) seems an unavoidable conclusion. How to Read the Bible is really his life project: to show “how a person might go about honestly confronting modern scholarship and yet not lose sacred Scripture in the process.” This can be done, he suggests, by keeping “your eye on the ancient interpreters.”

The image is irenic. A balanced approach suggests itself. We are to take modern scholarship seriously but not lose sight of the old ways of reading that were so important in the origins of Judaism and Christianity. But, after hundreds of pages, as if finally convinced of the results of his lifelong experiment of weighing modern history and ancient exegesis, Kugel begins to hint at sharp distinctions and decisive choices.

Whether or not one is convinced by this or that conclusion of modern biblical scholarship, as a tradition of reading it cannot be incorporated into living religious communities. There is a spiritual parting of the ways, he suggests, that separates ancient from modern traditions of interpretation. The old ways of reading involve “learning from the Bible,” while modern critical approaches end up “learning about it.” Ancient interpretation teaches us to live inside Scripture; modern reading keeps its distance.

This difference makes all the difference. “The whole approach of modern biblical scholarship,” Kugel gathers himself to say, “which is predicated on disregarding the ancient interpretative traditions of Judaism (and for that matter, Christianity) and rejecting the four fundamental assumptions that underlie them, must inevitably come into conflict with traditional Jewish belief and practice.” The spiritual parting of the ways is fundamental. We can’t live both inside the Bible and outside at the same time.

“My own view, therefore,” Kugel reports, “is that modern biblical scholarship and traditional Judaism are and must remain completely irreconcilable.” We are not just to keep our eyes on the ancient interpreters. We should sit at their feet and accept their tutelage. Kugel does not prohibit historical questions or asking questions about “what really happened.” However, he says, “I would not mistake such things for what is foremost. They are rightly the province of specialists, people who (like me) got bitten by the bug.” Better, perhaps, not to receive the bite. “Happy the reader,” he writes, “who can open the Bible today and still understand it as it was understood by those who first proclaimed it the Bible.”

Who could have imagined back in 1982, when Kugel was appointed to his chair at Harvard, that an eminent scholar of the Bible would so forthrightly affirm the indispensable importance of so-called precritical interpretation and dismiss historical-critical study as the odd preoccupation of a few specialists who are interested in legitimate but religiously unimportant questions? It’s a striking conclusion for a man who has spent decades teaching the Bible in a fiercely secular American university. What are we to make of it? Are traditional Judaism and Christianity at odds with modern biblical scholarship, so much so that they are “completely irreconcilable”?

One feels that Kugel overdraws the contrast with ancient interpretations. It is not at all clear that modern interpretations of the first chapter of Genesis as a priestly document organized to emphasize the Sabbath inevitably conflict with older readings that focus on the divine construction of the universe. On the contrary, the architecture is ordered toward the Sabbath. As St. Thomas put it, grace perfects and does not destroy nature.

Yet Kugel sees a real problem, or at least he sees it in outline. The great chasm of difference is a matter of exegetical atmosphere rather than historical techniques or even interpretive conclusions. Modern scholars want to master the Bible. We can see this in their often smug conclusions. “Well,” we are told, “this or that biblical story is really about sustaining the ideology of the Jerusalem cult.” In contrast, religious readers want to be mastered. The Bible is doubtless about many things, including cultic ideologies and every other spiritual, moral, and political web that human beings spin around their restless desire for and rebellion against God. But for those who read in order to serve God more fully, the Bible is first and foremost a divine gift and trustworthy guide.

This spiritual difference is becoming more and more obvious today. It has nothing to do with whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or whether Isaiah is a compilation of diverse prophetic material from different eras. It has to do with what we let the Bible say to us. On this point, Kugel is surely right. The old influence of liberal Protestantism on elite graduate programs in biblical studies has come to an end. We now see either an aggressive indifference to the religious interests of biblical readers or postmodern theoretical gestures posing as theology. These days it is plain to see that a modern tradition of interpretation does not train readers to hear the Word of God in the Bible, even in its darkest corners. One reads purely and proudly as an outsider. This sensibility, this interpretive stance, is irreconcilable with the path charted by ancient readers. They read with the assumption that the Bible has the power to make us insiders. It is the path that faithful Jews and Christians continue striving to walk down.

R.R. Reno is features editor of First Things and associate professor of theology at Creighton University.

Photo by Vassia Atanassova via GNU Free Documentation License. Image cropped.

The post The Bible Inside and Out appeared first on First Things.

Our apartment was in an austere Georgian building, up one dim, cold, cobwebby flight of stairs, and the garden gate, as we discovered almost immediately, invited a host of late-night visitors. If you had acquired something at the pub that you suddenly wanted desperately to be rid of, our gate was as good a place as any to unburden yourself. Many, many mornings as we set out with the children for school, we had to navigate leftovers, solid or liquid, deposited there by strangers in the small hours.

Once, in the middle of the day—it was during the World Cup finals, while England was still in play, and I was great, to put it mildly, with our third child—I came lumbering home from someplace to find a man relieving himself on our gate. It was an awkward social encounter, the likes of which I have yet to read about in Miss Manners. What could I do? What could he do? We blinked at each other, then looked away in embarrassment. I was embarrassed, at any rate. He betrayed no emotion whatsoever on being confronted midstream in a public lane by a pregnant woman. After an eternal moment, he zipped up and shambled away, and I stepped over the steaming lake he had left in my garden.

“Now it is a strange thing,” muses J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit, “but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling.”

And so when people ask about our life in Cambridge, I tell them about our tiny bathroom, situated across the freezing stairwell from the flat proper, so that getting out of the shower safely depended on having memorized the neighbors’ schedules. I talk about the rain leaking in through the casement windows in the hall, of the night the entryway ceiling fell in and the months expended in its repair, of the drunks bawling out “Happy Birthday” at the taxi stand, of the man who peed on the gate. In short, though life went on uneventfully for the most part, and many things about it were lovely in the extreme, at the end of the day the story lies, as stories tend to do, chiefly in the eventful and unlovely.

The British historian Emily Cockayne agrees. “This book,” she begins her recent Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, “is about the ways in which people made life unpleasant for each other” in English towns of the early modern period. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the potential for urban unpleasantness was apparently almost infinite, and of almost infinite variety.

Many cities, including London prior to the Great Fire of 1666, were straining at their medieval seams. Old houses were overcrowded, often poorly maintained, and waiting—as happened in London—to go up in flames. Ancient streets were narrow, dark, poorly paved, and prowled by footpads and cutpurses. Pigs, cattle, and dogs roamed at will through the town centers. Tanneries and chandlers’ shops stank. Coppersmiths were “engaged all day in hammering copper,” according to the account of Bernardino Ramazzini, an Italian physician, and “the ears are injured by that perpetual din.” Coal smuts darkened the houses and storefronts and begrimed the faces of people in the street. Privies emptied into ditches and rivers. Coaches and carts churned up mud and crushed children beneath their wheels.

Even inside, with the door shut on the clamor of the street, there was no escape from irritations, large and small. The walls and the bedding were damp; the windows admitted little daylight. The taste buds and the digestion endured food that was moldy, sour, rotting, and adulterated by everything from hairs and stones to maggots. Odors of excrement, sweat, and foul breath assaulted the nose. Extremes of human ugliness affronted the eye: cleft lips, pockmarks, hunchbacks, dwarfism, noses eaten away by syphilis. As Hubbub represents it, the early-modern English town, outdoors and in, was a stinking, clanging, entropic swamp, a conflation of several levels of Dante’s hell. Who would have wanted to visit, let alone live there?

Mustn’t grumble, as the English famously say, often as a preamble to grumbling. Emily Cockayne’s Hubbub purports to be the history of a time and a place, but ultimately its true subject is the perennial human proclivity not only for irritation but for finding irritation perversely pleasurable, particularly as a literary subject. Cockayne’s narrative is a deliberately impressionistic landscape study of complaints, which are often so vivid as to suggest a salacious enjoyment in the act of writing them. Hubbub derives its flavorful collective voice from a cast of contemporary observers, including Samuel Pepys, Thomas Tryon, Dudley Ryder, Ned Ward, Anthony Wood, Tobias Smollett, and Margaret Cavendish—all of whom seem to have relished committing their trials and hypersensitivities to prose.

As Cockayne points out, we rely at our own risk on the testimony of “sensitive souls” given to “sweeping and bilious comments that amplify occasional unpleasant experiences and package them in hyperbole.” Well, yes. And to my mind that’s really the point. We can assume that if these writers of the period found conditions difficult, then certainly anonymous others did as well. We can also assume that really, truly, every minute of every day for every person then living was not the ongoing pan-sensory torment that it is represented to be in these pages. But where’s the fun in that?

The “uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome” carries the day. Tobias Smollett, in the spiky persona of Matt Bramble, characterizes London bread as “a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone-ashes, insipid to the taste and destructive to the constitution.” “Most or all beds do perfectly stink,” pronounces Thomas Tryon, adding that feather beds, in particular, absorb “all evil Vapours . . . breathed forth by various Diseased People.” Tryon deals further with the more generally “unwholesome” city air, calling attention to “stinking, gross, sulphurous Smoaks . . . very often Pernicious to Mankind, by Infecting the common Air with terrible Pestilences and Distempers.”

Still, concludes Cockayne, “many, like the indomitable Samuel Pepys, saw opportunity and excitement in their dirty, noisy and smelly cities, even with their shoes mired in turd. Indeed, it could have been worse. They could have been stranded in the countryside, with crude, turnip-eating ‘clownish, lubberly, untaught, barbarous, ignorant, blundering, plain . . . rude, slovenly, absurd, boysterous, blustering’ rustic fools, who, to judge by this kitchen-midden of adjectives, would have been at least as much fun to gripe about as were the manifold and invigorating miseries of the city.”

My husband, banging away at his laptop late one night beneath the open window, overheard two parties coming up the lane from the pub arguing about the existence of God. Neither man, he told me later, had a secure grip on the English language. The man who believed in God was the better English speaker; the English word with which he seemed to be most familiar, and with which he liberally seasoned his apologia, was that sturdy Anglo-Saxonism that rhymes with fire truck.

Five years later, I can’t remember what my husband was working on just then, and neither can he. That day in our life is lost to us. But those fragments of shouted conversation flash in our shared memory like neon signs by a highway in the dark. Ask us what our days in England were like, and that’s the tale we’ll tell.

Sally Thomas is a poet and homeschooling mother in Tennessee.

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the Magdalenes laid out their fish
for salting near the inns;
behind the fly-specked drying racks
day and night the willing women
catered to the Bedouins;under the towers of the town
the virgins and the wives
spun and wove and dyed the flax”
Magdala’s celebrated linen
smooth as young flesh: Crowds of lives”

the merchants and maids, the easy girls,
the cityful who spun”
who salted fish”and maybe one
remembered, and the rest are gone
into oblivion.

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The post Now appeared first on First Things.

Being a Christian minister, whose faith
Allowed for no one but the Son of Man
To rise above the grave, and like a wraith
Pass through locked doors, or with his friends, break bread.
And yet, if Christ could in the book of John
Soon after he’d arisen from the dead
Dine on fresh fish, why might not anyone

Who loves a thing return in his own flesh
To savor it like sea bass laced with spice
When the spirit moves? Until Christ comes to thresh
The dead like wheat and blast the thorns and weeds
To plant us in a second paradise,
Why might not some arise, like dormant seeds
In winter, to revisit once or twice

The things they loved . . . as at the funeral
Our dead friend lay surrounded by his toys-
Old typewriter, bronze trophies, white baseball
Clutched in a fielder’s mitt; the Cardinals cap
He wore in pictures playing with his boys;
The scratch and tip sheets used to handicap
The ponies at Oaklawn? Given the choice

Of breathless heaven or a dusty track
Where nags without a hope to win or place
Break hard at the last turn to lead the pack,
Who wouldn’t pick long odds and a hot day
To sip cold beer and thank God for His grace
In wedding souls to flesh that we might play
The sport of kings; then having run our race

Like ancient champions, be put to field
Still hankering for glory and high hay.
Though what we’ll be then has not been revealed,
Faith promises fresh fields beyond the seen
Bedecked with lights that turn the dark to day,
And diamonds carved from dust, and grass so green
It stuns the eye-where, when called up to play,

The spirit swells to fit skin’s softened mitt
And put on body like a uniform
To run and slide, to leap, to scratch and spit
And sing loud anthems. Though the Gnostics say
We’re spitless phantoms or Platonic forms
Once we’ve escaped the cold confining clay
Of our spent flesh and left it to the worms,

I’m glad our friend now sleeps in oaken shade
Above the rolling thunder at Oaklawn,
Sharing the shocks and tremors of the crowd
Until a trumpet beckons, and he wakes
From oaken slumber to the starting gun
In sweat-sheathed flesh that dazzles like a sun
And hurtles home to glory and high stakes.

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