Against Theopolitical Fundamentalism
'Religion today is not transforming the people - it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society - it is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender.'
- A.W. Tozer
Vatican-Vetted Magazine Accuses Steve Bannon of ‘Apocalyptic Geopolitics’
In a story entitled, "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism: A Surprising Ecumenism," Spadaro criticized the way some American evangelicals and their Roman Catholic supporters mix religion and politics, saying they demonized opponents and promoted a "theocratic type of state."
He added that their vision was "not too far apart" from Islamic fundamentalism.
The authors take some religious groups to task for a "xenophobic and Islamophobic vision"
Two close confidants of Pope Francis have written an article in a Jesuit journal that strongly criticizes some American religious supporters of President Donald Trump for their fundamentalist views, which the authors say demonize others and create fear and hatred.
The article, in the Vatican-reviewed journal La Civiltà Cattolica, says some American evangelicals and Catholics have become a "community of combatants" who seek to impose a "xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations."
Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, and pastor Marcelo Figueroa, editor-in-chief of the Argentinian edition of L'Osservatore Romano, in an article titled, "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A surprising ecumenism," take "value voters" to task for wanting religion to influence politics in what the authors call a "nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state."
The authors claim that conservative Catholics and evangelicals come together over "shared objectives," such as combating abortion and same-sex marriage or promoting religious education in schools, fostering an "ecumenism of conflict" that demonizes others. The word 'ecumenism' transforms into a paradox, into an 'ecumenism of hate.'
"The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on," the authors write. "And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims."
"Clearly there is an enormous difference between these concepts and the ecumenism employed by Pope Francis with various Christian bodies and other religious confessions," the authors continue. Spadaro and Figueroa say that fundamentalist evangelical and Catholic views are radically opposed to those of Pope Francis. "His is an ecumenism that moves under the urge of inclusion, peace, encounter and bridges."
Before decrying the alliance between fundamentalist evangelicals and conservative Catholics in the U.S., Spadaro and Figueroa also criticize what they call a "political Manichaeism" and "a particular form of proclamation of the defense of 'religious liberty' " in the country.
On the first point, the authors say that like the third-century Manicheans, who saw the world as a dualistic fight between forces of light and darkness, U.S. politics "divides reality between absolute Good and absolute Evil."
On the religious liberty front, Spadaro and Figueroa say that while the erosion of religious liberty is "clearly a grave threat" that "we must avoid its defense coming in the fundamentalist terms of a 'religion in total freedom,' perceived as a direct virtual challenge to the secularity of the state."
The authors accuse chief White House strategist Steve Bannon of supporting "an apocalyptic geopolitics" based on misguided theopolitical thinking that centers on state submission to the Bible, an idea "that is no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism."
The authors also note how some electoral campaign messages "are full of references to evangelical fundamentalism. For example, we see political leaders appearing triumphant with a Bible in their hands."
The authors claim that the beliefs of these religious groups "do not take into account the bond between capital and profits and arms sales," and suffer from "a sort of anaesthetic with regard to ecological disasters and problems generated by climate change."
"Francis is carrying forward a systematic counter-narration with respect to the narrative of fear," they say.
"Francis is courageous here and gives no theological-political legitimacy to terrorists, avoiding any reduction of Islam to Islamic terrorism," the authors write. "Nor does he give it to those who postulate and want a 'holy war' or to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire."
The authors conclude their article by drawing more comparisons between conservative U.S. Catholics' vision for public engagement and the pope's own vision.
"Today, more than ever, power needs to be removed from its faded confessional dress, from its armor, its rusty breastplate," state Spadaro and Figueroa.
"This is why the diplomacy of the Holy See wants to establish direct and fluid relations with the superpowers, without entering into pre-constituted networks of alliances and influence," they continue.
"In this sphere, the pope does not want to say who is right or who is wrong for he knows that at the root of conflicts there is always a fight for power," they say. "So, there is no need to imagine a taking of sides for moral reasons, much worse for spiritual ones."
‘Michael Voris, who founded the outlet, said in an interview that he was shocked by the article. "Here's a fellow who is accusing us of trying to use the church to push a political agenda, which is completely absurd," Voris said, when "they are using a leftist agenda to pursue leftist goals."
'Some political conservatives have accused Francis of promoting socialism or Marxism, a characterization he rejects. The pope has frequently lashed out at the injustices of capitalism and the global economic system, and has urged governments to redistribute wealth to the poor.’
It isn’t necessary to be a socialist or a Marxist to criticise and condemn inequality and injustice, although it certainly helps. I know Marx and Marxism like the back of my hand. I should do, I’ve written over one million words on Marx, studied the man and his works at doctoral level. Pope Francis isn’t a Marxist; he is a Catholic, he is a Christian. And that, I think, is the most radically dangerous thing of all in this controversy – because the leader of the most conservative institution on the planet is calling capitalism out for what it is. And he’s right. And this article is right about Trump and the politics he represents. The mixture of religious fundamentalism and political ideology is toxic, and we need to sharply distinguish an authentic religion and a healthy politics and public life from this hate-filled theopolitical monstrosity, and quickly. If you think the Pope is a socialist or Marxist, then you, and the system you defend, have departed radically from true religious values, and have come to worship a false god.
Pope Francis has hit out at unbridled capitalism and the "cult of money", calling for ethical reform of the financial system to create a more humane society.
In an impassioned appeal, the Argentinian pontiff said politicians needed to be bold in tackling the root causes of the economic crisis, which he said lay in an acceptance of money's "power over ourselves and our society".
"We have created new idols," he said in a speech in the Vatican. "The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal."
Attacking unchecked capitalism, the pope said the growing inequality in society was caused by "ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good".
"A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules."
Ethics, he said, were too often dismissed as a nuisance. "There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone," he said. "Money has to serve, not to rule."
'The central question is the mutual manipulation between politics and religion, which is a risk that is not exclusive to the United States, it’s a constant risk. Often this fundamentalism is born from the perception of a threat, of a world that is threatened, a world that is collapsing, and so it responds with a religion from a reading of the Bible transformed into an ideological message of fear. It’s a manipulation of anxiety and insecurity. And the church is therefore transformed into a kind of sect, a sect of the pure, the option of the pure, even though numerically small, which then seeks to impose its vision on society, prescinding any form of dialogue. It’s a way of dropping out of what is perceived as a “barbaric” mainstream culture. Some call this “authentic Christianity.” Intolerance thus becomes the mark of purism, while evangelical values like mercy do not form part of this vision—which is very conflictive, belligerent [and] seeks to impose itself in political ways.Today, unfortunately, a warlike and militant approach seems most attractive and evocative to certain sectors in society. We see the risk of a convergence of approach between fringe groups of Catholic integralists and some groups of evangelical fundamentalists in a strange form of ecumenism that tends to impose itself even through their way of communicating in the public square.'
'we see the multiplication of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts that tend to move public opinion and react in lively and often in a violent and fundamentalist way.'
'The fundamental theopolitical plan is to set up a kingdom of the divinity here and now. And that divinity is obviously the projection of the power that has been built. In Europe, this risk is known as Constantinism, whereby the church finds support in politics and, vice versa, politics finds its justification in a religious theory. This is a risk that is present in various places in the world. Today, more than ever, power needs to be removed from its faded confessional dress.'
'We highlighted how some religious values are manipulated for political ends. I see this manipulation as very risky, irrespective of whether it’s done by the progressives or by the conservatives. It’s problematic.'
Having strayed, time and again, through commitments to political ideology and vested material interests, we have to try our best to be salt and light in a world searching for Truth. This article is clear and insightful and identifies why the issues at stake are important, with respect to the connections between politics, ethics and religion, why notions of good and evil divide, inflame and entrench political positions, and why Catholicism, with its pronounced and rich dimension of social ethics, should steer well clear of the temptations to place religion in the service of political ideology, left or right.
‘Now none of this is to say that the fusion of religion and politics would be more legitimate if it was carried out by the political “left.” But, in the United States, it is happening on the “right,” and there is cause for concern. To serve partisan ends in this manner, Catholicism must lose much of its critical teaching to accommodate its political master, and it must be misdirected from its call to embrace all of humanity; whole swathes of humankind themselves become the evil to be overcome.’ This is the hard-hitting message delivered by Father Spadaro and Reverend Figueroa in their article. When the transcendent truths and values of religion are made subordinate to political ideology in order to serve vested interests, they lose their transcendent quality, and we lose the ability to hold our laws, institutions and rulers to account.However this pans out in terms of the politics of left and right and the various stripes of religion that are out there, this point must be established firmly: ‘there are no acceptable casualties in Catholicism!’ ‘Politics too often represents the internal struggle for the control of resources. There are winners and there are losers. But the teaching of the Church is that all of us are in the image of God, and as God will win, so we all must win. The article by Father Spadaro and Reverend Figueroa can serve to remind us of that when politics is at its most wretched.’ The article is written by non-Americans. Some critics are dismissing it as being the work of outsiders who don’t know the American context. Another way of putting it is to say that, being on no side, with no interest to defend or advance, the authors have objectivity and can see the truth of the situation with open minds. ‘Though the article is about an aspect of the interface between religion and politics in the United States, neither of the authors are American, something which gives them that outside perspective that is so often needed.’ That outside perspective derives from the transcendent source and standard that is God, something that stands outside of politics and holds it to moral and critical account. ‘While it is a daunting prospect to have our thoughts revealed to others, it would be of obvious benefit to know ourselves as God knows us; to see ourselves with ultimate clarity.’ ‘While it would not be as instructive as seeing ourselves as God sees us, seeing ourselves as our fellow humans see us can only be beneficial. While their vision of us may not be infallible, and might even be profoundly mistaken, learning how we are perceived by others can only serve as a teaching moment, whether it leads to self-reform or efforts to counter misapprehensions.’
Critics have accused Spadaro and Figueora of having no understanding of U.S. conservatives. This is wrong. Spadaro and Figueora have a very clear understanding of the difference between Dominationists, Rapturists and Prosperity Gospelers, and the way in which some U.S. conservatives can hold all three positions at once so as to dominate the U.S. politically and socially, wait for the rapture to come at the End of Times and make a pile of dough in the process - because God loves us when all is said and done. It is U.S. conservatives who don't see this, or don't want to see it. It is very clear to the rest of us. And clearly wrong. With respect to the RC integralists, many of these go along these three streams happily. Spadaro and Figueora have called this right.
The article points to the increasing role that religion has come to play in United States electoral politics in recent decades. This translation of the language of good and evil into the world of politics, ‘infusing politics with the absolute good and evil dichotomy characteristic of religion,’ is fraught with dangers. Politics is the world of legitimate difference and disagreement, of dialogue and debate, requiring alternative platforms. A religious infusion threatens to delegitimise contrary views, not merely putting politics on ice through assertions of a fake unity, but setting it alight, entrenching and enflaming divisions. The result is a situation in which one’s side is self-evidently good, the other side irredeemably evil. There are no grounds for dialogue, debate, mutual respect and learning, agreement, compromise. Politics thus takes on Manichaean proportions. ‘Just as in Manichaeanism good is associated with spirit and bad with matter, good in this context becomes associated with things American and bad with those things that are to be considered other than that. Thus, President George W. Bush spoke of an other-than-American “axis of evil.”’ The problem is that the evil other-than-American does not reside solely outside of United States borders. It can be found within the country as well. Hence, “President Trump steers the fight against a wider, generic collective entity of the ‘bad’ or even the ‘very bad.’” The authors correctly identify the source of this dynamic: an evangelical fundamentalism that has largely transmogrified into what they identify as the “evangelical right.” This is not the “Christian right” or the “religious right,” it is the “evangelical right.” The people who fall into that category “consider the United States to be a nation blessed by God. And they do not hesitate to base the economic growth of the country on a literal adherence to the Bible.” Further, they see themselves as engaged in a fight against an ‘other-than-American’ within the borders of the U.S. Who are these enemies within? Liberals, progressives, intellectuals, feminists, humanists, secularists, social democrats, anarchists, greens, environmentalists, pagans, atheists, people who believe in human rights: “The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on. And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims.” ‘The evangelical right’s understanding of evil has become conflated not only with ethnic and cultural prejudices, but also with the persons and groups that make up the movements that are deemed a threat. The Christian message is thus bowdlerized from a message of human liberation from evil, to one of containment, perhaps destruction, of individuals who are harbingers of unwelcome change.’ Such theological terraforming can easily lend itself to utopianism, or it can degenerate as far as a “Prosperity Gospel,” where earthly riches become recognized as a sign of God’s favor. In this debacle, the authors are concerned to steer Catholicism clear of compromising its ethics, and pull the Church well clear of the wreckage that is certain to come: ‘Catholic social teaching involves more than the issues mentioned. But if the reach of Catholic teaching is curtailed to correspond only to the concerns of conservative Protestant Christianity, a distortion of Catholic doctrine results, and the obligations of Catholics in the social sphere are compromised. Specifically, when Catholic doctrine becomes identified with American conservative politics, Catholic teaching on such issues as the rights of labor and the preferential option for the poor are cast aside.’
This is NOT an anti-religious view. I argue for the intertwining of politics and ethics, as in the ancient tradition, and I argue for the need to put the worlds of fact and value back together. I also fundamentally agree with MacIntyre when he argues in After Virtue that the barbarians have been ruling over us for some time. I argue for an ontology of the good and a recovery of the good life, and for morality as something more than subjective opinions and value-judgments. I want to sharply distinguish my view from this merging of Church and State, religion and politics, which I consider to lead to the destruction of both as well as the destruction of the material and spiritual lives of people. That this is my consistent view - and not an afterthought provoked by the Trump debacle of bogus politics rationalised by religious fundamentalism - should be clear by the book I wrote in praise of Dante Alighieri who, back in the early 1300s, argued for the strict separation of religion and politics - the Papacy should cease to be political and end its political interference and focus on spiritual ends, the public sphere of the city should be free from religious controversies and focus on the work of politics. MacIntyre too is clear that the business of politics is secular. That can still be moral. But religious controversies and identities and divisions have no place here. Conflate these distinctive spheres and we end up with a politics on ice, a religion worshiping false gods of earthly power, and a world going to hell on a handcart.
I affirm the status and dignity of politics as the dialogic public sphere in which differences are aired and alternative platforms are presented and, through mutual learning, agreement and compromise, a broad, general fit is achieved. And I affirm a religious ethic as concerned with the human quest for meaning and spiritual expression. I find religion subordinate to political ideology very ugly indeed, inauthentic, divisive, false to the core, and guaranteed to spread rancor and enmity.
'Christianity is called to be the leaven in society, and therefore to bring Christian values within the civil life of society together with the other active forces in the society. Christians are called, together with other people, including those who think differently from them, to build a better society. Therefore, the churches are not called to be an instrument of politics, and so politics should avoid manipulating the churches to impose itself in the field of social politics. The church asks politicians to commit themselves in the world to build a better world through dialogue while bringing its own values to this project while respecting the fundamental separation of church and state. Therefore, the church should seek to ensure that God and religion are not manipulated for political purposes.'
As for the evangelical worshipers of Trump - they are doing untold damage to Christianity.
'Patriotism is supposed to be the last refuge of scoundrels, but religion surely is a close second. So there was President Trump this week with evangelical leaders laying hands on him, and granting a rare non-Fox interview to the doddering founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network.That interview was with the televangelist Pat Robertson, who is to news professionalism what Chris Christie is to constituent diplomacy. Robertson, you may recall, felt that feminists and gays were among the guilty parties in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. These days, he says that Trump’s critics are going against “God’s plan” and may be influenced by — who else — Satan.One assumes that God’s plan includes the biblical admonition to treat the bedraggled, the poor, the hungry — “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” — as you would treat him. Did I miss something when Trump said he was salivating at the chance to take health care away from 22 million Americans and the 87-year-old Robertson merely responded with his trademark chucklehead chuckle?We’ve got an iceberg the size of Delaware breaking off in Antarctica, a free world that can’t trust the nominal leader of that realm, and Trump offers his interlocutor this gem: “It was a great G-20. We had 20 countries.”
Robertson is not the most despicable of Trump’s enablers. For that, you’re probably thinking of Sean Hannity. No, it goes beyond the safe spaces in broadcasting. The most odious of those who are letting Trump drag America into the gutter include Vice President Mike Pence, the leaders in Congress and the pious shepherds of a white evangelical community that continues to give an awful man a pass for every awful thing he does.
'“President Trump is the greatest thing that’s happened to this country,” said Luther Strange, who was appointed to the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. “I consider it a biblical miracle that he’s here.”
A true miracle would be for one of the enablers among the 81 percent of white evangelicals who gave their vote to Trump to follow their conscience, or at least the Scriptures they profess guide them.'
The fact that so many people professing a religious ethic not only gave their vote to Trump but the soul of their religion. Not for me. I don't trust this kind of politics, and I don't like this kind of religion - it's neither fish nor fowl - actually, come to think of it, it is foul, very foul indeed.
'Donald Trump held a closed-door, media-free meeting with the Sadducees and Pharisees–also known as Evangelicals and prosperity gospel con-artists–to discuss the terms of their surrender to his holiness. I call Trump his holiness because he has lived such a perfect life that he has never asked God for forgiveness.'
'Apparently, low expectations is standard fare for Evangelicals these days. Todd Starnes, a FOX News columnist permitted to attend, tweeted afterwards about the atmosphere:I was one of a few journalists invited to attend Trump’s conversation with Evangelicals. It was basically a campaign rally, folks.— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) June 21, 2016'
'Yesterday I wrote a piece about the similarities between the church in 1930s Germany and today’s Evangelicals, and how the compromise and indifference of the German church that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler exists in Evangelical churches today. As much as I think that is still pretty accurate, I may have found a better way to demonstrate the heart of 21st century Evangelicals.In this day and age, where many Evangelicals have put their politics ahead of their faith, we have officially entered a new age in Christendom where Evangelicals no longer worship G-O-D; they worship G-O-P.'
‘Of all the things that worry me, loss of religious freedom for Christians in America isn’t one of them. I can’t say I have ever experienced anything in this country that could reasonably be called a restriction on my religious liberty, much less persecution...
‘Let’s get over this persecution complex. Stop with the drama already! You are not under attack just because you have to follow the rules like everyone else. Look, I understand the owners of this establishment you mention in your speech don’t approve of gay and lesbian people getting married. They don’t have to approve of them. But if they are going to do business in this country, they have to follow the law against discrimination-just like the rest of us...
‘I am struggling, too, with your claim that Donald Trump is a champion (albeit an unlikely one) for religious freedom. What freedoms are we talking about here, Frank? The freedom to lie with impunity?
‘If Donald Trump is the champion of American Christianity, God save it from its enemies!
‘So let me see if I have this figured out correctly: God doesn’t give a flying fruitcake if we deprive twenty-million people, most of them poor, of access to health care. Nor is God particularly concerned about how men treat women in the workplace, how people of color are treated in the real estate market, how the hungry and homeless are cared for (or not), but God flips out if we bake a cake for a same sex couple to celebrate their wedding? I have to be honest with you, Frank. I’m just not seeing it. Not in the Bible, not in the realm of rational common sense...
‘Here’s the thing, Frank. At the last judgment, Jesus doesn’t ask anyone about who they voted for, how many times they have been divorced, what their sexual history or orientation is or for whom they did or did not bake wedding cakes. His sole concern is for how we treated the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned, those deemed “least” among us...
‘You know, Frank, I would like to think that we are brothers. I would like to believe that we are on the same side. I would like to believe that, beneath our differences, we worship the same God and follow the same Savior. But quite honestly, I don’t recognize the Jesus I learned from my parents, my Sunday School teachers, my pastors or my years of study and reflection on the Bible in your angry, fearful rhetoric. Yes, I will answer your call for prayer. But I will be praying for the real victims of persecution-the victims of racial discrimination, sexual violence and bullying. I will answer your call to action. But I will be acting to establish health care as a right for all people...
‘We don’t have your money, your access to the halls of power or your seeming direct connection to the Almighty. But we have the scriptures, we have prayer, and we are learning every day what it means to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s all we need. You can keep your champion in the White House, thanks just the same.’
"(Trump's) campaign and presidency has shed light on a troubling wing of American evangelicalism willing to embrace nationalism, populism, fear of outsiders and anger. The leaders of this wing trade their evangelical witness for a mess of political pottage and a Supreme Court nomination....The 20 percent of white evangelicals who did not vote for Trump now seem to have a lot more in common with mainline Protestants. Some in my own circles have expressed a desire to leave their evangelical churches in search of a more authentic form of Christianity."
'Reading some reactions to the article, I was struck by the lack of understanding of the difference between Francis’s view of laïcité as a distinction between religious power and political authority on one side and the view of it as the strict constitutional separation of church and state on the other side. The recent influx of converts from various American Protestant churches into American Catholicism is a possible, partial explanation, in my opinion, for the lack of familiarity many observers of U.S. Catholicism seem to have with the history of the political culture of the Catholic Church—especially the differences between stages in the development of Catholic doctrine on democracy. (To name just three: medieval-Christendom Catholicism; the continuities and discontinuities between Syllabus of Pius IX and Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum; and the years from World War II through Vatican II and the post-Vatican II period). But setting aside the intellectually inept conflation of the Catholic notion of distinction between political power and religious authority with the constitutionally sanctioned “separation of Church and State,” it is undeniable that even the mildest concept of laïcité is, today, unacceptable for many American Catholic leaders (both clerical and intellectual). In this sense the article points to something that really has happened to American Catholicism: a growing nostalgia for political Augustinianism as a juridically and institutionally established subordination of the temporal order (politics) to the supernatural (the church). This political neo-medievalism (conscious and unconscious) is one of the side effects of the moral and theological de-legitimization of politics today. Yves Congar, reading Gaudium et Spes in December 1965, thought that this was no longer part of the developing Catholic tradition.
Steve Bannon and Donald Trump will at some point no longer be a concern of American Catholicism. But this particular American issue of the relationship between the church and secular power will always be there. La Civiltà Cattolica and large sectors of American Catholicism have long been on opposite sides in the debate over the compatibility of the church with liberal democracy. In the old days, it was the Americans who thought they were compatible and the Jesuit magazine that thought they weren’t; now it’s the other way around.'
There has been a vociferous reaction to the La Civiltà Cattolica, one which castigates the view I defend as ‘European’, ‘secularist’, and ‘decadent.’ The right wing conservative attacks on the article "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA" have been vigorous - they accuse the article with having been poorly researched, snidely written, and as betraying an ignorance of U.S. conservatism. La Civiltà Cattolica and its American allies are said to champion a ‘decadent European secularism.’ Massimo Faggioli is described as the favourite theological guru of America's secularist left. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput characterizes him and all such theologians as "useful idiots" who serve to advance secular causes toxic to Christianity. Note the extent to which these criticisms go straight to politics and political identities and divisions. That is telling, and I shall explain why in due course.
But let me first deal with the question at the level of ethics, beyond the political clashes, and going to the heart of how we conceive reason, faith and the relation between them.
So I shall present the view that is contrary to the article in La Civiltà Cattolica.
I’ll quote at length, because there is plenty here, with respect to the qualifications of general statements, with which I agree. (And plenty which is beside the point at issue - of which more later).
‘Religious experts have pointed out inaccuracies, exaggerations, and false summaries of Church teaching within the article.
Dr. Chad Pecknold, a professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, told CNA that although the authors alleged that many American Christians have a “Manichean” outlook on politics, of good versus evil, “the authors themselves sound quite Manichaean in their absolute opposition to their caricature of Christian conservatives in America.”
‘A chief flaw of the piece is its suggestion that religion and politics should be separated, Bruenig added. While distinctions should be made between the eternal, spiritual realm and the temporal one, the piece is “ahistorical and very un-Catholic” in how it approaches the relationship between religion and politics, she said.
Fr. Spadaro and Figueroa wrote that “the religious element should never be confused with the political one. Confusing spiritual power with temporal power means subjecting one to the other.”
The article also says that “[Pope] Francis wants to break the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church. Spirituality cannot tie itself to governments or military pacts for it is at the service of all men and women.”
This compartmentalization of faith and politics is part of flawed Enlightenment thinking, Bruenig said.’
I agree. That has been very much the target of my own critical writing over the years concerning the separation of the worlds of fact and value. Bruenig comments: “The notion that politics and religion should basically function in separate domains is one of the original liberal Enlightenment positions on politics, and there’s a reason that most of the leading thinkers of the liberal Enlightenment were severely anti-Catholic.” I agree very much with Bruenig here, and have argued the point at length in several works. (Such as this on St Thomas Aquinas
“There’s nothing special about the realm of governance that would cut it off from moral considerations, or give it its own special brand of irreligious moral consideration,” she continued, saying that politicians “are still beholden to the same moral precepts that they are in every other decision they make in their lives.”
Such a claim flies in the face of centuries of Church teaching, Bruenig continued.
P.J. Smith, who writes at the website Semiduplex.com, agreed that the article contradicted Church teaching on the relationship between faith and politics which was put forth by Bl. Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Ven. Pius XII, who wrote that the Church has the authority to speak on matters of economics and politics.
“More to the point, Spadaro and Figueroa set themselves against Pope Francis himself when they articulate a bizarre liberal atomization of man,” he wrote. “According to Spadaro and Figueroa, in church, man is a believer; in the council hall, he is a politician, at the movie theater, he is a critic; and he is apparently supposed to keep all of these roles separate.”
‘The article warned about a “mingling of politics and religion” that is expressed, at times, in a Manichean rhetoric of good versus evil to justify political policies. Trump, for instance, acts in such a way by decrying the “very bad.”
However, Bruenig said, “Trump himself is almost comically indifferent to religion, and can’t even really explain what Presbyterians – what he’s supposed to be – believe.”
I don’t think that’s quite the issue. I don’t consider Trump to be remotely interested in imposing the divine law upon the earthly city, and I don’t consider him to be the genuine face of evangelical Christianity, and I don’t consider there to be a groundswell of fundamentalism about to sweep U.S. politics in the manner suggested by the La Civiltà Cattolica article. And a critique that inflates a small proportion of Christians into being the dominant tradition is likely to have us engaging in false fights with false enemies. The “prosperity gospel” and “dominionism” may well be problematic strains in U.S. Christianity today, but are they the dominant traditions? Not in American Catholicism, which is liberal, as exemplified by the Jesuit John Courtney Murray.
“Fundamentalism is not the mainstream of American Protestantism, nor does it have the influence in American politics that the authors imagine it does,” said Stephen White, a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
He wrote that “the suggestion that there’s some close affinity between the Biblical literalism of fundamentalism, on the one hand, and the God-wants-you-to-be-rich hucksterism of the Prosperity Gospel,” is false.
“Fundamentalism is not the mainstream of American Protestantism, nor does it have the influence in American politics that the authors imagine it does,” he said. He wrote that “the suggestion that there’s some close affinity between the Biblical literalism of fundamentalism, on the one hand, and the God-wants-you-to-be-rich hucksterism of the Prosperity Gospel,” is false.
Good!
“America’s maddeningly complex religious landscape needs thoughtful analysis and critique,” he wrote, arguing that such nuance is lacking in the La Civiltà Cattolica article.
So there it is. The dangers of theopolitical fundamentalism may well be exaggerated – I do hope so - and we shouldn’t allow more extreme voices who shout the loudest trick us into thinking this is the dominant voice. At this stage, I am less interested in the terrain of U.S. Christianity than in the relation between fact and value, reason and faith, politics and ethics – and whether it is possible to recover an ethics and ontology of the good within the public realm in such a way as to incorporate the insights of secular rationality/self-legislating reason alongside what may well be considered theological claims?
But I don't think the dangers are exaggerated at all. And the argument I make for the intertwining of politics and ethics within an ontology of the good is very different from that being proposed or rationalised here - I explicitly rule out the harnessing of religious faith to political ideology.
Anthony Annett says that Spadaro and Figueroa ‘are onto something.’
Too right they are! There’s something gone wrong in the politics of the world when traditional Catholic teaching on social justice comes to be identified with the political left: ‘the extent and vitriol of the pushback from the highest echelons of American right-wing Catholicism only shows that Spadaro and Figueroa have hit a nerve.’
The criticism that the La Civilta Cattolica article doesn’t do the complexity of the US Christian terrain justice would be true if the article was a scholarly tome able to marshal a wealth of resource. Such a thing is beyond the scope of an article. The criticism is wide of the mark, and beside the point. Anthony Annett shows just how on the mark the article is – hence the reaction.
‘Many have criticized this essay for being too sweeping in its generalizations. But this misses the point. It was not intended as a scholarly discourse. The point is that the basic thesis is certainly correct—that a small but vocal and influential segment of American Catholicism is now far more comfortable with the world of right-wing political evangelicalism than with global Catholicism… This world is a Calvinist world, manifesting politically in the twin ideas that the United States is God’s chosen country with a unique destiny in the world’s history, which gives rise to a dualistic outlook, and that God bestows material rewards on his favored, which leads to a full-throttled embrace of capitalism. This latter pathology comes in different levels, of course, the nadir being the appalling “prosperity gospel.” All of this gives rise to a highly distorted vision of Christianity in the public square. It exalts a libertarian ethos predicated on the belief that free market outcomes are just and virtuous, and that people who lose out have only themselves to blame. It exalts individualism and personal responsibility over solidarity and communal obligation. And it bestows quasi-canonical status on the U.S. constitutional order. In doing this, it fails to appreciate that its (Lockean) understanding of freedom differs from the Christian understanding of freedom. It fails to appreciate that the American approach to rights is rooted more in liberal individualism than in the Catholic conception of rights twinned with duties—encompassing rights to the preconditions of human flourishing, such as a living wage, housing, medical care, education, and necessary social services (as enunciated, for example, in Pope John XXIII’s landmark encyclical Pacem in Terris). At the same time, this distorted vision embraces American exceptionalism over Christian notions of “infinite relationality” (to use a term associated with Metropolitan John Zizioulas of the Orthodox Church). It glorifies the military, insists on a maximum military budget, and defends U.S. military adventurism across the globe. It is comfortable with the death penalty and even torture. It denies the existence of climate change, which is partly a reflection of libertarianism, partly a reflection of American exceptionalism, and partly a reflection of the corrupting influence of financial interests.’
Every line from Annett here rings true – I recognise the very beast he describes. To say that applies to the bulk of US Christianity would indeed be a sweeping generalisation. It applies to a number of US Christians, and I recognise them. It is those people who are the targets of the criticism of the La Civilta Cattolica article.
I’ll repeat a statement I have made consistently on this toxic mix of religion and politics:
When religious faith is subordinated to power interests and made to serve the needs of a political ideology, that transcendent standard that judges politics and holds power to moral account is lost. The faith degenerates into a rationalisation of material concerns and political acts. Rather than being a true morality which instructs and orients agents and their actions, it becomes a mere apologetics. Power – specifically the power of some – takes precedence over principle, right gives way to might, and faithfulness to truth gives way to an idolatry of words. When the principle of justice is cited ideologically to defend and entrench injustice, then faith is emptied of meaning; in time, it withers, dies, or turns into its opposite. The result is a blatant immoralism – a politics that is detached from true ethics and an ethics that is a mere cover for acts that do real harm to people. When faith is tagged on to politics, it ceases to be a transcendent standard outside of politics, criticising it, holding it to account according to principle; its character and fate becomes subject to the vagaries and vicissitudes of that politics. The damage can be masked for a short while. A few apparent political triumphs can be sufficient to excite the faithful to go even further down the road of misplaced hopes. But politics is a transitory business, and failures – and reality checks - will come sooner or later. When religious faith is conflated with political ideology, it can only issue in a compromise to the detriment of the former. For what do the faithful exchange their faith? It profits a man nothing to exchange his soul for the whole world … but for a false promise of short-term political gain... The faithful sell themselves and their beliefs short, they allow themselves to be used as political tools. Their faith will prove as ephemeral as every political movement and career and it will be for others to supply the critical and moral standard. Before the inevitable collapse comes, though, the harnessing of religious faith to the cause of particular political interests and ideologies has the potential to inflict appalling damage on public life and the civil peace. In conflating religious faith with political ideology, believers mix two things which should always be clearly kept apart. This generates two consequences which are utterly terrifying in their implications:
The moralisation of the public sphere puts politics on ice. Politics is a field of legitimate difference and disagreement, in which there is space for alternative voices and platforms. The unitary vision of religious faith denies the legitimacy of such division by attempting to impose a false unity;
In seeking unity and delegitimising different viewpoints, theopolitical fundamentalism enflames divisions, sets alternatives at extremes, and asserts an overweening righteousness over against demonised others.
It’s a recipe for political war and civil disturbance.
"When faith is harnessed to a political ideology, it withers. Moreover, in a banal way it then becomes subject to the travails of that ideology, dependent upon successes and failures in governance and public opinion. And something truly terrifying can occur too; believers can confuse the ideology with faith itself."
How do we identify those who harness religion to political ideology? Some are easy to identify. They are quick to talk politics and divide people according to political sides.
Tony Annett gives us an interpretive key:
‘when these people herald orthodoxy, they are not talking about theology. They are talking about politics. They are talking about fealty to a cohesive yet inconsistent political ideology that centers on the modern Republican party. When challenged, especially by folks who support Catholic teaching across the spectrum, their typical response is not theological but political—you support the Democrats, the Democrats kill babies, so you are implicated in baby-killing. Or you support the Democrats, the Democrats hate religious believers, therefore you are implicated in attacks on religion.’
I long argued for the need to restore the social and moral conditions of politics to health as a condition of doing politics well. I have argued that the conventional political sphere serves to divide people between false alternatives and set them into opposition with each other over illusory conflicts. That’s a view I set out in the aftermath of the US presidential election. I called it Ending the Politics of Illusion. I’ll stand by that view with this qualification – I was far too soft on the politics of Trump and his supporters. I’ll repeat the view that Trump is a symptom of a broken political system and a flabby and decadent politics, not its architect. And I’ll repeat that Republican obstruction of the public realm and Democratic left of centre technocratic tinkering has resulted in decades of political and social failure. I’ll now add that the reaction in the form of Trump is horrendous. I am now hearing from American friends recording the extent to which they are being subject to the passive-aggressive abuse of Trump supporters. I don’t suffer it, and nipped it in the bud. These people are not Christians whose religious beliefs give them a moral standard by which to evaluate politics and upon which to give conditional support. As Annett recognises, it is perfectly legitimate for Christians for vote for the Republican party given certain left-libertarian themes promoted by the Democrats. ‘But this is not what happens. It’s not just that they prioritize issues like abortion, marriage, and religious liberty and then hold their noses on the other stuff. They don’t believe the other stuff stinks at all. They actually think it emits a pleasant odor!’
Political ideology trumps religious faith, first, foremost and last. And these people are now threatening to drag the Catholic church into the political swamp.
‘I’ll give them this—these people have had a remarkably good run of it over the past few decades. Their libertarian economics was able to fend off orthodox Catholicism, and even establish beachheads in places like Catholic University. People like George Weigel and Michael Novak could perform impressive mental gymnastics to claim that the invasion and occupation of Iraq met the standards of a just war (despite the staunch opposition of their hero, Pope John Paul II). Weigel could get away with openly mocking Pope Benedict’s social teaching. Raymond Arroyo could shamefully defend torture and deny climate change on EWTN. The Knights of Columbus could be shamelessly politicized. And groups like “Catholic Vote” could openly lobby for the tea party. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
All of this changed under Pope Francis. And these changing fortunes go a long way toward explaining the hostility of many (but by no means all) on the American Catholic right toward this pope (remember the interpretive key: it’s all political). While Francis doesn’t really differ from his predecessors in doctrinal substance, he does so in pastoral tone. They can’t spin him as they did previous popes, especially John Paul II.’
Pope Francis has put Catholic social teaching forward with such force and vigour that it is impossible either to spin or ignore. However much these right wing ideologues try to downplay Pope Francis’s pellucid and prophetic teachings on the economy and the environment, it can’t be done. And their attempt reveals the naked political intent at work behind it all.
‘they really hate the way he links how we treat the poor, the excluded, the unborn, the migrant, the elderly, and the environment under the banner of a “throwaway culture,” which of course is connected to the cult of consumer choice and instant gratification that’s responsible for how our modern economy operates. This, of course, is anathema. But openly opposing the pope comes with risks, especially when your whole identity is wrapped up with being a “faithful and orthodox” Catholic.’
The election of Trump has brought the issue to a head, for Christians in general, and for Catholics in particular.
‘The U.S. church is being asked to choose between the values of the pope and the values of the president. There is no longer any scope for obfuscation.’
My choice is clear, forthright and unambiguous – and the fact that Catholic social teaching is denigrated as ‘left-wing’, and Pope Francis is abused as a ‘communist’ and a ‘marxist’ only goes to underline Tony Annett’s point in his article – these people are not talking religion, they see the world in terms of political ideology and divide people accordingly. The truth is simple: the Pope is a Catholic, and he affirms Catholic teaching. Those who think Pope Francis is Marxist and communist betray their own extreme right politics. This is not just about the assaults on the poor and the powerless, dismantling healthcare, attacking immigrants, rejecting climate action and agreement – take that as read from Republicans, who have long since lost touch with public responsibility. Annatt is right, this issue concerns something more elemental.
‘It’s about undermining the pillars of the social order itself, identified by Pope John XXIII as truth, justice, charity, and liberty.’
These people are sophists – they reject transcendent norms, values and truths. They practise a zero-sum politics which is all about winning power, getting rich, destroying opponents – and demonising opponents as enemies. ‘It’s about a terrifying return to the ethos of the 1930s—the dismissal of the very concept of objective truth, the attacks on media and judicial oversight, the cult of power and personality, the emphasis on a national redeemer, the exploitation of legitimate economic grievances, the scapegoating of vulnerable minorities, the winking at political violence, the mass campaign rallies that whip up fervor and anger.’
We should know how that kind of politics ends. Only the hopelessly deluded can’t see the dangers. But that’s the problem – mixing religious faith and political ideology swells the ranks of the deluded. We need the moral compass – and those prepared to speak in terms of objective moral standards – more than ever. And there’s the grim irony – people of religious faith who have been most vocal in speaking with a moral voice are now most complicit in subordinating morality to the divisive claims of political ideology. That’s sad, that’s depressing – and that is extremely dangerous. That is why, for all that I have criticised and qualified the claims made by Spadaro and Figueroa, I am in now doubt they have correctly identified a pathology that needs to be checked and uprooted as quickly as possible.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal
When religion is combined with ignorance, fear, resentment and allied to political ideology … God help us …
I don’t understand “x” because I refused to learn about “x” because I disagree with “x” because I don’t understand “x” because I refused to learn about “x” because I disagree with “x” because I don’t understand “x” because ….
Forget the conspiracy theories. Something much more dangerous is seeking to gut our government and change the character of our society.
“The shallow state … is unsettling because not only are the signs of it ever more visible but because its influence is clearly growing. It is made scarier still because it not only actively eschews experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, tradition, and shared values but because it celebrates its ignorance of and disdain for those things. Donald Trump, champion and avatar of the shallow state, has won power because his supporters are threatened by what they don’t understand, and what they don’t understand is almost everything. Indeed, from evolution to data about our economy to the science of vaccines to the threats we face in the world, they reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to their worldviews. They don’t dig for truth; they skim the media for anything that makes them feel better about themselves. To many of them, knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created to keep power from the average man and woman. The same is true for experience, skills, and know-how. These things require time and work and study and often challenge our systems of belief. Truth is hard; shallowness is easy.”
In the end, does my argument against theopolitical fundamentalism actually undermine my lifelong attempt to recover the ontology of the good within the political sphere? I have long challenged the liberal secularist view, exemplified by Rawls, that right prevails over good. The political sphere is neutral between competing claims of the good. That, as I argue consistently, is a demoralisation in which morality is fractured into irreducible subjective opinion, mere value judgements, with no objective standards by which to evaluate and choose between competing claims. And the fact is that that liberal secularist argument with respect to neutrality on the good is false, in that it advances a liberal view of the good life, that is, a vision that justifies typically liberal institutions and claims.
The controversy, as far as my own perspective is concerned, comes down to this:
To overcome demoralisation begs an ontology of the good;
Politics must shed its neutral framework and embrace a fundamental conception of the good;
Political philosophical conceptions of the good are based on a theological understanding of the world as good;
Theological understandings of the world are advance a fundamental good;
Translating the good into the political sphere must therefore involve theopolitical fundamentalism.
That view implies that to engage in politics requires an acceptance of a theological notion of the good. That I do hold to a belief in a good God creating a good world, that would indeed seem to lead to the conclusion that my view on the unity of politics and ethics is implicated in the very theopolitical fundamentalism I claim to reject. It’s called not having the courage of your convictions.
The views relate to Alasdair MacIntyre. I am sympathetic to MacIntyre’s work. But I have made critical comments that his Thomism seems remarkably naturalist and Marxist – he advances a very Aristotelian St Thomas, and doesn’t give sufficient space to the spiritual dimension. From this angle, the La Civilta article could indeed be said to skate over the deeper issues. I believe the article is right to warn of the dangers of theopolical fundamentalism, and have argued the point. But to be consistent, the argument advanced in this article would most certainly seem to bracket as ‘fundamentalist’ any and all efforts to introduce faith into the political arena. For the same reasons, the criticisms would apply also to any and all efforts to recover a morality of the good in the political arena. And that does, indeed, leave us with a liberal secular view. All well and good, the liberals and secularists would say. But that leaves us in the demoralised world of today, public life as a neutral framework and morality as mere subjective opinion, neither good nor bad, merely competing perspectives on life with no objective standards to decide between them. That’s a sophistic world in which power decides. That’s the world I criticise in my work.
Complicated isn’t it? It should be born in mind that I reject the antithesis between reason and faith. I seek to put the worlds of fact and value together, recognising the legitimate claims of each, avoiding the one becoming the handmaiden of the other. This controversy comes back to the key theme of modernity that I highlight relentlessly – no doubt boring anyone who reads me to death. When fact and value part company, morality comes to be reduced to a series of value judgements, with the result that morality is something whose claims can only be advanced in non-rational terms. No good reasons can be offered to take moral claims seriously, they are merely subjective or personal choice. But there are no grounds for making that choice rationally, it is a matter of faith. That is a view I reject. It amounts to the heresy of fideism, and amounts to saying that Christianity cannot be vindicated rationally. This is wrong, and dangerously so. It flies in the face of the natural law tradition – nature as seen through the eyes of reason. In rejecting the rationalism of natural law, it forces Christians to make a choice between faith on the one hand and the claims of secular reason on the other. That is a position designed to drive Christians still holding the natural law position as against fideism into affirming secular reason. I make no bones about this, I would openly embrace Kant and his motto of enlightenment and his attempts to put morality on a rational basis any day over those who assert faith against reason. Every time. I don’t think those who force this issue in terms of a split between faith and reason offer either an attractive or sustainable position.
But what of MacIntyre and his idea that politics is a secular sphere and that all attempts to mix theology and politics seldom ends well? It depends… Is it possible to conceive the good rationally and morally without drawing upon theological conceptions? I think MacIntyre’s position requires that this be the case. If that isn’t the case, we are left having to choose between a neutralised and demoralised liberal secularism – which I consider to be bankrupt and meaningless – and a theopolitical fundamentalism – which I consider to be potentially repressive of liberty.
Here's what Bruenig writes in the article: 'There’s nothing special about the realm of governance that would cut it off from moral considerations, or give it its own special brand of irreligious moral consideration,' she continued, saying that politicians 'are still beholden to the same moral precepts that they are in every other decision they make in their lives.'
That’s consistent with my commitment to the intertwining of politics and ethics. And that is not necessarily a Christian or theological view; it is the ancient view, as expressed clearly by Aristotle.
In embracing natural law, I do not thereby abandon the ‘rational freedom’ of pagan or secular or rationalist philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Marx. That’s my view. And my attraction to natural law is the high place it accords to reason. Christianity is not simply a matter of faith at all, a view that has more in common with the disenchanted modern terrain and the split between fact and value than it does with the natural law tradition. Christianity can and should be held rationally, as I have argued at length in recent essays on this site. Anyone acquainted with the natural law tradition running throughout Christianity reveals a commitment to a rational science of human and social order. As Eric Voegelin argues, ‘this science was not simply a belief, but it was actually elaborated as a work of reason'. As against a position that sets reason and faith against each other, the natural law position holds that right reason and faith are held together, and that therefore we avoid fracturing the debate into a crude opposition between religion as based on faith and reason as necessarily secular. In the end, it is about establishing the right relationships, and avoiding the totalitarian temptation in which the divine law comes to be imposed on the affairs of the earthly city.
I will be writing more on Alasdair MacIntyre, whom I greatly admire. But there are two things I find lacking in his work,
a valuation of the transformative potential of forms of social organisation and praxis within modernity (which is to say Marxism in its self-emancipatory revolutionary aspect, society as a field of materialist immanence constituted by lines of development pointing to its self-transcendence) and but his ethics lack transcendence. The civic virtues to the exclusion of the theological virtues;
the spiritual dimension and an ethics of transcendence.
This leads to a double deficiency. If the former is too Thomist and not Marxist/Aristotelian enough, the latter is too Marxist/Aristotelian (materialist/naturalist) and not Thomist (transcendent/spiritual) enough. I would look to integrate all aspects. Reading MacIntyre on desire and decision, he comes over as very much an Aristotelian. That’s all well and good, as far as it goes. The problem for me is that such a position rests ethics on a quasi-scientific naturalism. And that involves all manner of problems. If I ever clear out the backlog of work I have in front of me, I will write at length on this, developing a position somewhere between and beyond the old natural law and modern rational freedom, an ethics that is quite distinct from naturalism and which puts reason, nature, will, contemplation/disclosure and action/imposure together.
MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism leads him to neglect the spiritual dimension and lack a sense of the transcendent. I think that is a big deficiency, and leaves his ethics open to reduction to naturalism. That said, the strength of his approach is to take (secular) reason seriously. What one thinks of this depends upon one’s view of modernity. MacIntyre is a critic of modernity and its moral theories. Modernity can generate a number of moral theories, but cannot offer good reasons for taking any of them seriously. MacIntyre thus shows that our debates lack resolution in that the positions being exchanged are incommensurate. We talk past each other. Agree. And I’m not sure that we could achieve an overarching moral framework capable of doing otherwise, if we focus on ethics alone. The moral problem goes deep into the moral and social infrastructure, into social forms, relations and identities in which a person’s views and beliefs and worldviews are bound up with social positions, interests and actions. It is at that level that moral confusion arises.
That said, the strength of MacIntyre’s approach is that his position invites critics to take modern secular reason seriously. The appreciation of this point has led some to criticise MacIntyre here as a paradoxical critic of modernity who, ultimately, cannot escape the modern terms of the debate. I am sensitive to the point. For all of his strong criticisms of the modern moral terrain, it seems that he only has the one tentative foot in the Aristotelian and Thomist pool. That is no bad thing, as far as I am concerned. Because not all is bad in modern morality, far from it (the emancipation of hitherto excluded, marginalised and oppressed individuals and groups, the recognition of the civic claims and rights of all, is decidedly an achievement, and guards against potentially elitist and hierarchical readings of past natural law/virtue ethics). The strength of MacIntyre’s approach is that he refuses to resolve the problems of reason in modernity by means of theological appeal. If the problem of modernity is the dissolution of an overarching moral framework once supplied by God – this is what Nietzsche’s ‘death of God’ refers to – then the solution would seem, simply, to be an appeal to God and a renewed faith in God. That solution however is no solution at all, precisely because it ignores all the forces which have led to the dissolution of the comprehensive ethical framework. MacIntyre knows this, and he knows how difficult it is to reconstitute that ethical framework. I think that is his great strength. Instead of an abstract common good based on a theological appeal to God, MacIntyre presents an account that possesses social relevance. To be precise, MacIntyre offers a highly differentiated account of the common good as a concrete set of social relations constituted by forms of the common life and communities of practice. I will be arguing that this social and practical relevance with respect to human goods (reflective and substantive) is perfectly compatible with the spiritual dimension of human life (the quest for cosmic meaning is a very real part of human nature) and with the existence of transcendent norms, values and truths (which may go by the name of God). Indeed, my point is stronger than mere compatibility. I think the former requires the latter to make good its claims, and will argue that thesis when I get round to writing the book I have planned on this. My position avoids an either/or. I certainly affirm the transcendent in terms of an objective standard by which to evaluate and orient actions, practices, institutions, laws, politics in time and place. What I am careful to avoid doing is appeal to a theological account of the Good. Asserting a belief in God too easily invites an evasion of the key questions of concrete embodiment and alternative institutions. The approach I take combines the affirmation of transcendent norms, truths and values with the practical institutional work of identifying, developing and justifying the concrete embodiment of the common good via form/s of the common life, social practices and community architectures. That approach is grounded in an implicit, rather than an explicit, appeal to transcendence as the bedrock, proceeding to demonstrate how the social forms and relations composing everyday reality are infused with meaning through their role in facilitating human flourishing. (And planetary health, I hasten to add, seeing as I develop this position as a biospheric ethic and politics.)
The issue seems to come down to the question of whether modernity can resolve its problems within its own terms, without transcendence. I say not. And I take MacIntyre to say not as well, even though he remains more of a modernist and less of an Aristotelian and Thomist than may be apparent given his strong criticism of modernity. That said, the issue cannot be resolved in some simple sense by introducing transcendence, either as a philosophical category (and therefore no different to the other philosophical categories, hence becoming part of competing and incommensurate value claims, not a coherent resolution of the polytheism) or as a theological appeal that is abstracted from the problems of concrete embodiment and social relevance. That is no resolution, it is merely to join the noise as one more voice added to the many others. In raising the question of transcendence, there is a need to avoid collapsing philosophy into theology and theology into philosophy, because there is no possibility of resolution in either of these ways, they merely beg the question we are already being asked, but are incapable of answering it in those terms. It merely restates the problem rather than resolves it. Philosophy can never be complete. Since Creation cannot account for itself, naturalist explanations will always fall short. Hence my scepticism of neo-Aristotelianism as a quasi-scientific account of ethics. I think it is a deficient ethical position and isn’t even true to Aristotle. Philosophies which reduce to theologies and theologies which reduce to philosophies end up corrupting both philosophy and theology.
The points made by Kieryn Darkwater concerning the ‘culture wars’ are pertinent.
‘I grew up in the far-right evangelical conservative (Christofascist) movement; specifically, I was homeschooled and my parents were part of a subculture called Quiverfull, whose aim is to outbreed everyone for Jesus. I spent my teen years being a political activist. I was taught by every pastor I encountered that it was our job as Christians to outbreed the secularists (anyone not a far-right evangelical Protestant) and take over the government through sheer numbers.’
‘Evangelical conservatives started taking over their local republican parties and founding organizations like Operation Rescue, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, just to name a few.’
‘Generation Joshua started in 2003, primarily catering to children homeschooled by extremely religious rightwing adults. Its purpose was to train us to fight in what the Christofascists have been calling the “Culture Wars.” It’s a loose and ambiguous term that basically means anything or anyone that doesn’t align with this very specific view of Christianity must not be allowed to continue.’
Kieryn Darkwater proceeds to explain how that is done, overturning laws that protect against discrimination, infiltrating government to ‘make laws legislating morality.’ Darkwater points to programmes in which the religious right ‘learned how to argue effectively.’ But such argument is not about genuine truthseeking, it’s about ‘winning’ victories for pre-determined platforms and sapping the energies of enemies. ‘As students, we were taught critical thinking skills but given only a narrow view of what was acceptable to argue for. We were, after all, being trained to take over the country for Christ, literally. We knew how to perform logical gymnastics about abortion, Christianity and any evangelical talking point you could throw at us.’ ‘In short, we were sneaky and polite Trojan horses; we had an agenda.’
I’m writing this piece to tell these people – you’ve been spotted, you’ve been rumbled, and your agenda is plain. There is no basis for reasoned debate, discussion and dialogue here. Dialogue goes two ways. With an ‘agenda’ there is only the one way. And it’s impossible to reason with an agenda.
‘Those of us who didn’t leave the far Right are being elected to federal positions or are taking over states and cities. With Pence in office, even the reasonable-seeming incumbents – who have been and are still at the mercy of the Tea Party – are growing more bold in their attempts to further the Christofascist agenda: To Take Back The Country For Christ.’
‘This was the mantra we heard. This was our mission. This is how we were to win: Outbreed, Outvote, Outactivate. Every class, every event, every pastor or guest speaker reiterated this, choosing to risk the 501c3 status of their church to push their agenda. To take back the country for Christ, we needed to outbreed, outvote and outactivate the other side, thus saith The Lord.
Meanwhile, mainstream Democrats shake their heads in confusion and fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of grassroots organizing, which is where all of this happens. Republicans have a vast network of homeschoolers that HSLDA and others have given them to tap into as a source of free labor. Republicans in state governments are lax on homeschooling oversight because their Get Out The Vote base is made of homeschoolers thanks to Generation Joshua and Teenpact.’
These people are but a small proportion, but are loud beyond their numbers, and they are seeking to be politically influential. I’ve called it theopolitical fundamentalism. Darkwater refers to it as Christofascism. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t care for it, it makes for rotten religion and divisive politics.
‘Self-proclaimed constitutional lawyer Michael Farris, the founder of HSLDA, and revisionist historian David Barton have spent years twisting their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution as some kind of God-breathed document into the minds of parents and their families who will just believe what they say because they’re “Good Christians.” They don’t necessarily practice critical thought, are dissuaded from looking at the Constitution themselves without a law degree and don’t bother to read history from all angles, relying only on the whitewashed Christian versions of the Constitution and our founding.’
It would be easy to dismiss the idea of turning the US into a theocracy as ludicrous, with no basis in the constitution. But that’s the idea that lies behind assertions that the US is a Christian nation, not only in religion but in politics. ‘Christofascists have imbibed this theory and now believe it is their Christian duty to save the country from its secular ways in the name of religious freedom. In this worldview, any non-Christian (including Catholics and Jews) is doomed to eternal torture if they don’t convert. Thus, we are all going to hell in a handbasket if “good Christians” don’t save the country from the liberals who think people should just “do what they want regardless of what God says.” Their religious extremism is worse than any group they fearmonger over, but the irony is lost on them.’
‘Evangelical conservatives are convinced that their agenda will save the country from God-ordained death. Pat Robertson and many others believe that natural disasters are sent from God specifically to punish America for letting marginalized people have rights and be alive. This motivates them to do everything in their power to “save” the country from the ungodly – even, maybe especially – if it involves stripping others of the freedoms they deem to be against God’s wishes. They don’t care if their war for Christ hurts humans they see as living wrongfully, because they are capital “R” Right and that’s what matters. Their Rightness, they believe, comes from God Himself. Their beliefs are callous and without empathy, prioritizing dogma over people.’
Hence the animus against various movements and identities and minorities and their legal protections, liberties and rights, all castigated as secularism and humanism. Forget that natural law embraces each and all equally and underpins natural rights as applicable to all – the extension of rights to the marginalised and oppressed is vilified as atheism. And it’s important to be clear about the nature of this movement, rather than dismiss all those involved as stupid and bigoted and racist – things go much deeper than that. These people might look like ‘a bunch of backwoods hillbillies playing with guns’ but ‘they are resilient and in it for the long haul.’ And they know how to harry and harass their opponents – they know their enemies and they know how to discomfort them. And they aim to defeat and destroy them. ‘They want America to succeed, but in their America there isn’t room for anyone unlike them. There’s a reason Trump’s mantra stuck despite his deplorable behaviour. They think America was founded on conservative Protestant ideals because that’s what they’ve been fed, because that’s what aligns with their interpretation of the Bible and they will not go down without a fight.’
I’m reading that the religious right has suddenly acknowledged the existence of a religious left, and have realised that the religious left is taking them to the cleaners, by doing no more than sticking to first principles, rather than pressing these into the service of political ideology. The left has been dismissed as secularist and atheist by definition, hence the existence of a religious left has caught them by surprise. But they are mobilising their attacks and abuse, as seen in attacks on people as ‘nominal Christians’, Christians in name only, paying lip service to beliefs and principles, whilst paving the way for a secular agenda – doing the work of the devil, in other words. If you want to know how religious wars start, and how people come to persecute, burn and kill each other, then here’s how easily it is done.
We need to be absolutely clear about the mindset at work here, because dismissing people as stupid, bigoted, hate-filled and racist is not going to be effective at all, merely entrench divisions that invite intensification and explosion, to the detriment of all, in the long run. These people don’t see themselves as racist, sexist, homophobic or bigoted, but as an embattled God-fearing minority up against hordes of secularists and atheists.
‘They are scared of anything newer than the 18th century; you can’t logic the fear of change away from people. If you do no research and are instead predisposed to the belief that older is better, it’s easy to think the Puritans were good and wholesome. People wore funny hats, were conservative and hated science. Church was basically mandatory and women weren’t allowed to speak or be autonomous people. These are all comforting things for people who feel as though the world is against them because of their religion, rather than the fact that their views and actions are bigoted, racist and actively harmful to millions of other humans.’
The problem for the rest of us is that this mentality buttressed by public power and legal force cannot but do immense harm to the health, liberty and happiness of those who think otherwise. ‘You cannot be this version of evangelical and not force your beliefs on others. Failing to convert is a failure on you and your dedication to your faith. This religion is based entirely on fear; you can’t argue away a fear so intense that it hardens you to anyone unlike you or your tribe.’
Hence my case against ‘theopolitical fundamentalism’. Religion and politics do not mix, one must prevail over the other, to the detriment of both. The temper of politics is judicious. It is a messy realm of competing claims and contrary pulls. Subordinating politics to religious dogma amounts to putting politics on ice, suppressing alternative voices and platforms, ending the very stuff of politics.
As for dialogue, it goes two ways. In my experience in responding to questions and criticisms from these sources, it was all take and no give. I have debated at length, and given fairly detailed responses on law, government, environmental issues, climate change. The response back? Nothing. Silence. Just further quibbles and queries. There is no dialogue here, no mutual learning and respect. I know from experience that Kieryn Darkwater is right, so now have no hesitation at all in cutting off ‘discussion’ and ‘debate’ with those whose only concern is to advance their extreme right agenda. I engage with genuine truthseekers, not ideologues. Such people are beyond politics; they seek the end of politics. And they are dangerous to public life and civic freedom.
‘They will not be won over with sit-downs and respectability politics. This kind of dogma cannot be reasoned with; it must be fought against. Trying to convince them to come to the other side is a waste of time unless they’ve already started on that journey themselves. The ones in power, actively harming our lives, are past this point. We can only fight back.’
Start that journey, and I will reason with you. Anything short of that is a waste of precious time.
As one who argues for Marx on the basis of transcendent norms and truths (as against the relativism of historicism - but for a relativism of norms and truths which unfold within specific social relations) you might think I would fit this 'religious left' designation. I have no difficulty at all in backing my commitment to peace, equality and justice in religious arguments and sources.
"Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II 66.7) Aquinas juxtaposes this reference to property held in superabundance with a quote from Ambrose: "The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless."
“Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.” (Saint John Chrysostom).
I have sometimes been deliberately provocative in stating that the supposedly relativist, atheist and historicist political 'left' are the ones who are most vocal and active in demanding truth, equality, justice and rights that I consider to have transcendent grounding, whilst the political 'right', who are most vocal in proclaiming such transcendent standards, are the most relative of all, sacrificing objective principles to dominant power relations and institutions.
I put it that way to provoke, and provoke both sides, into examining their claims and commitments and being clear as to what their bedrock principles are. I don't argue for the religious left against the religious right, that context makes no sense in terms of the overarching commitment to transcendent norms, values and truths - the whole point is that those norms, values and truths stand outside of the political sphere and serve as a objective standard of evaluation, criticism and orientation with respect to our laws, institutions, politics and actions. So don't make the mistake of defining me as 'religious left.' It's a meaningless designation or an abomination that dissolves the very transcendent source and hope I am seeking to defend. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. That's the point of my criticism of the 'religious right' - or more accurately the evangelical right. It is perfectly possible to be Christian and conservative without being hypocritical, and Christian and radical, and Christian and communist, religious and any kind of politics that embodies mutual respect whilst expressing legitimate differences. The problems come when religion and politics are conflated, and the commitments of political ideology come to trump the transcendent religious ethic and commitment. My commitment is to transcendent norms, values and truths, and these point to a certain kind of just and egalitarian society - a communism in terms of all things being in common among friends, a fellowship, an economics of company. Working out the precise institutional features is a question of politics. I argue against a religion in service of political ideology, and against a political ideology that is merely the rationalisation of vested interests, cut off from ethics. You can be left or right in politics - but the case against a theopolitical fundamentalism speaks against the notion of a 'religious left' as much as it does a 'religious right.' It looks more 'left' than it is because the big problem we face at the moment is the political misuse of religion by reactionary forces of the right. And that, I am certainly against. We need to be the salt and the light in a world in which some who should know better have gone badly astray. It won't do them any good, it won't do the world any good, and it will put another nail in the coffin of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
Michael Sean Winters has the measure of Chaput. Chaput's latest book, Strangers in a Strange Land, provides many examples of his willingness to see those with whom he disagrees as civilizational threats. Chaput's approach could scarcely be more at odds with the approach suggested by Pope Benedict, as Joseph Ratzinger, in his book, Without Roots, which he co-wrote with Marcello Pera.
“I would say that both secular people and Catholics, seekers and believers, in the dense thicket of branches filled with many birds, must move toward each other with a new openness. Believers must never stop seeking, while seekers are touched by the truth and thus cannot be classified as people without faith and Christian-inspired moral principles. There are ways of partaking of the truth by which seekers and believers give to and learn from each other. This is why the distinction between Catholics and secularists is relative. Secular people are not a rigid block. They do not constitute a set denomination, or worse, an "anti-denomination." They are people who do not yet feel able to take the step of ecclesiastical faith with everything that such a step involves. Very often they are people who passionately seek the truth, who are pained by the lack of truth in humankind. Consequently they return to the essential contents of culture and faith, and through their commitment often make these contents even more luminous than an unquestioned faith, accepted more out of habit than out of the sufferings of the conscience.”
Where is the reason to hope that this expansive and hopeful vision could one day come to prevail? That's my question.
‘On the specific issue of religious liberty, Chaput has been among the most vocal bishops in happily joining in what can only be called a distortion of Catholic teaching on the subject, a distortion that has emerged from the "complicated political and religious web" the Civiltà article addresses. It is not, repeat not, traditional Catholic teaching that any claim that puts itself forth as a religious claim must be honored in the secular sphere. Our teaching is a delicate balance of the rights of conscience and the responsibility of the government to define and pursue the common good. It is nuanced. It is not the kind of bumper sticker Chaput and his confreres would have you believe.’
Winters makes a telling comment on the right-wing obsession with abortion:
‘Chaput has been among the prelates urging an ever more narrow focus on this issue, arguing that pro-choice politicians should not present themselves for Communion, castigating the University of Notre Dame for "prostituting [its] Catholic identity" by inviting President Barack Obama to speak at its commencement exercise and receive an honorary award, etc. I do not recall him saying that politicians who vote against environmental regulations, regulations necessary to protect all life on the planet, human and otherwise, should not present themselves for Communion.’
The most regrettable aspect of religion being dragged into (subordinate) relation with political ideology is the way the religious ethic, instead of enlarging and edifying horizons and actions, has become crude, narrow and reductive.
‘The biggest effect, however, of this alliance may not pertain to this issue or that. It is the coarseness of the rhetoric, the demonization of those with whom one disagrees, the reduction of complicated theological principles like religious liberty or material cooperation with evil to soundbites and propaganda. Chaput and his culture warrior colleagues in the American episcopate may not exhibit the extremism of Church Militant, but they have dragged the Catholic Church in this country into an often ridiculous and thoroughly partisan stance that resembles that of the Rev. Jerry Falwell more than that of their own predecessors in the American hierarchy. And then they blame others that the pews are emptying out on their watch!’
‘We cannot simply p-r-a-y pray over people while they p-r-e-y on the poor and vulnerable among us. The teachings of Jesus are clear about caring for the poor and the sick, and we are called to share His message; we cannot simply serve as chaplains to imperial power. If we pray for a person engaging in injustice we must offer prayers that lead to conviction, not prayers that further embolden them in their wrongdoing. And since faith comes by hearing, we must speak prophetically and truthfully to them about using political power to inflict public pain. If they refuse to listen, we must put legs on our prayers and demand that those leaders attend instead to the weightier matters of love justice and mercy.
‘If Jesus did anything, he offered health care wherever he went — and he never charged a leper a co-pay.
‘Whatever your political philosophy or party affiliation, God’s Word is clear about the responsibility of governance:
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. (Isaiah 10: 1–3)
This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. (Jeremiah 22:3)
For decades you have insisted that the Christian political agenda is a “pro-life” agenda. You have taught millions that the image of God is stamped on each of us — no matter the color of our skin or the money in our bank account — and that each and every child of God was knit together in our mother’s wombs, fearfully and wonderfully made. And yet, in this moment of crisis, when our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors are at risk, you say so little. You have been so loud in the past. What spirit has silenced you in this moment of truth for the ethic of life?
‘But in our present crisis, you have publicly embraced a president and a party that embody the abuses of power that the Biblical prophets decried. Millions of people have been led astray by your error, and the whole world is now reaping the consequences. I single you out because the people I know and serve literally cannot afford the cost of your willful blindness.
I pen this letter as I stand in support of another group of clergy called to nonviolent direct action against the cruel attempt to withdraw healthcare from the poor and others. I also write to you in faith and in love because I know that redemption is possible — we all raise our voices and sing the words penned by a reformed slave trader, “I once was lost but now am found / Was blind but now I see.”
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
Senior Pastor, Greeleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
President, Repairers of the Breach
And those words apply, too, to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris accord combined with measures designed to open the environment to further private development and exploitation. It’s what Dante called ‘foul usury’, and it is a despoliation of Nature that does violence to God. I repeat here what I have written in many other places - I am well aware of the limitations of the Paris accord, and I criticise those limitations in order to advance the case for stronger, legally binding, global action connected with implementations at appropriate levels. But the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, signed by 195 nations, the way it was done and the reasons for which it was done, combined with the dismantling of U.S. domestic environmental legislation and hobbling of science, is a foul abomination. The Paris Agreement is far from perfect but, as things stand in the here and now, it is the best the human species has managed to put together in the attempt to address the crisis in the climate system, and is our best hope to stop global warming before it becomes catastrophic – but only if it is fully implemented.