Moral action is freely chosen action

John Stossel interviewed Michael Moore for an upcoming 20/20 on ABC. Stossel is one of the few identifiable libertarians in the major media. Moore, of course, has just released his newest "documentary" Sicko. Stossel wrote about the interview, believing it provides an insight into Moore's ideology. This portion of the Stossel column begins with a quotation from Moore:

"I gotta believe that, even though I know you're very much for the individual determining his own destiny, you also have a heart."

Notice his smuggled premise in the words "even though." In Moore's mind, someone who favors individual freedom doesn't care about his fellow human beings. If I have a heart, it's in spite of my belief in freedom and autonomy for everyone. ....

Moore thinks respecting others' freedom means refusing to help the less fortunate. But where's the connection? All it means is that the libertarian refuses to sanction the use of physical force (which is what government is) to help others. Peaceful methods - like voluntary charity - are the only morally consistent methods. I give about a quarter of my income to charities because I've seen that private charity helps the needy far better than government does.

Moore followed up with a religious lesson.

"What the nuns told me is true: We will be judged by how we treat the least among us. And that in order to be accepted into heaven, we're gonna be asked a series of questions. When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was homeless, did you give me shelter? And when I was sick, did you take care of me?"

I'm not a theologian, but I do know that when people are ordered by the government to be charitable, it's not virtuous; it's compelled. Why would anyone get into heaven because he pays taxes under threat of imprisonment? Moral action is freely chosen action.

I was reminded of this book about charity, a review of which made this observation:

In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others....

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Freedom and Benevolence Go Together

Church leadership

Alex Chediak offers a couple of interesting resources about church leadership: a booklet by Mark Dever, describing the roles of deacons and elders in the context of congregational polity [available here as a pdf], and a short paper he wrote about "biblical eldership" [pdf].

Alex Chediak Blog: Free Resource on Church Leadership - Mark Dever

What religion am I?

A good friend has directed me to this quiz at the Beliefnet site:

Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic" knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic" will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing.

Warning: Belief-O-Matic" assumes no legal liability for the ultimate fate of your soul. (the quiz)

My results (the first 10 out of 27):

1. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (98%)
3. Eastern Orthodox (94%)
4. Roman Catholic (94%)
5. Seventh-day Adventist (90%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (77%)
7. Islam (63%)
8. Orthodox Judaism (63%)
9. Bahá'í Faith (57%)
10. Liberal Quakers (55%)

I fit more or less into number 1, but not 100% into the group within which I received 100% Although initially surprised by number 2, the definition of "Orthodox Quaker" was reasonably reassuring. Otherwise it was about what I would have expected.

Beliefnet: Belief-O-Matic, What Religion Am I Quiz

No cause for offense

A Presbyterian reacts to the Vatican's statement today about the relationship between Roman Catholicism and other Christians:

Today’s Vatican document is intended to clarify, especially for Catholics, the truth claim that continues to be made by Catholicism: that it constitutes the most faithful existing realization of what Christ intended when he founded a Church. This means, according to Catholic doctrine, that Protestant churches are not really the Church. Today’s Vatican document says: “These Communities [i.e., Protestant churches] do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called ‘Churches’ in the proper sense.” This is the Vatican’s answer to the question, “Why be Catholic?”: In short, because Catholicism is more faithful to what Christ intended. Some will, no doubt, portray this as an arrogant statement, and one that represents a backtracking from ecumenism and Christian unity. But all it is, really, is a making explicit of what Catholicism really teaches. The cause of truth is not served by a failure to be honest on the part of Catholics—any more than on the part of, say, Landmark Baptists, who hold a similar belief that their denomination is the only one that technically qualifies as a “church.” Say what you believe—and then people of good will will try to sort it all out for themselves. And, as far as ecumenism is concerned, even today’s document makes clear that “there are ‘numerous elements of sanctification and of truth’ which are found outside [the Catholic Church’s] structure.” The Protestant churches “are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation.” As a Presbyterian who grew up Catholic, I view today’s Vatican statement as fundamentally an assertion that Protestants aren’t Catholics. Fair enough, and no cause for offense.

The Corner: Do Protestants Have Churches?

Justification or Acceptance?

Cranach comments on a recent lecture:

Dissident ELCA theologian Karl Donfried notes that there are now two different theologies in contemporary Christianity: a theology of redemption, about how Christ saves sinners, and a "theology of inclusion," about the need for the church to accept people as they are. Justification as the chief article of the church is being replaced by Acceptance, as the doctrine that trumps all others.

Karl Donfried's speech can be found here.

Today's two theologies

"The Long Sneer"

Ross Douthat, himself no "great admirer" of Russell Kirk, eviscerates Alan Wolfe's "hatchet job" on Kirk in the The New Republic. An excerpt, beginning with a quotation from Wolfe:

.. when it comes to Judaism, Kirk has some exceedingly odd ideas. Without the legacy of ancient Israel, he wrote in a book published in 1974, "the American moral order could not have come into existence at all." But we should not conclude from Kirk's comment that he believes Judaism to have made an important contribution to American life. Quite the contrary: following Voegelin, Kirk believes that Judaism's role in history was simply to prepare the way for Christianity. The idea of a Chosen People, Kirk writes, was a necessary prelude to a time in which "God becomes known successively as Creator, as Lord and Judge of history, and as Redeemer." In this role the Jews were not alone; Platonism is another ancient religion that anticipated the coming of Jesus. "Neither the leap of Israel nor the leap of Hellas brought full knowledge of the transcendent order; it required the fusing of Jewish and Greek genius in Christianity for a leap still higher."

Dear me, what an "exceedingly odd idea," this notion that Judaism might have been a precursor to a fuller revelation of God's purposes. Why, it's almost as if Kirk were ... were ... a Christian.

Except that it is one of Wolfe's most telling points against Kirk that he supposedly wasn't a Christian, that he wasn't intellectually gutsy enough to actually pick a specific faith and stick with it:

With four religions unable to be called upon to gird the social order, one might think that Kirk's next step would be to identify the one that, to him, is best suited for the task. But this Kirk never does. He defends religion, but not any particular religion. One looks in vain for apologetics in Kirk's work, for some serious theological demonstration that the ideas associated with a particular tradition, because they are true, are the best ideas for holding society together. Lacking any such thing, Kirk's call for a "sacred patrimony" amounts to little more than Dwight Eisenhower's injunction on the importance of believing in something, whatever that something happens to be. It is really an uplifting form of philosophical indifference ... Against this vapidity, give me Father Neuhaus anytime: when he defends the need for religion in the public square, you are not left in doubt about which religion it is.

Various people have pointed out that Kirk did, in fact, choose a religion, converting to Roman Catholicism in 1964. To which Wolfe has retorted, in a reply to his critics:

I was not interested in, and did not talk about, Kirk's private faith; my point ... was that Kirk's refusal to identify one religion as the public faith whose principles were meant to guide our collective morality reflected a failure to think through his remarkably banal ideas about the importance of religion for the social order ... it was actually out of respect for Kirk's privacy that I did not discuss his personal religious preferences; I do not believe it is my business to talk about people's confessional beliefs.

How noble and high-minded! But this is all rubbish: Kirk does defend a particular religion tradition; he just doesn't defend a particular confession within that tradition. Like many modern conservatives, he suggests that the Western social order is founded on a common Judeo-Christian religious inheritance (a "Mere Judeo-Christianity," if you will) that undergirds our social order, a point of view that he shares, not incidentally, with none other than Richard John Neuhaus, who is despised by many right-wing Catholics precisely for his ecumenism. Perhaps this common tradition is just a figment of Kirk's and Neuhaus' and many other people's imagination; perhaps the contradictions between Judaism and Christianity, or between Catholicism and Protestantism, are too great to provide a common foundation for a social order; perhaps there is simply no middle ground between a purely secular society and a society grounded in, say, Catholic social teaching and nothing else. I think the experience of the United States suggests otherwise, but again, if Alan Wolfe wants to have that argument, by all means. Again, he doesn't; he just wants to sneer. [more]

Ross Douthat: The Long Sneer

Magazines

Touchstone Magazine is ecumenical in a good sense. Some ecumenism seems to accomplish its purpose by ignoring the tough issues or denying that there are any. Touchstone is committed to what C.S. Lewis called "mere Christianity," that is the orthodox core of doctrine that defines what Christianity is. Its regular writers include Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and conservative and evangelical Protestants. Mere Comments is their blog, and today it recommends three magazines: one Baptist, one Catholic, and one Orthodox:

THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

NATIONAL CATHOLIC BIOETHICS QUARTERLY

AGAIN: THE ANCIENT CHRISTIAN FAITH TODAY

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: The SBJT, the NCBQ, & Again

Harold O.J. Brown 1933-2007

An appreciation by John Woodbridge at First Things:

Whether in foul weather or fair, a bicyclist would sometimes suddenly emerge from an opening in the neighboring woods. The bicyclist would then ride pell-mell on a dirt path across a meadow toward a divinity school, located in the northern suburbs of Chicago. If the weather were foul, mud could be seen splattering the bicyclist’s brownish-green Swiss pantaloons. His old bicycle had no mud guard.

There he was, Harold O.J. Brown, a lover of the outdoors (especially the Alps of Germany and Switzerland), peddling as fast as he could to reach a classroom building where forty or fifty students were awaiting him. The students would be patient, should he be a little late. After all, they would soon have the treat of listening to Professor Brown, one of the leading evangelical theologians of his generation, teach them systematic theology. This is the man who died Sunday after a long bout with cancer.

Brown was an intriguing lecturer. He could awe with displays of vast erudition regarding theology, ethics, journalism, politics, and church history. He could entertain by spouting Latin verse or by bursting into the hearty singing of an old German song. He could charm with flashes of wit and colorful anecdotes. But students especially appreciated Brown’s care and concern for them as persons. He wanted them to be educated (”civilized” with a wide-ranging culture), articulate, and activist Christians. He would generously go out of his way to help them. In 1989, students voted Professor Brown, their esteemed teacher, “Faculty Member of the Year” at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. [more]

First Things: Harold O. J. Brown

Proclaim to all

Reading further about Harold O.J. Brown [who died on Sunday, see the post immediately below], I came across several articles and reviews he wrote for Christianity Today over the years. One of them, from 1976, spoke to the question of the establishment clause in the 1st Amendment, and the issue of a "wall of separation":

No American historian would seriously contend that the phrase "regarding an establishment of religion" in the First Amendment means anything other than what it says: it forbids the establishment of a national religion or church. It did not in fact forbid the establishment of state churches, as both Massachusetts and Connecticut had them at the time of the amendment's adoption and retained them for many years to come. The limitations of federal power contained in the Bill of Rights have subsequently been extended to apply to the individual states as well. Yet even when applied to the states, the First Amendment means only that no state may establish a state church, just as the federal government may not establish a national church. It certainly did not mean, in its conception, that nothing in public law or policy may reflect the convictions or insights of any church or of the Christian religion.

It is absurd to suppose, as the Supreme Court did in a 1961 decision on prayer in public schools, Engel v Vitale, that the recitation of a prayer in public school constitutes an "establishment of religion" in the sense of the First Amendment. In fact, the Court's reasoning in that case was based more on the contention that the state authorities of New York, in formulating or designating a prayer, were becoming "entangled" in a religious issue rather than on the obviously absurd contention that they were thereby establishing a religion.

The transition from the precise and limited prohibition of establishment to a general and all-embracing prohibition of "entanglement" is another way in which the influence, convictions, and counsel of Christians are rendered ineffective. The doctrine of entanglement is derived from a concept that is not constitutional in origin (although it goes back to one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson), namely, the "wall of separation" between church and state. Even though Jefferson himself was opposed to revealed religion and wished to reduce the influence of the Christian churches in American society, his concept of the wall of separation was far less noxious in the early nineteenth century than it has become in our day. In Jefferson's day, government at all levels was extremely limited; there was no compulsory education, for example. Hence to insist on a rigid separation, an exclusion of the church and religion from all areas of state activity, represented far less of a repression of religion and its relegation to the fringe of social life than a similar insistence does today. ....

The doctrine of the separation of church and state, if it refers to institutions and organizations, is salutary and acceptable. If it is interpreted to mean the systematic exclusion of all religious attitudes, insights, and values from every aspect of life and every square foot of space where the state exercises a measure of involvement or regulation, then it is illegitimate and represents nothing less than a long-range program for the suppression of religion, and specifically, of the most widely represented and active religion in America, Christianity. ....

...Christians must acknowledge that if God has placed them in a largely non-Christian society (at least in the sense of genuine commitment, as opposed to merely nominal Christianity), it is not in order that they be transformed by it, but for its healing and transformation by them. Can God expect less of Christians than that they at least have the courage to attempt to persuade non-Christians that the organization of society according to Christian, biblical principles to the advantage of all?

Conversely, if Christians, who through our historical development have been the trustees of most of the ethical and moral wisdom of our civilization—for it has come to us through Christian sources—refuse or are too timid to share it with others, they are depriving the whole nation and all its people of a good of which they are supposed to be stewards and disseminators, not mere warehousemen. What this simply means is that it is a Christian duty to proclaim to all society, not just to the like-minded, the social value of the laws, principles, and insights that we derive from our biblical heritage, but that correspond in their ultimate validity to the nature of man as a creature made in the image of God.

The Passivity Of American Christians | Christianity Today

Harold O.J. Brown RIP

Dr. Harold O.J. Brown died yesterday. Trinity Divinity students of my acquaintance found him challenging and worthy of attention. Among his many achievements, he was one of the first modern evangelical writers who argued that the faith has political implications and needs to be worked out in that aspect of life as in all others. As indicated below, he was engaged with the abortion issue, but his political concerns were much broader.

A scholar devoted to the cause of human rights and dignity, Dr. Brown was respected worldwide. He held professorships at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois and at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also taught internationally at institutions in India, Switzerland, and France. In addition to his academic posts, he was the Director of the Center on Religion and Society at the Rockford Institute, on the editorial staff of several publications including Christianity Today and Human Life Review, and a member of many academic and theological societies both in America and abroad. A prolific writer, he has published articles in numerous newspapers, journals, and magazines, and has written nine books, including Protest of a Troubled Protestant, Death Before Birth, Heresies, and The Sensate Culture.

Dr. Brown was one of the earliest Evangelical voices to call for a clear moral response to the abortion issue. Inspired by Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer and aided by Rev. Billy Graham and several leaders of Catholic pro-life organizations, Dr. Brown and former surgeon-general C. Everett Koop founded the Christian Action Council in 1975. This organization changed its name to Care Net in 1993, and now supports a national network of 1,090 pregnancy resource centers which provide counseling and resources to women with unplanned pregnancies.

Dr. Harold O.J. Brown

"...an energy or a thing that lives inside us."

Sinéad O'Connor has just put out a new album: Theology. In connection with it she has been giving interviews. Her publicists seem to think that she may have a significant market within the Christian community. They are probably mistaken. These excerpts are from the interview she did with Christianity Today.

.... Where do you stand in your faith in Jesus?

O'Connor: I think everybody has an individual relationship with Jesus. I kinda really do believe in this Trinity thing, that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one thing. I understand Jesus as being an interceder, someone you ask when you really need a big favor from God. I also feel that Jesus is inside everybody. It's almost like an energy or a thing that lives inside of us. ....

So there's no such thing as Jesus being the one way, truth, and life?

O'Connor: I believe that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and that whole kind of thing is one particular energy. If you want a put a picture of a body on it, then fine. But I call it an energy. Some people paint a picture of Jesus. But to me, he's an energy. That energy is the same no matter where you are in the world or whose side you're on. If you call it Allah or you call it God or you call it Buddha, it's all the same. I thing God saves everybody whether they want to be saved or not. So when we die, we're all going home.

So it doesn't matter your lifestyle, we're all going to heaven.

O'Connor: Yeah, I don't think God judges anybody. He loves everybody equally. I think there's a slight difference when it comes to very evil people, but there are not too many of those in the world.

God's character is very human; he goes through the whole gamut of emotions that a person might go through.

By human, do you mean fallible?

O'Connor: People often say, "If there's a God, why does he let bad things happen?" We expect God to be perfect, but if we're made in God's image, then perhaps God isn't perfect. And that's OK. But I also believe that partly we are God. We are part of God and God is something that's in us and all around us. ....

Update 7/10: Christianity Today posts a rather positive take on Sinéad O'Connor's Theology.

Sinéad O'Connor, 07/07 - Interviews - Christian Music Today

Faith and Clinton

The New York Times, yesterday, printed an interesting and informative article about Senator Clinton's religious belief and practice. It would seem that the leading Democratic candidates for President are far friendlier to religion than is their political base.

Faith Intertwines With Political Life for Clinton - New York Times

Things valuable in themselves

Lydia McGrew at Right Reason ponders things that are of value in themselves; things that have no utilitarian or political purpose but are simply beautiful and true. She invites each of us to create our own list. Christians argue that such things are instances of God's overwhelming grace, and would suppose that an answer to her second question [below] would have to do with valuing these things inordinately [for themselves, perhaps?].

There is something peculiarly satisfying about certain human activities and the accomplishments of human art and endeavour. There is also something uniquely valuable about good things that come to us as gifts without the exercise of any special skill of our own. In Part II, I plan to raise the more disturbing question, "How does a dedication to things valuable in themselves become corrupted, or how can it corrupt the person so dedicated?"

But for now, here are a few, a very few, of my favorite intrinsically valuable things:

the music of Bach

the paintings of Vermeer

"The Winter's Tale"

savoury beef stew with orange peel

the Book of Common Prayer

the Spanish Riding School

chess

a human child

a little girl's hair

a clean house

a tough and interesting proof

a cardinal

Right Reason: Raindrops on Roses

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Stands to Reason recommends a book from IVP [which I just ordered]:

Hebrews 12 tells us:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

I just got a book in the mail that put me in mind of this passage because it's a series of biographical vignettes of Christian thinkers who have shaped the church and history, The History of Christian Thought by Jonathan Hill. We are the benefactors of those in the faith who've contributed to our understanding of Christianity, yet we know little if anything about them. "A society [or church] with no grasp of its history is like a person without a memory."

Stand to Reason Blog: Refresh Your Christian Memory

End This War Now!

John Mark Reynolds makes a point.

End This War Now! | Scriptorium Daily

A reading list, Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade

A parent asked S.M. Hutchens for a reading list for her daughter, suspecting that the school lists were deficient.

Under the impression...that there must be some fine lists out there that aren’t explicitly Christian—for it is not Christian parents alone who are interested in the best reading for their children - I was pleased to find a particularly good one, produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which I reproduce here for our readers:

Find the list here.

The comments after the list are interesting, too, offering additions and qualifications. One of the best gifts a parent can give a child is the love of reading, because reading, like any other skill, improves with practice - and how many skills can offer as much pleasure in the getting. Reading these books would also acquaint them with the culture - providing what has been called "cultural literacy," the ability to make connections between then and now and to understand the world around them much better and in much greater depth.

[Note: the illustration is from a bookplate that I used in my personal library when young.]

Touchstone Magazine - Books For Children, Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade

This does not change the reality

At the New Criterion site, a panel including Christians, Jews, a Muslim, and individuals without religious faith, discuss the meaning of suffering. One comment:

Jamie Glazov: Well, in my own limited understanding of this world and of its creator, I have a slight hunch that God might have a bit of a higher understanding of the way His creation works than we do. If we knew God completely and understood everything about Him, then He wouldn't be God and we wouldn't have freedom. And we also wouldn't be just human beings - which we are. .... I am not sure about the wisdom of making ourselves Gods, or equal to God, in the suggestion that His creation becomes what we think of it, rather than recognizing that our understanding is limited, and less than a speck of dust, in the face of His infinite greatness. I also have a feeling that if an individual believes that God doesn't love him, and doesn't operate in his life, that this does not necessarily change the reality that God does both.

ARMAVIRUMQUE: THE NEW CRITERION'S WEBLOG

Summer movies

Ben Witherington liked both Live Free or Die Hard [with qualifications] and Ratatouille [unqualifiedly]. Have the great "summer movies" finally arrived?

Ben Witherington: Live Free or Die Hard-- or Live Hard and Die Free?, Ben Witherington: Ratatouille - Midsummer's Gourmet Treat

The root causes of terrorism

As with crime, it is in some quarters quite common to explain terrorism by suggesting that the terrorists just can't help themselves. As victims of poverty and ignorance their behavior is understandable, and the obvious cure is to attack those "root causes." From the Wall Street Journal Online today:

When Princeton economist Alan Krueger saw reports that seven of eight people arrested in the unsuccessful car bombings in Britain were doctors, he wasn't shocked. He wasn't even surprised.

"Each time we have one of these attacks and the backgrounds of the attackers are revealed, this should put to rest the myth that terrorists are attacking us because they are desperately poor," he says. "But this misconception doesn't die." ....

"As a group, terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group in the societies from which they originate," Mr. Krueger said at the London School of Economics last year in a lecture soon to be published as a book, "What Makes a Terrorist?"

"There is no evidence of a general tendency for impoverished or uneducated people to be more likely to support terrorism or join terrorist organizations than their higher-income, better-educated countrymen," he said. The Sept. 11 attackers were relatively well-off men from a rich country, Saudi Arabia. ....

[Krueger] began poking around this sordid subject a decade ago when he and a colleague found little connection between economic circumstances and the incidence of violent hate crimes in Germany. Among the statistical pieces of the puzzle a small band of academics have assembled since are these:

• Backgrounds of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers show they were less likely to come from families living in poverty and were more likely to have finished high school than the general population. Biographies of 129 Hezbollah shahids (martyrs) reveal they, too, are less likely to be from poor families than the Lebanese population from which they come. The same goes for available data about an Israeli terrorist organization, Gush Emunim, active in the 1980s.
• Terrorism doesn't increase in the Middle East when economic conditions worsen; indeed, there seems no link. One study finds the number of terrorist incidents is actually higher in countries that spend more on social-welfare programs. Slicing and dicing data finds no discernible pattern that countries that are poorer or more illiterate produce more terrorists. Examining 781 terrorist events classified by the U.S. State Department as "significant" reveals terrorists tend to come from countries distinguished by political oppression, not poverty or inequality.
• Public-opinion polls from Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey find people with more education are more likely to say suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq are justified. Polls of Palestinians find no clear difference in support for terrorism as a means to achieve political ends between the most and least educated. ....

...[T]he conventional wisdom that poverty breeds terrorism is backed by surprisingly little hard evidence. "The evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as an important cause of support for terrorism or of participation in terrorist activities," Mr. Krueger asserts. The 9/11 Commission stated flatly: Terrorism is not caused by poverty. ....

Capital - WSJ.com

God, the Hollywood version

GetReligion comments on an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times that recounts the history of God as portrayed in in the movies.

Los Angeles Times: When playing God, the on-screen choices are infinite