Unorthodoxy

In the wake of the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, a chorus of voices - mainly, if not exclusively on the political Left - arose in denunciation of the decline of "civility" in contemporary political life. Somewhat incredibly, some of the more prominent voices on the political Right - such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin - denounced these calls for civility. There were efforts - often successful, in fact - to point out that the Left was just as likely to be uncivil in its words and deeds. Still, it's a disturbing spectacle to see so-called conservatives defending incivility - it was Edmund Burke, after all - the founder of modern conservatism - who lamented the decline of chivalry in Revolutionary France. Still, in the main, there was at least a moment of circumspection and even conversation about the role of civility in our political lives, though that moment seems largely to have passed with little more than cosmetic efforts to be less offensive (where they existed at all).

When we think of love today, we tend to think of it in dominantly private terms. Love is that intense emotion between lovers, between spouses, between parents and children, between siblings and immediate members of family or close friends. Love is a private emotion, usually dyadic or extendable to very few close intimates.

Is a society required to grant its artists the right to offend? In a liberal democracy, doubtless. But is such a society also required to acquiesce to the offense without objection, even when its culture, its sensibilities, even its most sacred objects are treated with disrespect, offense or rebuke?

Despite conservative disapproval of the greeting "Happy Holidays," as a Christian I take no offense at the phrase. After all, the words effectively invoke the same sentiment - they are a slight abbreviation of the words "Happy Holy Days." Happy Holidays, I say, and all that those words imply - which is much indeed.

In his most recent column in the New York Times, Ross Douthat argues that the longstanding narrative of the culture wars - a liberal elite which defends lifestyle libertinism vs. the stalwart heartland yeomanry who stand for traditional family values - if once true, has been outstripped by reality in the form of findings in a just-published survey.

Damon Linker - former editor of "First Things" and author of the book Theocons - has written a new book entitled The Religious Test. In the book, he argues on behalf of several "tests" whereby the belief of political leaders can be measured and assessed by the polity. He argues that religious expressions are to stand before the bar of liberalism, and where found wanting, should be rejected by the electorate and even curtailed by the liberal state.

On the evening of Thursday, March 18, and much of the following Friday afternoon, there will be public events at Georgetown University devoted to discussions about a growing political movement in England that goes by the name "Red Toryism." The brainchild of Phillip Blond, the "Red Tory" movement attempts to move beyond the well-rutted Left-Right positions of our time, instead seeking to combine a more Left-oriented concern for the depredations of concentrated wealth in advanced industrial economies with a more conservative defense of "virtue, tradition and the idea of the good."

In the wake of two devastating earthquakes, we are again witnessing echoes of longstanding debates over "theodicy," or the effort to justify the existence of a just and loving God in the face of the existence of suffering and even evil (Theos=God; Dike=Justice). These debates are hardly new - current debates remarkably echo arguments that took place some 350 years ago following the devastating Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

Numbers reported recently by Charles M. Blow of the New York Times confirm what I hear often in my classes - more and more young people today affirm being "spiritual," but not "religious."

As ever, stories of the demise of religion (most recently, according to E.J. Dionne, because concern for the economy has superseded "culture war" issues) have proven to be exaggerated. Two days after E.J. wrote that epithet, an Islamic radical attempted to bring down a U.S. airliner on its approach to Detroit. And, three days ago, Brit Hume outraged the chattering classes with his suggestion that Tiger Woods should consider converting to Christianity. If religion took a holiday, it was exceedingly short.

John Locke was the first great liberal defender of the idea of religious toleration, as well as the thinker who lies behind many of today's arguments that religion should be excluded from political considerations in "the public square." Locke is widely regarded in the academy as the great originator of liberal secularism. Yet, it was Locke - in a less-read work called The Reasonableness of Christianity - who argued that reason alone was insufficient to arrive at certain moral precepts held to be true by modern man, above all the belief in the inherent dignity of all human beings. What Locke knew - that reason provided insufficient basis for a belief in human dignity - many of Locke's epigones have forgotten. Yet it is a lesson with which we re-acquaint ourselves every year during the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

A recent post on this site raises some serious issues, and I think reveals a significant problem on the Left. In a previous post by Katherine Marshall entitled "Greed (Not America) Gets the Blame," Ms. Marshall describes a recent international conference attended presumably by many in the international Left where the language of "greed" was a significant presence. What is worth noting about this post is its confirmation that the Left has firmly returned to the use of strong moral language and even terms of moral judgment and condemnation. The Left's rediscovery of moral language has been particularly the consequence of what are regarded as the moral failings of Wall Street and its role in precipitating the financial crisis. President Obama has championed this return to moral language, and efforts by Left religious leaders (such as Jim Wallis) to circumscribe a Left Christianity have given permission for the revival of such moral categories as "greed" in the language of Left political leaders and movements.

Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" portrays the decent life of a small-town American, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), an everyman who saves his community from an evil Scrooge - Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) - and who only comes to realize his accomplishments by witnessing what terrors might have occurred had he never lived. George Bailey represents all that is good and decent about America: a family man beloved by his community for his kindness and generosity.

Not long ago I had the privilege to visit the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino (The Museum of Pre-Columbian Art) in Santiago, Chile. I have been to many museums in many places, but I found this experience particularly moving, and even somewhat desolating. Traveling from room to room, viewing ancient artifacts so carefully and lovingly crafted by people long-dead, I realized that I was witnessing the remnants of once-vibrant cultures that also were long dead. The artwork and artifacts I was viewing were created by cultures that did not foresee, that probably did not even vaguely envision, their eventual extinction. They were created with a view to their own permanence and continuity. Their presence in that museum was not so much a testimony of their brilliance and ingenuity as of the ultimate fragility of even the most self-confident of cultural organizations.

Thursday we commemorate the sacrifices and hardships of our forbears, and that first Thanksgiving feast that punctuated an otherwise difficult and often harrowing existence. We celebrate with tables that will (in many cases) overflow with food, and then with a weekend of shopping in anticipation of the gift-giving of Christmas. We give thanks for all that we have, in many cases, so much more than the Pilgrims whose rugged and threadbare lives we honor.

This past weekend I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a conference at the University of Notre Dame entitled "The Summons of Freedom." The conference was sponsored by The Center for Ethics and Culture, an interdisciplinary program founded and directed by Professor David Solomon of Notre Dame's Department of Philosophy. It was the 10th annual conference held by the Center, though the first I attended. Based on what I saw, heard, and experienced, it will not be my last. If there is to be not only a defense of he full dimension of Catholicism in America, but a revival of it, I believe it will emanate from the work being done by this Center.

On many of today's contemporary college campuses, there are sponsored programs and organizations that seek to advance "social justice." While contemporary universities constantly invoke "critical thinking" as a central activity of campus life, rarely is the term "social justice" examined. At the dawn of the western tradition, Plato devoted an entire dialogue - the Republic - to the question of "what is justice?", at the end of which the question - if anything - was more unsettled than answered. Yet if the activities on college campuses today indicate anything, it is that we know what justice is.

In a recent edition of Georgetown's student newspaper, the Hoya, a graduate student in my department voiced her shock and consternation that the university health plan does not cover birth control prescriptions. The online version of the article has generated heated commentary, with people on the respective sides - for or against Georgetown's policy, one that reflects respect toward the Catholic position on artificial birth control - largely (and typically) speaking past each other.

I want to express some sympathy with the article's author, although not for the expected reasons. She is right to be surprised, and perhaps even upset. But this is not because Georgetown is too Catholic, but because it is insufficiently Catholic, particularly inasmuch as it offers no public and ongoing justification of this policy. The policy is allowed to stand on its own, without explanation or justification in the daily life and activities of the university. Her complaint is not cause for revision of the policy, but for more effort on behalf of the university to advance the reasons for the policy as a part of its educational mission.

Recent commentary on Pope Benedict XVI's invitation to Anglicans to enter the Catholic fold has predictably fallen into the well-worn rut of seeing his action through liberal/conservative lens. Our domestic battle lines have been so firmly drawn, with daily sorties probing for the opposition's weaknesses while heavy arms stand at ready for attack, that we are largely incapable of putting our heads above the ramparts to discern whether something else entirely might be going on.

Earlier this month, Georgetown's student newspaper, the Hoya, published an editorial excoriating The Catholic University of America for refusing to recognize CUAllies, that university's LGBTQ student group, as a student organization. The editorial stated that "Catholic identity must, understandably, be affirmed at a Catholic institution -- but it is also important to be sensitive to changing social dynamics." For this reason, the editors' called for CUA to follow Georgetown's lead in recognizing an LGBTQ group on campus.

Of late there has been a bonanza of high-profile sexual scandals. At least two of these have featured visible conservatives caught in adulterous relationships - S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign. And two have been celebrities whose assignations raise questions of legality - Roman Polanski, who is charged with having sex with a minor, and David Letterman, whose relationships with subordinates have raised questions whether these could be wholly consensual relationships. Barrels of ink have been spilled on each case -- but charges of hypocrisy have been leveled at only two.