Well, and I’m sure by now all you Gentle Readers know that our very own Tom DeLay, the only House Majority Leader we have, showed remarkable taste in choosing Matthew 7:21-27 for last week’s Congressional Prayer Service. Now, most of the hallooing is going to be about the metaphor Matthew uses: a foolish man builds his house upon sand, and the floods came and washed it away. Nice time for that, Hon. Mr. DeLay, sir.
Digression: if you prefer Luke, the parallel is Luke 6:49. I prefer the good doctor, myself, but then I’m no Christian. The version that gets quoted is the Matthew one, which in itself is interesting to those interested. Mostly, though, Your Humble Blogger is just saying: I’ve got a Throckmorton, and I know how to use it. End Digression.
My own take is that the choice was deliberate, and the resonance was deliberate, and that libs and lefties will be making a grievous error to wail about it, given that the Republicans have already hung the ‘Dems hate the Bible’ frame around us. Politically, it’s more important for Dems to show they support (or at least tolerate) faith-driven politics than to score any minor point over the bad taste of a Texan. But that’s short-range thinking, and you can go to any blog for that sort of thing.
What I wanted to toss on my Tohu Bohu is that what I hear when the Hon. Mr. DeLay chooses that particular passage is not the passing evocation of the news headline, but the deeper divide in American society, and thus in American politics. And, as it’s the thing I’ve been meaning to write about for weeks, I suppose I should write about it.
What many people read from Matthew 7 is the absolute necessity of accepting the Gospel for salvation. That is, rejecting Jesus as the Messiah is equivalent to accepting damnation. Further, only really accepting him counts; only genuine profession puts one among the saved remnant. I know that this is only one interpretation of the passage, and I am only raising it above the others because of what I perceive as its resonance with a large number of Americans, and because, due to that perception, I think that the Hon. Mr. DeLay meant to evoke that resonance with his choice. In other words, I don’t think our House Majority Leader was talking about floods, I think he was talking about damnation.
The essential dividing line in American culture at the moment is the answer to this question: do you believe that all those outside of your church tradition are damned? I’ll call those who answer yes exceptionalists, and those who answer no pluralists, although I’m not terribly happy with those terms; Gentle Readers should feel free to supply me with better or at least more widely-used terms. Anyway, a lot follows for exceptionalists that pluralists have a hard time even following, much less swallowing. Here’s an example: many Christian exceptionalist organizations are very big on prison-release halfway houses. They feel (with Matthew) that criminal behaviour is a symptom of the true problem, which is the refusal to accept Jesus as saviour. Even for those felons who profess Christianity, they feel it can’t quite have taken, and I have a good deal of sympathy for that feeling. It follows, then, for them, that by getting the convicts right with Jesus, they can get them on the right track with their lives. It follows, then, further, that all of the rehabilitation and reintegration programs that don’t focus on salvation are doomed to failure, as the ex-con will eventually revert to form, and besides will be damned eternally, and what does that merit him (or her)? When I look at such programs, I’m looking for actual rates of recidivism as well as some fundamental constitutional issues of preferential treatment for certain religions, and I frankly don’t much care if the ex-con is saved, as long as he’s treated humanely and society is safe.
Digression: in fact, I find the whole salvation thing totally perplexing. My own slice of Judaism doesn’t have eternal damnation, even for really bad guys, so salvation, as such, isn’t a big deal. I can understand, though, for those who focus on it, that there just isn’t anything more important. And as an answer to theodicy, Paul’s answer makes a lot more sense than Job’s. I don’t actually think the question is answerable, so can take Job’s easier than Paul’s, myself. Which should surprise no-one. Anyway, Judaism has a pretty good tradition of combining a certain kind of Chosen-People exceptionalism with a basic pluralism; in the Land of the Eternal Sabbath, not just the ger but the actual goy will be welcome, but Jews will live in the Holy Land. Noah Ish Tzaddik, but forbid your daughter should marry him. Still, he remains tzaddik, righteous, and it’s clear that there are always righteous non-Jews. Which is good, because otherwise we’d have to proselytize, and that’s just tacky, and besides, who would want to live in a world of only Jews? End digression.
Anyway, it’s pretty easy to see how the split between exceptionalists and pluralists drives a lot of the issues in politics and culture. Gay marriage doesn’t hurt anybody? Sure, if you’re a pluralist, and willing to accept that if a person claims to be happy and healthy and shows every exterior sign of happiness and health then that person is, in fact, likely to be happy and healthy. If, on the other hand, their rejection of the Law (and, again, I know this is one interpretation thereof, but a common one) is clearly a symptom of a flight from Grace, then all that happiness and health nonsense is just a fa�ade. Taking the Lord out of the national pledge is another symptom, as is Janet Jackson’s exposed breast. As, frankly, is support for Democratic candidates and positions.
I don’t know what to do about this split. At least, I don’t see any chance of convincing committed exceptionalists of pluralism’s superiority as a principle. I do think that I can make an argument that whatever you happen to believe, public (governmental) support of pluralism is good for society, at least if you define ‘good’ and ‘society’ more or less the way I do. If, however, your focus is entirely on the remnant, ‘good’ and ‘society’ are totally different concepts, and we will have difficulty even talking about government policy. Further (and more important) I would argue that whatever your actual theology, acting as if you were a pluralist will help you with day-to-day ethical issues. But, again, that argument depends on definitions of ‘acting’ and ‘ethical’ that are scarcely unanimous.
There are, however, a ton of people who are neither committed exceptionalists nor committed pluralists, who in fact have no substantially well-defined answer to the question. I think that it would be good for society as well as for the individuals within it if some persuasive people were to lay out pluralism as if it were not self-evident. I’d like those ideas to be widely understood, at least, and ideally to gain new adherents. I’d like there to be lots of proud pluralists, who can stand together—well, near each other, anyway—and say that we all are on different paths, and it isn’t given to me to know whether the path I’m on is the straight and narrow or the winding or even the downward one so famously paved with good intentions. No more is it given to me to know where my path ends, much less other people’s. There are some pretty obviously bad ones, and it’s a good idea to avoid those and to warn other people about them, but there are a lot of good ones, too. I’d love to have a Majority Leader or even a Minority Leader saying that, if we have to have a Congressional Prayer Service at all (which service culminates, I assume, in the traditional spitting on the grave of James Madison).
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.
Actually, if i read this past week’s passage correctly, anyone is encouraged to come to a Passover seder, as long as he’s willing to get circumcised first. I must say that, when K and i ran seders in our dorm during college, that wasn’t something we ever thought to ask about, showing yet again my negligence as a Jew.
I can’t answer your post on its substance because i very much don’t have an answer. Sigh.
A couple of thoughts:
1. It sounds like you’re saying that exceptionalists believe that people can’t really be happy and healthy in this world if they don’t believe in the exceptionalists’ religion. I’m not sure that’s true; I think it’s (more often) more that happiness and healthiness in this world are irrelevant. Note Card’s argument (though I’m not sure whether he’s an exceptionalist) that acting on homosexual feelings is an inherently selfish and hedonistic thing to do; that pursuit of immoral pleasure is wrong regardless of how pleasurable it is. (And actually, I agree with that; I just have a very different idea of what’s moral than Card does.)
2. I think there are some deeper roots here worth exploring. In particular, I think the idea that my belief is the true belief but that other people’s (false/wrong) beliefs are worth respecting as well is a hard one for a lot of people to wrap their heads around—heck, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around, and I believe it! (Okay, what I really believe is more like “…but I may be wrong,” but that may be even harder to wrap one’s head around, especially if one’s beliefs include the belief that true faith/belief, not just lip service, is essential.) It’s sort of like the difference between cultural relativism and, um, cultural absolutism (? is that the right phrase?), only with added twists like “your moral values may determine whether you live in eternal happiness or eternal misery after death”.
AUTHOR: david
COMMENT ID: 4195
DATE: 01/11/2005 12:45:43
“no comment,” that was.
the saving argument will prove to be, i think and i hope, that devout but not charismatic members of every religion will hold to a more friendly line: that few prophets have ever advocated making charity and good works contingent on the recipient’s religion.
thus setting up secular assistance systems is a good way to meet everybody’s helpfulness quota. unless certain conservatives are trying to BRIBE people into changing faiths. that could NEVER happen.
First, Jed:
1) I imagine Ralph Reed would say that you have a very curious idea of happiness and health, if those terms don’t include spiritual well-being. That’s the sort of response he tends to give, and I think it’s sincere and fairly common. In addition, of course, you are right that any fleeting happiness in this world would be totally cancelled out by eternal agony; if you are maximizing hedons and believe in hell, you’re stuck with Pascal’s wager, aren’t you?
2) In a Goedelian world, how can you say that your (true) beliefs mean that other people’s contradictory beliefs are false? And how much more so in a world with a Creator not bound by our logic? I think one thing we’re seeing is the Enlightenment insistence that things have to make sense sitting on top of a seriously irrational set-up. I struggle with this all the time: I want my views about the world to be reasonable and empirically verifiable, but my views about its Creator (and the World to Come) get little benefit from that methodology.
david,
But from the exceptionalist point of view, how can good works be good works if they don’t take into account salvation and grace, from which all good things come? Secular assistance programs are doomed to failure (in exceptionalist eyes) because they are secular, and can only feed the hungry and so on, but not address the real problems.
Chaos,
I don’t think the ger needs to be circumcised (although it’s possible, I am also woefully ignorant). But my point is that even if goyim don’t get to come to seder, they aren’t excluded from the World to Come, although they do have to sit at the kid’s table.
Thanks,
-V.
i feel a little like we’re asking ourselves questions we don’t need to be asking. iranian populist intellectuals must have answers to them. i’ve heard tell that the shi’a apocalypse is also right around the corner.
but if i can’t go back in time and save all those people from jim jones, do i, do we, really have a second chance here? this time the poison is being administered to the rest of the world – much more sensible, and probably why the “left behind” series is more popular than would be a “divine suicide” series – and there is a country-sized population dealing out this death, not a small “cult.”
i can’t stop those people from believing what they believe. they’re out actively looking for evidence that things are about to come to a close – convinced by a 19th-century swindler that perfectly ordinary, but large scale, events are all one big roadmap to hell. i’ve been doing the same thing myself, in my own way.
i’ve heard so many different restatements of this problem recently it’s hard to process all of them. the most interesting was from a skeptical friend, who told me a story i’m about to mangle. it was quite common, in the experience of one myth-busting organization, to explain and demonstrate the spoon-bending trick to an audience, and then have them insist that, while the demonstration was terrific, the psychic they had just seen had really bent a spoon with his mind.
along these lines, why is this different from lebensraum, or manifest destiny, or any number of other stupid, selfish, gossip-driven pogroms? because it’s us?
The simple, historically verifiable case for separation of church and state and freedom of religion within the state is that the alternative, as long as significant number of people are convinced by aggressively exceptionalist religious beliefs, is religious warfare.
The weakness of this case is that many fanatics _like_ religious warfare, and that lots of people who haven’t experienced a steady diet of it for many years don’t recognize how bad it is. But it seems to be the case that a solid majority have preferred religious freedom to religious warfare over the past 300 years, and I feel confident that, given the choice a solid majority will continue to do so.
The Enlightenment in Europe was driven in part by a reaction against the horrors of the religious civil wars that took place during the century and a half following the Reformation.
The Enlightenment established principles of universal human rights in a context that was far from universal: toleration was extended, really, only to Christians and to white Europeans.
The pluralists are now struggling to live out Enlightenment universal principles in a truly universal way, while the exceptionalists take advantage of the pluralists’ difficulties in this juncture to undermine pluralist principles altogether.
It’s a difficult pass, certainly. But pluralists need to hold firm to the historical claim that religions that do not accept secular pluralism will probably eventually be tempted to coerce those who don’t agree with them by killing some and torturing others, thus sinning against God in the most terrible of ways.
Discussing narrow matters of what’s good for society and government policy just doesn’t address the basic good of pluralism, the prevention of religious warfare.
The pluralists are now struggling to live out Enlightenment universal principles in a truly universal way, while the exceptionalists take advantage of the pluralists’ difficulties in this juncture to undermine pluralist principles altogether.
“the exceptionalists are now struggling to live out romantic universal principles in a truly universal way, while the pluralists take advantage of the exceptionalists’ difficulties in this juncture to undermine exceptionalist principles altogether.”
One problem I have is that I don’t have many conversations with exceptionalists. Well, that’s not really a problem, except in my struggle to understand the whole thing. In my youth, I knew many many exceptionalists who were glad to explain to me that my recalcitrance was leading me to hell. Some of those people also believed strongly in the separation of church and state, and believed that I had every right to my misguided and unfortunate recalcitrance. They meant their explanations as warnings, rather than insults, and I took them, well, I suspect rather badly at the time (although in my memory I am urbane, witty and devastating, without being cruel or condescending).
I should not only be asking how to support pluralism (which I do ask), but also how to convince exceptionalists of the importance of the church/state divide, and that secular government (and tolerance generally) is in conflict with exceptionalist belief. On the whole, though, I’m more interested in talking up pluralism.
Thanks,
-V.
i would begin with the basic. the united states of america is a terrestrial union, a gathering of individuals and communities on this earth, in this lifetime, to benefit each other and work toward mutual gain. differences that are so vast as to create visions of eternal damnation are not patriotic, and should never be thought of as such.
ted kennedy’s answer?
Chaos,
In reading Bo, I discover that in Exd 12:43-45, it is the ‘stranger’ (ben neychar) and the ‘sojourner’ (towshab) that may not eat at the seder, rather than the ger, the righteous stranger. Now, presumably there is some question whether people at seder are ger or foreigners or sojourners. My own opinion is that as long as the non-Jew is coming to the seder to partake of the seder in a good spirit, rather than as a tourist or in mockery or even out of neighborliness, I would count her as a ger. Further, it is clear (to me) from the service that if the primary motivation is simply hunger, it is allowed to include even the towshab. One should only exclude a non-Jew who excludes herself by refusing to say that she, too, is there because of that which the Lord did for her, when she was a slave of Pharaoh in Egypt.
Your interpretation, of course, may vary.
Thanks,
-V.
after a little more reflection, v., i think you’re right about a scientifickish evidenciary process on top of a mess. there’s an even worse trap, though, which may make it difficult for people to get out of the loop of this apocalyptic thinking. in order to save the world, you have to commit some serious sins, not least is a very vain position – essentially making yourself into a prophet. if you’re wrong, you’re nearly heretical. so there’s an incentive to stay right and admit no error, to wrap yourself in impenetrable layers of bad evidence.
Jed, re you point (2), there is a Christian tradition that maintains that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Within that context then, your “but I may be wrong” is potentially far more faithful than the religious right’s certainty.
Chris, while my history chops aren’t good enough to argue this before a hostile crowd, I’m inclined to say that another benefit of the separation of church and state is that it’s better for the religion. The fact of being the state religion leads to a really unhealthy obsession with temporal wealth, power, and control, and to an implicit equation of the hierarchy/government with G-d. Cases in point: Christianity in Rome (and Europe during the Middle Ages), Islam in the Gulf states today. Possibly others as well, but I’m less comfortable making the argument for Buddhism in Tibet, say.
On the pluralism vs. exceptionalism front, in fact, I’d say that I’m both a pluralist and an anti-exceptionalist. That is, if the only way to achieve salvation from eternal torment (accepting for the sake of argument that those are the two options) is to hold to a specific narrow set of beliefs, then the God who set that system up is (a) not the one I worship, (b) not capable of having created a world as varied as this one, and (c) an *ssh*t Who I’m not willing to spend eternity with.
I’ll take the eternal torment, thanks. In any case, the knowledge that there were unbelievers suffering who were much less sinful than I would make the whole eternal-bliss-in-the-presence-of-God thing rather unpleasant–unless salvation comes with a free consciencectomy.
david, current US politics (and in particular the flat denial of US actions at Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo) keeps reminding me of a quote from Heartsease, by Peter Dickinson: “They’ve done so many awful things that they’ve got to believe they were right. The more they hurt and kill, the more they’re proving to them selves they’ve been doing God’s will all along.”
Stephen,
I agree that separation of church and state is better for religion than confluence, although I say that as an outsider (or, rather, as a member of a minority religion). I’d add, though, that when there is a direct connection, the state may well feel comfortable attempting to influence its church partner in a way that would be uncomfortable for its members. I’m talking not only about applying pressure in choosing primates, as still happens in many countries, but pressure to, for instance, ease off on sabbath-breaking because of the economic interests at play, or insist that church leaders endorse an invasion (or a decision not to invade). It’s not solely a matter of corruption or distraction, but of two-way influence.
Thanks,
-V.