Gene Veith talks about Thomas Kidd’s analysis of a new class of American evangelicals who don’t hold the water for the GOP because of their evangelical worldview. Kidd writes:

These paleo evangelicals keep the Republican party at arm’s length for three main reasons:

1. A deep suspicion of American civil religion
2. [Diminished] hope in any political party doing that much good in this world
3. Problems with certain Republican positions

But on some of the most compelling issues, the Republican Party still seems like the best option for many paleos.

I think Kidd has hit the dead head on the money nail. I might even call myself a paleo evangelical, but I’ve never keep the GOP at arm’s length, because I believe they are the current best option for reforming our government.

Here’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking “on paper” here. Trying to work out a moral equation. If my conclusion satisfies me, and if your comments don’t demolish it, I’ll probably cross-post it over at Mere Comments.

How many times have you gotten into the Body Count argument? You know what I mean. Somebody brings up the tired canard that “most wars are caused by religion,” or “religion has killed more people than any other cause.”

It’s good to note that, at least according to one study, that’s simply not true.

And when they bring up the Spanish Inquisition (you know they will), the most efficient answer is to point out that it took the Inquisition nearly a century and a half to kill 3-5,000 people while the atheistic Reign of Terror under the French Revolution murdered about 40,000 in less than a year.

Still, at least for me, that’s not entirely satisfactory. Saying, “We’re not as bad as you guys,” isn’t quite enough when you’re talking about killing people in the name of Christ, whether in the Inquisition, or during the Crusades, or under a pogrom. The deeper problem, in my view, is how to think about Christians who act like the worst kind of atheists (for of course most atheists are perfectly decent people), and how to judge their acts.

It seems to me that, from a moral point of view, there are two kinds of atrocity. One is the utilitarian atrocity, which is hideously evil. The other is the “spiritual” atrocity, which is infinitely worse—but only in one sense. Continue reading Two kinds of atrocity: an ethical thought experiment →

A very bad old picture of Leif Eriksson, posted here for your derision.



Today, as you’ve doubtless gathered from all the parades and celebrations in your neighborhood, is Leif Eriksson Day in the United States. Its date was chosen, not to commemorate the actual calendar date of Leif’s landing in Newfoundland (a friend tells me it seems to have happened in September on the basis of internal evidence in the saga), but in order to sneak in a couple days before Columbus Day and steal some of the Genoan’s thunder. Which the international Italian Conspiracy managed to thwart this year by arranging to have Columbus Day officially celebrated yesterday.

One aspect of Leif’s story which you used to hear about a lot, but much less nowadays, is his efforts as a missionary. According to Eirik’s Saga, one of the two classic saga accounts of the Vinland (America) voyages, Leif spent time at the court of King Olaf Trygvesson in Norway, where the king “bestowed great honor on him” (note what I said about such Icelandic visits to the court in yesterday’s post), and asked him “Are you intending to sail to Greenland this summer?”

“I think it would be a good idea,” said the king. “You are to go there with a mission from me, to preach Christianity in Greenland.” (The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America, trans. by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, 1965, Penguin Books.)

This Leif did, to the great annoyance of his father Erik the Red, because Thjodhild, Erik’s wife and Leif’s mother, refused to cohabit with her husband after her conversion (this is questionable behavior under canon law, I believe, as it directly contradicts the teaching of St. Paul. I’m sure Father Ailill would have advised her otherwise). In the 19th and 20th centuries, when Christianity was more popular than it is now, many Leif enthusiasts looked on his voyage to Vinland as an extension of this mission, making him the first missionary to America. However, the sagas say nothing of that, nor of any attempt on his part to preach the gospel to the Skraelings (Indians).

In any case, scholars today are pretty sure the Olaf Trygvesson mission never happened. The story seems to have been introduced into the saga manuscripts fairly late. Early sources say that Olaf converted “five lands” to Christianity, but later writings credit him with “six lands.” The sixth land is Greenland, which the earlier writers hadn’t heard about, probably because it never happened.

I don’t think many historians seriously doubt that Leif was a Christian himself. The family gossip about religious conflict in his family has the ring of truth to it, and archaeologists have excavated a small church at his farm that matches the saga description of one Thjodhild built. But he wasn’t a government employee.

If you’ve read my Viking novels, you know that that was the Viking way.

Mark Liberman tells us, “When you read or hear in the mass media that ‘Only X% of Americans know Y’, don’t believe it without checking the references — it’s probably false even as a report of the survey statistics.” He cites a few sources and gives an incredible example of the answers marked wrong for an open-ended question about former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. (via Alan Jacobs)

On this point, here’s a survey that appears to be done the right way, asking clear questions about religious practice and affiliation. It concludes that though many say they pray every day and have other spiritual or religious habits or experiences, “One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation.” I wonder how much of this is a popular resistance to labeling one’s beliefs either out of a selfish desire to appear smart (like the voter who says he is undecided because he wants to appear to give both sides a fair hearing) or a belief that one cannot claim a label while not accepting absolutely everything ever claimed by someone of that label.

Landscape with classical ruins and Christ with his disciples on the road to Emmaus. Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657)

As I prepare to go on the road, a few thoughts about roads.

In the novel I’m working on, (it’s called Hailstone Mountain. You’ll be hearing more about it) there’s a scene where I have Father Ailill, the narrator, talk about roads as a metaphor. He quotes a wise old monk he once knew:

“And Brother Eamon answered, ‘If you are walking a road, and another man is walking far behind you, one of two things may be true. He may be walking away from you, in which case you’ll never see him again, or he may be walking in the same direction as you, only far behind. Indeed it may be that he is walking faster than you are, and will in time catch you up. He may become your companion, or it may be he’ll outpace you. That’s why we must be careful of judging. We can’t always see in which direction another man is walking. Not only that, but sometimes even we in all our wisdom may find ourselves headed the wrong way for a time.’…”

I think I’ve told this story here before. Back in college, some friends and I were trying to promote a series of evangelistic meetings. I was sitting in a study room in the dorm one evening, working on a poster with one of my best friends. This was a guy as close as a brother, with whom I had prayed, laughed, and wept.

Another student walked into the room and asked us what we were doing. We explained, and he raised some objections. He didn’t believe in evangelical Christianity. We argued a bit, in a polite manner, and he went his way.

A few years later, I encountered the guy who walked in again. Now he was a fervent evangelical Christian, deeply involved in gospel work.

And not long after that, my poster-making friend shifted to liberal Christianity, and as far as I know he has never since uttered a single word not approved by the New York Times.

The point of all this is that you never know.

I wanted to say that the road metaphor in the snippet above only applies to Christians. But that’s not really true. The mystery of the faith road is that you can’t see it. You just meet people, and you don’t know how they’re moving in relation to you. The person you meet who seems to be opposing you may in fact be going in your direction, and just isn’t aware of it yet.