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:
- A deep suspicion of American civil religion
- [Diminished] hope in any political party doing that much good in this world
- 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.
Interesting link. The term “paleoevangelical” sounds interesting, though left-leaning me would prefer a politics that looks like the real life evangelical politician Williams Jenning Bryan than to Ron Paul’s paleoconservative libertarianism. But this is an issue–and a label–that I’ll have to chew on for a few months before deciding how I feel about it.
And as for keeping the GOP at arm’s length, I myself (while I don’t know I’d consider myself a paleoevangelical) see the Republican party as consistently problematic. If you could give me a party that saw pro-life as meaning that abortion, starvation, and drone strikes were equally abhorrent (each destroying the lives of young children), I’d understand putting the church behind one party or another. But in this current world, I cannot imagine living life without recognition of my very important duty to speak out against whatever party I vote for.
Voting Republican is one thing; limiting the world to life issues, it means voting for Abortion lip-service but against killing-innocent-villagers lip-service, which isn’t a pretty choice but is an important one. But I think there is an active and horrific tendency for Christians to identify with their party, which means that their theology must accomodate itself to even the aspects of their party’s compromise that are most anti-Christian. The moment people do that–whether from the Right or the Left–they have started giving to Caesar what is God’s. Namely: their heart.
I don’t know the details of William Jennings Bryan’s political views, but I know a few broad ideas he had, and I wonder if he would stick to the current Democratic Party if he were to arrive today. I am continually surprised at the support Ron Paul receives.
Do you not see the Democratic party as consistently problematic? And why do you single out drone strikes? Do you oppose most or all military intervention because of the potential loss of innocent life?
I think the bottom line for many Americans, probably people in general, is that we regularly reason from our preconceptions. We don’t carefully consider most things. We ask trusted people to give us the simple answers. We hope for the best, and when problems arise, we rationale our way out of them, generally speaking.
I heard a guy say he had believed the Tea Party people were racist among other ugly things, but when we had the time to see for himself, he discovered they weren’t anything like the way his friends characterized them, and they said a bunch of things he agreed with. So personal learning can be eye-opening, but most of us don’t do it.
I singled out drone strikes because, to me, they are the single largest ethical issue that both (a) cuts across party lines and (b) doesn’t get muddled in partisan statistics.
I oppose most military intervention–but not all–for just those reasons. But more important than Augustine’s jus ad bellum (one can only go to war when justified as an act of direct self-defense, &c.) I think drone strikes should be in the Christian political discussion because of Augustine’s jus in bellum (the idea that even when a war is going on, one must act justly, and not unjustly.)
Drone strikes are targeted at (alleged) political enemies, yes, but they are only surgical in the sense of an amputation. There are regions of the world where most people are commonly afraid to congregate in large groups, to send their children to school, or even to leave their homes because of fear that they’ll be standing next to one of our targets at the wrong time, and get killed by a drone. Meanwhile, drone strikes have become commonplace in our millitary doctrine–Obama, despite lip-service to the contrary, has vastly expanded Bush’s policies.
In short, I find it hard to see how Predator drone strikes, as practiced by Bush/Obama, can be viewed as a just way of carrying on war. I think this represents one of the issues where Christians–on the right and on the left–ought to lift up clear voices in opposition to the injustice that protects our way of life. It’s not a question of voting Democrat or Republican; it’s a question of being honest
I think William Jennings Bryant would probably see the Democratic party as deeply problematic in many ways; certainly I am not happy with it in its entirety. And I do have Christian friends who embrace the Left in ways that disturb me. (Particularly on the abortion issue, I find that they end up standing firmly against human rights (the right of all life, including the unborn), even as they claim to be supporting human rights.) Again, this is why I often tend to choose bipartisan issues to condemn–both Democrats and Republicans voted to invade Iraq; both support wiretapping, both count only American losses and ignore any number of innocent civilians killed by America (or resort to the playground logic of “they started it”). But if I had to pick one party more likely to infiltrate and corrupt American churches, it would be the Republican party. Largely because their lip-service to a pro-life position on abortion and haphazard defenses to defend the family allowed them (historically) to appear closer to the Church then they are.
In short, my politics is that I strive to be (in the words of the conservative poet T.S. Eliot) “no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, / With an alien people clutching their gods.”
In shorter, one party rather than the other may be the best means to a political end. But no party should be comfortable, as no party (in America at least) seems truly interested in following Christ (which is, admittedly, a rather difficult proposition.)
Or (to risk making an already overlong and rambling post longer), I guess I should say this. Christianity should have a politics, at least in as much as any moral view of the world inevitably leads to the idea that some ways of governing are more in line with God’s priorities than others. But I think Christianity needs constant vigilance against importing our values from the world. We ought to (a) decide what is right, and then (b) vote in accordance with our decision. Instead, I feel much of the religious right (a) decides that the Republican party is right, and then (b) adjusts their rhetoric to support it uncritically. (Again, the same happens with the Left–and this needs to be pointed out–but let’s be honest, white Christians in America tend to have a much closer relationship with the Republican party than with the Democrats.) Christians should always stoop, morally speaking, in order to vote; but the Body of Christ should stand above any political alliance, rather than the reverse. (And yes, this sounds arrogant, but the prerequisite, naturally, is that the body of Christ strives to act not on its own accord, but in self-sacrificial submission to the triume God and His priorities, as revealed through scriptures and the person of Christ.)
In other words, we should always be aliens, judging the world’s powers rather than swearing allegiance to the one that seems most amenable to us. For me, that means deciding who to vote for, and then making clear the objections I have to him, and the ways he doesn’t even begin to live up to a Christ-like perspective on how to govern a nation.
Finally finally (apologies tendered in advance!), I would summarize William Jenning Bryan’s politics as “anti-Darwinian,” in the way he saw Darwin as a champion of the strong against the weak, and Christ as the champion of the weak and oppressed. Thus his two most famous actions split him from any modern liberal or conservatives. On the one hand, he preached the “Cross of Gold” speech, justifying leaving the gold standard (and artificially creating inflation) as a strategy to devalue the funds of the rich and enable the poor to afford their daily bread. (Conservatives may see this attitude as short-sighted, liberals not so much, but his perspective was deeply Christian.) His other major action, infamously, was the “monkey trial” in which he argued (rather effectively) that Scopes did teach evolution illegally, but in such a way as to give great credence to the image of the ignorant, narrow-minded Christian.
In short, I like him because modern liberals and conservatives can both find something in him to hate, but he strove to put the message of Christ into practice politically. I would say the same about the much more intellectually respectable Chesterton, but since he was a Communist (in youth) and a quasi-communist as an adult, I tend to be careful about bringing him up in conservative circles. People who support Obama’s economic policies (as I do) get called Communist enough.
No problem with the three sizable comments. I don’t mind long discussions, but I can’t stand the Internet debaters who pick apart their opposition line by line. I’ve heard radio commentators do the same. It’s maddening.
Ok. What was I saying?
On the drone strikes, I think you assume a bit. Many voters don’t believe innocent people are being hit at all. Maybe occasionally, and that’s the price of war that you hate, but when your enemy is a network of independent zealots who hide among innocent people, what are you going to do? I think the Democrats (or maybe I should blame major media) have urged us to believe these strikes and Clinton’s missile strikes from his day are surgical. They only kill bad guys, while we stay safe at home. That’s what many voters remember, so it isn’t a compromise of their faith because they have not considered the issue.
Also and primarily, I think many of us want our team to win and always be right. I assume that’s the motive for many libertarians who say they will not vote for the Lesser-of-Two–no! They will support their losing candidate to the bitter end. They believe themselves to be purists and high ground walkers.
If I remember correctly, Bryan advocated the Silver standard even when we had moved on to our present currency model. It was a dead issue then, but he spoke from principle, not pragmatism. It’s difficult to compare last century’s progressives with this century’s liberals. The moral arguments are radically different, and for me (and I believe for Bryan as well) greatly outweigh the other issues. Maybe he would approve of the New Deal’s reshaping of our people, but I think he would be open to reason and listen to those who are arguing against welfare and limited medical treatment for all as things encouraging their degradation.
Was Chesterton somewhat Communist? When did that happen?
Back in the 90’s I was a political junkie. I was a delegate to district and state conventions, served on the Congressional District Party Executive Committee, marched in parades, even ran as an endorsed candidate for state legislature where I was the lamb thrown to the wolves in order to have a name on the ballot against a four term incumbent. After years of activism, I came to see the limitations of politics. Politicians can make laws that may influence behavior, but only God can change someone’s heart. That’s why I’m now a pastor and not a politician.
Through it all I’ve come to see both parties as problematic. The main problem I see is that key segments of both parties are using the political process to enable government to do what government was never meant to do, cannot do and causes more harm than good every time it tries to do.
Still, in this fallen world, no better system of government has ever been developed. As long as we maintain that delicate balance between centralizing enough power so that government can keep evil men at bay while decentralizing power enough that evil men cannot use government to carry out their evil the messy process of elections will still serve the best interests of our country.
On drone strikes and children killed because of them.
Some of these village children are children of men who have knowingly decided to wage war upon the United States. They are at war with us. Or these children’s elders decided it was wise to harbor leaders of the Taliban and knew that this could result in Drone Strikes.
Taliban leaders and elders who have no problem shooting a 14-year old girl in the head because she criticized the Taliban.
Or cutting off a girl’s nose and ears because she didn’t want to stay with her abusive husband (that she was forced to marry).
Or throwing acid in a girl’s face because she refused his advances.
Mutilate their daughter’s genitals as a horrific means of control. (Nothing symbolizes the misogyny and gender apartheid of the Middle East like this practice).
They mortar schools simply because girls were attending them. They kidnap and murder girls attending those schools.
Then there are the honor killings, stonings, etc.
Americans view the deaths of innocent children in war as a terrible tragedy that results as a by-product of war.
The Taliban, Haqqani Network, and others actually murder children intentionally.
Now, I would much prefer these men to be captured and interrogated for information that could be used to capture and interrogate other
Wow. I’m reminded today of what Mr. Obama said in Cairo a couple years ago. He said no nation should have nuclear weapons, and that was his goal. How naive is that? We can’t undiscover the A-bomb.