The media attention devoted to Mario Cuomo’s death highlighted the tension in the former governor’s thought between his personal moral convictions and his responsibilities and work as an elected official. Put simply, is it possible to be personally committed to Roman Catholic morality but in public life follow a different moral standard? Here’s how Crux described it:
. . . the Catholic hierarchy was taking a decidedly more conservative turn under Pope John Paul II. Abortion was the salient issue for the US bishops, a nonnegotiable point that no Catholic pol could ignore if he wanted to stay in the good graces of the bishops, or, in the view of some, be eligible to take Communion.
Cuomo’s fellow New Yorker and Italian Catholic, Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, had just made history as Walter Mondale’s running mate, and she also supported abortion rights. It was left to Cuomo to provide a Catholic intellectual defense against her many critics.
“(W)hile we always owe our bishops’ words respectful attention and careful consideration, the question whether to engage the political system in a struggle to have it adopt certain articles of our belief as part of public morality, is not a matter of doctrine: it is a matter of prudential political judgment,” Cuomo said in the landmark Notre Dame speech.
Cuomo even anticipated conservatives’ adoption of his stance when he asked if he would have to follow the bishops’ teaching on economic justice “even if I am an unrepentant supply sider?” And he pointedly quoted Michael Novak, known as the Catholic “theologian of capitalism,” who wrote: “Religious judgment and political judgment are both needed. But they are not identical.”
One could argue that John F. Kennedy articulated a version of this personal vs. public 25 years earlier.
But it is not a problem that only bedevils Roman Catholics. Protestant politicians may be personally opposed to desecrating the Lord’s Day, and if such a public figure is an officer in a Presbyterian church has even vowed to uphold Sabbatarianism, but in their public duties or owing to political calculation fail to work for Blue Laws. In fact, all believers who hold public office in a religiously diverse and tolerant society need to separate the teachings and practices of their religious communities from the norms that guide civil life. At the very least, they need to juggle the public and private unless they are willing to seek the implementation of their own faith for all of civil society
The irony is that religious right championed a view of the relationship between personal and public responsibilities that derided folks like Cuomo as either hypocritical or cynical. The irony becomes even more ironic when the religious right complains that radical Islam is incapable of making the very distinction that Cuomo defended.
Old Life 
Is it not possible for one to have a different analysis without being lumped with the “religious right”? There are scholars who argue that Islam is inherently violent who cannot be classed as belonging to the “religious right.”
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Covering current events for cinephiles like me. Muchas gracias por todo.
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Scott, what do those scholars do with Dearborn, Michigan?
We are talking past each other, but you keep painting with really broad strokes about Islam and then use whitewash on Christendom. I’d take Christendom over the Ottomans. But it’s not black and white.
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“they need to juggle the public and private unless they are willing to seek the implementation of their own faith for all of civil society.” So it’s just “their own faith?” It’s not, like, the truth?
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Maybe Mario was not in tune with his bishops:
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Michael Sean Winters has reservations:
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louis, oh great. You’ve got the truth and you’re going to ram it down the Journalists’ throats?
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What do you think, Darryl, do we have the truth or don’t we? or should we call Bryan?
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Louis, I have the truth. You don’t. but we can live together by acknowledging that neither my truth nor your error will rule.
Pretty good deal for you.
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It’s a good deal for me to live by error? I disagree. Besides, there is no absolute neutrality. It can’t be that neither truth nor error will rule. Rather if you’re holding back the truth it will be mostly error.
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louis, who said neutrality was absolute? there’s only one absolut in this life and it’s clear. but neutrality is a good thing. where would we be with out judges or umpires?
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Judges (and umpires) are neutral in that they enforce a given law. Making law inevitably requires value judgments that have to come from somewhere — either from God’s law or from somewhere else. Cuomo might have had competing moral convictions on abortion; in the end his public policy position reflected the conviction he valued more highly.
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louis, umpires not only apply the law, they look at a game without the bias of the teams playing.
But since you think bias infects everything, you’re perfectly in synch with you not very charitable judgment of Cuomo. If you know someone’s bias, you can read their heart. Woot!
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You have a good handle on half the pot: our society is religiously diverse & we cannot & should not simply enact our religious convictions into law. The other half is that laws embody particular values (to use a neutral term). The values held by individuals are the product of their “religions,” broadly defined (I would argue that everyone has religion, even Richard Dawkins). So whose religiously influenced values become law, and how does a society decide? How do we decide whether it is OK to kill babies (before or after birth) or toddlers, or anyone over 75, or anyone who is psychotic, or…?
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Darryl,
Concerning Dearborn, I don’t know if you know of this story of Christians being arrested because some people complained about them. It seems that people in the community, along with the mayor and police department, made up lies about the people arrested. There is a helpful video along with the blog entry.
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2010/07/17/the-arrest-of-nabeel-qureshi-and-david-wood/
I’ve also seen a program (“All-American Muslim”) where a high school student’s mother in Dearborn was complaining to a football coach (a Muslim and I think a police officer as well) about forcing her son to change his football activities due to Ramadan. It seems the whole team, because of a majority of Muslim players, was made to essentially follow Islamic practices for Ramadan in order to participate in the football team. Many Muslims tend to sleep more in the day and be active at night during Ramadan, if they are able to do so. I have personal experience with this because of a Muslim who kept on changing his working plans for Ramadan.
As to Cuomo, don’t you think comparing abortion with the Lord’s day is a bad comparison? Opposition to abortion is something which needs no particular religious support (appeals can be made to knowledge common or accessible to all), while observance of the Lord’s Day or the Sabbath seems to require special revelation. Are you saying that someone can argue for abortion rights (apart from health of mother situations) and still be considered morally neutral or upright in that situation? Honest question. Abortion touches upon moral decision making for all people in a way that distinctive religious practices don’t. Are you hopeful that Christians who are also abortion advocates may have a place in Presbyterian pulpits and pews?
American Evangelicalism and the Reformed tradition is not the background in which I grew up, so I’m trying to understand where you are arguing from and where you are going with this.
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Dan, part of the answer is that we know how the U.S. decides. Voters elect legislators, they pass laws, executives sign and enforce them. Of course, lots of glitches there. But it has its moments.
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Alberto, I do recall that episode. If you want to see what that football team looks like, see the documentary Fordson.
I do think the analogy with the Lord’s Day is legitimate if only because both murder and the Sabbath are part of the Decalogue. Plus, Protestants have acted one way in private and one in public on the matter. So it’s not as if Roman Catholics alone bear the burden of being double-minded.
I think both the Lord’s Day and opposition to abortion can be defended on non-biblical grounds. For the former, see this. On the latter, I am compelled somewhat by the idea that I wouldn’t want a society where women died because they sought hatchet job abortions.
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D. G. Hart
Posted January 12, 2015 at 8:44 pm | Permalink.
On the latter, I am compelled somewhat by the idea that I wouldn’t want a society where women died because they sought hatchet job abortions.
DR. Hart, are you still passing yourself off as some sort of “conservative?” This mealymouth dodge isn’t even worthy of Cuomo’s moral cowardice. For a “theologian,” you’re quite the politician.
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It seems clear that a day of rest can defended apart from Scripture, but I don’t think that would necessarily apply to the Lord’s Day. If we wish to be more considerate of others who have not enjoyed their particular day of rest in American history, it seems better to argue for a day of rest on Saturday (for Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists) or Friday (for Muslims). How better to show Muslims that America is not anti-Muslim by making Friday an easier day for them to attend their mosque?
As for Machen, I think we live in a society where there is that majority which wishes for commercialized sport on Sunday. The majority he said he would submit to is here.
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“I wouldn’t want a society where women died because they sought hatchet job abortions.”
Why should we shed any tears if a murderer ends up bringing death upon herself?
Because that’s what a woman who gets an abortion of convenience (as distinguished from one of medical necessity) is, same as the abortionist who carries out the murder procedure.
I feel sorry for the victims. I can’t say I’d feel any sorrow if the procedure was fatal, any more than I’d feel sorry for, say, a murderer being killed by a ricocheting bullet from the machine gun fire that also killed the murderer’s victim(s).
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Darryl,
First you said, “but since you think bias infects everything….” Then you said, “I wouldn’t want a society where women died because they sought hatchet job abortions,” thereby showing your bias. Or do you think you’re a neutral umpire in judging the danger of hatchet job abortions to be paramount here?
“…your not very charitable judgment of Cuomo.” How is it uncharitable for me to point out that Mario Cuomo’s public policy positions, like yours, are based on value judgments?
, you’re perfectly in synch with you not very charitable judgment of Cuomo.”
1. How was I not charitable toward Cuomo?
2.
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Alberto, when it comes to majorities, I think more people in the U.S. profess Christianity (which involves Sunday worship) than watch commercial football. The highest ratings in Super Bowl viewing was last year’s game 111 million viewers.
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louis, you said that cuomo valued his public convictions more than his private ones. How would you ever know? But if you want to prove your point, it’s a nice way to carve Mario up.
Maybe after you get over detecting others’ bias we can talk.
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Will, wow. It’s intensified and Bayly-esque rhetoric like yours that Robert Bork had in mind when he wanted to fault American jurisprudence.
I oppose abortion. But an amazing number of people thought that I would outlaw abortion. They didn’t understand that not only did I have no desire to do that, but I had no power to do it. If you overrule Roe v. Wade, abortion does not become illegal. State legislatures take on the subject. The abortion issue has produced divisions and bitterness in our politics that countries don’t have where abortion is decided by legislatures. And both sides go home, after a compromise, and attempt to try again next year. And as a result, it’s not nearly the explosive issue as it is here where the court has grabbed it and taken it away from the voters.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/183746/judge-bork-abortion-michael-potemra
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Are you saying that you don’t “want a society where women died because they sought hatchet job abortions,” and so you are compelled to oppose abortion on non-Biblical grounds?
Trying to clarify that sentiment.
If that is what you’re saying isn’t there a problem with that alternate reading in as much that if abortion is outlawed then women will “die because they sought hatchet job abortions”?
A little help please.
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on the lighter side, Mario hart..
Now back to abortion.
Peace.
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Darryl,
“louis,, you said that cuomo valued his public convictions more than his private ones.”
Not exactly. I said “his public policy position reflected the conviction he valued more highly;” meaning that his public position was still based on his personal morality, even if he had competing moral convictions in his heart. In other words, to state it simplistically, maybe he valued life and freedom, but ultimately freedom won out as more important to him, and so that was the policy position he advocated for. It wasn’t a case of him putting aside his personal convictions and making a neutral decision. He very definitely took sides, and he did so based on whatever moral or philosophical outlook, whatever hierarchy of values he held to. The idea that the politician can remain neutral like an umpire or a judge (remember that separation of powers thing) is a fiction.
I second Ellis’ motion. Did you say that you were opposed to legal abortion or in favor of it in order to avoid back-alley hatchet jobs?
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PS, for any lurkers, the church has spoken.
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If the Church has spoken then why does the OPC allow this advocacy by Dr. Hart to continue?
Presumably the counsel from the Church also applies to Magistrates.
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Advocacy?
Ask him.
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“Presumably the counsel from the Church also applies to Magistrates.”
Do you think that every immorality must be banned by the magistrate?
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@ zrim: I don’t follow the Baylys, have only visited their website once or twice out of curiosity due to the constant references here to them, but in any case, I don’t care if I sound like them in this matter. I see nothing wrong with my view. Show me why I’m wrong to feel thus.
As for handing the issue back to state legislatures, why not? At least in some jurisdictions it would end up banned, rather than in none whatsoever.
I wish our provinces could each decide for themselves on the matter; we have an insane situation where there’s no federal law whatsoever, but if a province moves to defund it, it gets slapped by the federal government, by threatening to withhold transfer payments for medicare.
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this is a little shorter, more apropros:
Do you think that every immorality must be banned by the magistrate?
I think every crime that the Scripture lists as a crime should be banned by the Magistrate though certainly the penal adjudication may vary between old and new covenant due to the idea of general equity.
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//But we also call upon our society to return to the law of God, recognizing the Word of God that “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).//
So, given that statement ^ the OPC is on the books as being anti-NL2K
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Will, it’s not your views or feelings but your rhetoric. Do you really think you’ll get anywhere with someone from the opposing view by charging murder? Do those with opposing views who charge misogyny get very far with you?
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Louis, I can do both, oppose legal abortion and back-alley hatchet jobs.
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Ellis, how?
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Randall, who’s advocating? when do presbyterian churches speak? it’s just pious advice.
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Randall, so slavery is no crime?
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Biblical slavery certainly is no crime. Unbiblical slavery certainly is crime.
Or do you hold that all because bad marriages exist therefor all marriage should be outlawed?
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“Randall, who’s advocating? when do presbyterian churches speak? it’s just pious advice.”
Nominalism anybody?
If Presbyterian churches can’t speak neither can they give advice (pious or otherwise).
You’re advocating. You’re advocating that Christian magistrates “hyphenate” themselves so that their public persona erases their private persona.
Mario the man — I oppose abortion
Mario the Governor — I want abortion
Mario the man — But Mario the Gov, if you want abortion for lots of people how can I, as Mario the man, really oppose abortion?
Mario the Gov — Shut up.
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Ellis, how?
The Church, in its highest body, is giving counsel to the State. That is anti-NL2K
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@ Zrim: I was talking about my shrugging lack of sympathy for any who might die while having an abortion, more than I was looking to score any political points. But no, actually, I don’t care about those with opposing views think about my rhetoric, and I couldn’t care less if some twit who hasn’t taken the time to read enough of what I’ve written mistakenly charges me with misogyny. They certainly don’t get very far with me, because it isn’t true, and I ignore them. On the other hand, abortion is murder, and those who support it being legal, are supporting a form of murder being legal. That’s all there is to it, and I don’t give a hoot if anyone is offended by my saying so. BTW, I see from a link posted above that the OPC there has taken a stand on abortion, as a federation / denomination. It’d be great if all confessionally Reformed believers, as individuals, and as a whole, would do so (and the right stand, that is).
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Ellis, you may be on to something:
I’ll be reading my copy of DVD, thx.
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Will, spoken like a good culture warrior. Go get ’em, tiger. Rawr.
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Randall, you may have a point. But since when is personal/political bifurcation or inconsistency a sin?
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Zrim
You’re right.
You’re wrong.
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AB
I hope your comprehend DVD better then you’ve comprehended Machen.
“What has Christianity to do with education: What is there about Christianity which makes it necessary that there should be Christian schools? Very little, some people say. Christianity, they say, is a life, a temper of soul, not a doctrine or a system of truth; it can provide its sweet aroma, therefore, for any system which secular education may provide; its function is merely to evaluate whatever may be presented to it by the school of thought dominant at any particular time. This view of the Christian religion…is radically false. Christianity is, indeed, a way of life; but it is a way of life founded upon a system of truth. That system of truth is of the most comprehensive kind; it clashes with opposing systems at a thousand points. The Christian life cannot be lived on the basis of anti-Christian thought. Hence the necessity of the Christian school” (142,143).
“When we contemplate a type of Protestant orthodoxy that is content to take forlorn little shreds of Christian truth and tag them here and there upon a fundamentally anti-Christian or non-Christian education…[this is] humiliating to Protestantism” (143).
“Christianity should have an educational system of its own…Thus and thus only will the darkness of ignorance be dispelled and the light of Christian truth be spread abroad in the land” (144).
J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)
Education, Christianity, and the State, edited by John Robbins, The Trinity Foundation, Jefferson, Maryland, 1987.
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“Will, spoken like a good culture warrior. Go get ‘em, tiger. Rawr.”
I’m seeing the claws of the cultural warrior Mr. Zrim here.
He seems to be fighting for the culture of all or no cultures.
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I know!
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“Louis, I can do both, oppose legal abortion and back-alley hatchet jobs.”
Dr. Hart,
The latter is actually an argument in favor of legal abortions so how does that operate to oppose abortion?
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@ Zrim: Damn right, I’m a culture warrior. I even have, in addition to my main, group blog, my own culture war blog, which you can easily find linked from my main blog; there’s a feed for each of my other blogs on the right hand side, as well as in the blogroll.
I for one see no reason why one can’t be such and also be a 2Ker; not an either/or thing for me, but rather a both/and. I don’t think I’m alone in that, either, not if Dr. Clark’s posts and comments on social and political matters are any indication.
@ Melanie Rohrs: Hear, hear! Sadly, some folks’ interpretation of 2K seemingly leads them to a quietist, “let’s go along to get along” mindset. Not I.
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@Louis surely you see how one can oppose an evil without thinking it wise to invoke the power of the state. Indeed, I suspect that we could come up with several evil activities a Christian ought to oppose whose evil would be compounded by state interference. In regard to abortion in particular, there are several strategies short of an outright ban that have gone a long way toward reducing the abortion rate. How one works against abortion, weighs the pros and cons of various policies, or whether that is the issue one should commit to seem to me to be prudential concerns that ought to be left to the conscience of the individual believer…even RC politicians.
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Will, who said anything about 2k? But agreed. There are some 2kers who on the question of culture have more in common with transformationists and others with preservationists.
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Man, this topic brings Doug Sowers’ buddies out of the woodwork.
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I like these guys who pull Machen’s after dinner speech on Christian Education out for special occasions like this. They’re had it folded up in their wallet so long it’s in like 16 pieces by now.
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This is all likely the same person posting under multiple fake names.
Gutsy.
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Not in favor of abortion. Mother, sisters, wife, & daughters have never had one.
We need to realize, though, that if we’re going to put that genie back in the bottle, there’s a lot of other genies that need to go back in first — like the sexual revolution. Lots of people having sex out of wedlock means lots of unplanned pregnancies.
If these babies are carried to term someone has to pay for them until adulthood, so we Christians had better be willing to either (a) pony up for social services, (b) pony up for benevolence, and (c) pony up and open up our homes for adoptions.
We also have our Catholic friends to deal with — not in favor of contraception. No rubbers, no birth control pills, etc. means more babies, which gets us back to my last paragraph.
So we have issues on the secular left and on the religious right to deal with if we are serious about making abortion illegal. Not saying I’m unwilling to go there, but it is by no means simple.
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In other words, the “Christian Conservative” who is staunchly against abortion and is unmerciful to women who find themselves pregnant without a support system may be the biggest assholes around.
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ec, “rubber”? Are you 65?
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Darryl, if Erik was that old he’d’ve said “galoshes.”
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I couldn’t spell the P-word.
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I needed to bring Sean in as a consultant. An expert in all things Speedy Mart could have helped me out with that.
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Erik, I think he had in mind the C-word. Not that one, the other one.
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Zrim,
I thought of that one, but some here would think I was talking about a large bird or a dwelling. You need to write to the intelligence level of your audience.
Meanwhile, Hart on evangelicals & politics:
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Erik: “You need to write to the intelligence level of your audience.”
The real level or the delusions of grandeur clown level of about 6 on here who think they can defeat a Ph.D. from a real school?
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Kent,
Careful how you talk about Old Life’s lifeblood.
If those guys didn’t show up on their own we would have to spend lots of time and money searching vans by rivers to find & recruit them.
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Of course most of them use contraception anyway…
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Given the dearth of babies with Down’s being born, it is pretty clear that whatever women say, they aren’t carrying Down’s kids to term. Unless one wants to try and make the case that only pro-choicers get pregnant with Down’s babies, it seems like the revealed preference of the majority of american women is that they want abortion available. Perhaps working to outlaw abortion isn’t the most effective tactic to take.
Curiously, the abortion rate has been dropping precipitously – largely due to increased use of longterm reversible contraception (no pills to forget) and laws making abortion significantly more inconvenient to get. Rather than waste time tilting at windmills, we might think about how we can expand on what is actually working…
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Erik, the door barely hits the backside before another discovers OL or comes back to us like Wile E. Coyote accordianing his way back to his cave for the next battle.
And that was just a friendly reminder that we haven’t been fooled by them, just like they didn’t fool their parents, siblings, coaches, teachers, pastors, spouses and partners, dogs and cats…
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kent, i have only one scruple with your comment. where is doug sowers then?
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Nothing about Catholics using rubbers refutes anything that Bryan Cross or “we” have said.
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Kent,
Likely “former spouses”…
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Andrew,
We’re counting on you to scour Bay Area truck stops to find him.
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Erik, roger that. I thought maybe you had him in your rolodex and could give him a jingle. I’m on it, I’ll report back what I find (insert emoticon).
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AB, that episode was settled before your arrival. But who knows what can happen???
Erik, the worse mods on internet boards are those whose wife left them (rightfully) and then they think they are Divinity’s Gift to the world because they’ve memorized a few pages of Reformed Theology.
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Kent, I only have second hand reports from the likes of Richard Smith, Doug Sowers, and PLM, and what I can read of the archives. Indeed I didn’t live those the way I have GtheT, Tom Van Dyke, or Kenneth Winsmann. This place wouldn’t be the same without our antagonists, always interesting to see what form they take when they reincarnate.
I’ll be reading. Peace.
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It’s just a bunch of pikers for “likely lads” here now compared to the Golden Era.
I won’t even dare speak a few other names for fear they will return tanned, rested, and ready.
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sdb, but that’s sort of sane and wouldn’t do much to feed the sense of being on the right side of righteousness beating back all the baddies and all that. Please try again, and this time your response should include something about “cultural Marxism.”
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He did mail me “Theonomy & Christian Ethics” once, but I didn’t save the return address.
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Kent,
Come on, let’s be fair.
These guys have memorized thousands of pages of Puritan theology in spite of the indecipherable, poorly reproduced script.
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Richard’s the only antagonist who has ever had me on the ropes. I remember sitting at a family Christmas a few years ago wanting to wring his neck.
Turned me off to Edwards, Reformed Baptists, and Experimental Calvinism from now until the end of time.
Tom, Cletus, Kenneth, etc. are merely a fly on a horse’s butt compared to Richard.
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Richard must wear on you as the days go by, he didn’t seem like Public Enemy #1 when I was lurking for a long time, but I understand.
The peak of my frustration was ordering a Puritan book and it turned out to be a horrible scan of Olde English and was only volume 3 of 4. And none of those pertinent facts were mentioned on the seller’s page…. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….
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Road trip with Richard & his brother:
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Just substitute out-of-context Scripture citations for the inane chatter.
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I feel like wesley crusher of the next generation compared to you all who fought in the klingon wars of yesteryear, the way you talk about those guys..
engage
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AB, the worst torture is someone who is almost right, but a bit out of tune, and tendentious to the max, in 10,000 words or more.
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kent, that’s true, but the tendentious ones can also be the most entertaining to watch out here, i think…
in the words of Zrim: spin them up, watch them go.
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There were some good comments above that deserve recognition:
and
to name but a few.
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AB: kent, that’s true, but the tendentious ones can also be the most entertaining to watch out here, i think…
Wincing…
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