Category: W-w

Why Do We Trust Scientists Only When They Agree with Us?

Published on by D. G. Hart89 Comments

This is an old question familiar to readers of the Nicotine Theological Journal (please don’t make me find the issue), but Tim Challies’ “like” of Rick Phillips’ post about evolution reminded me of that query. It concerns the degree to which Christians (especially conservative Protestants) have no difficulty with scientific results when it comes to the believers’ own prejudices. Think tobacco and alcohol (but not too long). Back in the day of the fundamentalist controversy and for three decades beyond, physicians who are known for having some scientific training regularly recommended the health benefits of smoking. Now we know scientifically what fundamentalists always believed — that it hurts the body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit (for the regenerate). In the matter of human vices, contrary to Harry Emerson Fosdick the fundamentalists won with a big boost from science and its practitioners.

So why the outright hostility to scientists in other realms of inquiry? I understand that theological difficulties attend an evolutionary account of human origins. And I am not meaning to suggest that the historicity of Adam or the fall are topics easily reconciled with biological science.

What I worry about, though, is a knee-jerk hostility to science on evolution that flies in the face of the very trust that we devote to any number of scientists — from the pharmacists who mix our pain relievers to the economists that tell us Ronald Reagan was right. (This is another one of those examples that pose difficulties for the advocates of w-w; w-w may explain Darwin but what about Jonas Salk?)

Can’t Christians show a little bit of gratitude?

Will the Real Kuyper Stand Up?

Published on by D. G. Hart105 Comments

From Crawford Gribben’s recent review of George Marsden’s book on 1950s America (and more):

His conclusion draws from the philosophy and political strategies of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), the renowned theologian, newspaper editor, and founder of the Free University in Amsterdam, who also found time to become the Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1901–05).

Kuyper’s theory of “sphere sovereignty” incorporated central tenets of the Calvinism he had inherited, but radically reconstructed its traditional political obligations. The Reformed tradition within which Kuyper operated had long assumed that the role of government was to uphold the moral claims of Scripture, and to effect a confessional culture in which societal norms paralleled those of believers. Kuyper’s great contribution to the Reformed tradition was to overturn this consensus, sometimes at substantial risk to himself, arguing for a more limited view of the responsibilities of government, and emphasizing that it ought not to intrude into the “spheres” of family, church, and voluntary associations. Kuyper argued that believers and unbelievers were divided by an “antithesis” that was simultaneously spiritual and existential, and so advocated the establishment of denominational schools and universities within which believers of different kinds could be separately educated.

This intrusion of sharp religious distinctions into the public square was balanced by Kuyper’s advocacy of “common grace”—the notion that all of humanity, as God’s image-bearers, were recipients of divine kindness—which permitted the construction of a public culture that could be non-confessional and non-denominational. Believers, in other words, could organize in robustly confessional institutions within a broader political environment that respected religious difference while enshrining the non-confessional principles of “natural law.” Kuyper’s utopia looked a lot like constitutional Americanisms, however far it would be from the sometimes theocratic assumptions of modern evangelicals.

This is a Kuyper behind whom I can line up. Church is a distinct sphere with limited responsibilities. Kuyperians use natural law instead of insisting on revealed truth in public life. Christian truth serves not as a basis for driving out the secularists and leftists but offers a strategy for embracing pluralism.

So why is it that the influence of neo-Calvinism flourished precisely during the most contested battles of the culture wars? One account would have to rely on Francis Schaeffer and his use of w-w to show why Christians could never bend the knee to a neutral public space. Along with that has to go a stress upon the neo-Calvinist notion of antithesis which does a handy job of dividing believers from unbelievers — why it doesn’t divide Calvinists from Arminians, or Protestants from Roman Catholics, or Christians from Jews is another matter.

If I Were More Sanctified, Would Wife Like My Music?

Published on by D. G. Hart50 Comments

How far does sanctity go? How extensive is w-w? All of me belongs to Jesus and I am a new man in Christ, but what does this mean for taste? Can holiness account for taste?

Last night I was listening to a sequence of Klangkarussell mixes on Youtube. Who the Hades are Klangkarussell, you ask? I’m not sure but ever since I started listening to Rob da Bank I’ve become aware of contemporary dub step, dance and electronic performers that take me back to the days of Mike Oldfield and Klaus Schulze (and yes, Brian Eno). Since Rob has not yet started is weekly show on BBC Radio 6 (moving from Radio 1), I have had to look for alternatives. Pandora and Spotify have their moments. But at some points their musical memes become repetitive (even though so much better than Taylor Swift).

But that is exactly what the missus thought last night as I became energized by one of the mixes by Klangkarussell. “Turn that racket down,” was the kind charge I heard coming from the kitchen.

And here I thought we were on the same cultural plane. We grew up with the same television shows, cut our teeth cinematically on Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, and identified as Preppy’s in early adulthood. We just finished Happy Valley, a terrific BBC/Netflix production that puts the drama in dramatic, and we both had similar assessments — four thumbs up (so much better than Season Three of The Killing). (Cordelia missed most of the series while snoozing upstairs.) We also recently traveled to Ann Arbor to see The Trip to Italy, the Steve Coogan, Rob Bryden sequel to The Trip. The wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as much as the first, and thought that maybe even the second was better.

So if we can be so close on the same page of television series and cinema, why can’t we be closer on music. Her tastes run to Motown and sentimental (in my estimate) crooners. Mine run to minimalism whether coming from Philip Glass or Moderat.

If everything deep down is religious or spiritual, then what accounts for the difference? Or if lots of life is merely creaturely and natural, maybe even the Obedience Boys and the cultural transformationalists can’t explain our cultural (and other spheres) lives.

W-w is Hard

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Well, there’s the brother-in-law who thinks he’s a chicken:

Some things are more important than football. A lot of things are more important than what kind of nasal strip a particular player wears while he plays football. I have written before about how image-obsessed the NFL relative to racial issues; these recent events have offered even more evidence of this imbalance. As players commit horrible crimes and sustain life-altering head injuries, the league regulates how long their socks must be. Caught up in minutiae, it has missed the more important things.

Welcome to the NFL, the league run by Pharisees.

Then’s there’s I and I need the eggs:

Catholics in the Windy City are smiling. In fact, all Chicagoans are happy right now.

Things are looking up, and there’s reason for hope.

Wait, what? New archbishop? What are you talking about?

DAAAAA BEEEAAARS!!!

With Constantine No Walter White

Published on by D. G. Hart115 Comments

I wonder if those who long for a stronger Christian presence in determining cultural standards and governing society are willing to give up some of their sideline interests. If, for example, you happened to hear a person who advocated family values and traditional marriage also write about the brilliance of The Wire in its depiction of urban life and politics, would you not think the message a tad mixed.

I have before wondered about those who like Doug Wilson or the BBs who advocate a return to Geneva of the 1550s or Boston of the 1650s if they are willing to give up some of the liberties that Americans now enjoy this side of 1776 (like blogging). But I am even more curious about the larger and less vocal set of critics of our current scene for its indifference to a higher range of human aspirations and who follow with great enjoyment the latest hit cable TV show — Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, True Detective. Do these folks who hope for higher standards in government and culture make any calculation about whether their favorite shows will still be on the air if they get their wishes (the Gypsy Curse?)?

Take for instance this passage from Theodore Dreiser’s novel, Genius (1915) — hide the women and children:

She leaned back against his shoulder stroking his hair, but finally ceased even that, for her own feeling was too intense to make movement possible. She thought of him as a young god, strong, virile, beautiful – a brilliant future before him. All these years she had waited for someone truly to love her and now this splendid youth had apparently cast himself at her feet. He stroked her hands, her neck, cheeks, then slowly gathered her close and buried his head against her bosom.

Angela was strong in convention, in the precepts of her parents, in the sense of her family and its attitude, but this situation was more than she could resist. She accepted first the pressures of his arm, then the slow subtlety with which he caressed her. Resistance seemed almost impossible now for he held her close – tight within the range of his magnetism. When finally she felt the pressure of his hand upon her quivering limbs, she threw herself back in a transport of agony and delight.

By the standards and laws of the day (remember Comstock was still on the books), this passage was pornographic. It kept Dreiser and his attorney tied up in courts and prevented the book from being widely distributed for eight years. By those same standards, The Wire would never have aired.

Could I live without HBO or Netflix? I’d like to think so but aside from the ordinary routines of family life or the genuine enjoyment of clever plots and transfixing characters, I’d also like to think that I would not have to choose. I do know enough history to think that if the Christian political and moral types get their way and rectify the errors of a secular society that lives by the antithesis of a Christian w-w, my private amusements are going to resemble what transpires among my fellow church members when we gather for worship or merriment than what I now enjoy in the other kingdom of a 2k universe.

Neutrality Beach

Published on by D. G. Hart125 Comments

Anthony Esolen gives shelter and clothing to neo-Calvinists in his piece opposing neutrality in matters of public life. As we so often here, it’s impossible:

On the impossibility: consider the effects of a permission that radically alters the nature of the context in which the action is permitted. We might call this the Nude Beach Principle. Suppose that Surftown has one beautiful beach, where young and old, boys and girls, single people and whole families, have been used to relax, go swimming, and have picnics. Now suppose that a small group of nudists petitions the town council to allow for nude bathing. Their argument is simple—actually, it is no more than a fig leaf for the mere expression of desire. They say, “We want to do this, and we, tolerant as we are, do not wish to impose our standards on anyone else. No one will be required to bathe in the raw. Live and let live, that’s our motto.”

But you cannot have a Half-Nude Beach. A beach on which some people stroll without a stitch of clothing is a nude beach, period. A councilman cannot say, “I remain entirely neutral on whether clothing should be required on a beach,” because that is equivalent to saying that it is not opprobrious or not despicable to walk naked in front of other people, including children.

From this he goes on to comment on religion in the United States under a liberal secular government:

The virtue of religion, as our founders used the word, pertains to the duty that a person or a people owe to God. Now there either is a duty or there is not. You cannot say, “The People must remain absolutely neutral as to whether the People, as such, owe any allegiance to God, to acknowledge His benefits, and to pray for His protection.” To say it is to deny the debt. It is to take a position while trying to appear to take none. To decline to choose to pray, now and ever, is to choose not to pray. It is to choose irreligion. One should at least be honest about it.

The reader will no doubt know which side I take on these issues. My point here is that for certain questions, neutrality is an illusion. The nakedly secular state is not a neutral thing. It is something utterly different from, and irreconcilable with, every human polity that has existed until a few anthropological minutes ago. It is itself a set of choices which, like all such, forecloses others; a way of living that makes other ways of living unlikely, practically impossible, or inconceivable.

One odd aspect of this argument is that many Roman Catholics (Anthony Esolen’s religious tribe) would have appreciated a tad more neutrality from public officials for about a 170-year swath of U.S. history (1790-1960). Most American Protestants didn’t grasp the privilege they enjoyed by virtue of certain political ideas embodied in the Constitution and that the Vatican did not finally embrace until the Second Vatican Council. Protestants also enjoyed a semi-monopoly of public education, a situation that forced many bishops to sponsor parochial schools. In which case, I could well imagine that if Anthony placed himself at a different time in U.S. history he might be able to empathize with those Americans who take some comfort from a government that tries not to take a side among religions.

Related to this is empathy with state officials who are trying to decide about a nude beach. Maybe they cite chapter and verse from the Decalogue and enlist the support of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews. But what if they also want the support of the large collection of journalists and engineers in town who work for National Public Radio. Maybe they use an argument against a nude-beach on the grounds supplied by a non-religious argument.

One of the problems the Religious Right has faced, in my view, is an inability to arrive at just such common rationales for what they believe. The logic of the Lordship of Christ or w-w says that all of me is religious so I need to make a religious argument. But lots of non-religious people would also favor a beach where bathers did not reveal their private parts. That this outcome seems far fetched in the case against neutrality may show how much the religion-is-all-of-me has prevailed. But why is it unlikely that many parents in the United States, even if they don’t attend a church or synagogue, would oppose a nude beach? And why is it necessarily a betrayal of my faith if I try to find a rationale for conventional Christian morality that also appeals to a non-Christian?

The bottom line I keep coming back to: if neutrality is not something we shoot for no matter how sloppy it will be, then do we need to return to the confessional state where only Protestants or Roman Catholics run things? That would certainly cut down on the pluralism of our societies and may bring a return of the ghettoization of religious dissenters. Do opponents of neutrality have a stomach for that? If not, maybe they should keep their clothes on.

A W-w App?

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

If this story is any indication, we may not have much longer to wait:

PURITANISM, wrote H.L. Mencken, is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” Half a century later, the prissiest Americans are haunted by a different fear: that they may buy cheese made by someone whose opinions they do not share. To help people avoid this calamity, a new app called BuyPartisan reveals whether any given product is made by Republicans or Democrats.

Using an iPhone’s camera, it scans the barcode and reports back on the ideology (as measured by donations to political parties) of the directors and staff of the company in question. Obsessive partisans can then demonstrate their commitment to diversity by boycotting firms with which they disagree. “We vote every day with our wallets,” trills an advert.

Church Membership beats W-w

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

Thanks to Ross Douthat who notes that “conservative Protestants who attend services rarely have slightly higher divorce rates than the religiously-unaffiliated, while nominally-Catholic young adults have divorce rates that are slightly lower than the unaffiliated but more than three times (!) as high as the rate for frequent mass-goers.” In other words, think you’re religious matters a lot less than being religious.

Douthat quotes David and Amber Lapp:

Nominally religious young adults are in a vulnerable position: they are religious enough to be pushed into early marriage, for instance, but, lacking the social support mediated by an in-the-flesh religious congregation, they don’t reap the benefits of involvement in a religious community. Instead, religion may become a source of conflict. Like Kayla and Adam, most of the working-class, divorced individuals interviewed in the Middle America Project either reported pressure from religious relatives to marry earlier than they would have liked, or reported conflict because one spouse was not on board with the other spouse’s religious involvement.

… while Kayla and Adam identify as Baptist, it’s not surprising that their religious affiliation did little to protect them from divorce. Their actual church attendance was sporadic, and both expressed ambivalence about conservative religious beliefs, particularly those concerning sex and marriage. “I believe there’s a God. I believe in the Bible. I believe in the beliefs, but I don’t exactly walk every line that you’re supposed to walk,” Kayla says.