Liberalism's Illiberalism (part two)

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” -Luke 16:13 Liberalism at the crossroads: that is where we find ourselves today. Classic liberalism has taught us much and been successful in creating some of the most diverse yet unified nations the world has ever seen. Still today, there are parts of the world that desperately need a generous dose of this medicine. But modern liberalism is tearing at the social structure in ways that portend divisiveness and open conflict. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt observes in a new book, The Righteous Mind, that Americans have traditionally embraced six major moral concerns: caring for the weak, fairness, liberty, loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity. His studies suggest that hardcore, modern liberalism affirms the first three, caring for the weak, fairness, and liberty, while conservatives affirm all six. Modern liberals find conservatives rather alien and when push comes to shove, they see conservatives “as motivated by irrational fears such as racism or ‘homophobia’ … rather than as morally serious beliefs about the common good.”* The tricky part about affirming loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity is they “require the preservation and transmission of robust and commanding moral truths.”* This comes only from a religious base. Hence, the inherent and widening divide between religious communities and the newly predominant forces of modern, secular liberalism. The simmering conflict over what constitutes marriage is a classic case in point. Modern liberalism seeks to “empower” sexual minorities to live whatever lifestyle they so choose. A traditional understanding of marriage has been affirmed in referendum after referendum by the people only to be overturned in the courts and in a few liberal legislatures. The new definition of marriage is not being put in place by popular consensus but rather by force from above. Religious communities are seen as mean-spirited grinches and narrow-minded bigots. “But no social order can be entirely neutral about moral truth. Diversity cannot be infinite. …Not everything can be permitted; some things, even some ideas, must be prohibited.”* And our Christian faith stands in direct opposition to the idea that people are happier when free to decide for themselves what is right and wrong. We believe that men are slaves to sin and have not the power or vision to deliver themselves from that bondage. It is only as we submit ourselves to the lordship and authority of Jesus Christ that we can be freed from the tyranny of sin and the slow death it brings. As God’s life-giving authority penetrates deeper and deeper into our being, we truly become the free creatures that God intended from the beginning. True freedom is the power to do what we ought rather than the power to do as we want. In 1979, Bob Dylan wrote in a song, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed. You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Or, as the Apostle Paul put it, “you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness”(Rom. 6:16). It is never a welcome message in this world, however. Up to now we have learned to live in tension with these different voices in our community. But today, the lifestyle-liberationists have identified religious voices as direct roadblocks to their aims. And dialogue has given way to demagoguery. Once again, we are hearing the crowd cry out, “Crucify him, crucify him.” It is the world’s way of silencing the opposition. May we find it in our hearts to forgive them for they know not what they do. Mercy and Truth, *First Things, May 2012, p.5, “After Liberalism.” Mr. Moe

Liberalism's Illiberalism (part one)

“…and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” –John 8:32

I am a liberal. Shocking, I am sure. But then so are you. I am, of course, speaking here of the classical sense of the term dating back to the 1600’s when liberalism first emerged and then flowered in the 1700’s. In the process, it knocked kings off of thrones, de-established national churches, and affirmed religious freedom, civil rights, and individual liberties. In order to understand liberalism, one must keep in mind the state of things against which it rebelled. In that day, the divine right of kings gave them absolute power over all persons and property. Religion was established by governments and enjoyed total monopoly, country by country. Constitutional government was seen as a heretical threat to the established order and the common man was viewed as incapable of ruling himself through any kind of participatory government. Authority was situated in persons, royal or ecclesiastical, rather than law.

John Locke was extremely influential in enunciating the basic tenets of classical liberalism. Thomas Jefferson considered Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton the three greatest men who ever lived. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison along with others of the founding fathers were also deeply influenced by John Locke. Portions of the Declaration of Independence such as “the long train of abuses” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were lifted in part or whole from the writings of John Locke. His thoughts on religion became the basis of the separation of church and state arguing that no civil magistrate could ever hope to deduce what is the one true and right church nor compel belief on the part of others.

Classical liberalism has flourished for hundreds of years principally here and in Europe. It has worked remarkably well, everything considered, spawning great freedom and prosperity. Today, it is in trouble. One only has to read the papers daily to see that we are descending into an increasingly polarized society. Even secular voices are decrying the lack of “civil discourse.” And we are witnessing the galloping ascent of a new form of totalitarianism becoming known as “the dictatorship of relativism.” In this brave new world, nonjudgmentalism or tolerance becomes the supreme virtue that steam-rolls all others.

Classical liberalism meant defending the dignity of the individual against coercion and domination. Modern liberalism drinks from the fountain of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) who focused on cultural or moral empowerment. We are not truly free unless we have the means to do what we want. Mill rebelled at the tyranny of any dominant social consensus desiring the freedom to undertake “experiments in living.” Today’s liberals champion social and cultural rebellion as a means of empowerment, expanding the limits of freedom so people can live as they please: lifestyle liberation.

Conservative Christians who stubbornly cling to certain moral absolutes are seen to stand in the way as an impediment and a threat. Classical liberalism argued from a strong base of principles and firm convictions. Modern liberalism today imposes their self-proclaimed “mainstream, majority status” as the club they are not in the least hesitant to use. They trump all argument by fiat because they can. Conservatives are to be denounced rather than debated. We are being driven into exile and forced to wear labels such as “mean-spirited” and “divisive.” It is very telling when civil issues are determined more by name-calling, political sloganing, and ridicule than by honest engagement.

Classical liberalism is fast descending into the abyss of absolutism of a new and different kind. In so doing, it will destroy itself by separating itself from its biggest ally and strongest base. Get ready for some interesting times. (…to be continued)

A Tale of Three Cities Concluded

Westminster Abby in London is half church and half graveyard of the greats. To be buried there is among the highest honors that England can bestow. It has its share of English kings, nobles, and great poets for sure. But easily eclipsing them all would be Sir Isaac Newton. I was pulled along through the majesty of the place by the anticipation of standing at his tomb and monument. Sir Isaac had contributed more to the development of modern science than any other man alive until that time (or perhaps even since). Newton’s Principia Mathematica became one of the most important and influential works on physics of all times. He formulated the basic laws of motion and the universal laws of nature that unraveled the great mysteries of science of his day. He invented calculus as well as gave birth to the classical theories of mechanics and optics. Alexander Pope summed it up succinctly in his couplet, "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light." The scientific history of the modern world could be written in terms of Before Newton and After Newton. More significantly, Newton, the consummate logician, held deeply to the necessity of God to sustain and hold all things together. He believed that the beauty and regularity of the natural world could only "proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." His place in this hall of champions, ensconced in a holy shrine dedicated to God’s glory, is without dispute and wholly natural.

How ironic is the fact that not many years hence Charles Darwin would be laid to rest not many feet away from Newton’s tomb. Here was a man who had invented a world where God was no longer a necessity, where all the beauty and regularity of the natural world emanated from sheer chance and the drive of living beings to merely survive. Considering all the reverence of the place that swept our thoughts skyward, Darwin seemed terribly out of place. God seems to have tolerated Darwin’s ultimate insult with his usual patient equanimity and granted him a resting place. He who bore the mocking of his killers while nailed to a cross is surely not all that troubled by a bookish naturalist who was quite content to live a life defined by blindness to the eternal.

I sought out Newton to pay homage, I passed over Darwin as one who glances to look at a tragic scene, and then eagerly looked for a man who epitomized great accomplishment in the moral realm, William Wilberforce. His body and monument are separated by some distance, but both were well known to the uniformed docents that patrolled the scene. The grave was near the entrance, and it held its fascination. But the monument transfixed me with words of praise that echo down the ages. Born in 1759, Wilberforce served nearly half a century in the House of Commons. “In an age and country fertile in grand and good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times.” That was a tribute earned through years of steady devotion to a high and noble cause when few would pause to even give lip service and many stood in great opposition. “His name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire.” This was a protracted struggle that consumed a lifetime of service in politics at great personal cost. “In the prosecution of these objects, he relied, not in vain, on GOD; but in the progress, he was called to endure great obloquy (humiliation, disgrace, mortification, infamy) and great opposition.” The perseverance of William Wilberforce against all odds is legendary. To all his life in that political mudpit, however, “…he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life.” Because of this and his steadfast dedication to principle, “He outlived … all enmity” and “died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country.” Let us not forget as well.

May God grant us some men and women who will fix the character of our times, who are ready to endure years of obloquy for the pursuit of righteousness, and who will outlive the enmity of their age for the sake of a better age to come.

Dry, Dry Bones

“Put them in fear, O LORD; Let the nations know that they are but men.” -Psalm 9:20

The valley of bones. That is about all I could think of as we walked through the remains of the Roman Forum, that once proud seat of authority that held sway over all the known world of its day. We walked on the streets where proud Caesars once walked, where orators like Cicero held audiences in awe, and where legions tramped proudly on their arrival home from fresh victories across the seas. This was the equivalent of our National Mall in Washington, D.C., our sacred stretch of green that stretches from the Capitol, past the Washington Monument, over the reflecting pool, all the way to the Lincoln Monument. Only in Rome, everything was more concentrated as a result of the lack of motorized transport. One could easily walk from the Coliseum to Palatine Hill, from the Circus Maximus to the Pantheon, and from the Baths of Nero to the Senate House. The streets were all paved, unlike many great cities even as late as the 18th century. And the buildings were massive structures made of solid stone and marble. Caesar Augustus boasted that he had found Rome brick but left it marble. We have ample evidence of this and many descriptive passages to chronicle the glory that was Rome. Modern re-creations of the complex of temples, baths, palaces, government buildings, and entertainment venues that was Rome at the height of its glory leave one aghast at this concentration of wealth and beauty. There was never a city like it or surpassing it since. One could walk for blocks and blocks, miles perhaps, and see nothing but majestic marble monuments on par with the Parthenon in Greece in terms of costly grace and beauty.

And the Romans built everything to last. Thousands of miles of roads were constructed of four different layers in order to meet a construction standard of endurance for 100 years. Many have lasted 2000 years and are still in use today. Their engineering miracles are best seen in their system of aqueducts that brought fresh water into the heart of their cities. There were at least seven separate aqueducts that supplied Rome with its plentiful water supply that made its sanitation standards unequalled until the 19th century. Some of these are still operative today. Everything they constructed seemed to be built with an unequalled ability to endure. Much of the Coliseum still stands today even after 2000 years of invasions, erosion, neglect, outright theft, and predations of nature. Yet its foundations are secure holding up thousands of tons of walls and floors. We wandered its halls and passageways and marveled at its similarity to a modern stadium long before football, soccer, or baseball were even a thought.

So what had reduced this proud city, this cradle of an empire, this forum that concentrated the opulence and power of the world’s rulers for hundreds of years to a marble scrap yard; a valley of bones? Oh, how the mighty are fallen. It surely would have been thought absolutely impossible in the second century that this palatial setting would ever disappear under tons of debris and become a market place for farm animals, despoiling the very ground, and a refuge for the homeless and the criminal sort. Nor would it be thought that the proud Roman race would totally disappear in the sea of crisscrossing currents of humanity.

Their forum is dead, their language is dead, and their bloodline is untraceable. The mighty buildings of stone and marble are gone with the exception of a few which were saved in large part because of their later use as Christian churches, another triumph of a once sworn enemy. Walking among this valley of bones produced no thrill of triumph over a pagan foe, no urge to tramp up and down upon the ruins of a city that once enslaved the world. It produced, rather, an intense feeling of humility that bore witness to the transient nature of accomplishment, even when carved in tons of marble. What took ages to build was destroyed in a matter of days and years. There is no room for the boasting of man in kingdoms or monuments of grandeur. They do not last. These ruins testify mightily to the frailty of man in the flesh, even at his finest. “No man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (I Cor. 3:11) No one.

Rousseau Revisited

“The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.” -Psalm 94:10-12

On our last day in Paris, we were given the gift of one hour to wander the historic left bank and told to meet our bus on the steps of the Pantheon, a majestic building enshrining some of the great heroes of French history. I could not resist. I made for this grand crypt at full speed eagerly anticipating the opportunity to stand before the remains of some of the great names that had gripped my interest a half-world away amid library carols and university debates. Here lay one of my heroes, Victor Hugo, who wrote that grand tale of mercy and truth, justice and love, vengeance and redemption: Les Miserables. I entered the cavernous building with anxious thoughts of the few, fleeting moments I had to discover the tombs of both the saints and sinners housed there, all tucked away in various alcoves posted with signs and directions written in totally incomprehensible French.

I dodged and darted until I could stand in a moment of raw reverence before Hugo’s tomb and pay my respects. But I must confess, it was not Hugo’s tomb that held the greatest fascination for me but rather my arch nemesis, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Being French has to be difficult for when you look to those men who have played such a huge role in shaping the history of that country, it inevitably includes some of the grandest “Moriarities” of the modern age. Such is the case with this Pantheon of heroes. Along with Hugo, Louis Braille, and Marie Curie you find the savage beast of Marat and the seductive, deeply disturbed, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I was drawn as by a magnet to find his resting place, a curious wooden box with a peaked roof. In carved relief, an arm appears from a cracked door on the end holding a small bouquet. Appropriate, I thought. From the bosom of death and decay that was his life, he held forth to all of France a bouquet of cut and soon-to-wilt adolescent ideals presented with a gripping narrative that was his gift. His private life was “a record of almost uninterrupted squalor and misery.” “Every friendship, whether with men or women, concluded with a quarrel.” He imagined enemies everywhere “until, in 1778, he died, paranoid and almost catatonic.”* Yet his writings portrayed life lived in the most exquisite of philosophic and limpid Utopianism. His characters frequently stopped to rhapsodize and sermonize on the human condition giving naïve, adolescent ideas the gravity of apparent truth. The effect was incredibly successful in an age tired of arid rationalism and cynicism. He ravished the soul of his countrymen to the point that much of the high flown rhetoric of the French Revolution was informed by the precepts and ideals of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Robespierre, that devil in a fine suit who presided over the Terror, was a huge fan of Rousseau and absorbed all his writing, travelling to visit him before his death. Rousseau was unique in that his writing appealed to poor and rich alike, seducing them with empty phrases that had a ring of virtue and endearing sentiment. It had the widest imaginable influence upon his countrymen. He was to the French Revolution what Jefferson was to ours, only combined with the simplistic appeal of an Oprah Winfrey and the narrative power of a Stephen King.

The ideals of the French Revolution soon unleashed the horror of the Terror. From the ashes of that came forth Napoleon who ransacked as much of the world as he could both with armies and ideas. Curiously, a man named Vladimir Lenin some years later looked to the tumult of the French Revolution for his inspiration in spreading a new revolution that would enslave half the world in its idealistic chains. I cannot help but link the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam to a chain of events going all the way back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Standing there in front of Rousseau’s tomb, I was seized by a school-boy impulse. I wet the tip of my finger and applied a touch of spittle to the railing surrounding his bones. A contemptuous act, I admit. It should have been a tear for all the suffering that has flowed in his wake. But somehow tears would not come. The momentous gravity of the vanity of it all sapped my more gracious instincts. Perhaps next time.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe *Paris in the Terror, Stanley Loomis, 1964