Faith & Theology on Milton
By Davey Henreckson | August 18, 2008
Check out Ben Myers’ post on Milton’s political theory, which he argues is a strange amalgamation of natural rights theory and a Puritan theology of regeneration. Ben really needs to post more of his material on this. Tell him so.
Milton believes unreservedly in the innate rights that belong to human nature as a result of creation. But because of his corresponding theology of the fall, his conception of political order is always the vision of a regenerate few who embody the proper natural liberty of all…. The commitment to a normative human nature, then, is at bottom a theological commitment, grounded in a specific (and inherently problematic) narrative of creation–fall–regeneration.
Topics: Historical survey, Modernity | No Comments »
The Scientist as Priest in Modernity
By Davey Henreckson | August 18, 2008
The Baconian project does not appear at first glance to be an especially mystical or religious adventure. We are accustomed to looking back on the work of Sir Francis Bacon as one of the seminal writs of divorce between faith and natural reason. Bacon’s own words from The Great Instauration lend credence to this view. He prays to God, “that things human may not interfere with things divine,”[1] and that a clear delineation between the two realms will “give to faith what which is faith’s.” Simply put, some matters are the domain of natural reason and induction, while the “divine mysteries” must be relegated to the realm of divine revelation.
Commonly, this Baconian vision is viewed as the ancestor of modern evolutionary science, along with its attendant industrial abuse and domination over nature. If nature is man’s laboratory, free from divine (or ecclesiastical) oversight and judgment, why not take advantage of Creation to the fullest? As Richard Coleman wrote:
Why shouldn’t we think in terms of a gradual evolutionary path toward greater freedom and greater self-determination? The logic of this scenario leaves us with the singular sin of not seizing the day and not using out knowledge to make for ourselves a better tomorrow. And this is exactly what Sir Francis Bacon urged.[2]
These interpretations of Bacon’s work do to some degree accurately capture the expansionistic nature of his vision. His desired end in his New Organon is to lead the human race into the “inner chambers” of Nature, in order to “trod” over what was previously forbidden and inaccessible to mankind. However, as far as this goes, it does not realize the fundamentally religious nature of Bacon’s project. It is in this aspect of Bacon’s work that the ultimate end of his project become clear.
Topics: Modernity | No Comments »
Defining Evangelicalism
By Davey Henreckson | August 15, 2008
James K.A. Smith has a great post on the value of defining evangelicalism as social group over at The Immanent Frame. For some of us who grew up in the belly of conservative American evangelicalism, and now find ourselves struggling with self-definition, this piece is a great corrective. Our theology of place runs even deeper than where we live; our love of neighbor means having the maturity to live alongside the tradition that, in a certain sense, raised us. As Smith says, “‘Evangelical’ is an identity forged at a level more visceral than doctrinal.”
It is in this sociological sense that I own up to being an evangelical, despite all my theological reservations. I still pick up Christianity Today before I pick up the Christian Century or First Things. I get the jokes, jabs, and sly references in the orbit of conservative Protestantism. I’ve taken friends to a Billy Graham crusade and still revere Nonconformist saints like Jim Elliot and Corrie ten Boom. I know the words to Michael W. Smith’s “Friends are Friends Forever” (sung when departing every Bible camp), as well as all the words to Keith Green’s anthems. I still understand the inner workings and issues of evangelicalism better than the labyrinthine machinations of American liberalism or Catholicism. I still feel at home in evangelical circles—if you understand being “at home” like coming back to a small town Thanksgiving dinner, with all its charm and awkwardness, all its arguments and hugs.
Topics: Contemporary | 1 Comment »
Tongues of Judgment and Fire
By Davey Henreckson | August 15, 2008
I.
In 1969, sociologist Peter Berger wrote, “we have come a long way from the gods and from the angels. The breaches of this-worldly reality which these mighty figures embodied have increasingly vanished from our consciousness as serious possibilities.” But not yet entirely, Berger allowed. He went on to tell of a priest working in the slums of a European city who was asked why he continued to work in such a place. The priest gave the answer: “So that the rumor of God may not disappear completely.”
The rumor of God seems an unwieldy thing. It’s like some childhood game of telephone which delivers truth over to falsehood and ends in a complete unraveling of language by the end of the line. Such is the way that men speak of God, as the postmoderns say. One age delivers a myth to another age, which in turn shapes and distorts according to its whim. In the end, you have a god for urbanites and a god for trailer parks, a god for the rich and a god for the underprivileged, a god for any economic or political culture in which you find yourself. When God is only a rumor, when He has been presumed dead, you find not one, but many, to take His place. In short, the world after modernity is polytheistic (a strange consequence).
Topics: Metaphysics, Modernity | No Comments »
Luther’s Incomplete Christology
By Davey Henreckson | August 13, 2008
Jesse Couenhoven argues in his excellent essay, Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel, that a prime difference between Luther’s political theology and Calvin’s is the latter’s Christology:
Luther understands the secular regiment as a servant of God, yet not of Christ…. Luther more or less leaves the state to natural reason (the second table of the ten commandments)–not surprisingly, since he sees nothing of the gospel in the law….
Since Calvin tends to see Christ as the telos of the law, where Luther simply sees Christ as the law’s limit, Calvin also pictures Jesus Christ as the lord of the secular kingdom.
–Jesse Couenhoven, “Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel?: Karl Barth’s Political Theology Compared with Luther and Calvin,” in Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 30, no. 2 (2002): 181-205.
Topics: Reformation | 1 Comment »
Suburb as Salvage, Slum, and Ruin
By Davey Henreckson | August 13, 2008
James Kunstler in a Freakonomics forum. If city/country vs. suburb discussions interest you, read the rest here.
The suburbs have three destinies, none of them exclusive: as materials salvage, as slums, and as ruins. In any case, the suburbs will lose value dramatically, both in terms of usefulness and financial investment. Most of the fabric of suburbia will not be “fixed” or retrofitted, in particular the residential subdivisions. They were built badly in the wrong places. We will have to return to traditional modes of inhabiting the landscape — villages, towns, and cities, composed of walkable neighborhoods and business districts — and the successful ones will have to exist in relation to a productive agricultural hinterland, because petro-agriculture…
Topics: Pop | No Comments »
Bullies and the Bullied
By Davey Henreckson | August 12, 2008
Rod Dreher uses a new book on Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell to springboard off into a discussion of how political allegiances are formed in the schoolyard:
Orwell, born Eric Blair, was profoundly influenced by his experience being viciously bullied at St. Cyprian’s, a prep school from which he was launched into Eton, England’s most prestigious public school. He got into St. Cyprian’s based on his intelligence, and was constantly and cruelly reminded by fellow students and the headmaster that he was not good enough, in terms of his birth, to be there.
It absolutely shaped the man he became — not only his socialism, but more deeply his hatred of bullies. Evelyn Waugh, by contrast, was a bully. He was not highborn either, but he desperately aspired to be part of the upper class, and used his considerable wit and intelligence to insinuate himself into those circles. His experience as a bully absolutely shaped the man he became.
Topics: Pop | 1 Comment »
Barth on the Use of Violence
By Davey Henreckson | August 12, 2008
Currently reading Jesse Couenhoven’s excellent essay on Barth’s political theology, and found this similarly excellent quote from Barth himself:
When a Christian he finds himself persecuted because of his witness, he cannot oppose… force to force… Why not? Certainly not because the use of severity, force, cunning or tactics is in itself and in all circumstances a possibility which must be rejected…. The Christian can make a very limited use of these possibilities even in relation to what he has to attest. But to the extent that he in concerned with his specific service as a witness–and the borderline will be difficult to fix and will never be rigid–he cannot make any use of them at all… In the measure that he, too, lives as a man among men… he cannot refrain from making a very cautious, provisional, incidental and temporary use of the doubtful means of protection of a humanity not yet aware of its liberation. Nevertheless he can never do so to protect himself.
Along these lines, Barth also states that a Christan should be a practical, rather than a principled, pacifist. Which is consistent with a provisional use of violence toward immaturity. Corporal punishment is applied to a five year old, but not a seventeen year old.
Topics: Contemporary | 3 Comments »
Walker Percy’s Apocalypse: Authority (Part 3)
By Davey Henreckson | August 10, 2008
(Part 1) | (Part 2) | (Part 3)
The strange modern pursuit of the natural world and its pleasures is for Percy a smokescreen to hide evidence of a panicked retreat from the supernatural. The Cartesian world is always trying to guard the natural against the incursions of the supernatural. It would seem the worst possible nightmare for the modernist would be a world in which natural objects have “superstitious” power. The paradox of the modern is that the natural world becomes degraded in the process of protecting it from the spiritual world. Percy, as a Catholic, saw evidence of the spiritual in very common objects: in bread and wine and sex and wooden crosses and words spoken by man.
The prospect of authority residing in a physical-metaphysical institution like the Church has always driven the modernist mad. But for Percy this is the inevitable end—the denouement at which the entire plot of the Western world is about to arrive. The mere existence of truth or meaning is useless if it cannot be spoken or transmitted by someone with authority. The message “is not enough.” There must be “someone who delivers the news and who speaks with authority.”
Topics: Modernity | No Comments »
Envy and Social Justice
By Davey Henreckson | August 8, 2008
My friend Frank posts on the question of how envy plays into our view of social justice. Well-written and provocative.
But… I can’t fully agree with Frank’s emphasis (no surprise to him, as I’ve been stubbornly discussing this issue with him for months). A few brief thoughts (not directed in any one direction):
1) Frank’s conclusion is to caution us away from overemphasizing social justice for the poor at the expense of cautioning the poor against envy of the rich. Which, taken at face value, I do agree with. Every class has its own endemic virtues and vices to encourage and combat (respectively, of course). James states that different classes require different motivating exhortations toward virtue on account of their different economic states (1:10).
2) However, strangely enough, James does not dwell on the sins of the poor, same as Jesus does not dwell on the sins of the adultress (John 4 and 8), the sinners and collaborators (Mark 2:13-17), nor other oppressed groups (e.g. women, the diseased, lepers, etc.).
3) So, while Jesus does not ignore the sin of the downtrodden (John 4:17-18; 8:11), He also does not call them vipers or white-washed tombs. Instead, he treats them with a kindness infused with moral authority: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” Why does He do this?
4) It seems that certain sins attract divine ire more than others, no? Those who only have one sheep, and are oppressed by those who have many–these are the ones whom the Lord looks mercifully on (2 Sam. 12:1-15; Jer. 5:26-29).
5) This is not to say that all are not equal before the law or before God. Of course not (Lev. 19:15; Ex. 30:15). But in our dealings with our fellow men, the biblical ethic turns the natural (read: carnal) top-heavy structure on its head. Dealing justice means watching out for the defenseless, the widow, the orphan. These are the individuals whom the Bible says require our aid. A rich man who is being mugged in the alley must be saved the same as the poor man, but one doesn’t often find rich men in back alleys.
6) The Kingdom is not a meritocracy. It is in fact the reverse (Matt. 19:30). The rich man has his own power to throw around; the poor man does not.
7) In short, the rich can take care of themselves. Their economic safety should be the last of their (our) worries, according to James (2:1-7; 5:1). Envy of the rich is a sin, but it is an entirely different matter to be as concerned with protecting the rich as many modern conservatives are. This, honestly, seems entirely out-of-sync with the priorities of the Holy Fathers and the Scriptures.
On a related note, see Ben Meyer’s excellent post on the ethical demands of the parables. Same goes for The Internet Monk’s comments (HT: Frank).
Topics: Economics | 7 Comments »
Christians for Torture
By Davey Henreckson | August 7, 2008
John Schwenkler posts about the strange moral/ideological gymnastics that devout (”conservative”) Christians must go through in order to support the administration’s torture policy. The real political divide lies somewhere you might not expect:
There are a great many writers - Andrew [Sullivan] mentions Mark Shea, but plenty of others including Rod Dreher, Daniel Larison, several of the Vox Nova bloggers, and of course (albeit in a theologically unorthodox vein) Andrew himself jump quickly to mind - whose self-identification as Christians and political conservatives has not hindered, but rather has been a quite obvious cause of, their recognition of the gravest evils of the last seven years, and the standoff between these voices and those “conservatives” who continue to idolize Dick Cheney is one that has been a long time coming. The great dividing line in American conservatism is not between the Hucksters and the Paulites, the libertarians and the moralists, or the Christianists and the leave-us-aloners, but rather between those whose conservatism means something more than identification with a political party and for whom religion is not a thing to be used only when it is politically advantageous, and those of whom these things cannot be said. Let’s put our cards on the table, and let’s do it now. To borrow a trope from the neocons, nothing less than the fate of the world is at stake. And I’m pretty confident that I know who’s going to triumph.
Topics: Pop | 1 Comment »
Walker Percy’s Apocalypse: Pleasure and Communion (Part 2)
By Davey Henreckson | August 7, 2008
(Part 1) | (Part 2) | (Part 3)
The problem at the center of Percy’s novel, how man can find a sense of this-worldly pleasure and meaning, is set against the stark images of scientific sterility. More, who believes in beauty even if he cannot discern its origin, knows that he must find a way to re-integrate the soul with the body. He knows beauty is something more than mere matter, but nevertheless material. In other words, a beautiful woman or an opera by Mozart are simultaneously ordinary and extra-ordinary. The entire modern paradigm, in which nature and super-nature must not touch, is undercut by Percy’s idea of the sacraments. As Percy would say, the modernist looks at something like the act of love-making and sees only the hormones, the chemical interplay, the exchange of bodily fluids—even the sensory pleasure which the “participants” experience can be analyzed in scientific terms. But in the Christian view, love-making cannot be merely the exchange of fluids and chemicals. Actions, things, people, even ideas—all these common “things” have a supra-natural dimension, as John Desmond points out. “The Catholic sacramental view of reality verified the absolute spiritual integrity of the particular, of things, allowing them to be what they are, no more and no less.” This paradigm answers the nominalistic modernist, who wanted to divorce “things” from ultimate (supernatural or formal) meaning.
As Percy argues in several places, the fundamental error of the modernist is his absolute, nearly religious, belief that “reality” cannot exist anywhere but in matter. Percy contradicts this premise on very Catholic grounds: Christ was made incarnate and historical two thousand years ago, and—further—He is made incarnate every Sunday in the Eucharist. This sacramental view is premised on the idea that the non-material can in fact be real. And this reality, including God, can be known.
Topics: Metaphysics, Pop | 1 Comment »
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