Last week, Bill Keller, out-going executive editor at the New York Times, wrote a column about politics and religion. He has questions for Republican presidential nominees. The first and most important is: Is America a Judeo-Christian nation?
This question is intended to be a no-win situation. If Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann say says yes, Keller and the other liberals in the media can call them discriminatory against other faiths. If they say no, they lose their base.
Receive news alerts
A more interesting question would be to pose Keller the same question. His answer would reveal much more about how dangerous Bill Keller is as opposed to Mitt Romney or Michele Bachman. Before answering, Keller might want to consult a brilliant new book Why We Should Call Ourselves Christian: the Religious Roots of Free Societies, by Marcello Pera. Indeed, the very fact that Keller most likely would never consider reading such a book probably tells you what his answer would be.
Pera is no snake handler. He was a professor of the philosophy of science at the universities of Catania and Pisa. He was President of the Italian Senate from 2001 to 2006. He's now a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. Pera is a classical liberal in the European sense, meaning he believes in a lot of the same things as American conservatives -- smaller government, lower taxes, the right of the individual over the state, etc. He is also a secularist. And here is where things get interesting.
Pera makes the argument that secular liberalism is possible only through Christianity. He believes that "the Christian God who became man and endured suffering in human condition" is "a baptismal act [that is] the historical and and conceptual foundation of liberalism." Classical liberalism, he posits -- not the New Left insanity that came out of the 1960s (more on that later) -- is a faith whose dogmas come right out of Christianity.
"These are not extrinsic, biographical facts, but essential points of liberal doctrine," Pera Explains. "Without faith in the equality, dignity, and liberty, and responsibility of all men -- that is to say, without a religion of man as the son and image of God (which is the essence of Judeo-Christian religion) - liberalism cannot defend the fundamental and universal rights of human beings or hope that human beings can coexists in a liberal society....Christianity and liberalism are cogeners [the same genus]."
Crucial to understanding Pera's argument is his idea that the west is now dealing with two kinds of secularism. The first kind of secularism may be atheistic or agnostic, yet it is comfortable acknowledging the impact Christianity has had in the development of western civilization and culture.
This first kind of secularist may say the following (and these are my words not Pena's): "I don't believe in God. But it is irrefutable that western civilization would not have been imaginable without Christianity. The basis of our rights in a creator, the concept and development of the universities, the fall of communism, the civil rights movement -- none of these things would have been possible without the Christian religion. I acknowledge that, even is I remain an unbeliever."
The problem as Pena sees it is the second kind of secularist, who is a strongman in what Pope Benedict describes as the "dictatorship of relativism." This is Marxian secularism of the 1960s -- the Maureen Dowd or ACLU member who is simply incapable of cogent argument about Christianity.
If you quote Thomas Jefferson to them -- "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?" -- they will yell about slavery. Citing Thomas Aquinas brings a shrug. Mother Teresa? She was against condoms, right?
This angry, reactionary liberalism, writes Pera, "has lost faith in its own founding principles and has severed the historical and conceptual ties that once linked it to Christianity." It is actively hostile to Christianity without offering any alternative. Pera is "convinced that some ideas prevalent among liberals today -- for example, that religion should not voice opinions, that it is irrelevant to public life, that it is an obstacle, or that it has become outmoded in our modern or postmodern world -- are indefensible in theory and disastrous in practice."
Pera notes that political philosophers from from John Locke to Kant to Thomas Jefferson all wrestled with the question of how to create an ordered society -- on what collective virtues would it be based? To this question, the hard-core secularist has no compelling answer.
Pera's book is vitally important and comes at a crucial time. In non-academic terms it explains how anti-Christian zealots are not simply attacking fundamentalists who don't believe in evolution, but going after foundational truths that support their own arguments. We respect Bill Keller despite his silly elitist gotcha question because as Christians we believe he has inherent dignity and was made in the image of God. We value his life even as he is sawing away at the branch that we are all sitting on.
It should be emphasized again: Pera, a secularist, is not calling for a theocracy. He isn't even calling for nonbelievers to believe. He is simply asking for a general informed consensus that Christianity had and has a decisive and mostly positive impact in the development of the political theory and culture of the west, and that if it is lost, our culture could collapse -- or be taken over by something truly dire.
So, the counter question: does Bill Keller think America is a Christian nation?
And, if I may be so bold, a follow up. I spent last week getting an early look at the new Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C. (video here). Does Bill Keller think that the civil rights movement could have happened without Christianity?
Mark Judge is a columnist for RealClearReligion and author, most recently, of A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock 'n' Roll.
Read Full Article »