The Idolatry of Modernity and the Impossibile State

In the concluding chapter of his book The Impossible State, Wael B. Hallaq argues that the crisis of the Muslim world is not a uniquely Muslim crisis, but is the crisis faced by all of humanity in our present times. This crisis stems from modernity, from Enlightenment philosophy, from a humanism that says “man is the measure of all things”.

Hallaq presents two worldviews in fundamental contradiction to one another. On the one hand, we have a theology that says we live in a universe saturated with moral values, with reasons that make normative demands of us (165). These moral demands transcend human subjectivity: they are part of the created world in which we live, and they come from God, the only Sovereign. On the other hand, we have a humanism that says we live in a value-free universe, and that the only moral constraints on us have their origin in human Reason.

The Telos of Democratic Freedoms (more on communitarian & individualist notions of rights)

(This morning I am reading David B. Wong, Natural Moralities, section 3.5, "The Communal Ground for Rights".)

According to Andrew Nathan's study of Chinese conceptions of democracy, democratic freedoms (the kind that enable meaningful political participation, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to influence public policy) ought to be in service of the common good. I think of this as a statement about the telos or purpose of democratic freedoms. That is, we ought to do more as citizens than merely insist that we be free from certain forms of coercion or from certain types of obligation--we ought to ask what we are free for.

Nathan writes (interpreting Chinese political thinker Liang Qichao):

"[T]he duties of citizens are to love and be concerned about the nation. Hence political participation should unelash energies that will contribute to the colelctive welfare; it would not--as a Westerner might see it--enable individuals to pursue personal interests that might be competitive with that welfare" (quoted by Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 86).

So, on this view: democratic freedoms are for the promotion of the common good; democratic freedoms are not for enabling the assertion of individual self-interest in competition with the common good.

It strikes me that this conception of the telos of democratic freedoms should have implications for how we as American citizens, as Ohio citizens, etc., think about economic policy, and other social policies. Is my entitlement to earn income and to keep my earnings, or my entitlement to generate profits and to keep my profits, a right we see as serving the promotion of the common good? That is, does our protection and assertion of this right help create and maintain a sustainable economy that promotes and/or secures the well-being of all members of society (including the disenfranchised and oppressed)? Or, does our protection and assertion of this right (to create and keep personal profit/wealth) serve instead the promotion of one's individual self-interest in competition with the common good?

I believe these thoughts should influence both how we defend our rights (our right to work, our right to keep our earnings, our right to personal property), and what we do with these rights.

Reasonable people may continue to disagree about both; my hope is that these thoughts will generate and shape civil and productive conversation among citizens and neighbors with diverse moral and political views.

Two Different Grounds for Individual Rights

In moral philosophy and in current popular U.S. political discourse, I see a conflict between two moralities: (1) a morality that emphasizes the protection of individual liberties on the one hand (call this classical liberalism, individualism, libertarianism, or rights-centered morality), and (2) a morality that emphasizes the promotion of the common good on the other hand (call this communitarianism, collectivism, or social-welfare-centered morality). In popular U.S. political discourse, individualism might be represented by my friends who are most concerned that individual workers and business-owners be permitted to earn profit, keep profit, and have great freedom in what they do with their profit, while collectivism might be represented by my friends who are most concerned that everyone have enough food, shelter, and access to good education—including those whose economic situation does not permit them to secure these goods for themselves by earning personal profit through wage or investment income. I believe that (at least for the most part) all of my friends, on both sides of this conflict, think that the enactment of their own philosophy would tend to promote a society in which human beings are respected as having inherent moral worth as human beings (regardless of their socio-economic status), and to promote a sustainable and equitable economy in which resources are fairly distributed and in which there is enough for everyone’s basic needs to be met.

 

David B. Wong explores the relationship between community-centered and rights-centered moralities in his Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (Oxford, 2006).

Nonviolence and Community Life: The Value of Accommodation

Another connection with regard to the value of accommodation for the stability of a society in which regular, serious ethical disagreement will (inevitably) occur (cf. Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 64).

I read this years ago online, and the sentence I've emphasized (in boldface) below has stuck in my head ever since: (This is from a Christian Century article on "Alternative Christian Communities" by Jason Byassee.

Something of a different animal from Reba is the Church of the Servant King in Eugene, Oregon. Many of its members are evangelicals who originally joined a parent congregation of the same name in 1978 in Gardena, California. The Eugene congregation was planted in 1987. Most of its key leaders have been living together in intentional community since the ‘78 founding.

Servant King started as an evangelical effort to live out scripture’s vision of the church. A commitment to nonviolence evolved slowly, partly as members read the works of Stanley Hauerwas, partly as they decided who would clean the bathrooms. Peace is not merely about a position on the war in Iraq; it is about how one relates to one’s neighbor, one’s spouse and one’s adversary in the community. Community leader Jon Stock points out that most intentional Christian communities that are not committed to nonviolence don’t survive, because when arguments erupt, someone has to win -- and the community loses. The Gardena congregation that planted Servant King has had such a rupture and is now on strained terms with its ecclesial offspring in Eugene.

(http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3286)

The Value of Accommodation and Ingredients for a Pro-Social Environment

In section 2.12 of Natural Moralities, David Wong argues an important value for a moral society is "accommodation", which is "to be committed to supporting noncoercive and constructive relations with others although they have ethical beliefs that conflict with one's own."

This point made me recall this segment from a Krista Tippett interview (from her program On Being, distributed by American Public Media) that I heard this summer: (http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4726)

Ms. Tippett: So what does that look like. Creating a highly pro-social environment, what are some of the components of that?

Dr. Wilson: OK. We have been able to derive a list of designed features that cause just about any group to function well, including a school group. This is based a lot on the work of Elinor Ostrom who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009. Her contribution was to show how groups of people attempting to manage their common resources, such as farmers or fishermen or forestry people managing forests, how they're capable of managing their affairs pretty well, but only if certain conditions are met. Those conditions are very conciliant with what we know from an evolutionary perspective about pro-sociality and cooperation.

So I'm going to reel off eight design features and then I'm going to add a couple of extra things to show you how we created a school program that works. Now as I'm listing these ingredients, ask yourself the question, how well does the typical school satisfy these ingredients, embody these design features, especially from the perspective of an at-risk student? OK?

Ingredient number one: There has to be a strong group identity and a sense of purpose for the group. So a person has to think that they're a member of a group and that group has to be a purpose that's clear to everyone. OK?

Number two: a proportional cost in benefits. It cannot be the case that some people do all the work and some people get all the benefits. There has to be some sense in which the benefits are scaled to what you do for the group. OK?

Number three: consensus decision-making. People hate being bossed around and told what to do, but they'll work hard to implement a consensus decision. Right there, ask yourself what the average at-risk kid thinks about whether they're being consulted about what they do in school.

Number four: monitoring. Most people are cooperative, but some people misbehave. Unless you can monitor that, then the group will not function well.

Number five: graduated sanctions. If someone does misbehave, you don't bring the hammer down immediately. You correct them in a nice friendly fashion, but you also must be prepared to escalate.

Number six: fast, fair conflict resolution. If there is a conflict, it must be resolved quickly and in a manner that's regarded as fair by all parties.

Number seven: local autonomy. In order for the group to do the previous things, they must have the ability to make their own decisions and to organize their group their way in order to make those decisions. There's another thing. If you look at the average school program, not only are the students not allowed to alter the routine, but even the teachers are not allowed even when they know it's not working.

Ms. Tippett: And the students are aware that the teachers are not allowed to alter their routine.

Dr. Wilson: Yeah. Finally number eight is called polycentric governance. When groups are nested within larger groups, then there must be coordination among groups which mirrors the same principles. Now there's two more principles that we added to this school group. The first was a safe and secure environment. Fear is good for helping you escape from a fearful situation over the short term. It's toxic over the long term. So therefore, if you don't feel safe and secure, if you're not basically in a playful, relaxed mood, you're not going to do the kind of learning that you need to do. And finally, learning in any species does not take place when all of the costs are in the present and all the benefits are in the future. So if you tell someone you'll get a good job if you slog four years through school …

Ms. Tippett: Right, or you'll get into college four years from now.

Dr. Wilson: Yeah. So there's a wonderful study by the psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who's best known for his work on "flow," peak psychological experience. In this study, he and his team followed a group of gifted high school students that were identified as gifted in the ninth grade, followed them through their high school and asked how many of them remained gifted by the 12th grade. What he discovered was, only the kids that enjoyed what they were doing on a day-to-day basis fulfilled their talents. So even the gifted kids had to have this short-term reward for what they were doing in order to realize the long-term reward. So if school isn't fun and something you want to go to on a day-to-day basis, then forget about it.

I think these ingredients for a pro-social environment have relevance to local, conference, and denominational church polity, as well as to political philosophy applied to other sorts of groups.

2.

I ended the last entry with a question:

What is and ought to be the relationship between Christianity and politics, between church and state, now that the secularist vision of the Radical Reformers has taken its current form in “Western” nations?

In the Introduction to his Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World (1992), Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder describes a common view: that a chasm divides “church” and “politics”, “worship” and “ordinary life”, and that a bridge is needed to cross this chasm.

He then describes two perspectives on how this chasm is to be bridged.

On what Yoder calls the “liberal” perspective, and what I will call the “head” perspective, from worship we gain concepts, ideas, understandings, or insights. The way we act outside of church, in politics or in other aspects of ordinary life, is then informed by these thoughts. The practical import of worship for ordinary life is cognitive.

On what Yoder calls the “pietist” perspective, and what I will call the “heart” perspective, worship transforms our insides: our “heart”, our feelings, our motives, our will. Christians thus internally transformed by worship behave differently outside of church. The practical difference worship makes for ordinary life is affective.

So, on the “heart” model, we see that the Christian worshiper has a Christian impact on the world because she is a godly person. Good deeds flow naturally from a heart changed by Christ. The worshiper is also, outside of church, a philanthropist, politician, social worker, activist, professional, parent, or teacher, or has some other secular, “political” role in the world. How she performs her worldly role is affected by her changed heart. Worship may make her, for example, more compassionate, or more ready to forgive herself and others—this will affect her relationships in the world.

And, on the “head” model, the worshiper has a Christian impact on the world because she applies ideas (propositional concepts) to her secular activities, such as: “Every person I meet is my neighbor, whom I am to love as part of my self,” or “God demands that God’s people do business justly, without deception or favoritism”.

The “heart” model is more akin to an ethics of character virtue; the “head” model is more akin to an ethics of principles. Yet both models see the individual worshiper as the bridge between the realm of the church (where “worship” happens), and the realm of the world (where “politics” happens).

I am tempted for a moment to regard the “heart” model as better fitting a form of worship that is less socially engaged, and the “head” model as better fitting a form of worship that explicitly tackles social issues. But in fact, whether the focus of worship is changing the head or the heart, worship may or may not limit itself to “spiritual” things (such as grace, forgiveness, and the adoration of Christ), and may or may not directly and explicitly engage “social issues” such as global warming, the presidential election, health care reform, or the wealth gap. We might engage our emotions, not our principles, while showing photography that depicts economic or ecological injustice. And we might intellectualize about theological ideas with no reference to this-worldly concerns.

I suspect, then, that there is little if any difference in pragmatic meaning between these two models. The distinction depends entirely on the cognitive/affective dichotomy, a philosopher’s artifice that has in my opinion a limited usefulness.

--

Yoder points out that it is more important what these two perspectives have in common: the notion that the “nonpolitical” realm of the Word of God, the realm of worship is both (1) wholly separate from and (2) prior to the “political” realm of this-worldly social issues.

Yoder also points out that in many Christian ethicists’ discussions of politics, the values, principles, and rules of the political realm are seen as autonomous (self-governing). That is, the Word of God preached and received in worship is unnecessary for the right functioning of the political realm outside of the church. He calls this “the doctrine of creation” (page viii). The idea is that that God has given human beings two vehicles of revelation: the special revelation of the Word (Christ and/or the scriptures), and also the natural or general revelation of the World. Moral and political norms, according to “the doctrine of creation”, are grounded in Nature, and these norms thus may be known apart from receiving the Word in Christian worship. (Proponents of this “natural law” view may often cite Romans 2:14-15: “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the [Mosaic] law, do by nature things required by the law…they show that the requirements of the law [ethics] are written on their hearts….”). 

We have two rather different perspectives, here: on one view, Christian worship makes a difference in what it means to rightly engage in political/social/this-worldly concerns, whether because worship changes our heads or our hearts. On the other view, natural law is the source of right and wrong in this world, and so Christian worship has nothing to add to the realm of politics.

Yoder responds to this potential confusion not by taking one side or the other on the questions: “How do the separate realms of worship and politics relate to one another?” and “Does worship make a practical difference to Christians’ political engagement in this-worldly concerns or not?”, but rather by taking the position that the confusion is prior to our asking these questions. The problem is in the way we have conceived of “politics” as something that is separate from and not immediately relevant to the activity of the church.

Instead, we should begin by recognizing that the church itself is a political reality.

This, then, is how Yoder begins his project in Body Politics:

Instead, this study will pick up the topic of the church as body, for its own sake, from the beginning. The Christian community, like any community held together by commitment to important values, is a political reality. That is, the church has the character of a polis (the Greek word from which we get the adjective political), namely, a structured social body. It has its ways of making decisions, defining membership, and carrying out common tasks. That makes the Christian community a political entity in the simplest meaning of the term.

1. Secularism and Questions about Christianity and Politics

One of the marks of Anabaptism, as I have come to understand it in recent years, is what I might call “secularism”, or the political doctrine of the separation of church and state. The members of the Radical Reformation in Europe came to be called “Anabaptists” (lit., “re-baptizers”) because they regarded the baptism of infants into a state church whose membership is determined by birth nationality as illegitimate and unbiblical, and they practiced instead the baptism of adult believers into a faith community whose membership is determined by voluntary association. For this, the Anabaptists were slandered and persecuted.

Note that the issue of baptism is really, for the Anabaptists, an issue of what defines or determines church membership, or religious identity. The Anabaptists broke with the (at that time normative in Christian Europe) State Christianity model, according to which the Church and the King work together to govern the spiritual and worldly affairs of the kingdom. In a Christian kingdom (or, nation-state) membership in the church (a particular Christian religious identity) is mandatory, for the good of the social order. In a secular nation (as some at least regard the U.S. today) membership in the society (i.e., citizenship) and membership in the church (i.e., one’s religious identity) must be kept separate. This secularism is good for the social order because it means all citizens are ruled by the same laws, regardless of their religious identity. And, this secularism is good for the Christian faith community because it means all are free to respond to the call of God in a genuine decision to follow Jesus, accepting baptism as his disciple, and becoming part of the faith community. The church is thus made up of voluntary disciples of Jesus, not of those who are compelled to join for other reasons (for example, in order to be eligible for employment). (See John 1:12-13)

I would argue that secularism and religious pluralism provides a more ideal context for mission than does a “Christian nation”.

If we Anabaptists are secularists, this raises questions about whether and, if so, how, we should involve ourselves in politics: that is, concerns of social and legal policy in the larger society of which we are citizens alongside our Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, and Presbyterian (etc.) neighbors. At least some of the early Anabaptists seem to have rejected involvement in the affairs of the state: refusing to take public office, as well as refusing to bear arms on behalf of the state. And the most visible communities of Anabaptists to many Americans today are the Amish, whom Americans imagine as living separate from the rest of the world, refusing connection to the larger society whether by the electrical power grid or by access to Social Security.

Anabaptists are not the only Christians in North America who ask questions about the propriety of our involvement in politics. Until the birth of the “Religious Right” as the “Moral Majority” in the hey-day of Jerry Falwell and others, it was the most common position for American Protestants (at least white fundamentalists) to keep themselves uninvolved in American politics: many did not even vote. In black churches, too, at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, religious leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. faced some criticism for calling for the church to engage in direct political action (I need to verify this fact).

It seems today that there is a growing trend within the world of white, North American evangelical Christianity (including the Mennonite Church) that sees our faith and theology as having necessary political consequences. We argue and preach that good Christian theology means caring about ecological justice, international relations, human rights, hunger, AIDS, economic inequality, and other issues beyond the Religious Right’s bugbears of abortion and “the homosexual agenda”. We say that followers of Jesus cannot fail to care about political matters outside of the church. I have made a habit of reciting: “All theology is politics and all politics is theology.”

What is and ought to be the relationship between Christianity and politics, between church and state, now that the secularist vision of the Radical Reformers has taken its current form in “Western” nations?