Michael Novak: a proper target for harsh polemic

In his recent post “Why Novak is completely worthless in every way imaginable,” Halden criticizes Michael Novak’s outlandish post at the First Things blog in which he calls for not only economic sanctions on Iran but also a ‘preventive’ attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Halden attacks Novak for the absurdity of seeking to violently secure the hill on which Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Evan has responded critically to Halden in a post entitled “Is Halden Doerge completely worthless in every way imaginable?” Evan doesn’t seem to understand why Halden would be so incredibly harsh in his post. It turns out that Evan actually has a personal connection to Novak and so this is obviously shaping his response.

Evan’s not interested in arguing with Halden about the merits of Novak’s post or Novak’s work in general. Rather, he is ultimately concerned about the harshness of Halden’s style of critique. And so he concludes his post with the following: “My advice to folks who are interested in blogging about theology would be, frankly, to not blog like Halden often does. I think it’s a mistake to do so, and that it can foster a stunted ability to interact with other people.” Now, I am all for reasoned and balanced critique over polemical hyperbole, but the truth of the matter is that Michael Novak is, to borrow Eugene McCarraher’s phrase, one of “Satan’s favorite sock puppets.” And so critique, even polemical critique is necessary. Considering his huge influence on lay Catholics (which is, by the way, comparable to the late Richard Neuhaus), his recent remarks should be called out for what they are: sub-Christian. Evan admits to having never read much of Novak’s work, and perhaps this is the most telling aspect of his post against Halden. Frankly, Michael Novak is doing awful work. This is the bitter truth. Critiques need to be leveled against him, in every forum, whether it be academic or a more informal blogging forum. Now I am sure Novak is a nice guy and a perfectly sincere Christian, which is precisely what makes his work so insidious. I don’t know about you, but as someone who has painfully labored through much of Novak’s work in the past, I’m with Halden on this one. And for the record, my advice to those interested in theology blogging is to learn the art of provocative blogging from the best of them–Halden Doerge–but be sure to take some time to learn from Evan’s “level-headed” blogging too.

International Day for Conscientious Objectors

Today is the International Day for Conscientious Objectors.

Let us give thanks for the witness of conscientious objectors to war and military participation. In my own life I am blessed and inspired by the witness of my wife, Marcia, who refused to cooperate with the standard process for gaining United States citizenship.

Because of her deep convictions, Marcia refused to say the US oath of allegiance in her citizenship ceremony and she became a conscientious objector to U.S. military service. She is a witness to the peace of Christ in the world.

Michael Novak at St. Thomas

Michael Novak, the Catholic neoconservative theologian comes to town on Wednesday, October 29 to deliver a lecture at 7:30 p.m. entitled, “Career or Calling? Business as a Vocation” at the Thornton Auditorium of Terrence Murphy Hall on St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus. It is free and open to the public.

Novak is one of the most painful theologians to read, and I’m sure it will be worse listening to him spout off on how capitalism and America are God’s gifts to the world. In his perspecitve, America is not quite the kingdom of God, but it is damn close. Novak has been a staunch supporter of U.S. involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and indeed all over the world, militarily and economically.

If you want to join me let me know! It will be great fun!

Neither Left nor Christian: The Politics of Barack Obama

American politics is the hot topic right now and I’m finding it devastatingly boring to watch. Sure, it does stir up emotions for me, as I watch the American civil religion express itself–full blown–through the good-for-nothing corporate media. This is “convention time”–America’s holy days–the days when people gather together to worship around the flag and to celebrate and remember all the blood shed, all the blood sacrificed, for the nation. For the American tradition, convention time is the time when we do what we do best, prepare to compete and coerce. For those who think that American democracy, the rule of the majority over the minority, is free from coercion, should think again.

In a recent post, James K. A. Smith rightly points out that Barack Obama’s politics is neither new, left, nor Christian. Rather, as Smith notes, Obama’s politics looks to be little more than Republican lite and promotes the same old civil religion and Americanism Democratics and Republicans have always been about. Referring to Obama’s acceptance speech, Smith writes, “In language that could have just as easily appeared in Bush’s second inaugural or the National Security Strategy of the Bush administration, Obama promised to ‘restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace and who yearn for a better future.’”

For Obama the god who has elected America to be the savior of the world comes before the God who delivered Israel from Egypt and raised Jesus from the dead:

I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.

So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

Another interesting point Smith makes is that Obama invokes Scripture in a way that echoes the Religious Right. As Smith notes, scripture passages that refer to Israel or the church are transposed into a new context in order to refer to America.

Alluding to Hebrews 10:23 Obama states, “Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.” ["Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised if faithful." Heb 10:23]

To quote Smith again, “The context makes it clear that this is the church‘s hope in Christ, but here Obama idolatrously transposes that to the ‘American promise.’ This is a ‘new kind of politics?’ Sounds like the same old sort of civil religion we’ve heard from the Religious Right for years–the same (idolatrous) civil religion of Americanism.”

Anticommunism and U.S. Catholic Nationalism

In his brilliant work The Two Churches: Catholicism and Capitalism in the World System Michael Budde argues that Catholic anticommunism in the twentieth century was instrumental in bringing about U.S. Catholic nationalism. Despite their differences both liberal and conservative Catholics in America shared core values and beliefs that were passionately in opposition to communism. Catholic anticommunism was reinforced by American anticommunism. In a very real sense, “the bulwark of both true Americanism and authentic Catholicism” was anticommunism. As Budde states, “Communism, to the Catholic leadership of the 1950s, represented both the oppression visited on Catholics behind the Iron Curtain and a threat to the prosperity and freedom the Church had come to enjoy in the United States” (79). As many scholars have pointed out, the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 represented “the fully Americanized status of Catholics” (80).

In the 1980s two major pastoral letters issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response and Economic Justice For All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy , do offer a critique of the policies of the U.S. government and American society. As Budde points out, however, these letters should be read from the perspective of U.S. Catholic Nationalism which limited the impact of the letters and “guided the ‘prophetic’ movements of the Catholic hierarchy” (87). Interestingly, as Budde points out, although both letters include a theological evaluation of the issues at hand drawing heavily from scripture and the Christian theological tradition, when it comes to application and consideration of public policy there is a distinct epistemological shift that employs natural law language. In other words, the theological language of the first sections are “translated” into more “neutral” language so that the letters can appeal more to “all people of good will” as opposed to only Christians. Many conservatives criticized the two pastoral letters for being unpatriotic and naive on issues of economics, but Budde argues that in fact the pastorals “gave the bishops yet another opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism, their political acumen, and their belief in a capitalist world economy. U.S. Catholic Nationalism, rather than being undermined, stands affirmed and as definitive of the U.S. Catholic mainstream” (89).

Budde provides four reasons why this is the case: 1) the bishops assume from the outset that the U.S. is a force for good in the world. There is no effort to question U.S. economic or political imperialism. 2) there is no structural analysis of U.S. power and prosperity. “Rather than examine capitalism, the bishops seek to hide behind an economic agnosticism that is ‘pragmatic’ in nature” (89). 3) the bishops give a “nonconflictive, functionalist picture of U.S. society, focusing on questions of the “common good” without addressing questions of class-divisions and contradictory interests. 4) in the epistemological shift or translation of biblical/theological reflection into natural law discourse potential conflict with secular power is minimized. The sections are so poorly integrated that the biblical/theological reflections of the first section “look like religious gloss on an essentially nonreligious document” (92).

Budde concludes that the documents heavy reliance on natural law is the bishops’ attempt to speak to the problems of secular society. It is thought that theological discourse is too “sectarian” and cannot be used to appeal to a pluralistic society. Budde writes, “In weighing the tasks – dialogue with the faithful or dialogue with secular power – the bishops have chosen the latter as more important. Dialogue with the faithful on matters of economic justice, were it done seriously and without regard to secular opinion, would open the Church to renewed charges of ‘separateness’ or ‘un-American-ness.’ Dialogue with secular power, particularly on terms amenable to that power, enhances the respectability and American-ness of U.S. Catholic spokesmen – another step ahead in the history of U.S. Catholic Nationalism” (93).

Blood Sacrifice and the Nation

Well, I finally finished my semester at St. Thomas and I’m thankful to have come out of the mess mostly alive. I have about a month off now to relax and hang out with Marcia and Owen. Although I find it deeply disturbing, I’m thoroughly enjoying Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag by Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle. Lately, the notion of American ”civil religion” has been on my mind and I think Marvin and Ingle do a superb job of bringing to light the deeply religious character of nationalism.    Here are a few interesting quotes from the first couple chapters:

 ”Though [religious] denominations are permitted to exist in the United States, they are not permitted to kill, for their beliefs are not officially true. What is really true in any society is what is worth killing for, and what citizens may be compelled to sacrifice their lives for. . . despite a sturdy American tradition of separating sectarian faith from the state, national faith is inextricably wedded to governance, which is ultimately the question of who shall live and die. Only nationalism motivates the sacrificial devotion of citizens, without which there can be no effective governance. In relation that faith, sectarian religion is best understood as a jealous competitor” (9-10).  

The purpose of Marvin and Ingle’s work is to “show that the totem system of American patriotism is a symbolically coherent, deeply primitive, powerfully religious enterprise organized around a violent identity-crystallizing mechanism. We propose that the totem is the violently sacrificed body symbolized by the flag. The flag ritually transformed is the god of society renewed” (11).  

Pat Robertson Supports Terrorism?

After hearing word that Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Guiliani this morning, I can’t help but think of Robertson’s infamous interview of Jerry Falwell two days after September 11, 2001. In case you don’t remember, in reference to the 9/11 attacks Jerry Falwell claimed that abortionists, gays and lesbians, and feminists “helped this happen.”

In his words,

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way–all of them who have tried to secularize America–I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

In response Pat Robertson said,

“Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.”

Of course, Falwell and Robertson are best known by terms like the Moral Majority and the Christian Right. With Falwell dead, Robertson has become the symbol of anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, militant rhetoric of the Christian Right.

The Christian Left has always thought of the Right as approaching moral issues too narrowly. You will often hear the Left say, “Yes, abortion is wrong, but be consistent with your focus on the right to life. What about war, the death penalty?” We all know the debate. Although the Christian Right has also been known to support US military operations around the world, I think the Left thought that it was really the social conservatism that held the Christian Right together (i.e. pro-life, anti-gay marriage).

Okay, do you see the irony…the man who once agreed with Jerry Falwell that the gays and abortionists helped 9/11 to happen, has just endorsed a candidate for president that is both pro-gay and pro-choice. Why? I assume it is what Guiliani said, “He supports me because we agree on what we think are the primary issues facing Americans: dealing with Islamic terrorism, dealing with the war on terror, dealing with the out-of-control spending in Washington.” But, wait, wouldn’t endorsing Guiliani actually have the reverse effect. I mean if the gays and the abortionists are given more room to spread their agenda, doesn’t this help the terrorists – like on 9/11?

I just don’t get Robertson’s shift in foreign policy. It seems like he supports terrorism.

WWJD? …What Would Jerry (Falwell) Do?

Jesus is American