What’s Wrong with the World

Excellent fisk. Dr. Moore's words sound like they could have come from the Post-Modern Essay Generator: Leftist Sermon Version. I haven't heard of him as you suspected, and you are right in that if this was written by the Usual Suspects, most of us would have recognized that we were being played from the very first sentence and would have stopped reading. Along with your "Choice Devours Itself series, perhaps you should add another called "Cthulhu Swallows Evangelicals."

"They want to find some left-approved causes that they can get involved with in order to earn their Compassion, Stewardship, and Social Justice badges."

Hmmm. Well maybe if the "Religious Right" showed a modicum of interest in these matters they wouldn't be co-opted by the Left. Last time I checked, compassion, stewardship and social justice weren't right/left issues.

You're quite right Nice Marmot. There are clear and obvious ways to further true compassion, stewardship, and social justice.

It's just a pity that the left hasn't the faintest clue how to do that.

The Elephant

Yep. The Left does it wrong and the Right hardly does it.

Is that so?

How many conservative friends can you think of who have adopted kids? Given to charity? Worked themselves silly fighting for the sanctity of life and marriage?

For my part, I've lost count. I know of one family who has adopted eight children, mostly Asian, who suffer from various disabilities. Some of them are missing limbs or fingers.

That's true compassion and social justice personified.

The Elephant

True enough. But depending on the issue, we do a great job on an individual level, while as a "movement" not so much. Again, depending on the issue, the left often has the opposite problem.

Any chance we could get back to the meat of this entry and off this side trip down Tu Quoque Boulevard?

ME, NM is hopeless. He's very partisan in the service of non-partisanship. One of the best things you can do with someone like that on a blog is to let him have the last word. So, NM, you can have the last word on that particular sub-thread (that is, your preceding comment), and now we'll all take Scott's advice.

In a vacuum, the piece isn't objectionable, except maybe where the author insists that regular charity requires exposing oneself to close physical contact with those suffering from communicable disease. People with AIDS are human, and they're no less entitled to love and compassion than anyone else.

Of course, the piece isn't written in a vacuum. The insinuation is pretty clear that the humanity of those suffering from AIDS requires institutions to adopt some particular policies, probably ones that militate against the immorality of licentiousness. It's not unheard of, but it is rare, to see people write pieces about the individual obligations of charity without having a policy agenda. That's stuff and nonsense.

But it's not off the wall to say that the individual obligation to care for the poor and suffering includes those suffering from AIDS despite the fact that they had it coming(at least usually, and at least in this country). I certainly don't think Lydia would maintain that the corporal works of mercy don't count as such if extended to someone suffering from AIDS.

I certainly don't think Lydia would maintain that the corporal works of mercy don't count as such if extended to someone suffering from AIDS.

No, but I think we should probably prioritize. Resources are limited. If someone is right now, on-goingly, engaging in self-destructive behavior, including physically self-destructive behavior (e.g., a drug addict who refuses to enter rehab or to follow rehab instructions), he should probably not be our first charity priority. After all, he'll only go out and undo the good that we try to do him, even on a physical level. That's just one example. Actions do have consequences, and distinctions need to be made.

And the picture of Jesus here is confused and objectionable, for many reasons that I brought up. We really absolutely need to "bag it" with the hippie Jesus who just "hung with" the outcasts and was nice and non-judgemental, but instead, that idea seems to be getting a new lease on life among evangelicals. The assimilation of the precise Pauline theological concept of Jesus who "became sin for us" to a modernized idea of Jesus as "identifying with sinners" is a rather important theological confusion.

I agree with Lydia, but would like to add something. The portrayal of the woman afflicted with an issue of blood is probably even more over the top than Lydia says. If the observance of this Levitical law 2000 years ago was even remotely similar to the way it is today amongst the ultra-Orthodox (obviously, it probably isn't exactly), then (A) the issue of blood could have been as little as chronic spotting throughout the cycle, although given the fact that she knew as soon as it stopped it might have been more like a continual period. Unless the writer in in the habit of referring to all menstruating women as 'dripping with blood', it's completely ridiculous. (B), the answer to his question, "Can one be more marginalized from society than a woman dripping with blood" is "absolutely yes, of course!" because her level of uncleanness was that of all menstruating women. She had a very big problem because in that state she could not touch her husband and therefore could have no children, but this is not the sort of social ostracism that the writer is implying.

Brock, you make excellent points. Moore is over-the-top and historically and biblically careless in quite a few ways. That sentence, "Can one be more marginalized from society than..." did strike me as being absurd, but I just didn't get around to mentioning it.

Lydia,

I wonder if O'Sullivan's First Law is at work here:

Robert Michels — as any reader of James Burnham's finest book, The Machiavellians, knows was the author of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. This states that in any organization the permanent officials will gradually obtain such influence that its day-to-day program will increasingly reflect their interests rather than its own stated philosophy. To take a homely example, congressmen from egalitarian parties somehow end up voting for higher pay and generous expenses for congressmen. We can also catch an ironic echo of Michels's law in Stalin's title of General Secretary, as well as in the fact that powerful mandarins in the British government creep about under such deceptive pseudonyms as "Permanent Under-Secretary." All of which is by way of introducing a new law of my own. My copy of the current Mother Jones (well, it's my job to read that sort of thing — I take no pleasure in it) contains an advertisement for Amnesty International. Now, AI used to be a perfectly serviceable single-issue pressure group which drew the world's attention to the plight of political prisoners around the globe. Many people owe their lives and liberty to it. But that good work depended greatly on AI's being a single-issue organization that helped victims of both left- and right-wing regimes and was careful to remain politically neutral in other respects. Its advertisement in Mother Jones, however, abandons this tradition by calling for an end to the death penalty.

The ad itself, needless to say, is the usual liberal rhubarb. "In American courtrooms," it intones, "some have a better chance of being sentenced to death." That is true: the people in question are called murderers. But Al naturally means something different and more sinister — namely that poor, black, and retarded people are more likely to face the electric chair than other murderers.

Let us suppose this to be the case. What follows? A mentally retarded person incapable of understanding the significance of his actions cannot be guilty of murder or of any other crime. A law that punishes him (as opposed to one that confines him for his own and society's safety) is unjust and should be changed — whether or not he faces the death penalty. On the other hand, someone who is guilty of murder may be executed with perfect justice. His race or economic circumstances do not affect the matter at all. The fact that other murderers may obtain lesser sentences does not in any way detract from the justice of his own punishment. After all, some murderers have always escaped scot-free. Would Amnesty have us release the rest on the grounds of equality of treatment? Finally, Amnesty's argument from discrimination could be met just as well by executing more rich, white murderers (which would be fine with me) as by executing no murderers at all. Significantly, Amnesty's list of death-penalty victims" does not include political prisoners. America does not, have political prisoners, let alone execute them. Why, then, Amnesty's campaign on the issue?

That is explained by O'Sullivan's First Law: All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing. I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows.

An interesting thought -- maybe the "incredibly strong leftward drag on the evangelical church right now" is just part and parcel of the leftward drag on our society which some of our reactionary friends (you out there Zippy) tell us all started with the liberal American revolution (or maybe the Glorious Revolution of 1688 -- I forget exactly where it all went bad)?!

Moore sounds like a "Christian cultural Marxist." I mean, he's using cultural Marxist tricks on the church.

...all started with the liberal American revolution (or maybe the Glorious Revolution of 1688 -- I forget exactly where it all went bad)?!

Bruce Charlton puts it at the Great Schism of 1054.

Has anyone else here read this book? It seems that Hart's (the author) thesis is demonstrated by Russell Moore as Lydia has shown here, i.e., theological shallowness among evangelicals puts them in imminent danger of succumbing to, and being swallowed whole by, liberalism.

The post deliberately blurs the distinction between sin and misfortune.

Didn't Jesus do exactly that in Matthew 25?

Russell Moore is also a pro-immigration, open-borders ideologue -- not to mention an arch-globalist with the regular buffet of PC causes including foreign aid, Third World adoption, etc.

The Dow Blog (a Christian Protestant blog) addresses many of Moore's Cultural Marxist stances on immigration:

A Rebuttal to the SBC on Immigration and the Gospel, Part I

A Rebuttal to the SBC on Immigration and the Gospel, Part I I

A Rebuttal to the SBC on Immigration and the Gospel, Part III

See: http://dowblog.blogspot.com/

..

Jeff, I like O'Sullivan's first law. I think it's true. Whether it's always been true, I don't know. Perhaps even the category "right-wing" wouldn't have meant anything a couple hundred years ago, or would have meant something unrecognizably different from anything we could fit into 2011 American categories. O'Sullivan's First Law actually leads to a troubling and potentially fruitful area of discussion: How can the church (whether Protestant or Catholic) be faithful to its call to proclaim the Gospel--by which I mean the core of the Gospel, concerning the salvation of man from hell--without running afoul of O'Sullivan's first law?

Consider some odd facts I've picked up from having a couple ears to the ground (not always my own ears) in the Protestant blogosphere:

--There are people who are completely staunch on things like "Jesus is the only way to heaven," people who might well be considered fundamentalists theologically by theological liberals, but who are mealy-mouthed and confused on the homosexual agenda.

--People actively trying to pull the evangelical church to the left often deplore the "politicization" of the evangelical church while meanwhile promoting their own political agenda. Thus the sense Christians have that they should be preaching a message that is not in itself either left or right leaves them vulnerable, specifically, to the left. (You never hear those who are urging more commitment to, e.g., the pro-life cause deploring the politicization of the church. At least, I never do.)

It seems to me that to some extent we on the right need to meet this challenge head-on. Here is something we might say:

If "politics" in America today concerned only relatively minor prudential issues such as zoning ordinances or who should be the local dog-catcher, it would be completely true to say that Christianity ought to be apolitical. It is the left that has gone on the offensive and brought the fight into territory to which Christian moral tradition speaks directly. We did not want the murder of unborn children to be a political issue. No one thinks the murder of five-year-olds to be a "political issue." The matter became political because the left insisted on making the murder of the unborn legal, and we Christians have been rightly fighting, as we were in duty bound, for their protection ever since. We did not want the very definition and concept of marriage to be a political issue. It is the left that has chosen to make the matter a political one by an aggressive program to have sexual perversion deemed and honored as equal to real marriage. This agenda we are bound in Christian duty to oppose. Christians now ought to be political conservatives because of what has happened in American politics, a set of events that are the result of the cultural aggression and attempted cultural hegemony of the anti-Christian left.

In this way we directly and unabashedly promote the idea of a "right-wing church," but we show why that makes sense. We also implicitly reject (and my suggested comments can be expanded to reject explicitly) the facile moral equivalence by which the Christian left attempts to make (the adoption of leftist policies on) the environment or amnesty equally clear, equally urgent, and equally Christian issues.

Didn't Jesus do exactly that in Matthew 25?

Nope. Not even remotely.

MAR, I'm all in favor of Third-World adoption, at least for those families who are called to do it. Sorry. Had a big dust-up here about that a couple of years ago. I knew when it just so happened that Moore's post was brought to my attention during a time when you are hanging around here at W4 that you would see it as a bit of an opportunity, but I don't agree with _you_, either, on things like whether American Christians should give a tinker's damn about what happens to anyone else anywhere else in the world, including whether they go to hell for want of a preacher. I bear well in mind your previous strictures against plain old Christian missions to other lands.

Buckyinky, I haven't read the Hart book. A quick look at the various summaries on the Amazon page give me a rather odd picture, though, and one that makes me doubt Hart's concept of "conservatism," to which he thinks Christians should adhere. For example, he's also the author of a book with a rather rip-roaring title about separation of church and state. And one quotation a reviewer (a positive reviewer) gave from the book seemed to disapprove of evangelicals' opposition to the welfare state. There were more things that made my antennae twitch, but those were just a couple. Don't have time to find them and transcribe them all. Makes me wonder whether Hart is unintentionally contributing to the very softening up of evangelicals for the left to come in for the kill that we're talking about here.

Lydia,

Not surprisingly, I love your 2:24 PM post. I would only say that for Catholics who are bound by Catholic social teaching, my guess is that we'd have to add something positive about our obligations to the poor in there (which I hasten to add does not mean uncritically supporting the modern-day welfare state).

The Continental Op,

I just knew it...where is Maximos when you need him ;-)

I would only say that for Catholics who are bound by Catholic social teaching, my guess is that we'd have to add something positive about our obligations to the poor in there (which I hasten to add does not mean uncritically supporting the modern-day welfare state).

Well, but think about this, which fits in a way with what you say but also raises a question: Christians can disagree about the best way to help the poor. Christians (including Catholics) who write for the Acton Institute or the Free Enterprise Institute will think certain things are good for the poor and bad for the poor and will disagree with Dorothy Day.

Now, it seems to me that this means that Christians qua Christians really can say that the church is in a sense apolitical on specific economic policies, because neither the policies of the Acton Institute nor the policies of the Catholic Worker are clearly the ones Christians are bound to accept. Mind you, I think the former are _sensible_ and the latter disastrous and foolish, and an intelligent Christian may well agree with me. But if he agrees, he isn't doing so qua Christian per se but qua reasonable man.

This means that there may well be a sense in which the church can be economically apolitical but can't be apolitical on abortion. Hence, even a Catholic actually _wouldn't_ need to add something about our obligations to the poor to my comments about whether the church should be political. That is, unless (which I really hope is not the case, because I fear I know which direction it would go) Catholic social teaching really does require a preference for specific economic policies.

What do you think?

Robert Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy":

"All forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies."

Jerry Pournelle's "Iron Law of Bureaucracy":

"In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

"First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

"Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

"The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization."

O'Sullivan's First Law is also known as the Second of Conquest's Three Laws of Politics:

"(1) Everyone is right-wing about what he knows best.

"(2) Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

"(3) The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."

To my mind, of these various laws Pournelle's is the truest, Conquest's third is the funniest. It's interesting to ponder the relationship between them.

Makes me wonder whether Hart is unintentionally contributing to the very softening up of evangelicals for the left to come in for the kill that we're talking about here.

Similar thoughts crossed my mind while reading the book. Some of his criticisms border on ridicule of evangelicals and the positions they have traditionally held in good faith, and it made me wonder how he would distinguish himself from liberal ideologues who do the same sort of ridiculing. Though I did think he successfully painted a picture of the shallowness which unfortunately characterizes way too much of evangelicalism, if not the entire movement.

"I would only say that for Catholics who are bound by Catholic social teaching, my guess is that we'd have to add something positive about our obligations to the poor in there (which I hasten to add does not mean uncritically supporting the modern-day welfare state)."

Ha! Love the hesitant tone and the caveat. You Catholic neos crack me up. You're like the monkey holding on to the nut with his fist in the tree. Just can't let go of the market veneration, can you, even if popes and bishops say so. After all, they're not economists!

Bruce Charlton puts it at the Great Schism of 1054.

That's silly. If you want to see the start of it, you have to go much further back. It started when a woman said "Honey, here have some fruit, and don't ask where I got it okay" and he took it. The rest is just working out the details.

Lydia,

I did not understand your critique:

1. Moral sermons are necessarily theologically shallow. The sins that even really really intelligent people commit (in this case the sin of not sufficiently loving loving their neighbors and enemies) are shallow.

2. OK but not everyone follows the trends. For example I had no idea it was trendy until I read it just now, from you. Perhaps the pastor hangs out with tax collectors, prostitutes, and non-TV watchers who don't read Style Magazine or whatever the trendy publication is nowadays.

3. " and calling them "part of the Great Commission.". Aren't they? Maybe I'm trendy but haven't Christians always considered those things part of the great commission?

4. It's a deliberate attempt to annoy and goad social conservatives..". I detected that tone in the parts of the article you quoted but I wouldn't have guessed that social conservatives per se are the people he seemed to be relishing scandalizing. Maybe I've mixed up my political terminology but wasn't the term invented to distinguish them from libertarian and Randian conservatives, cold war conservatives, and others whose conservatism is NOT based on their Christian and traditional beliefs? Furthermore, isn't the one thing that all of those different kinds of conservatives with the exception of the Randians agree on is that the suffering ought to be taken care of by people, churches, and non-governmental privately funded institutions acting out of charity?

5. " It minimizes the importance of sin". Are you sure? I didn't get that at all. In fact, though I only read your edited version of the sermon, I took it to be a moral sermon--a sermon decrying sin and recommending charity. As I said, it seems to me that moral sermons are necessarily shallow because sin is shallow, though sermons about justification and redemption, predestination and free will and other theological questions relating to the good news about that which saves us from sin can be quite philosophically and theologically deep.

Perhaps I'm not getting your point because you are really talking about a larger context I'm unfamiliar with, either the unedited sermon or the "odd directions" you allude to (the earth day stuff or the comments about the Christian Coalition). Maybe I'm not getting your point because I am completely unfamiliar with Baptist theology or what the various competing factions are within the Baptist Church.

I grew up in an evangelical arminian church that was all about the "social gospel," feeding the poor, and welcoming prostitutes, drug addicts, and hippies and so on. AIDS hadn't been discovered yet but had it been you can bet the church would have had AIDS ministries. I vaguely was aware that there were people who thought that our social gospel conflicted with a different gospel but I heard plenty of sermons about God's hatred of sin and about salvation by faith alone (and the second work of grace to boot) from the same people who would later wash the cancerous legions of dying AIDS victims or whatever so I didnt understand that controversy then and even after I became more Lutheran and traditional in my beliefs I still didn't understand it.

"Of course, the piece isn't written in a vacuum. The insinuation is pretty clear that the humanity of those suffering from AIDS requires institutions to adopt some particular policies."

OK I get it now. Thanks Titus. This preacher has elsewhere advocated government solutions to "social problems" so in this context this sermon implies that people who aren't socialists are uncharitable.

It is nonsense but it's horrible vicious dangerous nonsense not the shallow fluffy kind.

Steve P.

Ad #1:

Moral sermons are necessarily theologically shallow.

No, not in the sense in which I meant "theologically shallow." I just disagree with that statement. I mean "theologically shallow" as in "misleadingly shallow." It's misleadingly shallow to say that Jesus "identifies with sinners" given the contemporary meaning of "identifies with.

Ad #2:

OK but not everyone follows the trends.

I think we can be quite sure that Russell Moore is not under the impression that he _made up_ the "Jesus hung out with prostitutes so the rest of you are just too judgemental" concept. It's about as common as milkweed pollen, and he must know that.

Ad #3:

haven't Christians always considered those things part of the great commission

No, they haven't. The Great Commission specifically tells the disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is specifically and fairly narrowly a religious and theological commission. The apostles were quite narrowly focused on this goal, and their charitable organizations were entirely for believers. (See the Book of Acts.)

This is not to say that charitable organizations for non-believers are bad or wrong, just that they aren't part of the Great Commission.

Ad #4:

but I wouldn't have guessed that social conservatives per se are the people he seemed to be relishing scandalizing.

You can guess that pretty readily from the fact that social conservatives are the ones opposing the homosexual agenda. Moore's call for welcoming and embracing the AIDS-infected deliberately equivocates on the question of whether this merely means helping unrepentant, continuing, active homosexuals with their physical needs if they are ill or whether it involves downplaying the message of the sinfulness of homosexual acts, especially if they are continuing in that behavior. What implications does his call have for church membership, for example? These are the obvious questions that spring to mind for a social conservative, and Moore is almost insouciant in his equivocation and refusal to address such concerns.

Ad #5:

a sermon decrying sin and recommending charity.

I explained in the main post exactly how Moore's post conflates misfortune and sin and downplays the importance of sin by equating victims simpliciter with those who are not.

Where is he decrying the wrongness of either homosexual sin or even intravenous drug abuse? To the contrary. He is lecturing those who even take those matters into account or take them to be important.

Nice,

Glad to bring a smile to your face. Believe it or not, I really don't know a lot about many Catholic Encyclicals, especially the longer and confusing ones written about "social justice", hence the "hesitant tone". The caveat, however, is just common sense and I know enough about the Encyclicals to know that none of the Popes have ever demanded a welfare state for every Christian nation.

Lydia,

I'm going to have to punt on answering you -- I really don't know. I think Jeff C. is better informed on Catholic social thought (or maybe Tony) to answer (and I suspect the answer would be no -- the Church cannot remain apolitical on economic matters, but that doesn't mean we all have to agree on every last economic policy). As an example, take usury -- either it is wrong or it is not wrong (assuming we have defined it correctly) and then we are obligated to write laws as Christian lawmakers banning its practice. So again, I suspect there are always going to be some positive economic political demands on Christians, but I obviously agree that they would have to be broad and fuzzy and taken to encompass many different policy options.

Nope. Not even remotely.

Okay, maybe not exactly that. But he did lump the hungry, the sick, etc. in with prisoners (who are presumably in prison because they did something wrong) in exactly the same way you criticize Moore for doing. Which is exactly Moore's point when he cites and closely paraphrases Matthew 25:35-36.

As an example, take usury -- either it is wrong or it is not wrong (assuming we have defined it correctly)

We do not. It drastically needs revision according to our knowledge of modern fixed-income securities markets. This revision will not be easy, and it is invariably hampered by folks whose convenience inclines them to keep the word firmly fixed in an archaic meaning.

Mark me down also as a big fan of Lydia's December 8, 2011 2:24 PM Post. I'll add this to it: It is exceedingly foolish strategy to placate the Left's most brassbound assumption: that the personal duty of charity might be discharged by simply advocating welfarism. To take just one example, the number of young men who, though personally possessed of view of poverty and misfortune that would make a Darwinist blush, have talked a good game of feeding the poor and comforting the dispossessed in order to win the affections of more sincere young ladies: we're talking millions here. These men have done not a lick of real charity in their lives, but that does not prevent them from sneering at the sort of Christian who adopts a disabled child. Moore's approach partakes of this exceedingly foolish strategy.

who are presumably in prison because they did something wrong

It would appear that you don't know a whole lot about the history of the first century. It was _extremely easy_ to be in prison without doing anything wrong. Nor about the persecution of Christians that was to follow, which Jesus predicted repeatedly and which might just have some connection in this passage to the injunction to do good unto the least of these "my brethren."

"It is exceedingly foolish strategy to placate the Left's most brassbound assumption: that the personal duty of charity might be discharged by simply advocating welfarism."

Is it not equally foolish to praise personal charity while advocating a system that creates vast income inequality and plutocracy, which is inherently anti-caritas and which exalts the acquisitive vices while corroding the virtues?

Even Irving Kristol only managed two cheers for capitalism. Many of the folks around here seem to want to give it four.

Is it not equally foolish to praise personal charity while advocating a system that creates vast income inequality and plutocracy, which is inherently anti-caritas and which exalts the acquisitive vices while corroding the virtues?

See, NM, that's exactly what I disagree with. The interesting thing is that people like you truly believe that there is only one distinctly Christian approach to economics in our present milieu. I believe that there are reasonable and unreasonable, stupid and smart, crazily destructive and constructive, etc., approaches, but I don't claim that free market economics which I favor is the only _Christian_ approach!

And I advocate that Christians who are being led astray into the new wave of Christian leftism recognize that as well. They and I can debate economics. I think they've been badly, badly mis-taught. But it is terribly misguided for them to think that there is this set of equally important "Christian issues" and that the political right is right on some of them and the political left right on some of them, making it a tie or even close to a tie. That lack of a sense of perspective, if nothing else, is dangerous in the extreme. It necessarily will have the effect of confusing them on the nature and importance of issues like the murder of the unborn. Viz. Moore's misuse of the term "pro-life" in his amnesty test as but one example of this. Regardless of what else he's said or written about abortion (and I understand he has definitely written about the evil of abortion), that right there was a moment of "not getting it" and trying to influence others as well.

Is it not equally foolish to praise personal charity while advocating a system that creates vast income inequality and plutocracy, which is inherently anti-caritas and which exalts the acquisitive vices while corroding the virtues?

It's never foolish to praise and encourage personal charity. What system to advocate, as best achieving that encouragement, is a rather nettlesome matter. Questions arise that do not admit of easy answers. For instance, which system(s) are we talking about? Is income inequality indeed inherently anti-caritas? Does the redistribution of wealth by a process of moving funds withheld from their earners and converted into tax receipts really amount to an effective restraint on acquisition? Have regimes or "systems" characterized by more effectual income redistribution than ours evidenced noteworthy success in reducing acquisition and augmenting charity?

In my experience, both in personal life and in a life of observing public life, Americans are by and large a very generous people. It would be difficult to find, historically, a society which contributed more private wealth to public charity and welfare than America. We have medical and social security systems promising public support for an aging population, the value of which must be measured in the tens of trillions. The largest unfunded mandate on earth is only one part of our social welfare structure in this country. If we stick to the particulars of history rather than abstractions derived from metaphysical speculation, we're going to have a tough time sustaining this picture of the American system as mercenary and callous without reprieve.

Even Irving Kristol only managed two cheers for capitalism. Many of the folks around here seem to want to give it four.

Most folks around merely insist on some comparative analysis. It may be that our choices are not between three and four "cheer" systems, but between one or two cheers and none at all. Greece has a very luxurious welfare system; would you recommend imitation?

"The interesting thing is that people like you truly believe that there is only one distinctly Christian approach to economics in our present milieu."

Actually, I do not believe that. What I believe is that the mainstream Christian right's rather uncritical acceptance of capitalism is just as problematic as the Christian left's uncritical acceptance of socialism/welfarism.

"it is terribly misguided for them to think that there is this set of equally important 'Christian issues' and that the political right is right on some of them and the political left right on some of them, making it a tie or even close to a tie."

Agreed. But the fact that it is not a "tie" doesn't mean that the the left's concerns are completely unwarranted. Honest conservatives should realize this, as we on the right constantly harp on the left for failing to admit the same thing. Many of these are not "all or nothing" issues and both the Left and the Right err when they make them so.

Moral sermons are necessarily theologically shallow.

No, that's definitely not the case. My 7 to 10 year olds can tell the difference, and do so all the time. When they try to listen to moral sermons that are fluff-weight, it puts them to sleep, if not actually then mentally: they can never remember anything about it later. When the sermons have theological substance, they often perk up and absorb it well, and they can repeat parts of it later. It makes them think, and ask questions, and gets them involved in the faith as intelligent persons.

Is it not equally foolish to praise personal charity while advocating a system that creates vast income inequality

Nice M, your contrarianism is peeping out. Christ never said one word about "income inequality". It is not on account of the rich having more than the poor that Christ got after them. And Christ never said that the right social model is to make everyone poor. Since he did say "the poor you will always have with you", the only way NOT to have income inequality IS to make everyone poor.

But freely giving up your wealth, now that was encouraged (without ever being mandated in full). And being unattached to it, that's in the sermon on the mount. But making there to be no inequality, that's not part of the Gospel. Sorry to disappoint.

What I believe is that the mainstream Christian right's rather uncritical acceptance of capitalism is just as problematic as the Christian left's uncritical acceptance of socialism/welfarism.

Fine, NM, then take your criticism over to a blog that has "mainstream Christian right", with "uncritical" acceptance of capitalism. Here at this site Paul and others have hammered away at uncritical capitalistic rightisms for a long time. To say that capital engaged within free markets is consistent with the Gospel is not to say that every arrangement of capitalism - including the current 2011 Wall St. style finance capitalism - is good. Nobody here accepts the latter uncritically.

"Here at this site Paul and others have hammered away at uncritical capitalistic rightisms for a long time."

Yet criticism of the thing itself tends to get jumped on with both feet, whether that criticism comes from port or starboard. One can criticize the excesses of capitalism but God forbid we call into question certain aspects of capitalism qua capitalism. The working assumption seems to be that any questioning of it in its substance is automatically leftist, which of course is rubbish.

Anyways, you misread me, Tony. I am not advocating attempts to eliminate inequality. The Dominical words preclude such an outcome. I'd be happy if we'd just stop flippin' promoting it.

Thought experiment: who wrote this?

"Progress and its continuing plausibility derived from the more specific assumption that insatiable appetites formerly condemned as a source of social instability and personal unhappiness, could drive the economic machine—just has man’s insatiable curiosity drove the scientific project—and thus ensure a never-ending expansion of productive forces. . . . The decisive break with older ways of thinking came when human needs began to be seen not as natural but as historical, hence insatiable. As the supply of material comforts increased, standards of comfort increased as well, and the category of necessities came to include many goods formerly regarded as luxuries. . . . Envy, pride, and ambition made human beings want more than they needed, but these 'private vices' became 'public virtues' by stimulating industry and invention. Thrift and self-denial, on the other hand, meant economic stagnation."

A) Philip Rieff
B) Richard Weaver
C) Wendell Berry
D) Robert Nisbet

NM, I for one have no clue which one said it.

I fear that I am still not understanding you. You seem to be equating capitalism itself, i.e. capitalism as such, with the assumption of insatiable appetite and never-ending expansion of productive forces. Or, at least, you are certainly poking an antagonistic finger at "capitalism qua capitalism", and the specific concern you follow with is about unlimited appetite.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that capitalism qua capitalism involves unlimited appetite. One version of it can involve that, but there are other versions of it. As far as I am concerned, capitalism qua capitalism is about the coalescing of surplus assets (machinery, manure, seed, lab space, or even knowledge) and putting it into the hands of many to increase their productive efficiency to produce new wealth. That's it, nothing more. This doesn't "promote" income inequality as such, it merely pre-supposes surplus assets in someone's hands. Admittedly, this capital concept doesn't include within within itself a limit, but there is nothing about the concept as such that is antithetical to limits imposed by other considerations, such as competing goods suitable to human nature.

One can criticize the excesses of capitalism but God forbid we call into question certain aspects of capitalism qua capitalism.

Why don't you articulate the specific problem you are seeing? From where I stand, 5 popes in the last 120 years approved market economies in principle (while pointing out shortcomings in the economic methods used over the last 120 years), and disapproved of all of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century alternatives proposed - both those on the left and on the right. If someone wants to say that capitalism as such has moral problems, the burden of proof is on them to articulate it clearly.

Nice,

I have no idea who said that quote (and I don't feel like Googling the answer) but it is more fun to just point out that whoever said it they are seriously wrong. My guess is Weaver, and if that is the case, I could care less because in that quote he doesn't know what he is talking about. It's nonsense on stilts, as the kids like to say.

A trick question, I'm afraid, created to make a point. None of them said it. But any one of them could have. This sort of criticism of capitalist "progress" can be found across the political spectrum.

My point is simply that capitalism in its ideological sense (not in the nuts and bolts of markets, investment, businesses, etc.) is as inherently problematic as are ideological science (scientism) and ideological democracy. Reason being, they all reflect their origin in the ideology of the Enlightenment: "I will not serve." The autonomous individualism present in capitalism should get no less scrutiny that of scientism or radical democracy. Conservatives need to wake up to this fact and stop giving capitalist ideology a pass. Modern science and democracy have done much good for society. Yet there is something present in each which requires a certain caution or watchfulness, and conservatives have not failed to realize this.

What I am saying is that our attitude towards capitalism should be no different.

By the way, the quote is from Christopher Lasch, in The True and Only Heaven.

Just a passing comment: capitalism does not = market economy. The Church endorses a market economy over and against a command economy, but that's not the same as rubber-stamping capitalism.

What, then, is capitalism? As an ideology, it elevates the interests of capital (and the owners of capital) above all others on the assumption that "what is good for capital is good for everyone". Labor (man) serves the needs of capital (wealth), not the other way around. Capitalism is every bit as materialistic as socialism in that respect. Capitalist man is primarily an economic being, and his value is measured in economic terms. The point that NM is making is that American conservatives, whether consciously or sub-consciously, tend to fall back on ideological capitalism to varying degrees.

But a market economy need not be capitalistic. I think we all agree that, ordinarily, free markets are important for human freedom and flourishing. Markets need a framework of some kind to begin with: they do not exist in a social, cultural or political vacuum. Markets are made by and for men; men are not made for markets. The necessary framework for the operation of markets must emerge somehow through the work of non-market institutions. This reality should be entirely non-controversial. The difference between a capitalist economy and a non-capitalist market economy largely depends upon the framework established by non-market institutions.

Increasingly I am wondering to what extent the term "capitalism" is helpful at all. Conservatives probably talk past each other a lot by using the term. Maybe we should frame the conversation differently.

Jeff C.,

I was hoping for a detailed take on the Church's social thought so we could come to some agreement on a positive statement of our obligation to the poor related to Lydia's wonderful statement of right-wing Christian political action. Instead you gave us some frankly confusing thoughts on capitalism. Quite frankly, just how do you expect to have a "non-capitalist market economy" function? Either owners of property can use their surplus to invest and earn some rate of return on their investment or they can't. Stalin went after the kulaks just as hard as he went after the bourgeois. I think the statement is an oxymoron.

I was hoping for a detailed take on the Church's social thought ...

Very well, here you go: http://tinyurl.com/2a2oc

Quite frankly, just how do you expect to have a "non-capitalist market economy" function?

Simply by the existence of limits on the power of capital to command an entire economy.

Either owners of property can use their surplus to invest and earn some rate of return on their investment or they can't.

A false dilemma. In a non-capitalist market economy owners of property will still be able to invest their surpluses, but perhaps not all of it in precisely the manner they desire. Unlike the socialists and capitalists, the Church doesn't provide us with a detailed economic blueprint or manifesto. It is left to the laity to work out the details. But as Bl. John XXIII writes:

Now, if ever, is the time to insist on a more widespread distribution of property, in view of the rapid economic development of an increasing number of States. It will not be difficult for the body politic, by the adoption of various techniques of proved efficiency, to pursue an economic and social policy which facilitates the widest possible distribution of private property in terms of durable consumer goods, houses, land, tools and equipment (in the case of craftsmen and owners of family farms), and shares in medium and large business concerns.

"Increasingly I am wondering to what extent the term 'capitalism' is helpful at all. Conservatives probably talk past each other a lot by using the term."

Very true. Many times when certain conservatives express reservations about capitalism in its ideological form, their words are taken to be criticisms of business and markets per se, iow capitalism at the "nuts and bolts" level.

"What, then, is capitalism? As an ideology, it elevates the interests of capital (and the owners of capital) above all others on the assumption that 'what is good for capital is good for everyone. Labor (man) serves the needs of capital (wealth), not the other way around. Capitalism is every bit as materialistic as socialism in that respect. Capitalist man is primarily an economic being, and his value is measured in economic terms. The point that NM is making is that American conservatives, whether consciously or sub-consciously, tend to fall back on ideological capitalism to varying degrees."

Well said, Jeff. Much better than I did.

"In a non-capitalist market economy owners of property will still be able to invest their surpluses, but perhaps not all of it in precisely the manner they desire."

Right, because under a properly moral economic system owners would be aware that their ownership isn't autonomous and absolute.

In the Battle of the Jeffs, I agree with Culbreath when he argues that Singer has produced a false dilemma in the quoted text. Clearly there are limitations on the investment of capital, even in systems far closer to laissez faire than ours; clearly we're talking about a gradient or continuum, not a black and white polarity.

For instance, I seriously doubt that Singer would endorse removing all limitations of foreign capital investing into the US defense industry. I feel confident that there are numerous financial trades that he feels should remain felonious -- naked shorts, insider trading, etc. I'm sure he sees the wisdom of capital ratio requirements for banks. All these are limitations on the investment of surplus capital.

Lydia,

1. "To identify with" has a contemporary meaning different than the ordinary English meaning and different than the Matt 25:40 meaning? I don't watch the current popular TV shows or read the trendy magazines so I may not be as current as you are on contemporary slang but I don't believe you.

3. A. You may be right but you cannot disregard the fact that in in the early centuries the church was persecuted by a pagan culture and in the middle ages *everyone* in Europe was a Christian. The age of exploration presented Christendom with an entirely new situation. By "always" I mean "always when the principle is applicable" and certainly for many centuries. The idea certainly isn't "trendy" for Protestantism--our churches and missionaries have for centuries seen charity for the poor as part of the Great Commission.
B. The AIDS victims in this country are presumably mostly baptized themselves or at least the children of Christians, so it's still charity toward Christians not charity towards pagans, Musselmen or Hindoos.

4. It's bizarre to consider charity towards the suffering as one of the items of "the homosexual agenda." Homosexuals undoubtedly have a particular concern for AIDS victims since sodomy is probably the biggest cause of AIDS, but that's incidental to the question of charity. Charitable people in general care about the suffering--they are simply charitable--they aren't being swayed by any foreign agendas. If that pastor was advocating homosexual "marriage" or the appeal of sodomy laws or simply telling Christians that sodomy isn't a sin much of what you said in your article would make a lot more sense. I still wonder if I'm missing a context, if he's said some of those things in other sermons or publications. Did the pastor elsewhere downplay the message of the sinfulness of homosexual acts?

I have to say, at the risk of sounding nasty, that I'd have a lot more confidence in the reasonableness of Jeff C's ideas of a "non-capitalist market economy" if he hadn't put up a post, if not endorsing then at least presenting for serious consideration, the "social dividend" view. If that's a "market economy" of any sort whatsoever, I'm a monkey's uncle.

There really does come a time when "all market economies must take place within a framework of some kind," etc., is really just a way of talking about something that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what any ordinary person would ever mean by "free market."

Steve P.:

#1: Actually, Matthew 25 says _nothing whatsoever_ about Jesus "identifying with the sinful" or "identifying with a sinful world." Not one thing. It talks about Jesus as being seen in *his brethren* who are hungry, thirsty, in prison, or naked. Moore's point is _explicitly_ that Jesus identifies _particularly_ with sinners qua sinners. For this purpose Moore uses the Pauline notion of Jesus "becoming sin for us," but the Pauline notion that Jesus "became sin for us" is not the same thing as "I identify with you." What "I identify with you" means is a vague set including things like, "I'm like you." "I understand you, and you're not so bad, because you and I are alike." "I empathize with you," and so forth. Actually, Hebrews says that Jesus empathizes with our *temptations* but expressly *not* with our sins.

#3: Again (I'm getting a tad tired of repeating this) we are not discussing whether the church *carried out* mere physical good works directed at the needs of non-Christians, but whether the church always regarded these as *part of the Great Commission*. That just ain't the meaning of the Great Commission. Full stop. The Great Commission is found in a particular passage in the book of Matthew, and it just isn't about building hospitals for suffering non-Christians. That's not the subject matter. There is no "principle" that such works are part of the Great Commission, because such a "principle" is an incorrect interpretation of the Great Commission. The fact that the church was persecuted by pagan culture is irrelevant to my point. There were certainly non-Christian widows and orphans in the time of the book of Acts, but the apostles didn't set up funds for them, only for believing widows. Moreover, the book of Acts shows us *exactly* how the Great Commission was interpreted, and that was in accordance with *what it says*. Go read the passage. It's Matthew 28:16-20.

#4: I'm sorry, but you are naive. Moore calls in this column for welcoming "the AIDS-infected" into the church. If that doesn't raise the question of whether they have to change their behavior to be church members in your mind, then you are not focusing. You are insisting that this is just about "charity." The column expressly calls for being welcoming and embracing. What that means is up to Moore to tell us. He is deliberately vague. Being welcome, embracing, and accepting of homosexuals without asking them to change their ways most certainly is part of the homosexual agenda. It is not necessary for Moore to have said something else on this topic in that direction. This column alone raises the questions that I raised in the main post. I don't know how to make the matter clearer.

Jeff C.,

Thanks for the response, although sending me to a particular Encyclical doesn't help much as I find the Church's writing on these matters to be quite muddled and strange. For example, in the passage you quote from Bl. John XXIII he says we should pursue policies "which facilitates the widest possible distribution of private property in terms of durable consumer goods, houses, land, tools and equipment (in the case of craftsmen and owners of family farms), and shares in medium and large business concerns." Two questions: (1) there is nothing in that statement about anyone deserving their property -- if I'm a lazy goofball why should I get some sort of distribution of "durable consumer goods, houses, land, etc." unless I'm willing to work for it; (2) even if I am willing to work, some of us are just smarter, or have better business ideas, or want to build and run businesses and others of us don't -- why should property be distributed from entrepreneurs to simple laborers if those laborers can feed and clothe their families?; (3) what the heck does he mean by "shares in medium and large business concerns"? -- does he all want us owning more stock or does he all want us owning more small businesses in which case see my point (2). I could go on, but I'm afraid I run into these problems every time I pick up a social encyclical -- they are just too muddle-headed for me to come to any sensible conclusions.

Finally, with respect to your comments on the limits on capital, I'm fine with limits -- we have limits on capital today (as Paul points out) -- but I don't think establishing some limits on what capital can or cannot do simply creates a "non-capitalist market economy". I mean, like Lydia, I'm no libertarian and support all sorts of rules and regulations on market activity that would drive the libertarians crazy -- but at the same time I want our basic economic framework to be old-fashioned capitalists fighting each other for market share, lots of creative destruction, business-friendly policies, etc. The fact that we might argue over some of the details about how Wall Street is going to be regulated seems to me to be irrelevant to the broader question of whether or not there is such a thing as a "non-capitalist market economy". I suspect Lydia's 11:16 AM comment is relevant here.

Lydia,

The question is: "how should we treat people?" Jesus's answer is: "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

1. If that's not "identifying" I don't know what the phrase "to identify with" means and neither, apparently, does Webster's.

2. Moore explicitly asserts, right near the beginning of the sermon, "Jesus has identified himself with the suffering of this world...." I don't understand how you translate that as "sinners qua their sin." It seems to indicate "the suffering qua their suffering." Moore goes on to say, and this is his thesis, that those suffering include sinners (aren't we all, by the way?), and that we should treat even public sinners in the way indicated in Matt 25 just as we would do if we were to come across non-sinners or secret sinners so suffering. I don't see him even hinting that he thinks Jesus identifies Himself as a sinner or only identifies with sinners because they are sinners, and in interpreting a thesis, explicit undeniable assertions always trump vague hints that we think we detect.

3. "That just ain't the meaning of the Great Commission. Full stop. " OK but Moore's opinion on this question is not novel but has a pedigree. Even if you disagree with his understanding It isn't fair to call it "trendy" or "contemporary."

4. I'm not seeing it, and I am convinced that unless you are talking about other writings of Moore's and interpreting this sermon in the context of those other writings, you are seeing something that isn't there. He doesn't even vaguely hint that Christians aren't to be repentant or that they aren't expected to be sanctified. Perhaps he is vaguely hinting that people whose sin is publicly apparent should be embraced "where they are," that we should not expect them to become non-embarrassing overnight, but I doubt that he is even hinting that. In short, Moore's literal words do not suggest or hint what you say they suggest or hint.

Two questions: (1) there is nothing in that statement about anyone deserving their property -- if I'm a lazy goofball why should I get some sort of distribution of "durable consumer goods, houses, land, etc." unless I'm willing to work for it; (2) even if I am willing to work, some of us are just smarter, or have better business ideas, or want to build and run businesses and others of us don't -- why should property be distributed from entrepreneurs to simple laborers if those laborers can feed and clothe their families?;

These are perfectly legitimate questions. True, the lazy goofball who won't work has no business owning productive capital, but I have no problem with society ensuring that he has the means to avoid destitution. And I'm open to requiring some kind of compulsory effort on his part. As Pope Benedict XVI writes, "In God’s family, no one ought to go without the necessities of life... The aim of a just social order is to guarantee to each person, according to the principle of subsidiarity, his share of the community’s goods."

If you're a good capitalist the words "his share of the community's goods" probably raise the hair on the back of your neck. For the capitalist, there is no such thing as "the community's goods", only my goods and your goods. But the Church proposes that the earth's bounty is the inheritance of all - even lazy layabouts.

And let's get something straight about lazy layabouts. This mythical fellow is often used to justify the harsh cruelties of a capitalist economy. But I believe that the numbers of men who positively will not work except for the threat of economic destitution is much smaller than the champions of capitalism would have us believe. Most men are able and willing to give themselves to the work for which they were created, to that which suits their natural aptitudes and abilities, for very meagre pay, and to less suitable work for a decent living wage. The existence of destitution is largely the creation of an economic system that fails to reward the right activities and over-rewards the wrong activities.

In any case it should be obvious to you, Jeff S., that the Church only espouses the principles and leaves it to policy-makers to work out the details. If you accept the principles (do you?) then we can do business.

Finally, with respect to your comments on the limits on capital, I'm fine with limits -- we have limits on capital today (as Paul points out) -- but I don't think establishing some limits on what capital can or cannot do simply creates a "non-capitalist market economy".

That's a good starting point. If you're willing to stop characterizing limits on the power and influence of capital as "anti-free-market", then I'm willing to allow you to call every variation of a market economy "capitalist". Deal?

Deal.

Deal.

I have to say, at the risk of sounding nasty, that I'd have a lot more confidence in the reasonableness of Jeff C's ideas of a "non-capitalist market economy" if he hadn't put up a post, if not endorsing then at least presenting for serious consideration, the "social dividend" view. If that's a "market economy" of any sort whatsoever, I'm a monkey's uncle.

The social dividend might be a bad idea or a good one, but it doesn't do anything to detract from a market economy.

What is a market economy? Let me propose the following definition:

A market economy is an economy where supply and demand, as opposed to some centralized authority, have a prominent role in determining the allocation of capital, labor, goods and services.

A prominent role, not an exclusive one. And let it be noted that in a market economy, supply and demand might be partially determined by non-market influences - religion, culture, public authority, etc. - without detracting from its operation as a market economy.

Does there come a point when the proliferation of regulations, restrictions, interventions, taxation and so forth could so undermine an economy that supply and demand are no longer meaningful indicators of human desires or needs? Yes, certainly - but the social dividend doesn't accomplish this.

This:

The social dividend might be a bad idea or a good one, but it doesn't do anything to detract from a market economy.

Together with this:

If you're a good capitalist the words "his share of the community's goods" probably raise the hair on the back of your neck. For the capitalist, there is no such thing as "the community's goods", only my goods and your goods. But the Church proposes that the earth's bounty is the inheritance of all - even lazy layabouts.

Together with the original post on Louis What's-his-name's idea of a "social dividend" tells me all I need to know.

We just are not on the same continent, Jeff. When I talk about a "free market economy," I obviously _do_ mean something that you would consider "too free" or "harshly capitalistic" or whatever. And when you talk about "restraints" or "frameworks for a market economy" or whatever, you obviously _do_ mean something I would consider to be rash economic folly of a socialistic bent.

I'm afraid there is increasingly little reason to expect any common ground between us in the economic realm.