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Wretchard at Belmont Club quotes George Pell, the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, who asks whether democracy must be spiritually empty.* There are those, after all, who insist that it must be. Unsurprisingly, Archbishop Pell suggests that it could be, but to its own detriment. Indeed, he suggests, that a secular democracy is likely to be even less democratic than one suffused with a vital spirituality. He calls for a society invigorated by a"democratic personalism."
Wretchard seems to agree, in part, with Archbishop Pell. There is in human communities, he says, an inherent need for religious values and that need will be met one way or another. It's essentially an instrumentalist argument, but one that I'm willing to think may be correct. But Wretchard dismisses Pell's"democratic personalism" and takes the discussion in a direction that I find irritating. He suggests that western democracy must re-assert its Judeo-Christian values because the human need might otherwise be filled by Islamic values. If the case for religious underpinnings to democracy is merely an instrumentalist one, however, why would that prospect be so dreadful?
I am more inclined than Wretchard to agree with Archbishop Pell's advocacy of democratic personalism."The past century provided examples enough of how the emptiness within secular democracy can be filled with darkness by political substitutes for religion," says the Archbishop.
Democratic personalism provides another, better possibility; one that does not require democracy to cancel itself out.
Democratic personalism does not mean seizing power to pursue a project of world transformation, but broadening the imagination of democratic culture so that it can rediscover hope, and re-establish freedom in truth and the common good.
It is a work of persuasion and evangelisation, more than political activism. Its priority is culture rather than politics, and the transformation of politics through revivifying culture.
It is also about salvation - not least of all the salvation of democracy itself.
A democratic personalism would insist that, even in the public arena, we affirm an allegiance to a majesty beyond any human institution or authority. That affirmation necessarily limits the legitimate claims of any nation/state or potentate to our highest loyalty. It affirms, as the three religions of near eastern birth do, that all human beings are created in the image of that divine majesty. That belief powerfully re-enforces the conviction that there are limits to how any human being might be treated and lays a claim for as expansive a franchise as is reasonably possible.** Beyond those minimal claims, it seems to me, democratic personalism has no doctrinal requirements. But if it has achieved no more than this, it will have more than earned our loyalty.
*Archbishop Pell's full statement is here, but registration is required.
**See Caleb McDaniel's post about what we mean when we attribute"power" to a rhetorical argument.
True, I have the same problem in Reconstructionist synagogues where they've actually altered the Hebrew (usually we just muck about with fuzzy translations) to reflect the theological differences.
And it's no better in English: in folk music circles there are often slight (sometimes serious) variations in tune or lyric (Pete Seeger is a notorious alterer of lyrics, actually; nothing major, just a word or two here and there, so that it's immediately obvious if you learned the song [even indirectly] from a Pete Seeger recording or from the original source) but they can complicate a group sing considerably.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/16/2004
Such gatherings occur fairly rarely and most of us say the prayer by rote, so that even if you gave everyone a printed text of it we would still stumble over the parts where we've different versions of it ingrained in us.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/16/2004
But for it to really be common ground, we have to come to agree that we agree. Don't we?
Curiousity: Why do ecumenical Christian gatherings use the Lord's Prayer if they know that it will be cacophonous? Why not rotate versions, or agree on a minimalist subset which is, in fact, shared?
Ralph E. Luker -
11/16/2004
I should think that a pledge or a prayer that ends in babble is, in the end, not a pledge nor a prayer. We take a pledge because we assume there is common ground. It becomes quick sand as the parties go their own way.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/16/2004
How important is that? Is it so terrible to have a little confusion, to admit that, though all have gathered for a common purpose, yet there is some diversity of views?
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
Your suggestion about the Pledge doesn't work. You've never been in an ecumenical group of Christians attempting to say the Lord's Prayer together, I take it. It all breaks down when some of us say: "forgive us our debts" others say "forgive us our trespasses" and yet others say "forgive us our sins". Then, there is the conclusion, in which some of us say "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever" and others of us don't say that at all and have already pronounced the "Amen" Once the unity of statement breaks down, the assemblage is reduced to babble.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/15/2004
" the argument of my secular humanist friends leaves them without a defense against the self-divinizing tendencies of even a rigorously secular state"
Ralph, I don't know what arguments you have heard; so I cannot critique them. However, from the perspective of an agnostic, here is a defense.
The humility of doubt: We cannot see past our deaths. We cannot see far enough into the future to know with certainty whether our actions, no matter how good they seem at the moment, will breed good or ill.
We do know much about hos this world works. We know that actions create responses. We do know that most religious traditions (and many secular ones, too) assert that our actions toward others should be based on what we wish for ourselves. Likewise these traditions also hold that humans should strive mightily to do no harm.
So by examining the world with care and by accepting that faith cannot always give firm actions, the agnostic, perhaps more than those with faith, is enjoined by his/her own logic to act with restraint.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
If something that Bob Jones III endorses becomes policy it will demonstrate the power of the ideas and groups of which he is a classifiable member. Your theological point is of course correct, but there's little political differentiation between Pentacostals and "hard shell" Baptists, at least that I can see.
And if I thought you were a sinister influence, I'd take my business elsewhere. I'm rooting for powerful, though.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
I disagree with your assertion that "the argument of my secular humanist friends leaves them without a defense against the self-divinizing tendencies of even a rigorously secular state" because a truly humanistic perspective places the entirety of humanity, not the nation-state, at the center, root, core of their values. It is a value system, not the absence of a value system.
There's nothing wrong with saying "under God" in the pledge; it's requiring the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge which is objectionable.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
Oscar, I am merely pointing out that the argument of my secular humanist friends leaves them without a defense against the self-divinizing tendencies of even a rigorously secular state. If "under God" is deleted from the Pledge, for example, I imagine that I will be obliged to refuse to say it -- ever again. If it is deleted from the Pledge, I imagine that you will continue to do so.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
If something that Bob Jones endorses happens to gain some legal advantage that will, of course, insure his place in your shrine of the powerful. If I endorse, let's say, tax reform, and something happens on it, will you believe that I am a powerful and, needless to say, sinister influence on the Bush administration? Btw, you are often careful to make sure that we understand differences within groups. Attorney General Ashcroft is a pentecostal. Bob Jones is a _very_ hard shell Baptist. Among what you would call "fundamentalists," pentecostals and hard shell Baptists are like oil and water.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/15/2004
Ralph,
For better or worse, I did not intend to be unreasonable. By using strong terms I intended to indicate a problem I am having with understanding your position on the relationship between religion and participatory democracy
My problem is the more I look your writings on this, the less I can tell if you accept secular visions of the universe as equal to respect in public life as theistic visions. What I see more often is an argument that theistic visions should be valued more, precisely because they are theistic.
I did not and do not mean that you will not listen to good arguments regardless of the source. I know you do. I did not and do not mean that you would favor all religious stands over all secular ones. I know that is false.
I did not and do not mean that I think you want to repress secular viewpoints in any legal or constitutional way. I know you would actively oppose that.
But in your legitimate anger at the attitude of some secular academics toward religion, it sometimes seems that you do not want to find a middle ground in which the theistic and the secular can shake hands as equals. Instead it seems you want to move just small bit farther, and have the secular admit that they are at best junior partners in the fight for a better society.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
How about a more controlled experiment. Let's see, over the next two years, whether the NCHE petition or Bob Jones III's agenda makes more progress.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
Jonathan, I agree that my argument has a problem with the assimilation of multi-theists and a-theists in the civil order. Oscar, That is as unreasonable a reading of what I said as you intended it to be.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
Why should the administration deny Bob Jones's influence on it, when it is only its radical critics who want to impute such influence. As you know, the assertions attempt to create a certain kind of reality and the denials would themselves in return create another sort of reality.
I tell you what: I'll write a whacko letter to the President. Then, you demand a repudiation of its sentiments from the administration. If we make a big deal of it, some people will undoubtedly believe that I have some influence on the administration.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/15/2004
"The problem, I think, for my secular humanist friends is that they hold no common loyalty beyond the claims of the state which subject it to a higher authority and constrain its tendency to divinize itself."
Please correct me if I am wrong, but here is my impression of what you are saying.
People who do not believe in, or have doubts about, the existence of God do not deserve an equal place in public discourse, because their lack of faith makes them more prone to totalitarianism.
Democratic personalism is a ay to separate the faithful from the faithless.
Thus democratic personalism--as you see it-- is not a search for a common bond that can unite society but is simply a new, if more ecumenical way, to separate the sheep from the goats
Have I got it right? I hope not.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
I want to believe you. I don't.
Is it nonsense? Has the Administration suggested that these responses are unwelcome or have they revived the FMA? Have they disappointed their evangelical "base" or have they allowed a senior senator to be hounded out of a chairmanship (I'm making a prediction here, yes) for ideological moderation? Will there be less fundamentalist Bible study in the Justice Department under Gonzalez than there was under Ashcroft?
Is Bob Jones III not influential? Where is the IRS investigation? Where is the "no, this isn't really what we think" caveats from spokespeople?
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
And Hindus, who believe in gods (who are themselves components of a monistic non-theistic unity)? And Buddhists, who believe in the fundamental emptiness of existence?
If you define "God" broadly enough, of course, you're right that it won't really offend anyone except actual atheists. Of course, then it won't really mean anything, either, and will therefore not represent the "common loyalty" or "higher authority" which society seems to need.
I didn't say you were making the claim that abortion was murder, but that you were raising the issue, and I agree that it's a valid and difficult issue, of the boundary between law and moral choice. I will also note that there are quite a few circumstances in our legal tradition in which killing is not murder: this does not invalidate the prohibition against murder or make killing an automatically valid moral choice; a great many of those exceptions have to do with "reasonable" evaluations of threat and options, not with moral absolutes.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
I wasn't making the claim that abortion is murder. I _was_ making the point that one wouldn't want to abolish laws against murder in order to give human beings a moral choice about whether to commit murder or not.
I should think that if I, as a Christian, can understand _quite clearly_ that "under God" does _not_ mean "under Christ" that my sisters and brothers who are Muslims and Jews would find it even easier to understand that _quite clearly_. Had the authors of the legislation inserting "under God" intended to insert "under Christ" in the Pledge -- which I take it is only symbolic of our other public discourse -- then they would surely have done so.
The problem, I think, for my secular humanist friends is that they hold no common loyalty beyond the claims of the state which subject it to a higher authority and constrain its tendency to divinize itself.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
You just illustrated my point. By repeating the non-sense that Bob Jones is influential with the administration, you credit him with an influence that he does not have.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
If Bob Jones and his ilk were not so powerful within the Republican party, as evidenced by their close relationship with members of the administration and leadership, they'd get less attention, too.
I don't believe that Bob Jones III is a spokesman for Christianity; I think he is a radical who wants to impose his version thereof on other Christians, as well as the rest of us, and I think he is a frighteningly powerful person considering the extremity of his views.
It is going to take both Christians and non-Christians to make the case that his sort of program is not just un-Christian but un-American and should be sidelined no matter how many votes and dollars he brings to the table.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/15/2004
I don't know that I've ever heard a 'pro-abortion' speaker, though I've heard (well, mostly read) many pro-abortion rights activists (and non-activists, like myself) make the case that reducing the number of abortions would be a very good thing if it could be done through increased alternatives (education and birth control, which many anti-abortion activists also abhor, and adoption which is popular across the spectrum) rather than through coercive prohibition. In fact, I think I've made that case before myself. It's one area where Hugo and I have found very strong common ground.
My college ethics textbook was making a point about principles by taking the Hindu prohibition on the slaughter of cows as an example: "We all agree that we shouldn't eat grandma. But in India, the cow is grandma." or something like that. I don't intend to untie the gordian knot of whether (or at what point) abortion may be most fruitfully discussed as killing or murder (which are, of course, two different things, ethically and legally) except to note that your point about the desire to extend protections of the state to those seen as vulnerable citizens is a legitimate one, but difficult.
You're right about "Under God" and that's why I'm going to continue to identify myself as a religious, but politically secular, humanist. Because there is very little meaningful distinction that can be drawn between inserting "under God" and "under Christ" in a truly pluralistic society.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/15/2004
If Bob Jones and his ilk were not so consistently held up by the secular left as spokesman for what Christianity is and believes, he'd get less attention from the press -- which is what he deserves.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/15/2004
Ralph, My apologies for the accidental capital letter. I meant the general philosophy. To be perfectly honest, I don't see how what I wrote could be read the other way, but perhaps that is my failing.
As to the exclusion of the religious by some secularists. You are right; it exists. It's a problem. It creates barriers. I want to lower those barriers.
The reverse is also a problem. I need only refer to the latest epistle to the faithful from Bob Jones University to make that point. The person who wrote that text does not believe in democratic personalism. He believes in the preeminence of his vision of Christianity. He believes those who differ are going to hell, and he wants them pushed to the margins of society so that they won't infect the nation with quaint notions of tolerance and acceptance.
I reject that.
Here is my ideal. In the public spaces of this country I want the religious and the secular, and all the varieties of belief within religion to be on an even footing. By that I mean that I want each to treat the participation of the others with equal legitimacy. My impression was that this was a corollary--if not a prerequisite--of democratic personalism.
This is not always easy. It is hard not to slide from the acceptance of equal participation to debates over whose way is superior. There is no belief(religious or secular) immune from the arrogance (or devoutness or certitude) of its followers.
On this next point we may differ. I think that democratic personalism would be impossible without the impact of secularism, and particularly of the Enlightenment, on Christianity.
I think that the Enlightenment, particularly in its American manifestation, changed and improved Christianity, particularly within the United States.
It encouraged Christians to look with respect on the religions of others by encouraging them not to believe that their individual faith is the only possible route to wisdom (even if it is the best route). It established an ethic of public participation in which religious doctrines took a back seat to the more limited public goods.
I will close by adding that the Enlightenment, and secularism, were built in large measure on a thousand years of Christian thought. That thought, in turn, grew by grappling with Greek and Roman thought.
I meant it when I said we need each other.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/14/2004
Of course, Archbishop Pell will make the prevalence of abortion a measure of how far secular democracy falls short of the good society. He is a Roman Catholic Archbishop, after all. But when was the last time you heard any pro-abortion speaker lament the vast numbers of abortions that take place each year? When did you last hear a pro-abortion speak lament the use of abortion as the method of choice for birth control? The choice not to murder someone is a moral choice, whether it is done at the point of a gun or not. You are not in favor of doing away with laws against murder simply in order to give people the opportunity of making moral choices are you? Finally, of course there is a difference between "democratic personalism" and secular humanism or, simply, humanism. Democratic personalism would see the value of including "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, for example. Secular humanism or, simply, humanism has _assumed_ and argued that all right thinking people understand that such a deference to a majesty beyond the nation/state must be eradicated.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/14/2004
The problem with your notion, Oscar, is its own blinders. Note the "Democratic personalism." I think we _were_ talking about "democratic personalism." Beyond that, you underplay the extent to which radical secularism _demands_ the exclusion of religious language from the public sphere and the tendency of middling secularists to be brought into line with the radicals' demands, as if they were the only reasonable thing to believe.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/14/2004
You misunderstand me. I don't think that Democratic personalism itself is likely to lead in that direction. However, for it to be effective in the United States it has to extend across various forms of Christianity as well as various other religions. Most of these believers do have dogmas that include, at least in theory, a belief in the superiority of their faith.
I would argue that the extent to which compromise implicit withint Democratic personalism is possible reflects a leavening of American and European religions with a secular, enlightenment perspective on the propoer relationship between faiths.
In short, what I was saying originally is that we (the religious and the secular) need each others insights to enlighten and restrain each other.
The former has the promise of transcendent ideals to keep secular perfectionism frmo getting out of hand; the other has the tolerance and respect that keeps religious perfectionism from getting out of hand.
Jonathan Dresner -
11/14/2004
...only because I'm going to redefine the discussion.
First, Pell's equation of "liberal democracy" with "secular democracy" and assumption that a secular state implies a secular society are both .... well I was going to say problematic, but I think I'll just go with ... wrong. That an act is permissible does not require that it be popular: the legalization of abortion, for example, does not mean that it must be common; the acceptance of free speech does not mean that offense cannot be taken and expressed. Pell cites opposition to offensive speech and abortion as the kind of activism which gets tagged "anti-democratic" but it's only anti-democratic when it tries to implement policy through the authority of the state instead of being persuasive and offering alternatives and allowing that people might yet choose to be 'immoral' with their freedom. As Chris Sciabarra said recently "But you can't force anybody to be moral. Genuinely moral choices are moral because they are choices, not decisions forced on people at the point of a gun."
Second, I don't see a significant difference between "democratic personalism" and humanism (secular or otherwise), unless there's a coded message which I don't see.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/14/2004
It isn't at all clear to me, Oscar, how a democratic personalism, which clearly is _not_ doctrinal Christianity, nor historical Judaism, nor historical Islam, is subject to the degeneration of which you speak. We have a pretty clear 20th century record of the tyrannies of both the secular left and the secular right.
Oscar Chamberlain -
11/14/2004
There is much in this idea of "democratic personalism" that is worth considering. Secularism can degenerate without a powerful transcendent sense of some sort, a sense that something should be sacred, even if we are not quite positive about what that something is.
However, religion can degenerate, too, by descending into dogma. Given the dogmatic roots of many of the forms of Christianity, this is a true danger.
To prevent this, a religious democracy needs secularism. The religions needs a constant reminder that there are many claims to truth,and many paths.
That reminder has to have grounds apart from religion, precisely because religions like Christianity are not well suited to allow such compromise. Yet such compromise, such humility, it is essential for democracy to survive.
In short, both a sense of the transcendent (which I would argue exists in a range of worldviews stretching from from a shared sense of humanity all the way to the most elaborate of religions) and a secular sense of the limits of human understanding are needed for democracy.
Charles Bellinger -
11/14/2004
pardon the lack of specificity but ill leave it to the hour of night in which this is written.
looking back one should note in American history and specifically the brethren that wrote the Federalists' they are assert in private righting and public discouse for the need of a well kept, and spiritually aware people if democracy is to be kept "honest" and "uncorrupted" reality aside this is a striking comment.
also note Tocquevilles various rightings on the issue of piety and governance.
even Rousseau's concept of acting in the "greater good" of the whole over the individual in his writings in the the Social Contract have religious overtones. so is it faith that keeps men honest by glory or honest by fear? is there altruism as the democratic personalism alludes to or is it an issue of what rates higher in the objectivist scheme of the individual?
