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From the thirteenth Catechical Lecture by Cyril of Jerusalem, on

The Crucifixion & Resurrection, delivered on or around 350 a.d.
For we were enemies of God through sin, and God
had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs
therefore have happened one of two things; either that
God, in His truth, shoul d destroy al l men, or that in His
l oving-kindness He shoul d cancel the sentence. But
behol d the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth
of His sentence, and the exercise of His l oving-kindness.
Chri s t t ook our s i ns i n Hi s body on t he t ree, t hat we by Hi s deat h
mi ght di e t o s i n, and l i ve unt o ri ght eous nes s . Of no smal l account
was He who died for us; He was not a l iteral sheep; He
was not a mere man; He was more than an Angel ; He was
God made man. The transgression of sinners was not so
great as the righteousness of Him who died for them; the
sin which we committed was not so great as the
righteousness which He wrought who l aid down His l ife
for uswho l aid it down when He pl eased, and took it
again when He pl eased. Let us not then be ashamed
to confess the Crucified. Be the Cross our seal made
with bol dness by our fingers on our brow, and on
everything; over the bread we eat, and the cups we drink;
in our comings in, and goings out; before our sl eep,
when we l ie down and when we rise up; when we are in
the way, and when we are stil l . Great i s t hat pres ervat i ve; i t i s
wi t hout pri ce, for the sake of the poor; without toil , for
the sick; since al so its grace is from God. It is the Sign
of the faithful, and the dread of devils: for He
t ri umphed over t hem i n i t , havi ng made a s how of t hem openl y ; for
when they see the Cross they are reminded of the
Crucified; they are afraid of Him, who bruised the
heads of the dragon. Take therefore first, as an
indestructibl e foundation, the Cross, and build upon
it the other articles of the faith.

A publ i cati on of Houston Bapti st Uni versi ty
S U M M E R 2 0 1 4
+++



THE CI TY
P u b l i s he r
Robert Sl oan
Ad v i s or y E d i t o r s
Franci s J. Beckwi th
Adam Bel l ow
Paul J. Boni cel l i
Joseph Bot t um
Wi l fred McCl ay
John Mark Reynol ds
E d i t o r i n Chi e f
Benj ami n Domenech
B o o k s E d i t o r
Mi cah Mat ti x
Wr i t e r a t L a r g e
Hunt er Baker
Co n t r i b u t i n g E d i t o r s
Mat thew Lee Anderson
Ryan T. Anderson
Mat thew Boyl est on
Davi d Capes
Chri st opher Hammons
Anthony Joseph
Joseph M. Kni ppenberg
Loui s Markos
Pet er Mei l aender
Dan McLaughl i n
Paul D. Mi l l er
Mat thew J. Mi l l i ner
Russel l Moore
Robert St acey

THE CITY Volume VII, Issue 2 Copyright 2014 Houston Baptist Universi-
ty. All rights reserved by original authors except as noted. Letters and
submissions to this journal are welcomed. Cover photo of Galveston. Email
us at thecity@hbu.edu, and visit us online at civitate.org.
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4CONTENTS$
The Questi on of Inequali ty
Josi ah Neel ey on What Bono Knows 4
Don Devi ne on The Pope & Capi t al i sm 9
Bruce Baker on Capi t al i n t he 21
s t
Cent ury 15
Davi d VanDrunen on Thomas Pi ket t y and Moral i t y 18
Sal i m Furt h on a Bi bl i cal Respons e t o Inequal i ty 22

Features
Mi chael Hanby on Li f e on t he Wrong Si de of Hi st ory 29
Hadl ey Arkes on Rel i gi ous Li bert y & Hobby Lobby 38
Ryan T. Anders on on The Ri ght t o be Wrong 45
Dyl an Pahman on The Val ue of Ordered Li bert y 53

Books & Culture
Loui s Markos on The Fl esh & Bl ood Sai nt 61
Megan Muel l er on Femi ni sm & Modest y 66
Hol l y Ordway on Tol ki en s Beowul f 70
Ti m Goegl ei n on Poet ry & The Great War 75
Mi cah Mat ti x on The Mast er of Poet i c Deadpan 80

A Republi c of Letters
Hunt er Baker 85

Poet ry by G.K. Chest ert on 27,84
The Word by Charl es Spurgeon 97
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WHAT DOES
BONO KNOW
THAT THE POPE
DOESN T?
4EQUALITY)AND)SOCIAL)EVIL$
Josiah Neeley
conomicinequality(or,tobemoreprecise,oppositionto
it)isverymuchinthesedays.OccupyWallStreetmay
have fizzled, but talk about the one percent has en
tered the common lexicon of politicians, pundits, and
academics alike. Concern over rising inequality has
grown to the point that Thomas Pikettys Capital in the Twenty First
Century,a700pageacademictomefullofgraphsandequations,isa
bestseller.
Even the Pope is getting in on the action. In April, Pope Francis
entered the inequality debate, tweeting a statement on the evils of
inequalitythatwaswidelysharedthroughoutsocialmedia:Inequali
tyistherootofsocialevil.
As a practicing Catholic who is also a fan of the free market, and
whocantseemtogetallthatworkedupaboutinequality,thePopes
tweet provoked a number of different reactions. One temptation
would be to try to interpret Francis statement in a way that is more
anodyne.AsonenonCatholicacquiatancedescribedittome,itoften
seems like conservative Catholics respond to each new statement by
the Pope on economics by getting out their decoderrings, and en
deavoringtoshowthatWhatthePopeReallyMeantwascomplete
E
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ly unobjectionable. Sometimes the end product is so different from
Francisoriginalwordsastobeunrecognizable.
Another possibility is to try to downplay what Francis is saying.
After all, theres a lot of nuance that inevitably gets left out when
yourelimitedto140characters.ProbablyitwasjustaVaticanstaffer
whowrotethethinganyway.Andsoon.
But the truth is that the tweet is very much in keeping with Pope
Francis other statements and writings on the matter. Last year the
PopedevotedasubstantialportionofhisapostolicexhortationEvan
geliiGaudiumtotheissueofinequality,statingthat:

Just as the commandment Thou shalt not kill sets a clear limit in order to
safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say thou shalt
not to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.
How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person
dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?
This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is
thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality
[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume
that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably suc-
ceed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This
opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude
and nave trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in
the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.

If anything,the tweet ismilder than the exhortation. The tweet only

condemns inequality, whereas theexhortation seems skeptical about
thefreemarketsystemitself.
I confess that when Evangelii Gaudium came out, I was a little an
noyedbyit.Partofitwasthatthedocumentseemedtobeabitcasu
alwithrespecttothefacts(suggestingthatinequalitywasontherise
worldwide,whenglobalinequalityhasfalleninrecentdecades).Just
a few months prior to the release of the apostolic exhortation, U2
frontman Bono gave a speech where he noted that capitalism had
liftedmorepeopleoutofpovertythananyotherforceinhumanhis
tory. And hes right! In the last few decades alone hundreds of mil
lions of people have been lifted out of poverty in India, China, and
elsewhere due to the forces of market globalization. Bono, like the
Pope,doesnthaveanyspecialtrainingineconomics,andbytemper
ament is pretty left wing. Yet he seemed to have grasped an im
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portanttruthabouttheworldthathassofareludedFrancis.Ifound
myselfthinkingsomethingverystrange:whycantthePopebemore
likeBono?

t was particularly galling to me given that this Pope is fromAr

gentina. A hundred years ago, Argentina was one of the richest
nations in the world. Then a centurys worth of Peronist led au
tarky,welfarism,andrightwingsocialismintervened,withtheresult
thatArgentina is now the worlds only formerly developed coun
try. From my perspective, Argentina is a classic example of how a
government intervention in the economy can lead to ruin. And yet
thelessonFrancisseemstohavedrawnfromthisisthatArgentinas
problemwastoomuchcapitalism.
Similarly, when I hear condemnations of economic inequality, my
mindjumpsnaturallytotheclassicresponses:isasocietywhereeve
ryoneisequallypoorpreferabletoasocietywhereeveryoneisricher
but some are richer than others? How does the fact that Bill Gates
livesinamansionmakemeanyworseoff?Doesntthefailureofat
tempts to achieve an egalitarian utopia, ranging from Brookfield
Farm to Red Square, show that inequality is a necessary part of a
healthysocialorder?
These responses are all valid, and if anyone but the Pope were to
makethesamestatement,Iprobablywouldjustleaveitatthat.Butit
isafeatureofthedecidedlynonegalitarianstructureoftheCatholic
ChurchthatIaminclinedtoreflectmoredeeplyonastatementbya
high ranking cleric, even when on the surface it seems obviously
wrongtome.
WhenIdoso,IfindthatthereisagreatdealoftruthinPopeFran
cisstatementsaboutinequality,particularlywhenviewed(ironically
enough) in the context of his Argentine origins. As a conservative,
freemarketlovingAmerican,whenIhearaboutinequalitymymind
immediatelyenvisionsacreativeentrepreneurwhogotrichbymak
ingpeopleslivesbetter.Inequality,inthatcase,seemslikejustanec
essarybyproductofprosperity.
That, however, is not necessarily how inequality is experienced in
many parts of the world. Consider, for example, the following de
scription of life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the
bookWhyNationsFail,byDaronAcemogluandJamesRobinson:

I
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As an independent polity, Congo experienced almost unbroken economic
decline and mounting poverty under the rule of Joseph Mobutu between
1965 and 1997. This decline continued after Mobutu was overthrown by
Laurent Kabila. Mobutu created a highly extractive set of institutions. The
citizens were impoverished, but Mobutu and the elite surrounding him,
known as Les Grosses Legumes (the Big Vegetables), became fabulously
wealthy. Mobutu built himself a palace at his birthplace, Gbadolite, in the
north of the country, with an airport large enough to land a supersonic
Concord[e] jet, a plane he frequently rented from Air France for travel to
Europe. In Europe he bought castles and owned large tracts of the Belgian
capital of Brussels.

In Congo, inequality was not the result of certain people working

harder than others, or of being more talented, or of being rewarded
for being innovators whose creations were a benefit to society as a
whole.Rather,theirfortuneswereamassedandmaintainedthrough
connections and government favors.And the DRC is hardly unique
in this regard. For Latin America, the stereotypical rich guy is not
Steve Jobs but Carlos Slim, who became one of the worlds richest
menthroughatelephonemonopolyinMexico.
This,clearly,isanexampleofaninequalitythatistoxic;aninequal
ity that is responsible for social evil. It is not the result of freedom
andprosperity,butahindrancetoit.

f we are honest about it, we must admit that even in the United
States agreat deal of inequality is the result not of the heroic in
novator but of government favoritism. From Goldman Sachs to
Archer Daniels Midland, a not insubstantial proportion of modern
companies owe their success at least in part to taxpayer bailouts,
governmentsubsidies,orotherkindsofrestrictionsoncompetition.
Noristhisprocesslimitedtomuchdemonizedmultinationalcor
porations. An increasing number of professions use occupational
licensingrestrictionstolimitcompetitionandhenceboostthesalaries
of members at the expense of everyone else. Nurses are prohibited
fromadministeringevenroutinecare(whichstudiesshowtheyper
form as well as doctors). Attorneys charge hundreds of dollars an
hourfortheirtime,whilemuchoftheirworkisorcouldbedonejust
as well by paralegals for a fraction of the cost. People are precluded
fromoccupationsrangingfromhairdressertointeriordecorator,un
lesstheyspentthousandsofdollarsandhundredsofhourssecuring
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a degree that, in many cases, is not even relevant to the work they
wanttodo.
These arent the sorts of thing that is captured in inequality statis
tics. To my way of thinking, any measure that ranks Canada (which
has a Gini of 32.6) alongside Egypt (30.8) and Bangladesh (32.1) is
probablynotareliableindicatorofsocietalwellbeing.
Still, there clearly is a form of inequality that is socially toxic, and
its more common than those of us who believe in the power of the
freemarketmightliketoadmit.Itmaybethat,likecholesterol,there
aregoodandbadtypesofinequality,andweneedtofocusmoreon
combatting malignant inequalities, rather than just dismissing the
issueoutofhand.
Flannery OConnor once said that the only thing that makes the
Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that
on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as
much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of
Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you
struggle to endure it. In the grand scheme of things, hearing the
Pope say things about economics that make me cringe is not that
great a form of suffering (whether this cringing is really my fault I
willleaveforGodtojudge).AndifPopeFrancisstatementshelpme
tothinkmoredeeplyabouthowoursocietydoesordoesntliveupto
its own principles, then thats a form of suffering I am more than
willingtoendure.

Josiah Neeley is an attorney and pol icy anal yst at the
Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the
Texas Publ ic Pol icy Foundation.
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DOES POPE
FRANCIS HATE
CAPITALISM?
[poverty0and0inequality{
Donald Devine
naninterviewcommentingupontheelectionofPopeFrancis,
thepresidentoftheBaptistTheologicalSeminaryinLouisville,
Albert Mohler, remarked upon the fundamental theological
differencesbetweentheirtwofaithsbutnotedaveryinterest
ingparadox:Youvehadanincredibleintersectionofinterest
on so many of these issues, like abortion and the sanctity of human
life,andthefamily,andsexuality,withEvangelicalChristiansandthe
last two PopesJohn Paul II and Benedict XVI. And its this odd
thingthatthepeoplewhoaremostlikelytoargueoverissuesofthe
ology,becausewebelievethemtobeofultimateimportance,arethe
people who believe in truth, and thus are those who share those
commitments to family and marriage and truth, and the sanctity of
human life. And so its going to be the Protestants who are most
Protestant who will actually appreciate that aspect of the Popes
stance. In other words, its going to be the Protestants who have the
leastbeliefinthevalidityofhisofficewhowillagreewithhimmore
thanliberalProtestants.
Dr.Mohlerwaslikewiseprescientinnotingthatthenewpopewas
notaphilosopherlikeJohnPaulnoratheologianlikeBenedict,pre
dictingthatFranciswouldbemorepastoralthanhismoreintellec
tual predecessors. Mohlers insights here were remarkable both in
anticipating Pope Francis tendency to upset many Christian tradi
tionalists with some of his offthecuff remarks on marriage and ho
mosexualitybutalsoinpredictingthatFranciswasunlikelyformally
I
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to challenge his predecessors on such doctrines. Where Francis did
challenge them was on inequality, poverty, free markets and capital
ism, concerning which a long literature demonstrates evangelicals
themselveshavehadconcerns.
Francisveryfirstsocialteaching,EvangeliiGaudium,openedbyob
serving that The majority of our contemporaries are barely living
from day to day, enveloped in a crisis of inequality with an in
come gap that has beengrowing exponentially. Still, in the face of
this, some people continue to defend trickledown theories which
assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will
inevitablysucceedinbringingaboutgreaterjusticeandinclusiveness
in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the
facts, expresses a crude and nave trust in the goodness of those
wieldingeconomicpowerandinthesacralizedworkingsofthepre
vailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded poor are still
waiting as a culture of prosperity deadens the consciences of the
fortunatetothesufferingsofthemany.
The gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by
those happy few, Francis continued is the result of ideologies
which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and finan
cialspeculation.Consequently,theyrejecttherightofstates,charged
with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of con
trol. A deified market is the only rule. For as long as the prob
lems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute
autonomyofmarketsandfinancialspeculation,andbyattackingthe
structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the
worlds problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is
the root of social ills. Today, we can no longer trust in the unseen
forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice re
quires more than economic growth, while presupposing such
growth:itrequiresdecisions,programmes,mechanismsandprocess
es specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation
of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor
whichgoesbeyondasimplewelfarementality.
Francis uses very strong language against capitalisms economic
order.Thatbeingsaid,thisanalysisismerelyadozenparagraphsof
288 long sections in his essay that focus mostly upon promoting a
fraternallovecapableofseeingthesacredgrandeurofourneighbor,
of finding God in every human being, of tolerating the nuisances of
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lifeincommonbyclingingtotheloveofGod,ofopeningtheheartto
divineloveandseekingthehappinessofothersjustastheirheavenly
Father does with which sentiments few evangelicals would disa
gree.InafollowinginterviewwithLaStampadefendinghiscriticism
oftrickledowneconomics(andpublishedinOnHeavenandEarth,
coauthoredwithRabbiAbrahamSkorkain2013),Francisresponded
that he did not talk as a specialist but according to the social doc
trineofthechurch.

rancis tone is very different from that of John Paul and Bene
dict.JohnPaullivedundercommunismandwasforcedtoask
why capitalism had produced the sounder and more prosper
oussociety.BenedictlivedunderNazismandwasforcedtoconsider
the other major economic systems. Sufficient study on their part
couldnotfailtonoticetheobvious,thatcapitalismworkedbetterand
in fact reduced world poverty. They even questioned the welfare
stateforitsbureaucraticwayofthinkingratherthanhavingcon
cern for serving its clients and proposed political and social decen
tralization and perceiving the deeper human need of the spirit in
stead, placing much of this reasoning into their formal encyclicals
andtheirupdatedCatechism.
What accounts for this difference? Francis was born in a country
with a troubled economic history. Its independence was declared in
1810 butArgentinas powers immediately engaged in civil war with
eachotherforthenextfiftyyears.Aclassicalliberalgovernmentand
Constitution were finally established in 1853.As an agricultural oli
garchywithamajorportanddevelopingindustry,freetradewasthe
norm and central government controls were light. As historian Jose
IgnatioGarciaHamiltonhasnoted,evenwithmuchpoliticalinstabil
ity,by1910thesepoliciesmadeArgentinaspercapitaGrossDomes
ticProductnumbertenintheworld,higherthanFrance,twiceItalys
andfivetimesJapans.
This prosperity attracted a large European immigration, with 30
percentofArgentineansforeignbornby1930,80percentItalianand
Spanish. While providing the labor for its growing manufacturing
thesealsobroughtthefascistandcommunistideologiesofthehome
nations to the inevitable industrial clashes between the new capital
ists (many from landed families) and a muscular unionism, which
spread to the feudal agriculture of the Pampasexacerbating existing
F
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aristocratic faction grudges. Military coups in 1930 and 1943 prom
isedorderandledtothelonginfluenceofJuanPeron,whoremoved
the Supreme Court, politicized the education system, nationalized
industries,controlledagriculturalpricesanddistribution,established
anexportmonopolyfavoringbothunionsandbusinessmeninagen
erally syndicalist regulatory environment, and vastly increased
spendingforclientgroupsthatproducedenormousdebt.
Perons Argentina was perhaps the first comprehensive welfare
state, trading benefits to the masses for their political support. Since
thereneverwereenoughfundsforeveryone,astatecapitalismunder
strongpoliticalregulationwasdevelopedtodirectbenefitstopower
ful clients such as unions and producers without so fettering the
businesses as to deprive Peron of the wealth needed to support his
regime.Butdebtsoaredandmarketsstagnated.Marketreformswere
adopted under Carlos Menem in the 1990s but social spending and
debt continued, ending in corruption, currency devaluation and un
popularausterityprograms,culminatingintherestorationofPeron
ist policies and even slower growth under the Kirchners up until
today.
Under Argentinas many forms of repressive government, capital
istscouldonlysurvivebybeingpoliticalpartnersofthestate,some
times its power behind the throne but more often too powerful to
eliminate but clearly having to defer to state power to remain in
business.IntheU.S.thisiscalledcronycapitalismwherethecapi
talists are in collusion with the government to get favors for them
selves, precisely the opposite of a market. By 2012 Argentina had
sunk to number 73 in world per capita GDP by World Bank esti
mates, at Int$12,043, down to only onethird that of France. Its ratio
of the top ten percent richest to the bottom ten percent poorest was
31.6 to one (compared to half, 15.9 to one, in the U.S.). With all of
Argentinas government welfare the result has been a much poorer
countryandlargerinequalityeventhanthecapitalistU.S.

he capitalism Francis describes is indeed unjust. But it is dis

tortedbytheArgentineexperience.Assuch,muchofitiscari
cature, useful for making moral points perhaps but distortion
nonetheless.InanotherplaceFranciscontendsthatwildcapitalism
andcommunismmustbecondemnedwiththesamevigor.Really,
with the latter killing 100 million of its own people? His whole idea
T
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of the absolute autonomy of the market is a straw man. The man
most responsible for the modern capitalist revival, Nobel Laureate
F.A. Hayek, wrote as early as the nineteen sixties that there was no
such thing as pure laissez faire, for markets always require rules,
certainlyagainstcoercionbutalsoforcontracts,safety,propertyand
soforth.
Theactualexperienceofmarketsishardlyautonomy.TheU.S.,one
ofthefreercountries,has300,000regulations.Likewise,thereissub
stantial income redistribution in the U.S. as the top one percent
earnedonefifthoftheincomebutpaidtwofifthsoftheincometaxes
and its government redistributed 40 percent of total wealth (but
mostlytothemiddleclassesratherthanthepoor).Asfarasanexpo
nentially expanding inequality crisis, after India, China and others
adoptedmoremarketorientedreforms,BrookingsInstitutescholars
Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gerz estimated that between 2005
and2010thetotalnumberofpoorintheworldactuallyfellbyhalfa
billion people as trickle down prosperity lifted millions from abso
lutedestitution.
Even Adam Smith, the inventor of the invisible hand analogy,
would agree Francis capitalism is unjust since Smith insisted upon
the necessity of charity and even local government welfare. Todays
reality is the overregulatory welfare state, not wild markets, which
Francis implicitly recognized by saying now we must go beyond a
simplewelfarementality.
Francis likewise noted that the great temptation in aiding the
poor is falling into an attitude of protective paternalism that does
notallowthemtogrow.Heunderstoodthebenefitsofdecentraliza
tionbuthedespairedthatitisbecomingdifficulttofindlocalsolu
tions. Francis conceded that business can be a noble vocation in
creating jobs but he simply presupposed such growth, which re
quirestheverydynamicmarkethecriticizes.
My 1978 book Does Freedom Work? critiqued Paul VIs encyclical
Populorum Progresso and argued his morality was sound but his em
pirical understanding of economics was not. Popes are not infallible
on empirical matters even under Catholic doctrine. As Mohler had
anticipated, Francis even specifically said he was speaking only as a
pastor, one who accepted the churchs teachings. Evangelii Gaudium
wasmerelypastoraladvice.Wouldanyonehavelistenedifhewere
as intellectually sophisticated as were his predecessors? He did get
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the worlds attention to the fact that prosperity can breed indiffer
ence, can lead to mindless commercialism, prurient escapism and
neglectofneighbor.Asaworldwidewakeupcall,itworked.
One can reject the validity of his office and still recognize Francis
uninhibited passion for the dignity of every human person and the
mostProtestantofProtestantscanaccepthischallengetoturnfrom
indifference to true love of neighbor, while still recognizing that his
admittedlackofinterestintechnicalmattersaboutfreemarketsand
governance, if followed blindly, could have horrendous consequenc
esindenyingthepoortheopportunitytorisefromasqualorencour
agedtoooftenbyrapaciousandbureaucraticwelfarestates.

Donald Devine is senior schol ar at The Fund for

American Studies, the author of America s Way Back:
Reconcil ing Freedom, Tradition and Constitution, and was
Ronal d Reagan s director of the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management during his first term. This is adapted from a
previous articl e in Liberty Law Bl og.
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CAPITAL IN THE
TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY
,tale0without0morality<
Bruce Baker
homasPikettyhasgiveneconomistsalottoargueabout,
buttheirargumentsmissthepointofthebookssuccess.
CapitalintheTwentyFirstCenturyisnotabestsellerbased
on its economic merits. Its a bestseller because it speaks
to a deep moral anxiety which has animated the early
part of this century. We sorely need a story that places capitalism
withinthelargercontextoftranscendenthumandignity.
Thestoryhasgrowncomplicatedoflate.Duringthesecondhalfof
the twentieth century, capitalism seemed more straightforward.
Postwar growth lifted all boats and benefited a growing middle
class. To be sure, there were cycles of expansion and contraction,
evenatroublingspellofstagflation,butoverallthosedecadestold
a story of undaunted progress: capitalism created phenomenal
wealth,reshapedtheworldpoliticalorder,andliftedmassesofpeo
ple out of poverty. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 vindicated this
view,andsealedthevictoryofthefreemarketasthemostdominant
forceonearth.
Yetforallthis,confidenceincapitalismhasbeenshaken.Thecrisis
of2008exposedweaknessesinthemostsophisticatedandtechnolog
icallyadvancedfinancialproducts.Recoveryhasbeenslowandune
ven. By some measures, wage stagnation and inequality have in
creased. Nationwide, debate swirls around a move to increase the
federalminimumwage.HereinSeattle,rallieshavemarchedinsup
T
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port of boosting the citys minimum wage to $15 per hour. Mean
while,globalizationhasleftbillionsinpoverty.
How are we to make sense of these things? As moral beings, we
find meaning within the context of stories. We judge the morality of
anactwhethersomeoneisbeinghelpedorhurtbyhowitfitsinto
thenarrativecontext.HerePikettyconnectswithourdeeplyfeltneed
for a story. Moreover, he tackles the most pressing issuegrowing
inequality.Heexplainsinequalityinasimpleequation:r>g.Inoth
er words, the return on capital ( r ) continually exceeds the rate of
economicgrowth(g)linkedtopay.
Pikettyworriesthatthisinequalityofreturnsleadstoanexces
sive and lasting concentration of capital, in which fortunes can
grow and perpetuate themselves beyond all reasonable limits and
beyond any possible rational justification in terms of social utility.
Giventhepopularconcernoverrisinginequality,itisnowonderthat
Pikettysthesisisattractingsomuchattention.Controversyisheight
ened by his nod in the direction of Karl Marx, who set the original
benchmark for historical criticism of capitalism. Like Marx, Piketty
offers a storyline to explain why the rich get richer, and the poor
poorer. Extrapolating from this simplistic premise, he proposes a
global progressive tax on capital, even while admitting this to be
utopianandunrealistic.Heseemstoapologizeforhisfailuretooffer
workableadvice.

he real weakness in Pikettys book however, lies not in its

wonkish proposals, but rather in its lack of moral substance.
There is no moral to the story. There is only data. Pikettys
empiricismsuccumbstothesamefatalflawJohnPaulIIdiagnosedin
Marxismitleadstoanincoherentstatementofmoralorder,because
The visible world, in and of itself, cannot offer a scientific basis for
anaestheticinterpretationofreality.Humandignityisnotreducible
to natural philosophy.As John Paul II argues, the moral life of man
becomes the central problem under discussion in defense of eco
nomictheory,andnaturalphilosophyfailstodeliveraworkableun
derstanding of human freedom, because Man affirms himself most
completely by giving of himself. He goes on to say, If we deprive
humanfreedomofthispossibility,ifmandoesnotcommithimselfto
becomingagiftforothers,thenthisfreedomcanbecomedangerous.
T
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Ifwecannotaccepttheprospectofgivingourselvesasagift,then
thedangerofaselfishfreedomwillalwaysbepresent.
Piketty attempts to elide the larger moral questions by refusing to
indulge in constructing a moral hierarchy of wealth. Aye, but
theres the rub. For until and unless we are willing to cross over the
threshold from sterile empiricism to the larger context of spiritual
reality, we will not be able to weigh market effects on the scale that
mattersmost:themoralscale.
Theneedforanew,morerobust,morerealisticstoryofcapitalism
isapparent.Pikettysbookmerelyraisesthequestion.Tomakesense
ofthemorallegitimacyofcapitalismweneedastorycapableofdeal
ing with good and evil, greed and sympathy. Adam Smith insisted
uponsympathyandbenevolenceastheguidinginfluencesofamoral
society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He never countenanced a
storyofcapitaldivorcedofthesemoralguardrails.
Thetranscendentsignificanceofhumandignity,rootedinrelation
ship, neighborly love, and spiritual commitment to higher purpose
gives the story meaning. Apart from this overarching context, eco
nomics fails to engage with questions of morality. To address the
moral implications of capitalism, we must cross the threshold that
Pikettyavoids,andconsiderGodswillforhumankind.Thisrequires
a more holistic understanding of business as a cocreator of shalom,
andwealthasaresponsibilityforjustice.

Bruce Baker is assistant professor of business ethics at

Seattl e Pacific University.
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18

PIKETTYS
ABSENT MORAL
PHILOSOPHY
\a0moral0analysis|
David VanDrunen
homas Pikettys recent best seller, Capital in the Twenty
First Century, argues that capitalism, left to itself, will
tend to produce everincreasing inequality of wealth,
and that the best way to counter this phenomenon is
through a steeply progressive, global tax on capital. A
numberofwritershavecritiquedPikettyseconomicsoverthecourse
ofthesummer.CuriousreadersshouldexamineDonaldBoudreauxs
excellent review in Barrons, for example, which incisively explored
flaws in his method of economic analysis, and Alan Reynolds piece
in the Wall Street Journal in July exposed several problems with his
data.EvaluatingPikettysmoralphilosophy,however,maybejustas
importantasevaluatinghiseconomics.
To be sure, Piketty does not advertise himself as a moral philoso
pher. Although he strives to be more than an economistutilizing
themethodsofhistorians,sociologists,andpoliticalscientiststobol
sterhisconclusionshedoesntmentionethics.Buthisfrequentap
pealtosocialjustice,optimallevelsofwealthinequality,andthe
shapeoftheidealsocietyleavelittledoubtthatamoralvisionun
derlies his broader case. To be precise, Piketty makes many strong
moral assertions that reflect deeply held assumptions, but he offers
few moral arguments to support his claims and ignores important
moral considerations at crucial points. Yet without his grand moral
visionofaglobalreformoftheeconomicorder,itsdoubtfulthisbig
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volume filled with statistics and equations would have shot to the
topofsalescharts.
So what is Pikettys moral philosophy? Lets begin with justice.
Pikettyobviouslycouldhavewrittenadescriptivestudyofthehisto
ryofwealthinequalityandsteeredclearofdebatesaboutwhatsjust,
but his book also prescribes a course for combating inequality. Ac
cordingly, he frequently refers to social justice and similar terms.
WhatdoesPikettythinkjusticeis?Heneversays.Scholarshavebeen
debatingthenatureofjusticeformillennia,butPikettymakessweep
ing appeals to social justice dozens of times without a definition. It
isnt difficult to figure out what he means, however. His numerous
references to the general interest and common utility point to a
basic utilitarian perspective: what is just is that which promotes the
greatestgoodforthegreatestnumber.

ow,manyofthemostfamousmodernmoraltheoristshave
beenutilitarians,butitshardlyanuncontroversialperspec
tive. The most influential work on justice in the past centu
ry, John Rawls A Theory of Justice, was strongly antiutilitarian
(though,curiously,PikettycitesRawlsbookinsupportofhisappeal
to the common utility, and then,in the very next sentence, associ
ates Rawls approach with that of Nobel Prize economist Amartya
Sen, whos a staunch critic of Rawls). In addition to the danger of
letting the general interest or common utility trample the inter
ests of individuals, one of the great challenges for a utilitarian ac
count of justice is determining what exactly is the greatest good for
the greatest number. For Piketty, the greatest good for the greatest
numberobviouslyrequiresarelativeequalityofwealth.Thisdoesnt
mean an equal distribution of wealth, but certainly much more
equalitythanatpresent.Itsvague.Andbasingstrongclaimsofso
cial justice on vague notions of relative equality for the general in
terestdoesntpromoteproductivedebate.
Butifwemusttalkintermsofgeneralinterest,surelyanessential
consideration is that the absolute economic condition of the masses
has risen astronomically, and continues to rise, under modern capi
talism. This is a glaring omission in Pikettys book, as Boudreauxs
review noted. All told, Pikettys idea of justice, even judged on its
ownutilitarianbasis,iscruciallyvagueandignoresperhapsthesin
glemostrelevanteconomicfact.
N
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Another salient feature of Pikettys moral philosophy is his vision
of government. He states clearly that the early twentiethcentury
moveawayfromthegovernmentssolefocusonregalianfunctions
(i.e.,keepingorderandprotectinglifeandproperty)andtowardthe
social state (i.e., providing a broad range of goods and services)
has been an enormous advance in human civilization. He assumes
thatnationsshouldmaintain,andevenexpand,thesocialstateinthe
twentyfirst century. Its enormous expense is one of the reasons
Pikettybelievessteepprogressivetaxationisnecessary.
Such a vision of government is also controversial (more so in
AmericathaninPikettysEuropeancontext,undoubtedly).Buteven
thosesympathetictothesocialstatesurelyoughttobesoberedby
what Pikettys proposal requires, and skeptical of his optimistic as
sessmentofhumanmoralnature.AccordingtoPiketty,forexample,
a global tax on capital demands that the governments of the world
obtain, and share with each other, a complete account of every per
sons assets on an annual basis. Think the National Security Agency
nowhasalittletoomuchinformationaboutyou?Pikettysproposal
puts exorbitant power into the hands of transnational bureaucrats
who,sadly,havethesamerangeofmoralflawstherestofushave
andamuchbiggerstageonwhichtoexercisethem.

ikettysmoralphilosophyalsotouchesindividualconduct.He
often contrasts the masses who work with the rentiers who
dont,ordonthaveto.Wealthisgainedeitherbylabororby
inheritance, and those who inherit large fortunes can sit back and
collectrentswithoutworking.Impliedthroughoutisthatthelatteris
morallyappalling.
Surely the moral issues are more complicated than Piketty lets on.
Foronething,corporateandindividualfortunesriseandfall.Agreat
many people who inherit wealth blow it. Pikettys model of a seem
inglyautomaticgrowthincapitalinfamiliesovergenerationsseems
farremovedfromreallife.
The fragility of fortunes is morally fraught. We may all agree that
laboringforalivingisgoodandnoble,butisinheritingandgrowing
wealth so entirely different? It takes virtues of selfcontrol and de
layed gratification to resist temptations to spend down an inher
itance. Its also not as if inherited wealth grows in any sort of uni
form fashion among those who have it. Investment strategies (and
P
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21

nonstrategies) vary widely. Growing wealth requires research, wis
dom, courage, patience, and foresight, and those who find produc
tivewaystoinvesttendtoprofitmore,atleastinthelongrun.They
also tend to benefit society more, both by providing capital for new
enterprises and by pursuing philanthropic causes (so that govern
ment doesnt have to do it all). Conversely, the lazy, irresponsible
rentierprobablywontbearentierforlong.
Evaluation of global capitalism requires sound economic analysis,
but it also demands sound moral analysis. Pikettys work provokes
many important moral questions, but unfortunately often obscures
theiranswers.

David VanDrunen is Robert B. Strimpl e Professor of
Systematic Theol ogy and Christian Ethics at Westminster
Seminary Cal ifornia. He is the author most recentl y of
Li vi ng i n God' s Two Ki ngdoms : A Bi bl i cal Vi s i on f or Chri s t i ani t y and
Cul t ure (Crossway 2010) and Di vi ne Covenant s and Moral Order: A
Bi bl i cal Theol ogy of Nat ural Law (Emory 2014).
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22

A BIBLICAL
VIEW OF
INEQUALITY
]faithful0prosperity}
Salim Furth
nequality is falling rapidly and more people have access to
opportunities for material advancement than ever before. The
rapid rise of a new global middle classconcentrated in Chi
nais a new phenomenon. For the first time in history, the
21stcenturymayseeamajorityoftheworldspopulationliv
ingwellaboveabsolutepoverty.
Paradoxically, the same globalizing forces that have been pulling
incomes closer internationally have pushed them apart within most
rich countries. In the U.S., there is strong evidence of growth in
household income inequality from 1970 to 1990, and some evidence
offurthergrowthininequalityfrom1990tothepresent.Atthevery
least,thetopearnersthosewhoownormanagecapitalhavehad
farmoreincomegrowththantherestofthepopulation.Responding
totherisingdomesticinequalityandtherecentlylagginglabormar
ket,theAmericanLefthastakenupeconomicinequalityasacentral
theme.
Christianity has long held concerns that are consistent with an
overarchingfocusonachievingeconomicequality,suchasequaldig
nity, poverty alleviation, and freedom from wealth. So is equality in
income, wealth, consumption, or market opportunity central to the
Biblicalviewofagoodandjustsociety?
Distinct from economic equality, equality of dignity is a central
concern of Christianity. Equality before the law is explicit in the To
rah (Leviticus 19:15) as is the believers equality before God in the
I
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23

New Testament: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in
ChristJesus.(Galatians3:28,EnglishStandardVersion).Itseasyto
overlook the importance of equal dignity and move on to more
contentiousquestions.ButChristians,likeothers,oftenfallshortof
respectingdignityinpractice.Jameswarnstheearlychurchagainst
showingpartiality:

For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assem-
bly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay atten-
tion to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, You sit here in a good
place, while you say to the poor man, You stand over there, or, Sit
down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves
and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:2-4, ESV)

Charitablegivinghasstruggledineveryeratomaintainthedig
nity of the recipients. The very use of the word charity to mean
givingisanoldandsordideuphemism,longagodisownedbyits
divineetymology.Governmentgivinghasrunintothesameprob
lem.
Indeed,anygovernmentlevelingeffortmustbeginwithanover
riding concern for dignity. Otherwise, one ends up simply serving
government cheese. When leftist economist Noah Smith wrote an
article encouragingAmericans to redistribute respect by extend
ing good manners to lowwage workers, he was cheered by all
sides.Thisisespeciallytrueasregardslabor,whichshouldalways
be regarded with dignity. If those who clean the toilets in your
churcharetreatedwithlessrespectthanthosewhoplaythepiano
orwritemagazinearticles,thecultureneedstochange.

second Biblical concern that coincides with the goal of eco

nomic equality is the passion for alleviating poverty and
suffering. Gods cosuffering with the sick and hungry is
vividly illustrated from Exodus 2 to Revelation 21. Yet, there is a
sense of sloppinesslots of inspiring stories, but if alleviating pre
sentsufferingisGodsmaingoal,Hesnotdoingaverygoodjobofit.
Thisisthefirstcluethatphysicalinsufficiencyandpainarenotfirst
orderconcerns.Infact,Christupendstheprosperitygospel:

A
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24

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed
are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who
weep now, for you shall laugh. (Luke 6:20-21, ESV)

They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am
the bread of life. (John 6:34, ESV).

ForpoliticallyconservativeChristiansespecially,thereisatempta
tiontohideourwealthbehindtheseandsimilarpassages.Butifwe
work to maintain material possessions for ourselves while denying
theirimportancetoothers,wearehypocrites.
The temptation to find excuses for remaining comfortable is not
new,andthereisastrongantiwealthstrainintheprophetsandthe
NewTestament.Mostoften,imprecationsagainstwealtharedirected
againstcorruptpoliticiansandrentseekingpriests,asinMicah2and
James5.ThebookofAmoscondemnstheeasylivingofthewealthy
who were outwardly religious but trampled the needy, made the
ephah small and the shekel great, doing business deceitfully with
falsebalances(Amos8:46,ESV).
Butatothertimes,wealthiscondemnedasabarriertopersonalho
linessPhilippians4:12,Proverbs30:8,andMatthew6:24.Luke6:24
25invertstheconventionalviewofhappiness:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. (ESV)

These warnings against wealth as an idol are the closest the Bible
comestojoiningOccupyWallStreet.Butmammonisservedwhether
one does so from a position of ownership or envy. And envy is as
centraltothemovementagainstinequalityasgreedistothemotiva
tionsofmanyofthemovementstargets.
Even morality itself is not the core value of Christianity. In Mat
thew20,Jesustellstheparableofthegenerouslandowner,whopays
hisdaylaborersthesamewhethertheyworkedtwelvehoursorone
hour. The story works because it plays on His audiences sense of
fairness: how dare the latecomers receive twelve times the hourly
wageoftheearlyrisers?Ofcourse,theparablespointisspiritual,but
it is indirectly related to temporal wealth: He told the story to ad
dress His disciples questions after He sent away the Rich Young
SUMMER 2014

25

Ruler in Chapter 19. Peter points out that the disciples have left
everything to follow Jesus, and fishes for a promise of greater re
ward.Jesusturnsasidetheattempttoearnfavorthroughsacrifice:
those who toil in the kingdom will be rewarded, but many who
arefirstwillbelast.

hristianitys core value, of course, is love. All the concerns

noted above flow from love. Love of Godforemost, above
self, above money. Love of neighbors, putting their material
needs above your own. The disorganized charity and profligate
kindness of God are the responses of love to the pain or joy of the
beloved.Thereisnoprogram.Loveisparticular:itneveraverages.
Those we love, we treat with respect and dignity. We care about
their needs, but we dont impose our own solutions. When some
one we love is suffering, we dont tell them to buck up and trans
cend the physical worldwe weep with them. If my love of pos
sessions exceeds my love of others, what kind of Christian am I (I
John3:17)?IfIfeelinsecureorenviousbecauseofmypoverty,doI
trustinGod(Hebrews13:5)?
Thus, Christian values do not grow from a central concern for
economicequalitybutfromacoreoflove.Andwhilesomeofthose
values are consistent with a concern for economic equality, using
thecoercivepowerofgovernmenttohurttherichhasnoclearcon
nectiontothecoreofChristianity.
It is worthwhile to contrast the willing divestment of wealth by
Christians with the (proposed) programmatic opposition of gov
ernment to high incomes or wealth. We learn a lot about the
ChurchsmodelofpropertyrightsinActs5.Twoaffluentbelievers,
Ananias and Sapphira, wanted to appear holy and trendy, but
maintain some of their own property. So they sold property, gave
partoftheproceedstothechurch,andreportedthattheyhadgiv
en it all. God struck them dead on the spot for their liea terrify
ingandveryunpleasantresultforasinwellwithinthecapacityof
atypicalAmericanreader.
But theApostle Peter, rebukingAnanias, is clear that the money
was the couples to keep or give. There is no obligation to charity.
And in Mark 7, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for letting people use
public charity to evade their private obligation to care for aging
parents.Givingaloneisnothingifunaccompaniedbylove.
C
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Any program of government leveling must be systematic and un
lovely,anditmustbefocusedonhurtingtherich.Ifinequalitycould
be easily reduced by improving opportunities for the poor, it would
be called justice or poverty policy and would be much more con
sistent withChristian principles. Ending the tyranny of Jim Crow in
the American South, for example, raised the opportunities and in
comes of many poor people without directly attacking the rich.
Likewise, giving poor children the opportunity to attend better
schools could lower inequality by improving opportunity. But nei
therjusticefortheoppressednoreducationforthepoortendstore
ducethewealthoftherich.Infact,thegreatriseoftheglobalmiddle
class is spinning off new fortunes and unlikely billionaires around
theworld.
Ultimately, Christians must avoid getting drawn into a debate
about who deserves what from whom. Christianity has very little to
do with deserving. Salvation is undeserved, as is Gods love. Giving
sacrificially does not make a Christian more deserving, nor does
Christiancharityrequirethattherecipientsbeamongthedeserving
poor. Finally, neither good policy nor bad policy is an excuse for
Christianstocontinueingreedorenvy.Lovemusttriumph.

Salim Furth researches and expl ains how publ ic pol icy
affects economic growth as senior pol icy anal yst in
macroeconomics at The Heritage Foundation s Center for
Data Anal ysis. He previousl y served as a vi siting assistant
professor of economics at Amherst Col lege and a visiting
research schol ar at Northeastern University.
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27

The Song of
The Strange Ascetic
G.K. Chest ert on

If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have praised the purple vine,
My slaves should dig the vineyards,
And I would drink the wine.
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And his slaves grow lean and grey,
That he may drink some tepid milk
Exactly twice a day.

If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have crowned Neaera's curls,
And filled my life with love affairs,
My house with dancing girls;
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And to lecture rooms is forced,
Where his aunts, who are not married,
Demand to be divorced.

If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have sent my armies forth,
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28

And dragged behind my chariots
The Chieftains of the North.
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And he drives the dreary quill,
To lend the poor that funny cash
That makes them poorer still.

If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have piled my pyre on high,
And in a great red whirlwind
Gone roaring to the sky;
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And a richer man than I:
And they put him in an oven,
Just as if he were a pie.

Now who that runs can read it,
The riddle that I write,
Of why this poor old sinner,
Should sin without delight-
But I, I cannot read it
(Although I run and run),
Of them that do not have the faith,
And will not have the fun.

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29

LIFE ON THE
WRONG SIDE OF
HISTORY
4MARRIAGE)AND)SOCIETY$
Michael Hanby
t is almost a clich now that Christians and all those who op
posesamesexmarriageareonthewrongsideofhistory.Ido
not dispute the assertion if by history we mean the train of
cause and effect set in motion by our deeds but escaping our
control. Popular opinion is shifting rapidly, fueled by relent
lessmediapromotionandbytheperceptionofunstoppablemomen
tum.Samesexmarriageislegalinseventeen(orisiteighteen?)states
and the District of Columbia, and the Attorney General has an
nounced that the federal government will honor those unions. State
attorneys general in a number of other states, following the Obama
Administrations lead in ignoring laws it doesnt like, have declared
that they will not enforce the same sex marriage bans in their own
states. Courts across the nation are taking their cues from the spe
cious reasoning of Justice Kennedy in U.S. vs Windsor and striking
down those bans as fast as they can. Even The New York Times Ross
Douthat has thrown in the towel. Same sex marriage, awaiting the
fall of all but the last few dominos, is for all intents and purposes
alreadythelawoftheland.
Irrespectiveofwhatthestatedecrees,thereremaininstitutionsand
individuals who regard same sex marriage not simply as politically
unwise,sociologicallyharmful,ormorallyobjectionable,butasonto
logicallyimpossibleasamatteroffundamentalphilosophyandnot
merely as a matter of faith. Those of us who find ourselves in that
positionshouldthereforestrivetounderstandmoredeeplyjustwhat
I
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it means to be on the wrong side of history, not least because we
havenochoicebuttoremainthere.Andweneedbegintothinklong
andhardaboutwhatmayberequiredofusandhowwearegoingto
havetolive.
We must recognize first of all what this appeal to the inevitability
of history is. It is not an argument but a conversation stopper de
signedtoputanendtoargumentbyurgingopponentsofsamesex
marriage to resign themselves to a fate which they are powerless to
resist and exempting advocates of marriage equality from the bur
den of having to think about, much less defend, their position with
depth or rigor.And by placing opponents of same sex marriage be
yond the pale of progress and civilization, it encourages those who
fancythemselvesontherightsideofhistorytotreattheiropponents
withcontempt.Theappealtohistoryisthusaniftylittlepieceofrhe
torical violence, a performative utterance that seeks to bring about
thefatethatitannouncesandtoexcusetheoppositionslossofagen
cyastheinevitabletriumphofjustice.
Of course all of this has been underway for quite some time, well
before the bend in the arc of history became so obvious. Some
American Christiansmore American, perhaps, than Christian
were easily blown about by a change in the prevailing cultural
winds.Manyothershavecapitulatedundertheweightofenormous
socialpressure,indifferentorperhapsunawareoftheprofoundtheo
logicalandanthropologicalstakesofthisquestion,whichfarsurpass
thenarrowframingofthisissue.Samesexmarriageraisesunavoid
ablequestionsaboutthetruthofthehumanbeingandthenatureof
human society, questions about the meaning of freedom, embodi
ment, childhood, and even human nature itself. But the public and
legal argument over same sex marriage has been framed from be
ginningtoendbytheontologicalandepistemicassumptionsofclas
sicalliberalism.
Liberalism answers these questions in advance, effectively deter
mining the public meaning of human nature and the human good,
while its constricted notion of public reason conceals the fact that
such fundamental questions are being adjudicated in the first place.
Liberalism thus prevents a real argument over these questions from
ever taking place by excluding its philosophical rivals a priori and
preventing philosophy from entering the realm of public reason
alongside sociology and other quasiempirical disciplines which
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31

share its ontological assumptions. From the constricted vantage of
liberal public reason,philosophical objections to same sex marriage
lackevenarationalbasis,asthecourtshaverepeatedlyopined.And
so opponents of same sex marriage, unclear about the ontological
presuppositionsalreadyatworkinliberaljurisprudenceanddesper
atefortheirargumentstoqualifyaspublicreason,havelargelyde
clined to raise them. Liberalism thus determines that opposition to
same sex marriage can only be a matter of private morality which,
after the legally conjured fact, cannot but become public bigotry.
Justice Kennedy and several of the lower courts have declared as
much,andthisisexactlyhowtheoppositiontosamesexmarriageis
now regarded by the media which have apparently renounced any
interestinthetruth.

ne may still hope, with Douthat and Rod Dreher, that the
victors will be magnanimous, though one may also doubt
whether magnanimity will be enough. The inevitability of
historyfallsequally,afterall,onthejustandtheunjust.Formagna
nimity to prevail it would somehow have to overcome not only the
momentumofcurrentsocialandlegaltrends,buttheverymetaphys
ical and political logic by which same sex marriage has gained the
ascendency.Thepracticalconclusionsofthislogicappeartobeinex
orable. If arguments against same sex marriage are irrational argu
ments, then, as Crawford says, they are also publicly bigoted argu
ments and thus inherently unjust. Publically bigoted and unjust
arguments are publicly immoral, antisocial, and uncivil as well, and
those who adhere to them inevitablyand justlysuffer the special
fatewhichacivilizedculturereservesforsuchodiousviews:cultur
alintimidation,legalcoercion,anddefactoexclusionfromrespecta
bleopinionandfrompubliclife.
Ifthisiswhatitmeanstobeonthewrongsideofhistory,thenthe
question of what to do about it cannot principally be a question of
statecraft; not because Christians should retreat from the public
square and content themselves with an Amish interpretation of the
socalledBenedictoptiontheCatholicChurchcannotretreatfrom
the world without relinquishing its claim to universality and thus
ceasingtobeCatholicbutbecausethisfatesystematicallyexcludes
usfrompubliclifeanddeniesustheverypossibilityofeffectivepar
ticipationinthebodypolitic.This willbeabitterpilltoswallowfor
O
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thoseChristians,CatholicandProtestantsalike,whohavemadetheir
peace with classical liberalism and who have perpetuated the defin
ing project of American Christianity over the better part of the last
century: reconciling Christianity with liberal order. Assuming that
liberal order is merely juridical, protagonists of this project have
hopedthatChristianitymightfillthemoralandmetaphysicalvoidat
the heart of liberal proceduralism by supplying the liberal state and
civil society with its missing public philosophyperhaps through
some version of natural law theory sufficiently watered down to
qualifyaspublicreason.
When viewed from an ontological perspective, this project was
always misguided; for despite what many of its protagonists be
lieved, liberalism was always already a public philosophy with a
definitive view of God and human nature and a definitive view of
liberal order itself as the human good, a philosophy whose defects
tragically vitiate its otherwise noble ideals. Insofar as the liberal un
derstanding of nature is mechanistic, it was destined to undermine
thefoundationsfortheintelligibilityofnaturallaw.Insofarasliberal
ism equates freedom with limitless possibility, it was destined to
erode the moral and cultural foundations of civil society inherited
from Protestant Christianity. Insofar as liberalism elevates this free
dom to thehighest good, it was destined tomake liberal order itself
thesummumbonumandabsolutizethestateastheguarantorofthat
freedom. Same sex marriage, which presupposes a mechanistic con
ception of the body and a voluntaristic notion of freedom, can even
be regarded as the logical outworking of these philosophical com
mitments,whichwouldhelptoexplainitsrapidascent.
Whether or not one chooses to accept this controversial diagnosis,
theverdictofhistoryeffectivelybringsthisprojecttoanend.Tosay
that this project is over, however, is not quite the same thing as say
ing that it should cease. The same liberal presuppositions that rele
gate opposition to same sex marriage to a ghetto of merely private
morality tend to reduce religious freedom to the right of privately
holding an irrational and idiosyncratic opinion. So conceived, reli
gious freedom is unlikely to fare well when it conflicts with per
ceived public goods, which will increasingly be the case as the ero
sion of our Protestant culture patrimony alters our perception of
these goods and as the underlying philosophy of liberalism is more
securelycodified.Thewisdomofcastingsuchcontroversiesassame
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33

sex marriage and the HHS Mandate principally as matters of reli
gious freedom is therefore deeply questionable. It looks like special
pleading,anditobscuresthedeeperfactthatthestateisimposinga
normative anthropology and philosophy of human nature through
these decisions. And yet this contest of rights is really the only
ground on which liberal public reason will permit itself to be en
gaged, and the assaults on religious liberty, even on liberalisms im
poverished understanding of freedom, are real. Precisely because of
their commitment to liberalism, protagonists of this great twentieth
century project have been the most stalwart defenders of religious
freedom. Given the aggressive posture of both the state and the cul
ture,thisfightshouldcertainlycontinueeventhoughitisunlikelyto
succeed.Iwouldsuggesthoweverthatthisgrimassessmentrequires
ustoconceiveofthiseffortinthelightofadeeperunderstandingof
freedomthantheliberalimaginationcanprovide.

nApril15,2010,PopeBenedictXVIgaveabrief,offthecuff
homily to members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
Thoughthesignificanceofhiswordswaslargelyoverlooked
atthetime,historymayshowthemtobeamongthemostremarkable
of his pontificate. They are all the more poignant given the fact that
they were spoken in the midst of a global firestorm, provoked by a
seriesofmisleadingNewYorkTimesarticleswhichhadsoughttoim
plicate him personally in the coverup of sexual abuse. Reflecting
serenely on the appointed Scripture, the appearance of St Peter and
the apostles before the Sanhedrin inActs 5, Benedict relates that the
tribunal made Peter a tempting offer of freedom on the condition,
however, that he does not continue to seek God. But a freedom
boughtatthepriceofrenouncingthejourneytowardsGodwouldno
longer be freedom. Hence Peters famous reply, which echoes the
wordsofSocratesbeforethetribunalinAthens:WemustobeyGod
ratherthanmen,(Acts5:29).
Contrary to our ordinary juxtaposition of freedom and obedience,
the Pope insisted that obedience itself constitutes freedom, even go
ingsofarastosaythatthatwithoutobediencethereisnofreedom.
ObediencetoGodisafreedombecauseitisthetruth;itistherefer
ence that comes before all other human needs. It is precisely this
truththatgavePeterthelibertytoopposetheinstitution.Autono
my severed from obedience, by contrast, is both an ontological lie
O
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and a political and practical lie which leaves us at the mercy of
subtleformsofdictatorshipaconformism,whichbecomesobliga
tory, thinking as everyone thinks, behaving as everyone behaves.
Without the truth consensus of the majority becomes the last word
whichwemustobey.Alastword,inotherwords,whichacquiresall
thenecessityoffate.
Wemisstheprofundityoftheseremarksifweinterpretthemmere
lyasalicensetocivildisobedience.Rathertheypointtoadimension
offreedomtypicallyoverlookedinthedebateaboutreligiousliberty,
afreedommorefundamentalthanthenegativefreedom,theimmun
ity from coercion, presupposed by the Constitution. This is the free
domwhichthetruthitselfgives.Withoutit,eventhisnegativefree
dom eventually collapses in on itself since every assertion of a
negative right is at the same time an extension of the states power
toenforcethatright.Truthisintegraltofreedomthetruthshallset
you freebecause it opens up a horizon beyond the necessity im
posed by fate, even where this fate is otherwise inescapable. Truth
givesfreedomwithinfate,becausewitnesstothetruthtransformsthe
passivity of suffering into the activity of a free selfoffering. Truth
thusmakespossiblethehighestformoffreedom,thefreedomofthe
martyrtomakehisfateagift.AsPopeBenedictputit,Thefreedom
of the martyrs, who recognize God precisely in obedience to divine
power,isalwaystheactofliberationthroughwhichChristsfreedom
reachesus.
The absolutism of liberal order is a subtle thing in comparison to
other formsof absolutism. It consists, in the first instance,not in the
state exhaustively dictating everything one can and cannot do
liberalismcanbequitepermissiveinthisregardbutinestablishing
itselfastheallencompassinghorizonagainstwhosebackdropsocial
facts are subsequently permitted to appear, as the whole that bears
norelationtoanythingbeyonditselfoverwhichitisnotfinallyarbi
terandjudge.Liberalorderisinthissensemoreextensivethanthe
liberalstate,thoughthestateremainsanindispensableinstrumentin
the enforcement of that order. The global media are an important
instrument as well. They absolutize this order by mediating reality
anddeterminingforallpublicpurposesthatwhatcountsasthereal
world appears in the image of liberal presuppositions. We see this
absolutisminactionintheaprioriframingofthesamesexmarriage
debate,bothinthecourtsandinthecultureatlarge,whichexcludes
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35

even the possibility of a rational dissent from these presuppositions.
Liberal order is absolute, in other words, precisely insofar as it de
fines the limit of our vision and imagination; for these determine, in
turn,ourpossibilitiesforaction.

hefreedomofthemartyrinwitnessingtothetruthisathreat
to this and every absolutism, because it exposes and makes
visibletheotherwiseinvisiblelimitsofthishorizon.Thisisthe
deepersensedeeperthanthenegativelibertyoftheConstitution
in which religious freedom is our first freedom: because truth is
integraltofreedom,andonlythetruthcanfinallylimitthepowerof
absolutism. But this also alters the meaning of religious freedom it
selfand,withit,thetermsofthepresentdebate.Religiousfreedomis
commendable, politically speaking, because the states acknowledg
mentofreligiousfreedomisanecessary(butnotsufficient)stepinits
acknowledgmentofarealitygreaterthanitself.ButtheChurchdoes
notdependonthestateforitsfreedom.Itsfreedomcomesbynature
(and by grace) from the truth of God. Insofar as no state can ever
fullysucceedinabolishingthistruth,nostatecaneverreallytakethis
freedom away. Indeed this freedom often seems to grow in propor
tiontotheattemptstosuppressit.Thebloodofthemartyrs,Tertulli
anoncesaid,istheseedofthechurch.Thegreatestthreattoreligious
freedomthereforecomesnotfromtheliberalstate,butfromthefail
ure of Christians to see beyond the confines of the liberal imagina
tion.
Any mention of martyrdom in connection with the tolerant and
comfortableWestwillseemtomanytobejustonemoreexampleofa
selfindulgent persecution complex by those who really have noth
ing to fear. This is particularly galling at a time when Christians in
other parts of the world are paying for their faith with their very
lives.ThetitleofarecentCommonwealarticle byGabrielSaidReyn
olds,WhenMartyrdomIsntaMetaphor,expressesthisdismissive
sentiment.Certainlyitwouldbeobscenetoequateourpresentdiffi
culties with the ordeals faced by Christians in other parts of the
world.
WeintheWestshouldbegratefulthatthisisnotourplight,andwe
should do what we canno doubt infinitely more than is presently
beingdonetoattempttorelievetheirs.Anditisjustascertainthat
there are important distinctions to be drawn between the subtle
T
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forms of coercion and intimidation increasingly confronting faithful
ChristiansintheWestandthepersecutionfacingChristiansinlands
wherethefaithiseffectivelyproscribeddistinctionsimportantboth
foravoidingexaggeratedselfpityandforunderstandingthesubtlety
and complexity of our evolving situation. But pious sympathy to
wardthesufferingofothersabroadshouldnotbeusedasaweapon
againstonespoliticalopponentsathome,andtopretendthatthereis
nopricetobepaidforbeingonthewrongsideofhistoryisnotonly
to turn a blind eye to a rapidly unfolding reality, it is to refuse the
responsibility of understanding that reality and of paying that price
if need be, to refuse even the possibility of suffering for the sake of
thosewhocomeafterus.

f martyrdom is a threat to absolutism, then perhaps we should

consider liberalisms apparent success in eliminating martyrdom
notsimplyasameasureofitsbenevolenceforwhichwecanbe
genuinely gratefulbut also as a measure of its scope and power.
Sinceamartyrisfundamentallyawitnessonewhoseesbeforehe
is a victim, eliminating martyrdom means eliminating from public
view just that horizon of truth to which the martyrs freedom gives
witness. It is a measure of liberalisms success in wiping away that
horizon that the very idea of martyrdom seems so ridiculous and is
so unthinkable to us. The end of martyrdom does not mean the end
ofsufferingorcoercion,howeverjustasktherecentlyoustedBren
dan Eich of Mozilla. It simply means its removal from sight, at least
when its victims arent prominent CEOs. It belongs not just to the
benevolence but also to the genius of liberal order that it creates its
martyrs not visibly by lions in the Colosseum but invisibly by ten
thousand bureaucratic paper cuts.And it is a testament toits power
thatitsucceedsindiffusingitscoerciveforcethroughoutacenterless
system which is never exactly visible and for which nobody is ever
exactlyresponsible.Butthen,thatshowhistoryworks.
Ours appears to be a peculiar fate in which the prevailing order
coerces in part bydenying the possibility of martyrdom and depriv
ingitofitsvisiblewitness.Itisnoeasyquestionhowtolivefreelyat
suchamomentorevenwhatsortofquestionthisisandtherecan
benosimpleblueprintforit,thoughitiscertainthatourabilitytodo
sowilldependonwhetherwecanseethetruth.Theformsthistakes
will no doubt be as varied as the subtle forms of intimidation and
I
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37

coercionwhichwewillincreasinglyface.Thelegalandpoliticalfight
for religious freedom, compromised though it may be, can still be a
powerful form of witness, and this is why the great civic project of
American Christianity should carry onlike Frodo and Sam trudg
ing on to Mordoreven though it is doomed. But it makes all the
differenceintheworldwhetheronecarriesonforthesakeofachiev
ingthatelusiveChristiancenturyorCatholicmomentinAmerican
politicallifeorbecausecarryingonisawitnesstothefreedomofthe
Church and the truth of the human being. For this will determine
whetherthehorizonofpossibilityisdefinedbythepragmaticcriteri
onofpoliticalsuccessorbyChristsfreedom,thefreedomgranted
tousbythetruth.
Thepointmaybemootinanyevent.Justasliberalismhasattempt
edtohaveChristianitywithoutthecross,sothegreatprojectofrec
oncilingliberalismwithChristianityhasstriventocreateasocietyin
whichtheChurchcouldlivefaithfullywithoutsuffering.Towakeup
and discover oneself on the wrong side of history is to find oneself
livinginaworldwherethatisnolongerpossible.

Michael Hanby is Associate Professor of Rel igion and
Phil osophy of Science at the Pontifical John Paul II Insti-
tute for Studies on Marriage and Famil y at the Cathol ic
University of America in Washington DC. He is the author
of No God, No Sci ence? Theol ogy, Cos mol ogy, Bi ol ogy (Wil ey-
Bl ackwel l , 2013), Augus t i ne and Moderni t y (Routl edge, 2003)
and numerous articl es and essays.
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38

THE DANGER OF
THE RIGHT TO
BE WRONG
[law0and0belief{
Hadley Arkes
ount me as a part of that population that rejoiced over
theoutcomeintheHobbyLobbycase.Itwasareliefthat
the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby craft
stores,andtheHahns,ownersofConestogaWoodSpe
cialties, were delivered from the mandates of Obamac
are; the mandates that compelled these families to cover abortifa
cients in the medical care they funded so generously for their em
ployees.JusticeAlitoalsodidanotableserviceinmakingclearthata
corporation is an association of human persons: Every associa
tion is directed to a purpose; and there is no principle that deter
mines that this kind of corporation, alone among all other associa
tions, may not be committed to moral and religious purposes, apart
fromthemakingofmoney.Buttherejoicingoverthedecisioncould
beamplifiedastheholdingrippledoutwardquicklyintheland:The
EleventhCircuitmovedinstantlytodelivertheEternalWorldTelevi
sionNetwork(EWTN)fromthethreatofthemandatesandtheLittle
SistersofthePoorseemsafenowaswell.
If I had been a member of the Court in the Hobby Lobby case, I
would have written a concurring opinion, celebrating the outcome.
ButIwouldhaveregisteredthegravestreservationoverthereason
ingbywhichthisgoodresulthasbeenproducedforus.Judgessuch
as Janice Rogers Brown in the Gilardi case (in the DC Circuit) and
DianeSykesintheKorteandGrotecases(inthe7thCircuit)managed
toproducethesameoutcomeincomparabledisputes;buttheydidit
C
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39

without engaging in the gratuitous move of reducing religion to
beliefs held sincerely, quite detached from the canons of reason
and claims of truth. As my own friends have added their commen
taries on the case, that dimension of the argument has been ampli
fied,inamannerthatonlydeepenstheproblem,foritgivesusaju
risprudence that cannot give a coherent account of itself. It puts in
themouthsofourfriendssentencesthatwouldotherwiseembarrass
the urbane, and finally, it accomplishes the inversion of backing the
conservatives into the very language and concepts of their adver
saries.

uringthelitigationoverHobbyLobbyinthe10thCircuit,the
Greenfamilyprofesseditssincerebeliefthatlifebeginsat
conception. To which some of us said: Belief? That proposi
tion has been an anchoring axiom in the textbooks on embryology
and obstetric gynecology. We should suddenly be hearing again the
warningofJohnCourtneyMurray:thatthereligiouswouldbackinto
thelibelingoftheirreligionbyreducingreligiousconvictionsmerely
to beliefs, uncertain truths, which claim to be valid only for the
people who share them. The Catholic position on abortion has not
appealed to faith or revelation. It has been a weave of embryology
andprincipledreasoning.NoseriousCatholicwouldcomeintocourt
and say that he believes that life begins at conception. And so
were faced with this oddity: We may have an owner of a business,
whodisclaimsanyreligiousconvictions,buthehasreasonedhisway
to a moral objection to abortion with precisely the same reasoning
usedbytheChurchandCatholicwriters.Wemightgathernowthat
he would not be protected by the decision of the Court: He would
nothaveaclaimtobereleasedfromthemandatesoftheDepartment
ofHealthandHumanServices(HHS)inthewaythattheGreensand
theHahnswould,evenifhehasacloselyheldfamilycorporation.
But take it one step further: The serious Catholic, who disdains to
argue on the basis merely of beliefwho insists instead on the
truthofhisconvictionthatabortiondestroysahumanlifehetoo
maynotbecoveredapparentlybythejudgmentoftheCourt.Forhe
offersnobelief,andinvitesnoonetotesthissincerity.Butwhen
goodpeople,suchastheGreensandHahnsoffertheirbeliefs,weare
toldbytheCourtthattheirbeliefswillnotbescrutinized.Forasthe
D
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Courtobserved,itisnotforustosaythattheirreligiousbeliefsare
mistakenorinsubstantial.
Noone,ofcourse,takesseriouslythenotionthatthelawwouldre
frain from judgment when it comes to the sacrifice of widows on a
funeral pyre, or the withholding of blood transfusions from a child,
even if it were claimed, as a matter of belief, that these lives had
spiritually ended. These words of the Court, disclaiming judgment,
seempartofaBrigadoonlikeworld:theyseemtoflareintoexistence
in the magic of the momentonly to evaporate when sedate reflec
tioncomescrashinginagain.
The mantras of belief and sincerity are getting baked in al
ready, even though they cannot carry the substance of any serious
moral question. Our friends draw upon Justice Alito in assuring us
thatthefederalgovernment,inthemanagementofprisonsandother
things,hascultivatedacertainartindiscriminatingbetweensincere
and insincere claims. Should we really be spending our legal genius
in devising methods or tests to find out how serious or sincere
people are as they invoke their sincere belief that the child in the
wombislessthanhuman,andthatthelawsbarringabortionarevio
lating their religious freedom? And we are not conjuring here any
thingimplausible,forhavewenotinfactheardallofthisalready?If
we are really testing sincerity, some of these cases could be deter
mined with truth serum or a lie detector test. But who would take
any of that as a justification for releasing people from the obliga
tion to obey any law we regarded as defensible, whether a law that
barsthekillingoftheunbornorracialdiscrimination?
Butinthesemomentswhenmagicwordsaboutbeliefsaregiven
a new loft, we find serious people backing into constructions that
would on other occasions embarrass them. And so, getting with the
program, one of my favorite commentators, Ryan T. Anderson, re
markedabouttheHobbyLobbycasethat:

The Court did not second-guess any of these beliefs [of the Greens or
Hahns], nor did the Court judge whether these beliefs are right or wrong,
true or false. The Court merely determined that the beliefs were sincere. In
fact, the Court refused to render judgment, as the Obama Administration
and Justice Ginsburg seem to have done, on whether the Hahns and the
Greens had the right beliefs. Justice Alito notes that HHS and the prin-
cipal dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. But re-
SUMMER 2014

41

ligious liberty, after all, is about the right to be wrong even in the pursuit
of religious truth.

ButasAquinasandLincolnbothtaughtus,therecannotbeacoher
ent claim of a right to do a wrong. It is one of those selfrefuting
propositions, which may be explained quickly in this way: People
claimarighttodoawrongonlywhenothersarepressingonthem,
threateningtoimposeapolicytheyfindobjectionable.Bysayingthat
they have a right nevertheless to hold to their position, they are
sayingthatpeopleoughtnotimposetheirpolicyonthemwhich
istosay,thatitwouldbewrongofthemtodoit.Buttheiradver
saries now turn upon the complainers and point out that they too
havethisrighttodoawrong.
When we find polished, accomplished people invoking now a
right to be wrong, a line that cannot form a coherent ground of
argumentonanymatter,wemayseethesignsofanargumentsoar
ing with metaphor, but now untethered. The concern here is deep
ened by the awareness that none of this was necessary in order to
defendtheGreensandHahnsfromtheimpositionofthesemandates
from HHS. These families were being orderedto bear, at private ex
pense,whattheObamaAdministrationconsidersapublicobligation.
And they would become accomplices, at the same time, in policies
that violate the principles that command their respect. As Judge
SykespointedoutintheKortecaseinthe7thCircuit,thegovernment
could well have decided that there was a compelling public interest
in diffusing contraceptives through the land. But it could have ac
complished that end by offering tax incentives or even purchasing
thosecontraceptivesandgivingthemaway.Andyetinthatcase,the
government would have to take on the constitutional discipline of
raisingthemoneyandjustifyingtothepublicthetaxesitwouldhave
tolevytoraisethemoney.ButitwascriticalforMr.Obamaandhis
partytoinsistthatnotaxeswouldberaisedinordertoprovidethese
vastpublicbenefits.Thosebenefitswouldbesuppliedbyshiftingthe
coststotheownersofprivatebusinesses.Thisisthesortofthingthat
wouldhavesoundedinthepastallofthebellsandwhistles:thatwe
are in the presence of class legislationwe are transferring assets
fromPersonAtoPersonB,andinthatwaycircumventingthedisci
plineoftheConstitution,andperhapstheTakingsClauseoftheFifth
Amendment.
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t is worth pointing out, in this vein, that this mode of reasoning

was available to usand remains availableeven without the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Yes, Judges Sykes
andBrown,andJusticeAlito,couldsayinthelanguageofRFRAthat
the government should seek the least restrictive means of accom
plishing a legitimate end. But Richard Epstein (and I) would argue
that the same test would come into play when the government re
strictsfreedominanydomain.Judgesunderstoodandappliedthese
principleslongbeforeRFRA,andtheydonotneedRFRAinorderto
doitevennow.
Years ago, when someof us were arguing for the Defenseof Mar
riage Act, we pointed out that, if marriage were detached from the
purposeofbegetting,therewouldbenorationaleconfiningmarriage
to a coupling. It would be hard to see any principled ground for
denyingmarriagetopolygamousandpolyamorousensembles.Some
of our opponentssought to meetthat argument by insisting that we
were being overwrought, for they saw no likely burgeoning of an
interestinpolygamy.Buttheyweremissingourpoint:Wewerenot
makingaprediction;weweresimplymakinganargumentinprinci
plenamely, that there would be no principled ground any longer
fordenyingthoseotherformsofmarriage.
I raise the point here because I think some of our friends may be
slippingintothesamemisreadingwhenitcomestoRuthGinsburgs
dissentinHobbyLobby.JusticeGinsburgdrewouttheseimplications
that could possibly spring from the decision of the Court as we en
countered:

employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Je-
hovahs Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived
from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with
gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian
Scientists, among others)?

Some of our friends have accused Justice Ginsburg of wild specula

tion here because they doubt these cases will arise. But our friends
maybereplicatingtheconfusionbetweenpredictionsandprinciples:
Ruth Ginsburg should be read not as offering a prediction, but dar
ing us to explain the ground of principle on which we would deny
I
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43

theseclaims,madeonthebasisofbelief.Ithinkthatmysidecould
wellprovideananswerformostofthesechallenges:Wewouldpoint
outthatonesetofthings(abortifacients)involvesthetakingofahu
man life, while the others threaten no injury of that magnitude. But
wedonotsaywebelievethatabortifacientsdestroyahumanlife;
we assert it as a truth, supported by biology and principled reason
ing. In other words we answer Ruth Ginsburg by removing the ar
gumentfromthedomainofmerebeliefs.Wereturntheargumentto
the domain of reasons tested for evidence and truth. But we cannot
evade the force of Justice Ginsburgs challenge if we say, as Justice
Alito said of the Greens and Hahns, that it is not for us to say that
theirreligiousbeliefsaremistakenorinsubstantial.Thesamething
could be said on the part of the employers conjured up by Justice
Ginsburgunless we move from Justice Alitos unwillingness to
gauge the plausibility of the claims that are offered to us under the
bannerofbeliefs.
And there we reach, I think, the final inversion here. For years
those of us who have argued the prolife side have encountered the
insistence that our moral objections to abortion involve nothing less
thantheimpositionof ourreligiousbeliefsonothers.Inresponse,
wehaveinsistedovertheyearsthatamoralargumentcannotbere
duced to mere beliefs; that it is woven of evidence and principled
reasoning and ever subject in turn to challenge and testing on rea
sonedgrounds.Butnow,ifwetakeourfriendsseriously,theGreens
and Hahns are to be defended only by insisting that their moral ar
gumentistranslatedintoclaimsofbelief,andthoseclaimsarenotto
be tested with the canons of evidence and reason. With that move, I
submit, we would be absorbing the upsidedown concepts of our
adversaries.Legislatingonabortionwouldbedonethenonthebasis
ofnothingmorethanbeliefsheldsincerely.Wewouldindeedbe
imposingourreligiousbeliefsonothers.Whatshouldbeexpectedin
return is the same argument over sincerity that has beenaccepted
asdecisiveintheHobbyLobbycase.Andwecanbesureofthis:there
willbenoneedforingeniousscales,subtleandelaborate,toestablish
that the people who deny the human standing of the child in the
wombarefully,incorrigiblysincere.
Im afraid, then, that we have been bedazzled by the outcome in
Hobby Lobby, and too reluctant to speak the plain truth: that this is a
jurisprudencethatcannotgiveacoherentaccountofitself.Ifeelnear
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ly like Brooks Atkinson reviewing a Broadway show years ago and
remarkingthatIveknockedeverythinginthisshowbutthechorus
girls legs, and there nature anticipated. My reservations have run
deep, and yet I would post one more warning: Lewis Powell, in the
Bakke case, dropped the word diversity into our cases, and that
word, taking wing, has created a new industry in the academy,
spreaditscorruptionsnowthroughouttheland.
Idbegmyfriendstotakeasobersecondlook,tobefarmorecare
fulbeforeembeddinginourlawtheseclaimstorightsorrightful
liberties depending on beliefs that may not be tested for their
truthorcoherenceandfromthosematerialsfashioningalawforus
onamatterofdeepmoralconsequence.Thisisthekindofthingthat
may not only disfigure our jurisprudence, but corrode the minds of
the next generation of lawyers, who will make it their business to
learn this new beliefspeak. To mix the metaphors, we may be
drawnheretofoolsgoldandfindourselvesplayingwithfire.

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of American
Institutions at Amherst Col l ege and Director of the James
Wil son Institute on Natural Rights & the American
Founding. This articl e is adapted from the Liberty and Law
Bl og.
SUMMER 2014

45

WHY WE HAVE
THE RIGHT TO
BE WRONG
\not0mere0beliefspeak|
Ryan T. Anderson
ne of the hallmarks of religious liberty protections is
that they protect people of all faiths, even if their be
liefs seem unfounded, flawed, implausible, or down
rightsilly.Recognitionofarighttoreligiousfreedom
does not, however, depend on religious skepticism,
relativism, or indifferentism. Rather, it rests on the intelligible value
of the religious questthe activities of seeking to understand the
truthaboutultimatequestionsandconformingoneslifeaccordingly
withauthenticityandintegrity.
TheCatholicChurchcommitteditselftopreciselythisunderstand
ing of religious freedom in the Declaration on Religious Liberty of
the Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae. In doing so, it did
not embrace the idea that error has rights. Rather, it recognized
thatpeoplehaverightsincludingtherighttopursuereligioustruth
and,withinthelimitsofjusticeandthecommongood,toactontheir
judgments of what truth demands. All people possess these funda
mental rights, even when they are, in some respects, in error. Kevin
SeamusHasson,thefounderoftheBecketFund,capturedthisinthe
title of his book The Right to Be Wrong. Hasson rightly argues that
religiouslibertyisforAtoZ,AnglicanstoZoroastrians.
This basic view of religious liberty has also found a place in our
civil law.JamesMadisonsMemorialandRemonstranceputsthepoint
well:TheReligionthenofevery manmustbelefttotheconviction
and conscience of every man. It is an arrogant pretension to be
O
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46

lieve that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious
Truth. The First Amendment has been understood to embody this
vision of religious liberty for much of our history, even as other as
pectsofreligiousfreeexercisecaselawhavechanged.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) reflects the same
vision. Passed two decades ago with a unanimous voice vote in the
Houseandbya973voteintheSenate,RFRAwassignedintolawby
PresidentClinton.RFRAprovidesareasonablebalancebetweenreli
gious liberty and the requirements of public order. It says that gov
ernmentcansubstantiallyburdenasincerereligiousbeliefonlywhen
itispursuingacompellinggovernmentinterestintheleastrestrictive
meansavailable.
InaseriesofarticlesthissummeratFirstThings,TheCatholicThing,
andtheLibertyLawBlog,thelastofwhichisreprintedabove,Hadley
Arkes has tried to recast the argument for religious liberty, not in
termsofthesincerityofthereligiouslyheldbeliefandthecompeting
concerns about public order, but in terms of its content, particularly
in terms of its truth. Arkes is a friend and mentor of mine. He is a
herooftheprolifecauseandhasbeenaboldvoiceformoralsanity
in the academy. When he speaks, and especially when he offers fra
ternalcorrection,onemustlistenandcarefullyconsiderwhathehas
tosay.Yetinthiscase,Icannotultimatelyfollowhislead.Itiscritical
thatwebeclearonthefoundationandthescopeofreligiousliberty.

efore getting to the fundamental questions about the nature

and scope of religious liberty, consider some more mundane
issues of religious liberty in court. Arkes aims his critique at
judges and lawyers who make what he sees as the wrong sorts of
arguments.Hewrites,

No one, of course, takes seriously the notion that the law would refrain
from judgment when it comes to the sacrifice of widows on a funeral pyre,
or the withholding of blood transfusions from a child, even if it were
claimed, as a matter of belief, that these lives had spiritually ended.
These words of the Court, disclaiming judgment, seem part of a Briga-
doon-like world: they seem to flare into existence in the magic of the mo-
mentonly to evaporate when sedate reflection comes crashing in again

If we are really testing sincerity, some of these cases could be determined
with truth serum or a lie detector test. But who would take any of that as a
B
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47

justification for releasing people from the obligation to obey any law we
regarded as defensible?

Missingintheseparagraphsisanyconsiderationofthesecondhalf
of RFRA: a compelling government interest being pursued by the
least restrictive means.Preventing human sacrifice and ensuring the
physical health of legalminors arecertainly compelling government
interests,andprotectingeveryonefromsuchassaultsseemstobethe
leastrestrictivewayofservingthoseinterests.
Arkes might thinkthatthe contentof the beliefs makes allthe dif
ference. After all, true religious beliefs would never require anyone
to act in a way that violated the demands of justice or the common
good.Butevenifitsneversociallyharmfultoprotecttruebeliefs,we
cant infer that a false belief is never worth protecting. Sometimes it
is. Its not disqualified by being false, because even acting on a sin
cerely held false belief can realize the good of religion. Sometimes,
we can manage to respect that good while still securing the overall
commongood.Whenwecandothis,weshould.Thatwasthelesson
ofVaticanIIandRFRA.
Yet even true religious beliefs may be thought to be at odds with
justice and the common good. After all, we arent governed by phi
losopherkings with perfect clarity about moral truth. In the real
world, government officials make mistakes. Indeed, at issue in the
Hobby Lobby case were true beliefs about the morality of killing un
born life. Yet officials in the Obama administration (by issuing the
HHS mandate) and various federal judges (by siding against the
plaintiffs) concluded that these beliefs were at odds with the de
mandsofthecommongood.

rkes is particularly concerned that the language of beliefs

detaches belief from truth, reason, and evidence. He pleads
withlawyersandjudgestostopengaginginthegratuitous
move of reducing religion to beliefs held sincerely, quite de
tachedfromthecanonsofreasonandclaimsoftruth.Andhefaults
the plaintiffs in the HHS mandate case as well: the Green family
professed its sincere belief that life begins at conception. To which
someofussaid:Belief?Thatpropositionhasbeenananchoringaxi
ominthetextbooksonembryologyandobstetricgynecology.Here
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I think Arkes is too narrowly construing both the requirements of
RFRAandordinarylinguisticusage.
The Green family and their lawyers framed their case in the way
that the law requiredand one can hardly fault them for arguing
their case so as to win. Moreover, Arkess description of their posi
tionisincomplete.TheGreensreliednotonlyontheirbeliefthatlife
begins at conception but also on their belief that it is wrong to do
anything that might kill that life. Should they have really made the
truthoftheirbeliefsthecoreoftheirlegalargumentespeciallywhen
we live in a regime that has declared a constitutional right to abor
tionandwhenthedrugsanddevicesinquestionareFDAapproved?
ArkeswouldhavetheGreensandtheirlawyersmakethefounda
tionoftheircasethetruththatabortifacientsaremorallywrong.No
doubt it is a worthy project to defend the truths of the natural law.
Butthatisprimarilyabattleforthepublicsquareandlegislativeare
na,notthecourts.Anddisagreementaboutthismoraltruthneednot
preventusfromseekingreligiousfreedomtheGreenswereasking,
after all, for an exemption from mandated coverage of FDA
approveditemswithwhichmanyAmericans,ifnotamajority,have
nomoralqualms.
Apart from the unlikely success of such a litigation strategy, con
sideritsbroaderimplications.DoesanOrthodoxJewishbutcherina
case about serving pork have to prove that eating pork is immoral?
Or,forthatmatter,whataboutanOrthodoxJewishprisoninmate:to
succeedinasuitrequiringtheprisontoservehimkoshermeals,does
hehavetoprovetherighteousnessofkosherdietaryrules?Andhow
abouttheLittleSistersofthePoor:willthatcasehingeontheirprov
ing that they have the right moral beliefs about all twenty FDA
approved contraceptives? Do we really want to discard Madisons
adviceandempowerthegovernmenttoadjudicatereligioustruth?
Arkes falters when he criticizes the language of belief because,
when someone says, I believe murder is wrong, it does not imply
that he believes it without rational justification or denies that it is
objectively true. I believe murder is wrong because I believe in hu
man dignity. Likewise, when Thomas Aquinas said, I believe in
God every Sunday as he recited the Credo, he certainly hadnt for
gotten about his five philosophical proofs for Gods existence. The
word believe in both sentences is being used synonymously with
judge or conclude. (For that matter, I believe that dogs are
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mammalsandthatBismarckisthecapitalofNorthDakota.)Thereis
no reason to assume, as Arkes does, that belief implies a lack of
justificationorobjectivity.
ButlookatwhereArkeswouldleavetheseriousDivineCommand
Theorist.Arkessprotectionsforreligiouslibertyhavelittleroomfor
thosewhodonotsharehisembraceofnaturallawthosewhocan
notofferarationaldefenseoftheirbeliefsbecausetheybelievenone
exists. And how about religious believers whose religion demands
more than what the natural law demandssay, the obligation to go
toMassonSundaysortoavoidmeatonFridays?Thesecertainlyare
notderivedsolelyfromthenaturallawdotheynotdeserveprotec
tion?JustasArkesconflatedbeliefwithunjustifiedbelief,sotoo
he has conflated justification with purely natural justification.
RFRA rightly protects religious groups that dont believe in natural
lawandreligiousobligationsthatgobeyondnaturallaw.

t one point in his piece, Arkes turns his sights on me. Note
that in the quoted portion (see page 40), I write about the
right to be wrong and Arkes responds with a critique of
therighttodowrongonlythentoreturntoarighttobewrong
andconcludethatitcannotformacoherentgroundofargumenton
anymatterandisthesignofanargumentsoaringwithmetaphor,
butnowuntethered.Thismisreadsmyargumentandmisrepresents
theunderlyingissues.
ArkesandIagreethatthereisnonaturalrighttodomoralwrong.
Buthavingthewrong(i.e.,mistaken)religiousbeliefsneednotentail
doinganymoralwrongatall.Thus,religiousliberty,understoodasthe
righttoactaccordingtoevenfalsereligion,neednotinvolvearight
to do a moral wrong. Indeed, understanding the nature of the reli
gious good and our duties to seek it provides coherent grounds of
argumentfullytetheredtohumanflourishing,thebasisofnatural
rightsandnaturallaw.
The natural law defense of a right to religious liberty is based on
themoraltruththatsincerereligiousactivity,freelyundertaken,isvalua
bleinitselfanddeservesthespacetoflourish.Soundphilosophicalreflec
tion identifies religion as a basic aspect of human wellbeing. As a
reason for human action, religion corresponds to the search for, ad
herence to, and relationship with any morethanmerelyhuman
source(s)ofultimatevalueandmeaning.Thatreligionisanintelligi
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bleendofhumannatureexplainstheintelligibilityofthebehaviorof
Muslims,Jews,andChristiansjustasmuchasitexplainsthebehav
ior of agnostics, atheists, and antitheists. While all six groups come
to different conclusions, all are propelled in their religionrelated
activities by a basic (if only implicit) awareness that humans really
are better offintrinsically sowhen they sincerely seek the truth
aboutultimatequestionsandthenliveaccordingly.
In other words, people realize the good of religion even if they
make (goodfaith) theoretical mistakes about the truth. Assuming
thattheirreligiousactissincere(andnotanattemptmerelytosatisfy
social expectations), even imperfect expressions of religion are hu
manlyvaluable.Thatis,ifonemakesasincereattemptatdiscovering
religioustruthandadheringtowhatonefinds,evenifonemakesan
intellectualmistake,onesreligiousactisofrealvalue.
And it is this value that gives governments a reason to protect
(within the limits of justice and the common good) the ability to
searchfortruthandlivebyonesbestjudgmentsaboutit.Foractsof
adherenceanddivinehumanrelationshipscanhavetheirdistinctive
humanvaluecanbegenuinereligiousactsandrelationshipsonly
if they are freely chosen. Precisely because of the good at stake in
religiousactionsandthenatureoftheactthatrealizesthisgood,reli
giousactsofsearching(explorationandconversion),adherence(doc
trine on faith and morals), and relationship (worship and conscien
tiousaction)mustbefreefromallcoercion.
Therighttoreligiouslibertyhasitsprimaryforcepreciselybecause
ofapriordutytopursuethegoodofreligionbyseekingoutthetruth
aboutGodandthecosmos.Indeed,asMadisonexplained:

What is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the
duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as
he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order
of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.

The government protects the space for citizens to fulfill this duty
accordingtotheirownbestjudgments.Indeed,StanfordLawProfes
sorMichaelMcConnellmakesjustthispointinanessayfortheYale
LawJournal:

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In the liberal tradition, the governments role is not to make theological
judgments but to protect the right of the people to pursue their own un-
derstanding of the truth, within the limits of the common good. That is the
difference between the full and free exercise of religion (Madisons for-
mulation) and mere toleration. Toleration presupposes a dominant
group with a particular opinion about religion (that it is false, or at least
unwarranted), who decide not to eradicate beliefs they regard as
wrong, mistaken, or undesirable.

The natural law right to religious liberty is not unlimited. It is

boundbythenaturallimitsofjusticeanddueregardforthecommon
good. Thus, the state can rightly limit religious liberty when justice
andthecommongoodrequireit.Insuchcases,thelimitationofreli
giouslibertyisanincidentalbutunavoidable(andthusjustified)side
effectofthegovernmentsactiontosecurejustice.Inourlegaltradi
tion, this nuance is reflected in RFRAs requirement that regulations
curbingreligiousexpressionserveacompellinggovernmentinterest
pursuedbytheleastrestrictivemeanspossible.

saidearlierthatArkesandIagreethatthereisnonaturalrightto
do moral wrong. But there are positive law (constitutional and
statutory) rights to do moral wrongsand they exist for good
reason. Unfortunately, Arkes conflates natural rights and positive
rights.
For example, our constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of
thepress,andfreedomofassemblygiveuspositiverightstodosome
moral wrongs. Government may not prevent us from being rude at
home,eventhoughbeingrudeiswrong.Itmaynotpreventusfrom
publishing trashy romance novels, even though a case can be made
thatsuchliteratureiswrong.Itmaynotpreventusfromassembling
to rally for abortion rights, even though advocating the wrong of
abortionisitselfalsowrong.
Ofcourse,freedomsofspeech,press,andassemblydonotprovide
unlimitedprotectionsforeverymoralwrong,howeverharmfultothe
common good: they donot protect incitement to violence, malicious
libel, or group trespassing, for instance. But we and other political
communities do protect political rights to do some wrongs precisely
outofconcernforhumanflourishingandthecommongood.Bylim
itingthejurisdictionofgovernment,wepreventflawed,fallen,weak,
errorprone human beings from deploying the force of government
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inoppressiveways.Byreducingtherangeofjudgmentsthegovern
ment can make, we reduce the risk that it misjudges. So, we can co
herently speak of a constitutional right to do wrong. We need to
combineAquinassaccountofnaturallawwithAugustinesaccount
ofthelibidodominandi.
That said, religious freedom is not a right to do wrong, though it
doesprotectarighttobewrong.Humanimperfectionensuresthatall
of us are wrong about some things. Yet it is unjust, a violation of
human dignity, for the coercive power of law to be used to punish
mere errors of thought orso long as there is no injustice or other
violationofthecommongoodofhonestreligiouspractice.Ifweare
to fulfill our moral duties to seek the truth about God and live con
scientiouslyinlinewithourjudgments,thenthelawmusthonorand
protect our right to religious freedomeven when we are, at least
partially,inerror.Therighttoreligiousfreedomisforeveryone,not
justforthosewiththerightbeliefs.

Ryan T. Anderson is the Wil l iam E. Simon Fel l ow at The
Heritage Foundation and the Editor of Publ i c Di s cours e,
where this articl e original l y appeared. He is co-author,
with Sherif Girgis and Robert George, of the book What i s
Marri age? Man and Woman: A Def ens e, and is a doctoral
candidate in pol itical science at the University of Notre
Dame.
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THE VALUE OF
ORDERED
LIBERTY
[the0orthodox0view{
Dylan Pahman
he subject of liberty or freedom, while central to Ortho
dox Christian anthropology, does not come up often in
the context of social thought. This is partly because,
frankly, there is so little contemporary Orthodox social
thought (in English, at least), outside of Orthodox envi
ronmental theology. Nevertheless, beginning with the concepts of
asceticismandtheosisinthefamily,theOrthodoxTraditioncontains
ample resources for a robust affirmation of religious, political, and
economic freedom, with an eye toward the American context of or
deredliberty.
The Russian Orthodox Churchs Basic Teaching on Dignity, Free
dom, and Rights (henceforth DFR) highlights two types of freedom
intheOrthodoxtraditionthatcorrespondtothedistinctionbetween
the image and likeness of God in Orthodox anthropology. The first,
autexousio,isthecapacityforfreechoicethatallofushavebynature.
It includes the freedom to choose between good and evil. Yet, the
DFR goes on, freedom of choice is not an absolute or ultimate val
ue. While important, such natural liberty ought not to be idolized,
for it necessarily entails responsibility. As Vladimir Lossky summa
rized it, To be in the image of God, the Fathers affirm, in the last
analysis is to be a personal being, that is to say, a free responsible
being.
Thesecondtypeoffreedomiseleutheria,freedomfrompassionand
sin.Thisfreedomisattainedthroughthemeetingofdivinegraceand
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ascetic effort in theosis or deification. It is the fulfillment of the re
sponsibilityentailedbyautexousio.Itisamatterofourgrowthinthe
likenessofGod,variesaccordingtothedegreeofourspiritualdevel
opment, and for the blessed at least, will continue indefinitely into
eternity as they forever pass from glory to glory (2 Corinthians
3:18).Appliedtosociety,eleutheriamaybethoughtofasanOrthodox
basisfororderedliberty.

rom an Orthodox perspective, these freedoms are not only

fundamental to salvation but the fullness of human flourish
ing, both now and eternally. While the fullness of Gods grace
is found in the Church, God makes his sun rise on the evil and on
the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew
5:45).Hisgrace,tosomeextent,isavailabletoall.AnOrthodoxpoint
of view does not allowfor a strict sacred/secular divide. As onetext
attributedtoSt.JustinMartyrputsit,toGodnothingissecular,not
eventheworlditself,foritisHisworkmanship.Thewholecreation
is saturated with, created through, and sustained by the energia of
divinegrace.
Asceticism, though often commonly (mis)understood in purely
negative terms, is a positive, lifeaffirming attitude and set of prac
tices that seeks human freedom by overcoming the passionsthe
sinful and disordered habits and attitudes that poison our relation
ships,primarilywithGodbutalsowithourselves,ourneighbor,and
the world, write Fr. Michael Butler and Andrew Morriss in their
recent monograph Creation and the Heart of Man. As such some level
of asceticism is fundamental to human society and attainment of
eleutheria.
Inillustratingthispoint,wemayrecallthefamousopeningwords
of Leo Tolstoys Anna Karenina: Happy families are all alike; every
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And what do happy
familiesdothatmakesthemallalike?Themembersofthesefamilies
sacrifice their own desires and comforts for the sake of the bond of
love between them. Unhappy (or dysfunctional) families are charac
terized by a lack of discipline: They do not share meals together or
limit their diet for the sake of fellowship with one another; they do
not share the labor of household chores (or even do them in some
cases); no one spends intentional time with one another; and so on.
At best, they fail to express and live in love in a healthy way. At
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worst, they express and live in fear, envy, boredom, abuse, and dis
dain. There are many ways for a family to be unhappy, but only an
ascetic embrace of sacrificial love produces true happiness and hu
man flourishing. And inasmuch as healthy families are the most
basic and vital societal group, then healthy societies must be ascetic
attheirroots,seek[ing]freedombyovercomingthepassions.

rthodoxcountriesarenotexactlyknownforreligiousliberty.
ThiswasthecaseevenbeforethetragedyofSovietrule,and
stillpersists,albeitinmuchlesserdegrees,inmanycontexts
today.WhilethestatenolongerseeksthedestructionoftheChurch,
Churchandstateoften,asinRussia,worktogetherinclosecoopera
tion,forgoodorill.
WhileIcannotofferhereacompletesurveyofthehistoryofthisre
lationship,itistypicallytracedtotheideaofsymphonia,firstarticu
lated by the Emperor Justinian in his Sixth Novella: If the one [the
priesthood] is blameless in every respect, placing trust in God, and
the other [the sovereignty] rightly and becomingly ornaments the
slate delivered to him, there will be splendid harmony which will
givetohumanitywhateverisforthebest.
This harmony or symphonia was not Caesaropapism, as Max We
ber characterized it, in which the monarch rules both state and
Church. Rather, as Deno Geanakoplos writes, The relationship be
tween the two powers [imperial and ecclesiastical] would seem to
have been a complex giveandtake of authority and influence on
various levelsa kind of interdependence.... In actual practice the
relationshipmaywellhavebeenmixed,ablendofdominationbythe
emperoroverthechurchincertainareas,andperhapsanabsenceof
imperial authority in other spheres. While this relationship was
closer than American separation of Church and state, it is also clear
thatwhatGeanakoplosdescribesisnotnecessarilythedominationof
the state over the Church that many may think of today. In fact, the
subordination of Church to state in Russia did not come from sym
phonia but the Westernizing reforms of Tzar Peter the Great, in
spiredbyProtestantstatechurchmodels.
Moreover, if we look just a few centuries before Justinian to Con
stantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, we do see a real em
brace of religious liberty in the (socalled) Edict of Milan in 313, ex
tendingRomanreligiouslibertytotheChristiansoftheEmpire:that
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libertyistobedeniedtonoone,tochooseandtofollowthereligious
observances of the Christians, but that to each one freedom is to be
giventodevotehismindtothatreligionwhichhemaythinkadapted
to himself, in order that the Deity may exhibit to us in all things his
accustomedcareandfavor.ThisdidnotmakeChristianitythestate
religion (that would not happen until Theodosius I), but simply af
forded anyRoman the liberty to follow that religion which hemay
think adapted to himself, not excluding Christianity, as had effec
tivelybeenthecaseuntilthattime.
Thus,religiouslibertyisnotforeigntotheOrthodoxtradition.Jus
tinians symphonia placed some distance between Church and state
and, even earlier, Constantine embraced full religious liberty. Both
Emperors are venerated as saints in the Orthodox Church. This, of
course,doesnotnecessarilylimittheOrthodoxtoaffirmingreligious
liberty(Theodosiusisasaintaswell),butitshowsthattherehistori
callyisroomforit.
Thegoodofreligiouslibertyhasbeenrecentlydefendedamongthe
Orthodox by Aristotle Papanikolaou, who argues in his book The
Mystical as Political that it most fittingly accords with divine
humancommunion(hispreferredtermfortheosis),asourcommun
ionwithGodrequiresourfree,asceticcooperationwithdivinegrace.
He insists that Orthodox Christians on these grounds even ought to
defend the rights of atheists to unbelief. While I have some reserva
tions regarding the neglect of natural law in his overall project, on
this point I agree. If we truly believe that human beings are created
free in reflection of the image of God and that this freedom is given
to us for the sake of freely progressing in theosis, then liberty to
choose and live ones religion (or lack thereof) naturally follows, as
wellasthelibertynecessaryfortheChurchtocontinuallyadminister
the sacraments and preach the Gospel, through which we uniquely
receivedivinegraceandgrowincommunionwithGod.AstheEpis
tle to Diognetus put it, God willed to save man by persuasion, not
bycompulsion,forcompulsionisnotGodswayofworking.

f freedom is not only a dynamic, personal and ethical reality

(eleutheria) but a natural capacity common to all human persons
(autexousio), then freedom is a natural right, one which the state
must respect and uphold. As the DFR states, Subjection of human
will to any external authority through manipulation or violence is
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seenasaviolationoftheorderestablishedbyGod.Onecouldeasily
see this as a corollary of the formulation found in the United States
Declaration of Independence: Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Thus, politics must as much as possible preserve human freedom
ratherthanviolateit.
As the Russian Orthodox philosopher Vladimir Solovyov put it,
Thepurposeoflegaljusticeisnottotransformtheworldwhichlies
inevilintothekingdomofGod,butonlytopreventitfromchanging
too soon into hell. While the state ought to justly intervene out of
pityfortheoppressedtopreventandcorrecttheviolationofhuman
freedom, dignity, and life through manipulation or violence, Or
thodox Christians need not seek utopian visions of society in which
every human good is assumed to be attainable through political en
gineering. Such visions deny the reality of human sin and our need
fordivinegrace.
Humanbeings,unfortunately,donotalwaysliveuptotheirdivine
calling.AsSt.Paultellsus,allhavesinnedandfallshortoftheglory
of God (Romans 3:23). The social application of this admission of
our shortcomings can be expressed in the words of Abba Poemen,
one of the desert fathers: If a man makes a new heaven and a new
earth, he still cannot be safe from temptation. This is the basis for
bothpoliticallibertyandtheneedforcoercivestateactionbeyondits
naturalfunctioninfacilitatinggoodorderinoursociallife.Whenwe
fail to uphold justice of our own freedom, the state must step in.
Wherewesucceed,thestatemuststepback.Anditmustmakeroom
for and prudently facilitate that success whenever it canin a way,
practicing its own ascetic selfdenial. We cannot trust the whole of
thecommongoodtothestatenoranyotherhumanmeans,sincetrue
humanflourishingcannotbeachievedbyhumanmeansalonethat
is the basis of totalitarianism, with which the Orthodox Church has
suchapainfulhistoryinthetwentiethcentury.
Furthermore, inasmuch as we are created in freedom (autexousio)
and for freedom (eleutheria), to be selfruledor rather, to be freely
ruled by Godthis accords well with the principle of self
governance. Human persons, associations, and institutions all de
serve political independence, representation, and respect in some
form in a truly just society from the perspective of Orthodox Chris
tiananthropology.
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hile economic liberty has perhaps received the least affir
mation or even reflection in Orthodox social thought, it
nonetheless follows just as naturally from the Orthodox
bases of religious and political liberty outlined above. However, as
Solovyovargues,thesphereofeconomicrelations(conceivedbroad
ly)correspondstoourmoralrelationtoourown,bodilynature.The
dutywehavetowardourbodiesistodenyitsdesiresthroughasceti
cismforthesakeofthehigher,spiritualgoodoflove.Indoingso,we
do not abuse or harm our bodies but rather spiritualize them, align
ingourembodiedactionwiththespiritualgraceofGod.
Wearecreatedwithacapacityforfreedom,autexousio,tobeused
forthepurposeofthemoralfreedomoftheosis:eleutheria.Thus,just
asweoughttoofferupourbodiesaslivingsacrificestoGod(cf.Ro
mans12:1),soalsowearetoofferupGodscreationtohimthrough
ourlabor.Godhasgivenustheearthinordertotendandkeepit
inaparadisiacalstate(Genesis2:15).Thus,acknowledgingagainour
propensityforfailure,weneverthelesshaveadutytomakeofGods
creation what we can, imitating the creativity of God and exercising
thedominionhegaveus(Genesis1:26).
We must, then, have liberty in society to freely cultivate the re
sourcesoftheearthforthesakeofthehighergoodofselfsacrificing
love.HelenRheeaffirmsinLovingthePoor,SavingtheRich,herstudy
of wealth and poverty in the early Church, the consistent patristic
teaching of both the affirmation of private property rights and our
moral duties to use our property for the good of others (what is
knownintheWestastheuniversaldestinationofgoods).Notonly
do we offer the goods of the earth to God through the sacraments
and receive them back transfigured by divine grace, but in our eco
nomic activity we must always remember that true freedom lies in
serving the needs of others in love. As the Church father Lactantius
putitstarkly,Hewhoisabletosuccouroneonthepointofperish
ing, if he fails to do so, kills him. When we fail in this regard, the
state has a duty to intervene but always as outlined above: with an
eye to empowering its citizens to fulfill the work of justice them
selvesinfreedomandlove.
This understanding of the importance of private property and its
mandated use for the greater good is one reason why the Edict of
Milan has remained so important historically, even though a previ
ous edict in 311 had already granted tolerance to Roman Christians.
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ThekeydifferenceisthatMilanreturnedconfiscatedpropertytothe
Churchandacknowledgeditsrighttoprivateownership.Previously,
asRheepointsout,churchbuildingshadlegallybeenthepropertyof
individualestates.BecauseofthisuniqueaspectofMilan,ithasbeen
celebrated as the historical moment in which the Church truly at
tained freedom in ancient Rome. Tolerance was not enough without
equal economic liberty. If ancient Christians so celebrated these
rights,Christianstodayoughttoaffirmthemaswell.

heselibertiesareinterdependent;eachofthesespheresofour
livesisinseparablefromoneanother.Aviolationofoneinevi
tably entails a violation of all three. For example, regulations
on businesses that require them to compromise their religious con
victions, when they are in no way harming others, violate religious
andeconomiclibertythroughtheoverreachofstatepower.Uphold
ingallthreeisnorecipeforutopiabutitdoesaffirmorderedliberty.
And such ordered liberty, I argue, is the best means of ordering a
society that takes seriously both our inclination toward temptation
andourgreatpotentialfordeification.
No doubt other Orthodox conceptions of religious, political, and
economic liberty are possible. Certainly, many others have already
beentried.Yetthisisaperspectiveforsocialengagement,grounded
in the Orthodox Christian Tradition and easily applicable to the
AmericancontextwithinwhichmanyOrthodoxChristiansnowlive.
This conceptualization of ordered liberty is firmly rooted in the Or
thodox distinction between the image and likeness of God and the
needforasceticeffort,incooperationwithdivinegrace,forustoful
fillourultimatecallingandexperiencetruehumanflourishing,ever
passingfromglorytoglory,transfiguredbyourcommunionwith
God.

Dylan Pahman is assistant editor of the Journal of
Markets & Moral ity and research associate for the Acton
Institute. He has a Master s of Theol ogical Studies in
historical theol ogy with a concentration in earl y Church
studies from Cal vin Theol ogical Seminary.

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Books &
Culture

=


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SIMON PETER:
FLESH & BONES
SAINT
\the0life0of0peter|
Louis Markos
Simon, Who Is Called Peter: Life as One of the
Apostles, by Mackenzi e Mul l i gan. Wi pf & St ock, 2014.
s a graduate student in English in the late 1980s, I
wasexposedonaregularbasistothewordinterdis
ciplinary. In most cases, the word functioned as a
coverforastronglyliberalagenda.IfwestudiedVir
gilorDanteorShakespeareorMiltonorWordsworth
in the context of linguistics or psychology, we did so to diminish,
rather than augment, the goodness, truth, and beauty of what they
had written. If the Bible was the subject under study, then it was a
given that any reference to sociology or anthropology would take
away from the authority and integrity of the scriptures as the in
spiredWordofGod.
To approach literature from an interdisciplinary point of view al
ways meant surrendering the expansive transcendence of the hu
manities to the materialism of the social sciences. It meant that
Shakespeare lost his ability to tap issues and ideas of perennial,
crossculturalrelevanceandbecamejustanotherproductofElizabe
thanpowerpolitics.Marx,Darwin,Freud,Nietzsche,Sartre,Derrida,
Foucault: they could rise above their socioeconomic milieu to cri
tiquethepretensionsofthegreatcanonicalwriter.Butnotthepoets,
andcertainlynottheBible.Theywouldhavetoyieldtheirmoraland
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aesthetichegemonytotheacademicexpertsandtheirnewfangled,
interdisciplinarymethods.
Thankfully, over the last decade, I have witnessed, particularly in
Christian liberal arts universities, a reclaiming and rehabilitating of
the interdisciplinary approach. Especially in honors colleges like the
one I lecture for, there has arisen a new and passionate desire to
uniteliterature,history,philosophy,theology,music,andartinsuch
awayastodrawstudentsclosertotheGood,theTrue,andtheBeau
tiful and provide new perspectives from which to appreciate and
understandtherevealedwisdomoftheBible.Alongwiththatdesire
hascomearenewedcommitmenttoteachfromprimarytextsrather
thancommentariesandcriticismsofthosetexts.
As a graduate of the Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University,
Mackenzie Mulligan is a product of just such an interdisciplinary
educationgroundedintheGreatBooksandhehasputthateduca
tiontogooduse.InSimon,WhoIsCalledPeter:LifeasOneoftheApos
tles, he combines insights from textual analysis, ancient languages,
near eastern studies, and theology with a strong sense for literary
narrative, psychological motivation, and the cultural landscape of
firstcenturyPalestine.Theresult:afreshandbeguilingworkthatis
almostsuigeneris.
Inasimplebutfirmprosestyle,Mulliganretellsthefamiliarstories
oftheGospelsandActsfromthepointofviewofPeterasheawaits
martyrdominRome.Everystepoftheway,Mulliganremainspunc
tiliously faithful to his biblical sources. Indeed, in order to support
hisnarrativeandexplainandjustifyhisinterpretationsofeventsand
ofPetersreactiontothoseevents,heofferssome150footnotes.Alt
hough the notes are accessible and never become pedantic, they are
backed up by solid research and provide the reader with a helpful
and stimulating overview of the sometimes competing, sometimes
complementarytheoriesofsuchorthodoxbiblicalscholarsasRichard
Bauckham, Darrell Bock, D.A. Carson, William Hendriksen, Martin
Hengel,LarryHurtado,CraigKeener,R.C.H.Lenski,andJohnMac
Arthur.
The mix of firstperson narrative and lengthy critical footnotes
makes for a strange hybrid, but it succeeds in doing something that
needstobedonemoreoften:namely,buildingabridgebetweenthe
aesthetic and the theological, the emotional and the rational, the ex
periential and the systematic. Mulligansapproach allowsus to con
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templatePeternotonlywithhistoricaltextualeyesbutwiththeeyes
offaithandpiety.Justasimportantly,itallowsustoreachback2000
years with an imaginative embrace that takes us inside Peters psy
che.
Here is Peter reflecting back on his own futile attempts, and those
oftheotherdisciples,tomakesenseofJesusclaimsanddeeds:

It was all so much bigger than we had thought. We knew he was a teacher.
We knew he was a rabbi. We called him the Messiah, we called him Lord,
but as I look back, I know those were empty words. ... He was not just a
better teacher than we had ever heard. He did not just perform more mira-
cles than we had expected. He did not just have more authority over de-
mons than even the greatest of Jewish exorcists. He was entirely more and
different than all of that, as if he was in an entirely different category.

ItisthroughpassageslikethesethatMulliganaddsfleshandbones
tothefamiliarbiblicaleventsandcharacters.Heremindsusthatthe
PeterweencounterintheGospelsisneitheraPhariseeskilledinthe
Lawnoratheologianabletoconstructabstracttheories.Heisafish
erman with a big temper to match his big heart. His closeness to Je
sus more often than not increases his sense of confusion and inade
quacyevenasitchallengeshimtoincreasehisfaithandpatience.
MulliganisathisbestconveyingPetersangstriddenresistanceto
Jesus predictions of his death. When Peter, out of what he thinks is
love and loyalty, rebukes Jesus for seeking after death in Jerusalem,
andJesusresponds,Gettheebehindme,Satan,theimpactonPeter
is gutwrenching: I felt as though I had been punched in the stom
ach,andIstumbledback.Histoneandwordswerebadenough,but
his face... his narrowed eyes and clenched jaw showed pain and an
ger competing for control. A thirdperson study of the Gospels
mighthavedescribedthissceneanditsimpactonPeter,butitwould
nothavemadeuswincewhenwereadit.
MulligansgoalisnottodeheroizePeterorstriphimofhissaint
hood. To the contrary, the more real he makes Peter, the more he
allows his flaws and failures to rise to the surface, the more he en
hances our respect for this broken man whom Jesus molded into a
great leader and missionary. And we get to witness that molding
from the inside out. We are with Peter, inside his head that never
stops buzzing with restless thoughts, as he first swears that he will
never betray Jesus, then betrays him three times, and then is given
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thechancetoreaffirmhisloveforJesusthreetimesbytheSeaofGal
ilee.
And we get to follow Peter, to stay in his head, for the miracle of
Pentecost when he comes of age and steps into the role for which
Jesus has been grooming him. Mulligan captures effectively the
sightsandsoundsofthedescentoftheHolySpiritasexperiencedby
abewilderedyetecstaticPeter:Iwasfilledwithwindandwithfire,
and I felt that I had to get out, in the open airI had to speak, to
shout, to praise God, or I would burst. And when the moment
comes for him to give his sermon, Mulligan brings together all the
worry and secondguessing and frustrated anxiety that have come
before: What would I say to them? I felt dizzy. It was happening
again. I wanted to do something for Jesus, but I was going to fail. I
was going to say something foolish, or do something foolish, and I
would fail. Or maybe it would be worse. Maybe I would deny him
again.

rackingPetersspiritualandemotionalgrowthconstitutesthe
centralstrengthofSimon,WhoIsCalledPeter.Butitbringswith
itanaddedbenefit.ThroughtheeyesofMulligansfleshand
bloodPeter,wecatchglimpsesofaJesuswhoisfullyincarnate.After
Jesus cleanses the moneychangers from the Temple, this is what Pe
ter sees: He was breathing hard, and his face was tight and stern.
And when he spoke, he was clear and distinct, each word crisp and
sharp.AttheGardenofGethsemane,heseesaverydifferentMes
siah:Whenhefinallystoppedandturnedtous,Inearlyfellbackat
thesiteofhisface.Itwasworsethanbefore,muchworse,withpain
and fear flickering in his eyes. And when he spoke, his voice was
hoarse and strained. But this too gives way to a different mood,
when Jesus has finished his prayers and returns a third time to find
Peter,James,andJohnonceagainasleep:Andthenhecameagain,a
thirdtime,andhewasdifferent.Heseemedrefreshed,calm,incon
trol. Jesus was fully man even as he was fully God, and, through
Peterseyes,weseethemanyfacetsofhismanhood.
Though Mulligans book offers a consistently good read, it does
bear the marks of its genesis as a senior honors thesis. It uses too
many subheadings that impede the flow of the narrative just as it is
picking up steam. The notes, though helpful, should have been
trimmedback,andtheauthortoooftenfallsintoapologizingforhis
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narrativechoices.Also,asaprofessorofliteratureratherthanphilos
ophyortheology,IwishthatMulliganhadgoneoffabitmoreonhis
ownandtakenmorerisksindevelopinghisstudyofPeter.Ihopehe
will someday expand his brief experiment into a more richly nu
ancedandorganicnovelwithnotesgroupedinthebackofthebook.
Still, Mulligan stays true to his purpose and travels a road that I
hopeotherswillfollow.TheChristiancommunityneedsmorebooks
like this that can invite us into the sacred narrative while equipping
ustoengagetheNewTestamentinacriticalmannerthatisunafraid
toborrowinsightsfrommultipledisciplinesandmultipleapproach
es.Mulliganhasofferedusagoodstart.

Louis Markos (www.Loumarkos.com), Professor in
Engl ish and Schol ar in Residence at Houston Baptist
University, hol ds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities;
his books incl ude From Achi l l es t o Chri s t : Why Chri s t i ans Shoul d
Read t he Pagan Cl as s i cs , On t he Shoul ders of Hobbi t s : The Road t o
Vi rt ue wi t h Tol ki en and Lewi s , and Li t erat ure: A St udent s Gui de.
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FEMINISM &
THE ART OF
MODESTY
[the0youth0cult{
Megan Mueller
The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made
America Stylish, by Li nda Przybys zews ki , Bas i c Books , 2014.
he American cult of youth has held a stranglehold on
popular standards of female beauty for at least the last
fifty years. American women are afraid of aging, and
theyredoingeverythingintheirpowertodelay,hide,or
denyitsonset.Cosmeticsurgeryisamultibilliondollar
industry;thedreadedwindowofyearsconsideredmiddleagehas
been pushed back from forty to sixty. Flip through a department
storeadvertisementorwalkthroughthemall,andyoullquicklysee
that there are few differences between clothing options offered to
preteensandthosepeddledtotheirgrandmothers.Ageappropriate
clothing for older women is such a novelty that companies like Not
YourDaughtersJeanslocatealltheirbrandpowerinonesadreality:
a clothing company offering designs intentionally made for mature
womenisarareone.
C.S. Lewis addresses this unfortunate attitude many women have
towardbeautyandaginginTheLastBattle.WhenQueenSusandoes
not appear with the other Pevensie siblings in Aslans country, it is
revealed that in addition to no longer believing their adventures in
Narnia were real, Susan wasted all her school time wanting to be
the age she is now, and shell waste all the rest of her life trying to
staythatage.Herwholeideaistoraceontothesilliesttimeofones
T
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life as quick asshe canand thenstop there aslong as shecan. Her
understandingofrealityandbeautyisstunted;sheonlyseesbeauty
inasmallwindowofherlife,andlimitsherselftoreplicatingafleet
ingphaseratherthanacceptingtherobustrealitythatcomeswiththe
fullnessoftime.

he Lost Art of Dress celebrates the first half of the twentieth

century as a time when America embraced this robust reality
byusingclothingtoexpresstheparticularaspectsofeachsea
son of a womans life. This accomplished two things. First, it meant
that women of every age and size were given flattering, practical
clothing options. Second, there was a distinct comingofage narra
tive embedded in American culture through clothing that gave
young women something to look forward to as they moved beyond
youth.Thismeantthatfromgirlhoodtooldage,womenwereshown
howtodressinawaythatexpressedthebestqualitiesofeachphase
oflife.Theprinciplethatguidedwomensweardesignwassimplici
ty for early youth, added luxury for the girl or woman in the twen
ties, splendor for maturity, and suitability with stately magnificence
forage.Asanindividualchangedbothphysicallyandmentally,the
clothing she wore allowed her to express that change aesthetically
andwithdignity.
In the late 19th century, women began taking on new roles, and
this affected the way they presented themselves. Some of these
changesweredirectlyrelatedtothesocialworkwomenwerepursu
ing. Author Linda Przybyszewski (pronounced preberSHEFFskee)
points out hemlines may never have stopped sweeping the floor
without sanitation clubs discovering in 1870 that urban streets were
teemingwithbacteria.Thismarkedthefirsttimethatthefemalefoot
was visible in Western fashion, but the radical fourinch hemline
hike encouraged by ladies clubs was rightly done in the name of
publichealth.
Other changes came as women were slowly incorporated into the
workforce and given the right to vote; as these new responsibilities
thrustwomenintowhathadformerlybeenamansworld,womens
fashionbegantofusebeautywithutilityinunprecedentedways.The
the Dress Doctorsas Przybyszewski calls themdid away with
the Sshaped exaggerated hourglass figure of the 19th century and
the debilitating corsets that had crushed ribs, restricted breathing,
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and prevented rigorous movement. Its replacement, the firm but
flexible girdle, molded the figure while allowing its wearer to
breatherelativelyfreelyandenjoyathleticpursuitsanotherpastime
newlyavailabletowomen.
This was a time when the girls and teens of America looked for
ward to growing up, because they lived in a world where female
maturitymeantnewopportunitiesandexperiencesthatwerereflect
edbyanewwardrobe.Intheearly20thcenturyinparticular,when
women were still relishing their newfound freedoms in the voting
booth,theoffice,andonthetenniscourt,theseopportunitiesandthe
new clothing appropriate for them signaled to young girls that a
bright future of social responsibilities inside and outside the home
wasnowwaitingforthem.
Przybyszewski claims that we owed this understanding of wom
anhood and aging to the Home Economics teachers who instructed
thousands of female high school and college graduates from 1900
until1960.Theywereaccomplishedacademicsgiventheopportunity
tojoinuniversitiesasfacultyatatimewhennoothersuchpositions
were available to women, and they used their varied fields of study
tocombinehardsciencesandtheartstoelevatehomelifetoitsright
fulplaceinAmericansociety.HomeEconomicsdepartmentchairsat
universitieslikeColumbiahadearneddoctoratesinphysics,molecu
lar biology, and architecture. These diverse experts made huge con
tributions to the fields of food preservation and textile manufactur
ing, in both cases presenting research that greatly aided Americas
preparationforWorldWarII.
HomeEconomicsprofessorsalsotaughtAmericanwomentosew.
Inatimewhenbuyingadressofftherackwasvirtuallyunheardof
for the average women, Dress Doctors armed women with strong
training in garment construction, fabric types, and the principals of
design. They fused practicality with aesthetics and encouraged
womentoconsidertheirclothingchoicesbothadailyparticipationin
artandanopportunitytoresponsiblyrepresentthemselvesandtheir
sexinthepublicsphere.Ratherthanurgingwomentocombataging,
theyencouragedwomentoenjoythefreedomsandmaturitythatage
broughtand the clothing, like draped evening gowns, furs, and
fragile fabrics like silk, that only older women could wear. When
dress was considered a physical indicator of time of life, aging had
nonegativestigma;rather,awomanslateryearsweretriumphedas
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her glorious autumn when the grace, allure, and sophistication
thatcamefromwomanhoodgreatlyimprovedherqualityoflife.
Inoursociety,whichonlyrecognizesonephaseoflifeasdesirable,
aging is feared. Gone are the draped, luxurious styles exclusively
worn by sophisticated women in their midthirties; gone are the re
galoutfitsreservedfortheworldlyandwisematronsoversixty.In
stead,Americanwomenarelargelyencouraged,likeSusan,tospend
theirearlylivesracingtowardseventeenonlytospendthenextfive
tosevendecadestryingtostaythere.

n addition to a Notre Dame associate professor in history,
Przybyszewskiisalsoamasterseamstress,andherknowledgeof
the craft proves thoroughly helpful in this fashion history crash
course.Shecarefullywalksthereaderthroughclothingterminology
and the trends of decades past, and while background information
about the fashion world makes a clearer picture, this book can be
easily enjoyed by those looking to dip their toes into the subject for
the first time. Her wit is sharp, as it should be to properly criticize
some of the terrible fashion fads to which American women have
fallenprey;herpassionforbeautyandutilityindailylifeiscompel
ling.
Whileitmaybetoomuchtoexpectacompletedeparturefromthe
current youthworshipping sartorial state of this nation any time
soon, The Lost Art of Dress looks forward to a time when the lessons
of the early 20th century are once again heeded by women seeking
meaningful beauty no matter their age. The books arguments can
also be applied to a number of current battlegrounds, perhaps most
notably to recent evangelical conflicts over how to teach modesty
and purity in churches. Though fads come and go and expectations
shift, clothing has always been and will always be a litmus test that
revealsthevaluesandmindsetofasociety.Withalittleluck,voices
likePrzybyszewskiswillwinout,andbringwomenbacktoanaes
thetic, wellcrafted beauty in dress that is firmly rooted in social re
sponsibilityandpersonalworth.

Megan Mueller is the director of the Learning Center at
Houston Baptist University.
I
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READING
TOLKIENS
BEOWULF
[understanding0intent{
Holly Ordway
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, by J . R. R.
Tol ki en, ed. by Chri s t opher Tol ki en, Harcourt 2014.
is vivid personal evocation of a longvanished
worldas it was perceived by the author of Beo
wulf. Such is Christopher Tolkiens description of
his fathers newly published translation and com
mentary, and it sets the right tone for approaching
thisnewvolume.J.R.R.TolkiensBeowulfisaverygoodthingindeed,
but we must know what Tolkien intended it to be before we can
rightlyappreciateit.
ThefactthatTolkienstranslationwasunpublishedduringhislife
time tells us nothing as to its quality or suitability for publishing.
Tolkienwasbothaprocrastinatorandaperfectionist;itissomething
ofamiraclethatanythinghewrotesawpublication.Mostfamously,
The Lord of the Rings would probably never have been completed
had it not been for the encouragement of his friend C.S. Lewis. He
revised The Silmarillion endlessly. Even his complete and polished
translation of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight was released posthumously, because Tolkien never finished
writingtheintroduction.
ItshouldthuscomeasnosurprisethattheworkspublishedinTol
kienslifetimearethetipoftheicebergofhisoverallbodyofwork.It
is worth noting that even the most recent volumes, such as Sigurd
H
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andGudrunandTheFallofArthur,arenotrepackagedoutofprint
material,butarecompletelyunpublishedmaterial.
The Beowulf translation is finished in the sense that Tolkien had,
by 1926, completed a translation of the entire poem; however, as
Christopher Tolkien outlines in his introduction to the translation,
Tolkien continued to modify it, and there is no single final manu
script, but rather three manuscripts with a complex relationship to
each other. Furthermore, the extensive commentary is drawn from
notfromacompletemanuscriptofitsown,butfromhisfathersex
tensivelecturenotes.
The editorial work here is excellent, generally striking a good bal
ancebetweentheinterestsofscholarsandamorepopularaudience.
The supporting material is well chosen. In addition to the commen
tary,thisvolumeincludesthestorySellicSpell,Tolkiensimagined
reconstruction of the mythological element of the Beowulf story,
and two versions of The Lay of Beowulf, a poem in rhymed stan
zas that shows how the story could be adapted into different forms.
TheoneinexplicableandglaringomissionisTolkienspartialtransla
tionofBeowulfintoalliterativeverse.
Tolkiens commentary would have been well worth publishing
evenwithoutanaccompanyingtranslation.Herehedemonstrateshis
ownsensitivitytocontext,culture,andthenuancesofmeaning,even
when,asissometimesthecase,heneglectedtoupdatehistranslation
toreflectalaterconclusion.Forinstance,arguingagainstthetransla
tionwhaleroad,hewrites:

The word as kenning therefore means dolphins riding, i.e. in full, the wa-
tery fields where you can see dolphins and lesser members of the whale-
tribe playingThat is the picture and comparison the kenning was meant
to evoke. It is not evoked by whale-roadwhich suggests a sort of semi-
submarine steam-engine running along submerged metal rails over the At-
lantic.

Most notably, his commentary provides valuable insight into the

balance between historical and mythological material, and the ten
sion between the Christian content and the pagan setting. The Beo
wulfpoet has set his poem in a deliberately pagan past, and has
made his characters monotheists who had not heard the Gospel,
knew of the existence of Almighty God, recognized him as good
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and the giver of all good things; but were (by the Fall) still cut off
fromHim.However, Tolkieninsiststhatthepoetisnotsimplyig
noring Christian teaching, but is engaging with it in a distinctive
way: The poem belongs to the time of that great outburst of mis
sionaryenterprisewhichfiredallofEnglandBeowulfisnotamis
sionaryallegory;butitcomesfromatimewhenthenoblepaganand
his heroic ancestors (enshrined in verse) were a burning contempo
raryproblem,athomeandabroad.
Tolkiens discussion of these questions as they apply to Beowulf
mayalsoyieldinsightintohisowncreativeprocessinTheLordofthe
Rings, which is likewise a deeply Christian work set in an imagined
preChristian culture. Furthermore, Tolkiens analysis on specific
points in Beowulf suggests that it may be fruitful to consider paral
lels between characters such as Unferth/Wormtongue, Hroth
gar/Thoden,andevenWealtheow/Galadriel.

hatofthetranslation?Itsstylisticfaultsareevident,yetit
remainsalivelyread.Atitsworst,itisawkwardandstilt
ed,withstylebeingsacrificedforaccuracy.Here,though,
itisimportanttorecognizethatTolkiendidnotmakethistranslation
for its own sake, but rather as an aid to his lecturing on Beowulf at
Oxford. The pedagogical context for the translation explains Tol
kiens overarching concern for total accuracy. He is not even at
tempting a poetic translation, but is trying to convey precisely what
wasoriginallyexpressedbythepoet.Evenonatechnicallevelthisis
bynomeansaneasytask,sincetheBeowulfmanuscriptisdamaged
in parts and also has various difficulties in the text likely caused by
scribal errors; many of the notes showcase Tolkien as a linguistic
problemsolver.
Furthermore, although most recent translations render the poem
into fully modern English to make it more accessible for modern
readers,oneofthestylisticfeaturesoftheoriginalpoemisthepoets
deliberate use of archaic vocabulary. Tolkiens decision to echo that
highstyleinhistranslationmakeshisversionaslowerbutinterest
ing read. What we have in Tolkiens translation is not Beowulf as it
would have been written today, but as it was written in the Anglo
Saxonperiod.
Lewis scholars will find it interesting that Tolkien evidently
showedthemanuscripttoC.S.Lewisforcritique.TheNotesonthe
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text of the Translation include several suggestions certainly in the
handofC.S.Lewis,allfoundinthefirst300linesofthepoem.Lew
isofferedatotalofsixsuggestedemendations,suchastheslayerof
soulsinsteadofthedestroyerofsouls.
At its best, the translation shows Tolkiens considerable gifts as a
writer: many passages beg to be read aloud, demonstrating a vigor,
flow, and rhythm that draw the reader into the pace of the poem.
Here is the description of the entrance of Beowulf and his men to
Heorot:

The street was paved in stone patterns; the path guided those men to-
gether. There shone corslet of war, hard, hand-linked, bright ring of iron
rang in their harness, as in their dread gear they went striding straight into
the hall. Weary of the sea they set their tall shields, bucklers wondrous
hard, against the wall of the house, and sat then on the bench. Corslets
rang, war-harness of men. Their spears stood piled together, seamens
gear, ash-hafted, grey-tipped with steel. Well-furnished with weapons was
the iron-mailed company.

Apassageneartheendofthepoemhasthesamekeennessofvisu
al detail, but feels rougher, probably from following the word order
oftheoriginalAngloSaxonmorerigidly:

Moreover the wise son of Wihstan summoned from the host the kings own
knights, seven in company, men most excellent; now eight warriors in all
they went under the accursd roof, one bearing in his hand a fiery torch,
going forward at their head. No need then to cast lots who should despoil
that hoard, when keeperless those men espied still any portion crumbling
there still; little did any grieve that they in haste brought forth those treas-
ures of great price. The serpent too they thrust over the towering cliff, let
the tide the dragon take, the flowing sea engulf the keeper of fair things.

Ihavetaughtthispoemtoundergraduatesregularlyoverthepast
fewyears,andsoIknowitwell;infact,ithadlostsomeofitsfresh
ness. Tolkiens translation caught me back up into the flow of the
story once again, such that I found myself reading with a sense of
discovery, encountering many passages as if for the first time. Tol
kiensversionhasroughedges,butperhapsitsveryroughnesshelps
Beowulfcomealiveagain.
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Will Tolkiens Beowulf replace Seamus Heaneys as the goto ver
sion?No;norwouldTolkienhaveintendeditto.Willitbeusefulfor
teachersandreadersofBeowulf,alongsideothertranslations?Doesit
belongontheshelvesofTolkien(andLewis)scholars?Willitdelight
and instruct readers of this marvelous poem? The answer to these
latterquestionsisaresoundingyes.

Holly Ordway is the director of the MA in Apol ogetics at
Houston Baptist University. Her work focuses on
imaginative and l iterary apol ogetics, with special attention
to C.S. Lewis and Charl es Wil l iams.
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A Centennial
of Cataclysm
[poetry0and0war{
Tim Goeglein
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In Flanders Fields, John McRae,1915
ne hundred summers ago, one of the greatest calami
ties in all of history commenced in Europe. On June
28,1914,intheBalkancityofSarajevo,nowlocatedin
the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Archduke
Franz Ferdinand ofAustria, and his wife, wereassas
sinated.Theirmurders,inthebackofanopentouringcarwhichhad
made a wrong turn, lit a torch that set off an inglorious chain of
events which would come to include almost every country on that
continentandwellbeyond.
The ineffable cataclysm that became World War I would lead to
whatonepoetandliterarycriticwouldaptlycallthesuicideofEu
rope. The worldwide conflagration set off by those two killings
wouldsetEuropeaflameforthenextfouryears.
ThewriterTheodoreDalrympleevocativelywroteofWorldWarI:
The war smashed up European civilization and sapped Europes
belief in itself: For if the wages of its civilization was such a war,
bloody and muddy carnage on so unimaginable a scale, what price
itscivilization?Thebrutalityofthewar,repletewiththefirstuseof
tanks, poison gas, and guns which could kill on an unprecedented
scale,isalmostbeyondourimaginationnow.
O
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In all of the centennial reflections of World War I, I wonder how
many will actually focus on the most personal impact of that brutal
implosion: the impact it had on the families who had to endure the
deathsandmaimingoftheirlovedonesonanearlymatchlesstrajec
tory? In all the reams and tomes ever written about what became
known as The Great War, why is there comparatively such little at
tention paid to the average mother and father, brother and sister,
grandparent,auntanduncle,nieceandnephew,andhowtheyreact
ed,responded,andindeedcopedwiththedeeplyacutesenseofloss
anddespairthatisalwayswarsaidedecamp?

his all came to mind when I read an important review in The

WallStreetJournalofabiographyononeofthemostimportant
youngpoetstoemergeduringthewar,WilfredOwen.Bornin
1893 in Wales to a lowermiddle class family (his father was a train
stationmaster), he spent his boyhood in three towns: Liverpool,
Shrewsbury,andlittleOswestrysurroundedbylowmountains.Like
so many great poets, he was preternaturally shy despite impressive
literarygiftswhichemergedearlyinhisyounglife.Hedidnotattend
one of the great British universities, like Oxford or Cambridge, but
rather Reading, which was mostly undistinguished and without an
internationalreputation.
Like many children of middle class backgrounds, Owens parents
had great aspirations for their talented son, and his parents nour
ished these abilities tirelessly and from the start. His father was an
amateur but lustrous operatic tenor and his mother had an artistic
bent,takingheryoungsonwithhertoartgalleriesandmuseumsto
deepenhisloveofbeautifulthings.Theirattentiveparentinghadan
impact. Those who knew Owen best said he had an obvious joie de
vivre.Heoncewroteofhimselfthatyouwouldnotknowmeforthe
poetofsorrows.
Embeddeddeeplywiththisartisticabilitywasanequallypowerful
sense of duty. His parents taught their son that attainment without
responsibilitywashollowandlackingdepth;thatcharactertrumped
intellectualachievement.Itwasasetofprincipleshewouldtakewith
himtothebattlefieldsofFranceandultimatelytohisgrave.
Thisconstantparentalnourishingofthisnaturaljoyoflifepaidoff.
In1915,justbeforehejoinedthearmy,Owenwrote:IknowIhave
lived more than my twentyone years, many more; and so have a
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startofmostlives.Whataremarkablyselfreflectivecommentfora
young man. This was not a statement of bravado but rather one of
appreciation and confidenceprecisely the traits he was trained to
embody in his Welsh upbringing. His life was not unlike that of an
otherfamousBritishpoetwhomOwenreveredandreadwithdevo
tion, John Keats. Yet unlike Keats, Owen willingly enlisted, proving
tobeawidelyadmiredandtalentedArmyofficerbutwithaliterary
elan.Hislyricalflairandprobity,alltheseyearslater,helpsconveyto
us,thesheerhorrorandcatastropheofwaranditsimpactononelife
andonefamily.
While stationed near what became known as No Mans Land
those barren, desolate pieces of bombedout ground between the
trenchesoftheBritishandtheFrenchononesideandtheirenemies
theGermansontheotherOwenspoemsandlettersresonateacross
the years with a brokenness, desperation, and an understanding of
thefutilityofwar.HewrotefromFrance:

I suppose I can endure cold, and fatigue, and the face-to-face death, as
well as another; but extra for me there is the universal pervasion of Ugli-
ness. Hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language, and nothing but foul,
even from ones own mouth (for all are devil ridden), everything unnatural,
broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit
outside the dug-outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth.
In poetry we call them the most glorious.

He served for two long years, a period of time alternately defined

byselflessnessandsorrow,disasteranddeath.Those24monthswit
nessed Owen being mercilessly bombarded near the French town of
Saint Quentin in early 1917 and sent home with shellshock. Then,
almost inexplicably, he returned to France where he was engaged in
yetanotherbrutalhandtohandbattlenearthetownofJoncourt,for
which he was awarded the Military Cross. Finally, on November 4,
1918, he met his end, killed while leading his company through the
Ors Canal despite the ceaseless shelling and gunfire that accompa
niedhisandhismensheroicstruggleforwardtoshelter.
Inthemidstofbattle,hewrotetohismother:

All one day we could not move from a small trench, though hour by hour
the wounded were groaning just outside. Three stretcher-bearers who got
up were hit, one by one. I had to order no one to show himself after that,
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but remembering my own duty, and remembering also my forefathers the
agile Welshmen of the mountains I scrambled out myself and felt an exhil-
aration in baffling the Machine Guns by quick bounds from cover to cover.
After the shells we had been through, and the gas, bullets were like the
gentle rain from heaven.

It is difficult to think of the emotions that must have stirred his

parentswhen,ontheverydaythatthewarsarmisticewasdeclared,
andasthebellsintheirsmallWelshvillageweretolling,theylearned
bytelegramthattheir25yearoldson,theireldestchild,hadlosthis
life.HewasthesameageasKeats.
ItisnearlyimpossiblenowtoreadOwensprosewithoutweeping
andfeelingakindofleadensorrowforthepromiseoflifecutshort.
In one of his most solemn, powerful poems, Owen wrote of the
WorldWarIgeneration:

Whatpassingbellsforthosewho
Dieascattle?
Onlythemonstrousangerof
Theguns.
Onlythestutteringriflesrapid
Rattle
Canpatterouttheirhastyorisons.

s the centennial of The Great War approachesthe conflict

President Woodrow Wilson said was a war to end all
warsit is easy to be overwhelmed with the sheer imper
sonal, empirical data of it all: 65 million men worldwide served in
that war; 8 million lost their lives; 21 million were wounded. Five
millionAmericansservedand100,000diedinthetrenches,hospitals,
and shell holes of Europe. It was an implosive war which would be
onlyaprologuetoamuchlonger,deadlieroneonthesamecontinent
justafewyearslater.
Wehaveamoralobligation,itseemstome,nottolosesightofthe
factthat,giantnumbersthoughthoseare,eachwasauniqueperson
madeintheveryimageofGodsomeonesson,husband,grandson,
nephew,friend.
A
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A famous Quaker once presciently observed: Now I think I am
wrong, after all, in saying that you have a soul. Ought I not to say,
youareasoul?Isnotthesoulreallyyourself?Intruth,mychildren,
itisthesoulthathasabody,notthebodythathasasoul;forthesoul
is greater surely than the body, and will last when the body is laid
asideindeath.
A century hence, through the mists of time, we must not forget
whotheywereorwhattheydid.Eachofthem;everysoul.

Tim Goeglein is vice president of Focus on the Famil y.

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The Master of
the Poetic
Deadpan
,the0fun0of0poems<
Micah Mattix
Glitter Bomb: Poems, by Aaron Bel z, Pers ea, 2014.
tisnotuncommonforsocalledavantgardepoetstocomplain
thatnoonereadspoetryanymoreandtoblamecapitalismfor
the lack of interest. Capitalism, it is argued, has commodi
fied language, thus alienating us from ourselves and from
others.Wethinkofourselvesinclichsthathavebeencreated
by the market and act out those clichs by buying all sorts of stuff,
exceptpoetry.
And why not poetry? Because poetrythe real stuff, not the fun,
comfortingverseofBillyCollinssubvertscommodifiedlanguage.It
shows us that we are not footballloving men, fathers, husbands,
goodChristians,loyalmiddlemanagers,andsoforththatthemar
ket has hoodwinked us into using these terms to sell stuff, but that
these words do not express who we are. Poetry shakes us, and we
dont want to be shaken. We dont want to know that weve lived a
lie,thateventheideaoftheselfisalie,andthatweonlyhavemean
ing to the extent that we live in egalitarian communion with others
andnature.Poetryisviolentbecausecapitalismisviolent.
AaronBelzisadifferentsortofavantgardepoet.Hestudiedunder
Allen Ginsberg and Philip Levine, but he is also a Presbyterian (his
family is associated with World Magazine and Covenant College), a
fatherofthree,anentrepreneurandsmallbusinessowner.Whilewe
have, of course, deluded ourselves with all sorts of liesgreed and
the philosophical materialism of Marxism includedBelz refrains
I
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from selfrighteously attacking the bourgeois or subverting in
some pretentious way the lies we tell ourselves. His tools are satire
and selfdeprecating humor. His third collection of poetry, Glitter
Bomb, is an antiselfhelp book wrapped in shimmering plastic. Its
alternatinglyfunandserious,sadandplayful,lonelyandhopeful.In
fact, its a deeply Christian book without ever mentioning Christs
name.
Belz is a master of the poetic deadpan. There is no I in team, he
writesinTeam,buttheresoneinbitterness/andoneinfailure.
AndinInterestingAboutYou,hewrites:Whatsinterestingabout
you/Istheuniquewaysinwhich/Youfailtodistinguishyourself.
Epigrams are traditionally two to four line poems that often offer
wittyconundrums.JohnDonnesepigrams,forexample,relyonclas
sical allusions and logic games. Belzs epigrams, like the two above,
at first seem all surface but end up telling us something about our
selvesinthiscase,thatwearebitterfailures,thatwehaveverylittle
interestintakingonefortheteam,despitethevalueheavyrhetoric
ofcontemporaryyouthsports,thatweareallpreoccupiedwithour
selvesaboveallelse.
Manyofhisotherpoemsworkthesameway.TakeOneStar,for
example, which also begins with wordplay. Of starcrossed lovers
and crosseyed lovers, Belz writes, fate favors the latter; at least
they are together. The distinction between starcrossed and
crosseyed seems merely funny at first. But with one phrase (at
leasttheyaretogether),whichinitiallyseemscampy(Ishereferring
tothecrosseyedloverseyesbeingclosertogether?),Belzmanagesto
say something truethat love is about being together more so than
passionwithout sounding selfconsciously wise. He is, in this
sense,theantiKhalilGibran.
Belz is indebted to Frank OHara, but unlike Ted Berrigan, who
aped OHaras style with little interest in OHaras larger questions,
Belzs poetry reminds us of the way we use language to hide our
loneliness or construct some meaning out of the disparate moments
ofourlives.InAccumulata,Belzasks:

Soyoustringtogetheranumberofmoments
andyoucallitlife?YousayMylife?
Andisthereamomentinwhichyounotice
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thismomentisdisconnectedfromtherest?

And this / being the case, he continues, do you not regard the
darkerdrops:

thedesperatedrops,thedropsofhorror,
dropsoffailure,flatdrops,mingledorrather
inexplicablyinterleavedwiththefunny,
thesunshiny,thenaps,andsee,cantyousee
thatthisisyourordinary?Thatthese,each
andeach,andall,areneithertotalnordefinitive
butarerather,say,Sheleft.Thereisa
momentforit.OrThelastwordsshespoke,
whichhauntsyoulikeabellwhosepeal
continuestoechodowndreams.
Thatthese,noneofthem,willdamnyou.

Here Belz is riffing on the poststructuralist insight (one seconded

by Walker Percy) that we cannot construct a narrative that makes
senseofourselves.Wealwaysleavesomethingout.Yet,weconstruct
themnonethelessinafailedefforttosaveourselves,togiveourselves
a name or a meaning that ignores our failures, and even the many
bittersweet, mingled moments of life. We dont want to be damned
by our failures, and so we write them out of our life, instead of rec
ognizingthatthesemomentscantdamnusifweturntoChrist.
ThisallmakesGlitterBombsoundoverlyserious.Itsnot,or,itisse
rious while having a lot of fun. We have poems like Avatar in
whichBelzwrites:

Bluecomputergraphicswoman
withsmoothcatnose,youare
purer,moreintouchwithnature,
andactuallyquiteabittallerthanI
andalthoughyouvediscovered
thatyoursoulmateisreallyjusta
small,physicallychallengedwhiteguy
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gaspingforairinamobilehome,
youvedecidedtostickwithhim.
Idtakenyouforoneofthoseshallow
pantheisticutopiancartoongiantesses,
butnowIseethatIwaswayoff.

Or Tuberculosis Day, where Belz writes: The acronym / were

goingtouse/forTuberculosisDay/isTBD.
But Belz is too honest to let us off the hook for long. Life is full of
failures.Weare,Belzwrites,

akindofeversettingsunyour
ownlifesmostfamiliarerror,
repeatedinthecompanyofthose
youdhopedwouldloveyoumost.

This is not dishonest bleakness, but an acknowledgement of our

profound fallenness, and of the inability of any languagethe lan
guageofcapitalism,Marxism,orpoetrytosaveus.Thatactbelongs
toGodseternalWordalone.

Micah Mattix is an assistant professor of writing and
l iterature at Houston Baptist University and is the Books
Editor of The City. His bl og on books, arts, and ideas,
Prufrock, can be read at The Ameri can Cons ervat i ve.
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BY THE BABE UNBORN
G.K. Chest ert on
If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.

In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was an Engl ish poet, au-
thor theol ogian, phil osopher, j ournal ist, and much more.
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A REPUBLIC
OF LETTERS
]thoughts0on0the0age}
Hunter Baker
heorganizersoftheQconferencesrecentlyconvenedan
event in Nashville. If you dont know what Q is, all you
really need to do is to think about the TED Talks. Q =
Young evangelical version of TED. An organization of
feredtopaymyentryfee($500),soItooktheopportuni
tytospendaday.
Andy Crouch, a solid Christian writer and executive editor of
ChristianityToday,kickedthingsoffwithwhatIfeltwasaverywin
somepresentationonreligiousliberty.Itwasthekindofpresentation
one would give to an audience who is suspicious of the concept.
Crouchseemedtofeelhewouldneedallofhisgiftstoconvincethis
groupinskinnyjeans,rolledjeans,andcuffedjeansthattheyshould
not want the state to roll right over the conscientious objections
Christians might have to some of its programs. While I thought he
did an excellent job, I was a bit taken aback when Rebekah Lyons
tookthestagetointroducethenexttalkandbrieflyindicatedshewas
gladtohavesuchatensetopicpassby.Itisworrisometothinkthat
youngevangelicalsneedtobecoaxedeversogentlyintogivingreli
giouslibertyahearingandthatsuchcoaxingtakesplaceamidtense
feelings.
In another session, a woman named Donna Freitas came, self
consciously as a Catholic, to talk about the hookup culture. I
agreed with almost everything she said up to a point. She had done
research and found that young people dont really seem to enjoy
hookups. They confess that they would prefer something more like
traditional dating witha strongeremotional connection. Itwould be
wise, she thought, to gently suggest that maybe you dont hook up
T
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this weekend. Maybe you give it a rest this month. Maybe you ask
someone out on a real date.All good. But she flashed a big sign on
theultrawidescreenthatread,Christianityisbiggerthanitsteach
ingonpremaritalsex.Freitasassertedthatonecannotsimplycon
front hookup culture with purity culture. Translating herself, she
argued that it is not possible to present abstinence as the alternative
to young people participating in the hookup culture. I think she is
wrong about that, at least in terms of speaking to the church. If we
cant present fundamental ideas about sin and holiness, then that
would also mean that we cant present Jesus Christ. Better in my
view to take a strong stand as the church and to insist on the real
pursuitofholiness.Goaheadandputarealalternativeonthetable.
The strongest critique of the church is not that it has the wrong ide
als,butratherthatitdoesnotliveuptothem.So,letusputahigher
premiumonholinessandletusmodelitfortheworld.
PaulLimofVanderbiltUniversityofferedatalkonwhatitisliketo
be something of a double agent at his school. On the one hand, he
answerstothekingdomofChrist.Ontheother,hehastoberespon
sibletoVanderbilt.Thetwoarenotcoextensive.Thesecularacademy
does not have the same scale of values the church does. But is there
some common good after which we both seek? Though he did not
havetimetodeveloptheimplicationsofthatquestiontoomuchfur
ther,itwasthefundamentalthemeoftheconference.Whythefocus
on the common good? I am sure James Davison Hunters book To
Change the World was a motivating force for the conference organiz
ers.Hunterclearlyemphasizedtheneedtohelpthesecularworldsee
that evangelicals are also interested in the wellbeing of the commu
nity and that we should not be seen as a tribe of people who care
aboutgettingwhattheywant.Trueenough.
But here is the problem. The common good is made out of 80%
(and thats being conservative) propositions. Lets wipe out malaria.
Absolutely. Lets prevent sex trafficking. Who would disagree with
that? Lets prevent child abuse. Right on. We can agree with every
oneaboutthesethings.Thesearenotthematters,though,whichsep
arateus.Whatseparateusarethethingsthatalreadyhavebeenand
remainthebigcontroversiesinourculture.Whatistheproperplace
for sex in a relationship? Big disagreement with the dominant cul
ture there. What is marriage? Again, a substantial cleavage. When
does life begin? Look, its the trifecta! These fundamental debates
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are not easily resolved by a focus on the common good. It turns out
thattherearesomeratherlargematterswhichremainhotlydisputed
andmanyofthosearedisputedbyChristiansasChristians.Empha
sizing the common good in a Christian conference will not make
thosethingsgoaway.Andchangingourfocusawayfromthesedivi
sive matters will only make matters worse as we will lose momen
tuminthosebattlesandleavetheremainingfightersisolated,dispir
ited,marginalized,andweakened.
What I am suggesting is that the battle is where the battle is. We
might wish that we didnt have to occupy the culturally disfavored
position on gay marriage. We would prefer not to be so unhip as to
arguethatyoungpeopleshouldnothavesexoutsideofmarriage.We
dont want to highlight the truth that abortion kills unborn children
andthatanyscientificambiguitythatthereeverwasonthatmatteris
well resolved in favor of life by virtue of whatwe see with our own
eyes. More broadly, we dont want to keep insisting that human be
ings are fallen creatures who live in sin and are hopeless without
JesusChrist.
When I look at Q, its hosts, and the young people participating in
it,IsuspectIamseeingtheculturalstanceofthosewhohavegrown
up in pervasively Christian subcultures. For them, rebelling means
rebelling against Massive Baptist Church or Church Related Univer
sity or Clearly Wealthy Famous Preacherman. Those are the holders
ofpowerintheirworld.Itislittlewondertothemthatthedominant
culture dislikes us. We are hypocrites. We dont measure up to our
own standards. And we are judgmental while the secular world is
moreunderstanding.Orsoitseemstothem.
But things look different from where I stand. I grew up as main
stream as mainstream gets. The big television networks, Sports Illus
trated (and its swimsuit issue), People Magazine, Dave Lettermans
show, the newspaper funny pagesthese are the influences that
thoroughlydefinedmyviewoftheworld.IwasawareofChristiani
tyinatypicalAmericanandsouthernway,butitwasjustagiven.It
wasnt anything I was very interested in or excited about. It was a
culturalartifact.
WhenIwenttoFloridaStateandmovedintoadormoncampus,a
coupleofbigthingshappened.First,Isawthewaypeoplelivewhen
theyliveinathoroughlyworldlymanner.Thedrugs,thealcohol,the
casualsex,thetreatmentofyoungwomen,thelivingforparties,etc.
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Second, I met the first really intentional Christians Id ever known
through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. They were serious. They
talked about Jesus Christ as a real person in their lives. They didnt
live a party lifestyle. They saved sex for marriage. They were inter
ested in reading the Bible carefully and learning about theologians.
Andtheywerereallyjusttotallyandobviouslydifferentfromevery
one else on campus. I was impressed. And when I finally joined
them, I felt as though I stepped from a meaningless life with no fu
ture into something real and vital and with a destiny to it. For that
reason, I was then and am now perfectly willing to be seen as other
andalienbythedominantculture.
I think the kids who grew up in the Christian subculture often
donthavethatsameperspective.Theyaretiredofbeingdifferent,of
fighting against broad cultural currents. They can just fight against
evangelicalism by somehow reprising the fundamentalistmodernist
controversyinanewway.Andthegreatthingis,theykeeponefoot
in the world of faith and one in the more fashionable world. But
those two feet are differently situated. One stands on a dock. The
other on a boat slowly drifting away. A choice is imminent. Where
willtheybestandingtenyearsfromnow?
:
Given the rapid change in culture, Christians will have to sort out
where they are on gay marriage. I suggest the following as a guide
forreflection.
OptionOne:Gaymarriageiswrongboththeologicallyandpoliti
cally. Neither the Jewish nor Christian faiths can be twisted into af
firming it theologically. (Andrew Sullivan agrees.) Without male
femalecomplementarity,politicswouldnotevenexist.Nocommuni
ty without that complementarity would even have a future. Male
femalemarriageandchildbearingareattheheartofpolitics.
OptionTwo:Gaymarriageisclearlywrongtheologically.Thereis
nowhere for the church to go on the issue. However, the aspirations
ofpoliticscanbedifferentthantheaspirationsoffaith.Onepossibil
ity would be to say that adults are free persons who have to make
theirownmoralchoicesandthoseshouldntberegulatedwhenthey
dontdirectlyinterferewiththelivesofothers.
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Option Three: We can simply make a new decision theologically
about gay marriage. Maybe we can even find a way to reinterpret
sexuality within the Christian context. We can solve the theological
problem.Andpolitically,thereisnoproblem.Politicsisaboutmajori
tiesandthenewmajorityismovingswiftlyintoplace.
WhatdoesitallmeanforChristians?Iwouldsuggestthatfaithful
Christianscanfindthemselvesembracingeitheroptiononeoroption
two,butthatoptionthreeisnotavailabletoanyonewithanyreason
ableconcernfororthodoxy.
:
Imalwaysintriguedbythethingsmysonsays.Weweretalking
abouttimetravel.Isuggesteditwouldbeinterestingifyoucould
timetraveltothecreationofAdamandEve.Hesaid,Thatwouldbe
impossible.Iaskedwhy.Hesaid,BecauseIamasinfulbeingand
sinfulbeingswerenotpermittedintheGardenofEden.
:
Bynow,virtuallyeveryonehastakennoteofthegiganticfallofone
DonaldSterling,whoisabillionaireandtheowneroftheLosAnge
les Clippers. The Clippers, usually not worthy of much note, have
beenplayoffcontendersthisyearwhiletheirhometowncompetition,
the LosAngeles Lakers, have not. Sterlings girlfriend recorded him
making racist comments. In consequence, the National Basketball
Associationhastakentheunprecedentedstepofbanninghimforlife
and fining him $2.5 million. It is highly likely that he will be pres
suredintosellingthefranchise.
AlloftheactionintheSterlingspectaclerevolvesaroundhishisto
ryregardingrace.Hewasknowntotreatminoritiesbadlywhenthey
were tenants of his companies.And now that he has been recorded
speakingillofMagicJohnson,hisstatusasaracistcannolongereas
ilybeignored.Eventhoughhehadmanagedtoessentiallypurchase
recognition from the NAACP in the past, his words were explosive
enoughtooverwhelmwhathedbeenabletoachievewithhischeck
book.Butthereissomethingthatnoone,really,istalkingabout.
How did Donald Sterlings attitude come to light? The answer is
thathisgirlfriendrecordedaconversationhehadwithher.Andthat
isthethingthathasbeenmissedintheswirlingcontroversy.Donald
Sterling is a married man. In an interview with ESPNs Colin Cow
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herd, Larry King noted with some disapproval the way Sterling ap
peared at games with his mistresses, but for the most part Sterlings
serialinfidelityhasbeendismissedasamatterofverylittleimport.
ItseemstomethattheSterlingstorytellsusagreatdealaboutour
culture today. Donald Sterlings poor treatment of minority tenants
didntsinkhim.Hisrepeated,intheface,cheatingonhiswifewasnt
thecauseofthetsunamiofdisapprovalandpunishmentheisexperi
encingtoday.No,itwasthefactthathespokeinanuglywayabout
Magic Johnson that sunk him beneath the waves. The impact of all
thisisdispiriting.
We place extraordinarily little value on marriage today. I am not
sure how it happened that saying something mean and stupid be
cameasinathousandtimesworsethancheatingononesspouse,but
that is howit is now.Itwould be better for us as a nation if outrage
had been directed at Sterling much, much earlier. He thought he
could do anything, including bringing mistresses to games. Nobody
cared.
I have a theory for why things turned out as they did. Weve lost
muchofoursenseofrightandwrong.Wedontknowwhatmarriage
is.Wecantmakeoutthedifferencebetweenlegitimatebusinessand
takingadvantage.Theonlythingwearereallysureaboutisthatrac
ism is wrong. So, we scream pretty loud when someone crosses the
line.Racismseemstohavebecomesomethingclosetoourlasttaboo.
But the lessons being learned in this nasty business are all the
wrong ones. There is little about this affair that would lead to right
eousness. Rather, the lessons are more like trust no one and if you
thinkbadthings,makesureyoudonttellanybody.
:
As I drove in to work I heard a media personality offering his
views on life, the universe, and everything. On this day he dwelt at
lengthontheissueofsocialresponsibility.
Doyouthinkacertainpillarofthecommunityisagoodandhon
estman?Notsofast,thismanobjected.Whatifturnsoutthathehas
engaged in insider trading? And did you criticize Tiger Woods for
maritalinfidelity?Howdoyouknowthatyourfavoriteathleteisnot
likewiseinvolvedinsuchactivitiesorworse?Doyoumakeaneffort
to drink fair trade coffee because you are concerned for the eco
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nomic situation of growers and workers in the developing world?
Dontyouknowthatthereisnostandarddefinitionoffairtradein
thecoffeebusiness?Itsjustawaytogetmoremoneyfromyou.Mo
rality,socialresponsibility?Bah,justmarketing!
Wecouldgooninthisvein.Ithaseverbeenapopularendeavorto
undermine good deeds and those who perform them, thus proving
that no one, anywhere, is really worthy of emulation or admiration.
Sogiveup,already!
I once sat in a St. Louis donut shop with my wife and children.A
group of senior citizens sat nearby and talked as they enjoyed their
coffee. One of the old men smiled as he talked about how it had re
cently been his brothers birthday. He said his brother was a priest
and never had much money. He had been pleased to send the poor
priest a little something to spend on himself for his birthday. It was
clear that he was proud of his siblings commitment to a life of pov
erty and charity. This simple statement about a good life lived by a
member of the clergy was too much for another man at the table to
allow to stand. He immediately jumped in with a reminder about
priestswhohavemolestedchildren.Itwasimportantforhimtoscat
tersomedirtaround.
LetusyieldthepointthatnohumanbeingthissideofJesusChrist
has lived aperfect life. Let us further admit that eventhe very good
man or woman that you know has at some point in the past done
something wrong or maybe will do something wrong tomorrow.
Perhapswewouldbehorrifiedbytheinnerstrugglegoingoninside
thebestpersonweknow.
Butthelogichereisallwrong.ThosewhoargueinthewayIhave
described are basically engaged in a cancerous project. They try to
keepusfromholdingourselvestoahigherstandardoremulatingthe
good acts of others by constantly reminding us that we may just all
be suckers. The real message is something like this: Dont deny
yourself anything or make sacrifices for others. You think its noble,
butitisnt.Itsjustabigcon.Nobodyreallykeepspromisesorhonors
commitmentswhenitisnttotheiradvantage.
Such people tell themselves that they are giving us thehard truth,
buttheyaredeceivingthemselvesandothers.Itisnogreatinsightto
knowthattheworldisfullofdirty,selfdealingbehavior.Butwealso
know something better.It is foolishto mistake the evil men do for a
guidetoliving.
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:
I was raised with as great an emphasis upon respecting my elders
as you can have. This is another way of saying I was raised in the
southandinthesouthernway.ThoughIaminmyforties,Iamcon
stitutionally unable to refer to older men in authority by their first
names. The scholar Ralph Wood recently invited me to call him by
hisfirstname,Ihadtobegoffsoasnottodestroymydigestion.
Nevertheless,asateenagermyprideroseupwithinmeandmyre
spect for older persons plummeted. I still remember with embar
rassment the time when I told my sister that we had surpassed
mom and dad. Happily, it was a temporary effect, but I observe it
today among other young people and have wondered what is the
causeofit.
After thinking about it for some time, I think I have the answer.
When young people look at adults, they see them as fixed in their
positions. You are a secretary. You are a teacher. You are a vice
principal who wears out of date French cuffs to the prom. You are
managing a restaurant. It doesnt matter what or who you are. Your
cakeisbaked.Atleastthatsthewaytheyoungpersontendstoseeit.
They, on the other hand, live in a world of possibility. In your case,
we have solved for x, but in their case x remains an open question.
The young still hold out billionaire, celebrity, American Idol, and
TonyStarkaspossibleoutcomesintheirownlives.
Asaresult,whenmanyyoungpeoplemeasurethemselvesagainst
adults, they compare their x versus the adults x and find that un
knownxlargelytrumpsdefinedx.Inotherwords,ifImaybegreater
thanyou,thenIllassumeIprobablyamgreaterthanyou.Andifthat
is so, why should I respect you, listen to you, accept your authority
overme,etc.?
Respectisamatterofalgebra.
:
Jerry Brown is the governor of California. Jerry Brown has always
beengovernorofCalifornia.JerryBrownwillalwaysbethegovernor
of California. California is Jerry Brown.And Jerry Brown is Califor
nia.
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ThoughJerryBrownsfatheronceappearedtobegovernorofCali
fornia,hisgovernorshipwasonlyapparentandonlyatrusteeshipof
sorts for the true occupant of the office, Jerry Brown. Pat Brown
could not actually execute the office belonging naturally to Jerry
Brown, but he took it as a duty imposed by the universe to serve as
governor until Jerry Brown could fully manifest in his gubernatorial
form.
(Some may mistakenly believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger was
oncegovernorofCalifornia,theyareconfusedbythefilmTotalRecall
in which the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited a virtual reality
shop and was there convinced that he was the governor of Califor
nia.)
In due time, California will be known more properly by its true
name:JerryBrownifornia.
:
When I was a young child (grade school age), my parents spent a
fewyearsatthelocalEpiscopalchurch.Iwasactuallybaptizedthere
when my sister was christened as an infant. (I have since been bap
tizedasanadultaftermyconversion.)ThoughIdidnotunderstand
muchaboutchurchatthattime,Itendedtospendthehourslooking
at the stained glass thatfilled the two long sides of the chapel. How
many times did I stare at the woman wiping Christs feet with her
hair?
SometimeagomyfatherandIventureddowntowntoeatatanew
pizza place. I wanted to walk around and take in the sights around
mysmallhomecity.Therewasthechurchwehadattended.Wetried
togetin,butthedoorstothechapelwerelocked.Iwanderedaround
until I found an open door. After I explained my desire to see the
inside of the chapel to the secretary, she found the priest. He was a
youngguywithredhairandbeard.Wewenttogetherintothesmall
sanctuary.
The beautiful stained glass was still there. So, too, was the rich,
darkwoodofthepewsandthearchedceiling.IaskedifIcouldtake
somepictures.Hewelcomedmetodoso.Webegantalkingaboutthe
beautyofthechurchandhowitaidsinworshipbytransportingthe
mind toward the transcendent. I told him my pet theory that young
people will want more liturgy and worship and less emphasis on
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preaching because preaching is content and content is available 247
onyourphone,inthecar,whilewalking,etc.(Thepreachersareris
ingupagainstmeastheyreadthisbit.Forgiveme!)
It was a pleasant conversation and it was good to be in that place
withahallowedfeeling.ButthenheaddressedtheonethingIhoped
hewouldnottalkabout,whichhasbecomeanewgospelformanyin
theEpiscopalchurch.Hetalkedaboutgaymarriage,itsinevitability,
andouracceptanceofitinthechurch.Ifeltitwasthewrongmoment
forhimtobringthatup.MaybehewantedtoseeifIknewthesecret
handshake.Inanycase,nomoretimetobaskinmemories.Maintain
ing a cheerful demeanor, I thanked him for allowing me into the
chapel,andwalkedoutintothebrightsunofthespringafternoon.
After I left, I wondered whether I should have engaged the ques
tionwithhim.Icouldhaveworkedthroughoneofmyhobbyhorses,
which is that while there is room to talk about gay marriage in the
contextofpolitics(alibertarianturnofsorts),thereisnowheretogo
ontheissuetheologically.ImighthavesaidwithMartinLutherKing,
Jr. that the church must be a thermostat (something that affects the
environment)ratherthanathermometer(somethingthatsimplytells
youwhattheenvironmentis).
Buttotellyouthetruth,Iwasalittleheartsickandinnomoodto
dispute.
:
Every now and then I return to a powerful, little book by Thomas
Howard from 1967. The title is Christ the Tiger. There is something
greataboutthename.
Theauthorwrotememorablyaboutanarchitectfriendofhis:

He worried me because he loved God and life at the same time. It had
alwaysbeenoneortheotherforme.WhenIhadtriedtopursueGod,I
hadfledfromlife.Whenlifebegantobedazzling,IhadletGodslip.I
wouldhavecalledhisvoluptuouszestforlifepaganexceptthatitwas
not only matched by his appetite for God: it was part of it. He loved
heraldry and John Donne and St. Benedict and fourcentered arches
andbeerandtheMassandbodiesandBachwithnoneoftheusualti
miditybroughttothesethingsbyreligiouspeople.Ihadfelttherewas
a point at which joy becomes indecorous and that religious categories
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asked that one become too enthusiastic about anything short of God,
whom I understood to be a spirit. I was jarred to discover that my
friendhadnodichotomyinhismindbetweenspiritualthingsandoth
erthings.

Upon reading the passage, one may not be surprised to learn that
Howard eventually became a Catholic. Tiberswimming is not my
point, so forgive a little Roman particularity on the authors part.
What I love about this brief text is the full integration of life it sug
gests.Amanorwomanofintegrityisapersonwhoisintegrated.
Bytheway,doyouknowwhoIthinkaboutwhenIreadthatpas
sage?IthinkofBillBuckley.
:
Little GraceBaker disapproved ofApril Fools Day.Its justlying,
Daddy!

Hunter Baker serves as Dean of Instruction and associate
professor of pol itical science at Union University. He is
the author of two books, The End of Secul ari s m and Pol i t i cal
Thought : A St udent s Gui de. You can read more at his website,
endofsecul arism.com.









The Word
+


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4THE`WORD`SPOKEN$
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I n each vol ume of THE CI TY, we repri nt a pas s age f rom great l eaders
of t he f ai t h. Here we pres ent a s ermon del i vered by t he great Bapt i s t
preacher Charl es Haddon Spurgeon, del i vered on Jul y 3rd, 1890 at t he
Met ropol i t an Tabernacl e i n London, where he was mi ni s t er f rom 1854-
1892. It was part of a s eri es of s ermons on Eccl es i as t es , i n t hi s cas e
Chapt er 11 vers e 4: He t hat obs ervet h t he wi nd s hal l not s ow; and he
t hat regardet h t he cl ouds s hal l not reap.

owwhenthetimecomes,whateverwindblows.Reapwhenthe
timescomes,whatevercloudsareinthesky.Thereare,howev
er, qualifying proverbs, which must influence our actions. We
are not to discard prudence in the choice of the time for our work.
Toeverythingthereisaseason,andatimeforeverypurposeunder
heaven.Itiswelltosowwhentheweatherispropitious.Itiswiseto
make hay while the sun shines. Cut your corn when there is the
probabilityofgettingitdry.
But Solomon here is pushing the other side of the matter. He had
seenprudenceturntoidleness;hehadnoticedsomepeoplewaitfor
amoreconvenientseason,whichnevercame.Hehadobservedslug
gardsmakingexcuses,whichdidnotholdwater.Sohe,withablunt
word, generalizes, in order to make the truth more forcible. Not
troubling about the exceptions to the rule, he states it broadly thus:
Takenonoticeofwindsorclouds.Goonewithyourworkwhatever
happens. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that re
gardeththecloudsshallnotreap.
The first thought that is suggested by these words is this: natural
difficultiesmaybeundulyconsidered.Amanmayobservethewind,and
regardthecloudsagreatdealtoomuch,andsoneithersownorreap.
Note here, first, that in any work this would hinder a man. In any
labour to which we set our hand, if we take too much notice of the
difficulties, we shall be hindered in it. It is very wise to know the
difficulty of your calling, the sorrow which comes with it, the trial
whicharisesoutofit,thetemptationconnectedtherewith;butifyou
thinktoomuchofthesethings,thereisnocallingthatwillbecarried
onwithanysuccess.Poorfarmers,theyhaveacropofhayandcan
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notgetitin;theymayfretthemselvestodeathiftheylike,andnever
earnapennyforasevenyearsfretting!Wesayoftheircallingthatit
is surrounded with constant trouble. They may lose everything just
atthemomentwhentheyareabouttogatheritin.Theseedmayper
ish under the clods when it is first sown. It is subject to blight and
mildew,andbird,andworm,andIknownotwhatbeside;andthen,
at the last, when the farmer is about to reap the harvest, it may dis
appearbeforethesicklecancutit.
Take the case of the sailor. If he regards winds and clouds, will he
everbeputtosea?Canyougivehimapromisethatthewindwillbe
favourable in any of his voyages, or that he will reach his desired
haven without a tempest? He that observeth the winds and clouds,
will not sail; and he that regardeth the clouds will never cross the
mightydeep.Ifyouturnfromthefarmerandthesailor,andcometo
thetrader,whattradesmanwilldoanythingifheisalwaysworrying
aboutthecompetition,andaboutthedifficultiesofhistrade,whichis
so cut up that there is no making a living by it? I have heard this, I
think, about every trade, and yet our friends keep on living, and
some of them get rich, when they are supposed to be losing money
everyyear!Hethatregardeththeriseandfallofprices,andistimid,
andwilldonotradingbecauseofthechangesonthemarket,willnot
reap.
Ifyoucometotheworkingman,itisthesameaswiththoseIhave
mentioned;forthereisnocallingoroccupationthatisnotsurround
ed with difficulties. In fact, I have formed this judgment from what
friends have told me, that every trade is the worst trade out; for I
havefoundsomebodyinthatparticularlinewhohasprovedthistoa
demonstration.IcannotsaythatIamanimplicitbelieverinallIhear
about this matter. Still, if I were, this would be the conclusion that I
shouldcometo,thathethatobservedthecircumstancesofanytrade
or calling, would never engage in it at all; he would never sow; and
hewouldneverreap.Isupposehewouldgotobed,andsleepallthe
fourandtwenty hours of the day; and after a while, I am afraid he
wouldfinditbecomeimpossibleeventodothat,andhewouldlearn
thattoturn,withthesluggard,likeadooronitshinges,isnotunal
loyedpleasureafterall.
Well now, dear friends, if there be these difficulties in connection
withearthlycallingsandtrades,doyouexpecttherewillbenothing
of the kind with regard to heavenly things? Do you imagine that, in
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sowingthegoodseedofthekingdom,andgatheringthesheavesinto
the garner, you will have no difficulties and disappointments? Do
you dream that, when you are bound for heaven, you are to have
smooth sailing and propitious winds all the voyage? Do you think
that,inyourheavenlytrading,youwillhavelesstrialsthanthemer
chantwhohasonlytodowithearthlybusiness?Ifyoudo,youmake
a great mistake. You will not be likely to enter upon the heavenly
calling, if you do nothing else but unduly consider the difficulties
surroundingit.
But,next,intheworkofliberalitythiswouldstayus.ThisisSolo
monsthemehere.Castthybreaduponthewaters:Giveaportion
toseven,andalsotoeight;andsoon.Hemeans,bymytext,thatif
anybody occupies his mind unduly with the difficulties connected
withliberality,hewilldonothinginthatline.Hethatobserveththe
windshallnotsow;andhethatregardeththecloudsshallnotreap.
HowamItoknow,saysone,thatthepersontowhomIgivemy
moneyisreallydeserving?HowdoIknowwhathewilldowithit?
HowdoIknowbutwhatImaybeencouragingidlenessorbegging?
By giving to the man, I may be doing him real injury. Perhaps you
arenotaskedtogivetoanindividual,buttosomegreatwork.Then,
ifyouregardtheclouds,youwillbegintosay,HowdoIknowthat
thisworkwillbesuccessful,thesendingofmissionariestoacultivat
edpeopleliketheHindoos?Isitlikelythattheywillbeconverted?
Youwillnotsow,andyouwillnotreap,ifyoutalklikethat;yetthere
aremanywhodospeakinthatfashion.
Therewasneveranenterprisestartedyetbutsomebodyobjectedto
it;andIdonotbelievethatthebestworkthatChristhimselfeverdid
wasbeyondcriticism;thereweresomepeoplewhoweresuretofind
some fault with it. But, says another, I have heard that the man
agementatheadquartersisnotallitoughttobe;Ithinkthatthereis
toomuchmoneyspentonthesecretary,andthatthereisagreatdeal
lost in this direction and in that. Well, dear friend, it goes without
sayingthatifyoumanagedthings,theywouldbemanagedperfectly;
but,yousee,youcannotdoeverything,andthereforeyoumusttrust
somebody. I can only say, with regard to societies, agencies, works,
andmissionsofallkinds,Hethatobserveththewindshallnotsow;
and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. If that is what you
are doing, finding out imperfections and difficulties, it will end in
this,youwilldonothingatall.
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Goingalittlefurther,asthisistrueofcommonoccupationsandof
liberality,soitisespeciallytrueintheworkofservingGod.Now,ifI
were to consider in my mind nothing but the natural depravity of
man,Ishouldneverpreachagain.Topreachthegospeltosinners,is
asfoolishathingastobiddeadmenriseoutoftheirgraves.Forthat
reason I do it, because it has pleased God, by the foolishness of
preaching, to save them that believe. When I look upon the aliena
tionfromGod,thehardnessofthehumanheart,IseethatoldAdam
istoostrongforme;andifIregardedthatonecloudofthefall,and
originalsin,andthenaturaldepravityofman,I,forone,shouldnei
thersownorreap.Iamafraidthattherehasbeenagooddealofthis,
however. Many preachers have contemplated the ruin of man, and
theyhavehadsoclearaviewofitthattheydarenotsay,Thussaith
the Lord, Ye dry bones, live. They are unable to cry, Dear Master,
speakthroughus,andsay,Lazarus,comeforth!Someseemtosay,
GoandseeifLazarushasanykindoffeelingofhisconditioninthe
grave. Ifso, I will call him out, because I believe he can come;thus
putting all the burden on Lazarus, and depending upon Lazarus for
it. But we say, Though he has been dead four days, and is already
becomingcorrupt,thathasnothingtodowithus.IfourMasterbids
uscallhimoutfromhisgrave,wecancallhimout,andhewillcome;
not because he can come by his own power, but because God can
make him come, for the time now is when they that are in their
gravesshallhearthevoiceofGod,andtheythatshallhearshalllive.
But,dearfriends,therearepersonstowhomweshouldnevergoto
seektheirsalvationifweregardedthewindsandtheclouds,forthey
arepeculiarlybadpeople.Youknow,fromobservation,thatthereare
some persons who are much worse than others, some who are not
amenable to kindness, or any other human treatment. They do not
seemtobeterrifiedbylaw,oraffectedbylove.Weknowpeoplewho
go into a horrible temper every now and then, and all the hope we
hadofthemisblownaway,likesereleavesintheautumnwind.You
knowsuch,andyoufightshywiththem.Therearesuchboys,and
there are such girls, full of mischief, and levity,or full of malice and
bitterness;andyousaytoyourself,Icannotdoanythingwiththem.
It is of no use. Just so. You are observing the winds, and regarding
the clouds. You will not be one of those to whom Isaiah says,
Blessedbeyethatsowbesideallwaters.
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omeonemaysay,Iwouldnotmindthemoralconditionofthe
people,butitistheirsurroundingsthatarethetrouble.Whatis
the use of trying to save a man while he lives, as he does, in
such a horrible street, in one room? What is the use of seeking to
raisesuchandsuchawomanwhilesheissurrounded,assheis,with
such examples? The very atmosphere seems tainted. Just so, dear
friend;whileyouobservethewinds,andregardtheclouds,youwill
nowsow,andyouwillnotreap.Youwillnotattemptthework,and
ofcourseyouwillnotcompletewhatyoudonotcommence.
So,youknow,youcangoonmakingallkindsofexcusesfordoing
nothing with certain people, because you feel or think that they are
not those whom God is likely to bless. I know this to be a common
case,evenwithveryseriousandearnestworkersforChrist.Letitnot
be so with you, dear friends; but be you one of those who obey the
poets words: Beside all waters sow; The highway furrows stock;
Dropitwherethornsandthistlesgrow;Scatteritontherock.
Letmecarrythisprinciple,however,alittlefurther.Youmayundu
ly consider circumstances in reference to the business of your own
eternal life. You may, in that matter, observe the winds, and never
sow; you may regard the clouds, and never reap. I feel, says one,
asifInevercanbesaved.ThereneverwassuchasinnerasIam.My
sins are peculiarly black. Yes, and if you keep on regarding them,
anddonotremembertheSaviour,andhisinfinitepowertosave,you
will not sow in prayer and faith. Ah, sir; but you do not know the
horriblethoughtsIhave,thedarkforebodingsthatcrossmymind!I
know that,dear friend;I do not know them. Iknow whatI feel my
self, and I expect that your feelings are very like my own; but, be
whattheymay,if,insteadoflookingtoChrist,youarealwaysstudy
ingyourowncondition,yourownwitheredhopes,yourownbroken
resolutions,thenyouwillstillkeepwhereyouare,andyouwillnei
thersownorreap.
Beloved Christians, you who have been believers for years, if you
begintolivebyyourframesandfeelings,youwillgetintothesame
condition. I do not feel like praying, says one. Then is the time
when you ought to pray most, for you are evidently most in need;
butifyoukeepobservingwhetherornotyouareintheproperframe
ofmindforprayer,youwillnotpray.Icannotgraspthepromises,
says another; I should like to joy in God, and firmly believe in his
Word; but I do not see anything in myself that can minister to my
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comfort.Supposeyoudonot.Areyou,afterall,goingtobuildupon
yourself?Are you trying to find your ground of consolation in your
ownheart?Ifso,youareonthewrongtack.Ourhopeisnotinself,
butinChrist;letusgoandsowit.Ourhopeisinthefinishedworkof
Christ; let us go and reap it; for, if we keep on regarding the winds
and the clouds, we shall neither sow nor reap. I think it is a great
lesson to learn in spiritual things, to believe in Christ, and his fin
ished salvation, quite as much as when you are down as when you
areup;forChristisnotmoreChristonthetopofthemountainthan
heisinthebottomofthevalley,andheisnolessChristinthestorm
bymidnightthanheisinthesunshinebyday.Donotbegintomeas
ureyoursafetybyyourcomfort;butmeasureitbytheeternalWord
of God, which you have believed, and which you know to be true,
and on which you rest; for still here, within the little world of our
bosom, he that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that re
gardeth the clouds shall not reap. We want to get out of that idea
altogether.

have said enough to prove the truth of my first observation,

namely, that natural difficulties may be unduly considered. My
second observation is this: such consideration involves us in several
sins.Ifwekeeponobservingcircumstances,insteadoftrustingGod,
we shall be guilty of disobedience. God bids me sow: I do not sow,
because the wind would blow some of my seed away. God bids me
reap:Idonotreap,becausethereisablackcloudthere,andbeforeI
can house the harvest, some of it may be spoiled. I may say what I
like;butIamguiltyofdisobedience.IhavenotdonewhatIwasbid
dentodo.Ihavemadeanexcuseoftheweather;butIhavebeendis
obedient. Dear friends, it is yours to do what God bids you do,
whether the heavens fall down or not; and, if you knew they would
fall,andyoucouldpropthemupbydisobedience,youhavenoright
todoit.Whatmayhappenfromourdoingright,wehavenothingto
dowith;wearetodoright,andtaketheconsequencescheerfully.Do
you want obedience to be always rewarded by a spoonful of sugar?
Are you such a baby that you will do nothing unless there shall be
some little toy for you directly after? A man in Christ Jesus will do
right,thoughitshallinvolvehiminlossesandcrosses,slandersand
rebukes;yea,evenmartyrdomitself.MayGodhelpyousotodo!He
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thatobserveththewind,anddoesnotsowwhenheisbiddentocast
hisseeduponthewaters,isguiltyofdisobedience.
Next,weareguiltyalsoofunbelief,ifwecannotsowbecauseofthe
wind. Who manages the wind? You distrust him who is Lord of the
north,andsouth,andeast,andwest.Ifyoucannotreapbecauseofa
cloud,youdoubthimwhomakestheclouds,towhomthecloudsare
the dust of his feet. Where is your faith? Where is your faith? Ah!
says one, I can serve God when I am helped, when I am moved,
when I can see a hope of success. That is poor service, service de
void of faith. May I not say of it, Without faith it is impossible to
pleaseGod?Justinproportiontothequantityoffaith,thatthereis
inwhatwedo,inthatproportionwillitbeacceptablewithGod.Ob
servingofwindsandcloudsisunbelief.Wemaycallitprudence;but
unbeliefisitstruename.
The next sin is really rebellion. So you will not sow unless God
choosestomakethewindblowyourway;andyouwillnotreapun
lessGodpleasestodrivethecloudsaway?Icallthatrevolt,rebellion.
An honest subject loves the king in all weathers. The true servant
serves his master, let his master do what he wills. Oh, dear friends,
we are too often aiming at Gods throne! We want to get up there,
andmanagethings:

Snatchfromhishand
thebalanceandtherod,
Rejudgehisjudgments,
bethegodofGod.

Oh,ifhewouldbutaltermycircumstances!Whatisthisbuttempt
ingGod,astheydidinthewilderness,wishinghimtodootherthan
he does? It is wishing him to do wrong; for what he does is always
right;butwemustnotsorebel,andvexhisHolySpirit,bycomplain
ing of what he does. Do you not see that this is trying to throw the
blameofourshortcomingsupontheLord?Ifwedonotsow,donot
blameus;Goddidnotsendtherightwind.Ifwedidnotreap,pray
not to censure us; how could we be expected to reap, while there
were clouds in the skies? What is this but a wicked endeavour to
blame God for our own neglect and wrongdoing, and to make Di
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vine Providence the packhorse upon which we pile our sins? God
saveusfromsuchrebellionasthat!
Anothersinofwhichweareguilty,whenwearealwayslookingat
our circumstances, is this, foolish fear. Though we may think that
there is no sin in it, there is great sin in foolish fear. God has com
manded his people not to fear; then we should obey him. There is a
cloud;whydoyoufearit?Itwillbegonedirectly;notadropofrain
mayfalloutofit.Youareafraidofthewind;whyfearit?Itmaynev
er come. Even if it were some deadly wind that was approaching, it
mightshiftabout,andnotcomenearyou.Weareoftenfearingwhat
never happens. We feel a thousand deaths in fearing one. Many a
personhasbeenafraidofwhatneverwouldoccur.Itisagreatpityto
whip yourselves with imaginary rods. Wait till the trouble comes;
else I shall have to tell you the story I have often repeated of the
motherwhosechildwouldcry.Shetolditnottocry,butitwouldcry.
Well, she said, if you will cry, I will give you something to cry
for.Ifyougetfearingaboutnothing,theprobabilityisthatyouwill
get something really to fear, for God does not love his people to be
fools.
There are some who fall into the sin of penuriousness. Observe,
that Solomon was here speaking of liberality. He that observeth the
cloudsandthewindsthinksThatisnotagoodobjecttohelp,and
thathewilldoharmifhegiveshere,orifhegivesthere.Itamounts
to this, poor miser, you want to save your money! Oh, the ways we
haveofmakingbuttonswithwhichtosecurethesafetyofourpock
ets! Some persons have a button manufactory always ready. They
have always a reason for not giving to anything that is proposed to
them, or to any poor person who asks their help. I pray that every
childofGodheremayavoidthatsin.Freelyyehavereceived,freely
give.And since you are stewards of a generous Master, let it never
besaidthatthemostliberalofLordshasthestingiestofstewards.
Another sin is often called idleness. The man who does not sow
because of the wind, is usually too lazy to sow; and the man who
does not reap because of the clouds is the man who wants a little
moresleep,andalittlemoreslumber,andalittlemorefoldingofthe
hands to sleep. If we do not want to serve God,it is wonderful how
manyreasonswecanfind.
According to Solomon, the sluggard said there was a lion in the
streets.Thereisalionintheway,saidhe,alionisinthestreets.
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Whatalieitwas,forlionsareasmuchafraidofstreetsasmenareof
deserts! Lions do not come into streets. It was idleness that said the
lion was there. You were asked to preach the other night, and you
couldpreach,butyousaid,no,youcouldnotpreach.However,you
attendedapoliticalmeeting,didyounot,andtalkedtwiceaslongas
youwouldhavedoneifyouhadpreached?
Another friend, asked to teach in Sundayschool, said, I have no
gifts of teaching. Somebody afterwards remarked of you that you
had no gifts of teaching, and you felt very vexed, and asked what
righthadanyonetosaythatofyou?Ihaveheardpersonsrunthem
selvesdown,whentheyhavebeeninvitedtoanyChristianwork,as
being altogether disqualified; and when somebody has afterwards
said, That is true, you cannot do anything, I know, they have
looked as if they would knock the speaker down. Oh, yes, yes, yes,
we are always making these excuses about winds and clouds, and
there is nothing in either of them. It is all meant to save our corn
seed,andtosaveusthetroubleofsowingit.
Do you not see, I have made out a long list of sins wrapped up in
thisobservingofwindsandclouds?Ifyouhavebeenguiltyofanyof
them,repentofyourwrongdoing,anddonotrepeatit.

willnotkeepyoulongeroverthispartofthesubject.Iwillnow
makeathirdremarkverybriefly:letusprovethatwehavenotfallen
intothisevil.Howcanweproveit?Letusproveit,firstlybysow
inginthemostunlikelyplaces.WhatsaysSolomon?Castthybread
upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Go, my
brothersandsisters,andfindoutthemostunlikelypeople,andbegin
toworkforGodwiththem.Now,try,ifyoucan,topickouttheworst
street in your neighbourhood, and visit from house to house, and if
thereisamanorwomanmoregivenupthananother,makethatper
son the object of your prayers and of your holy endeavours. Cast
yourbreaduponthewaters;thenitwillbeseenthatyouaretrusting
God,nottrustingthesoil,nortrustingtheseed.
Next, prove it by doing good to a great many. Give a portion to
seven,andalsotoeight.TalkofChristtoeverybodyyoumeetwith.
IfGodhasnotblessedyoutoone,tryanother;andifhehasblessed
youwithone,trytwoothers;andifhehasblessedyoutotwoothers,
tryfourothers;andalwayskeeponenlargingyourseedplotasyour
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harvest comes in. If you are doing much, it will be shown that you
arenotregardingthewindsandtheclouds.
Further, prove that you are not regarding winds and clouds by
wisely learning from the clouds another lesson than the one they
seem made to teach. Learn this lesson: If the clouds be full of rain,
theyemptythemselvesupontheearth;andsaytoyourself,IfGod
hasmademefullofgrace,Iwillgoandpouritouttoothers.Iknow
thejoyofbeingsaved,ifIhavehadfellowshipwithhim,Iwillmake
a point of being more industrious than ever, because God has been
unusuallygracioustome.Myfulnessshallbehelpfultoothers.Iwill
empty myself for the good of others, even as the clouds pour down
therainupontheearth.
Then,beloved,proveitstillbynotwantingtoknowhowGodwill
work.Thereisagreatmysteryofbirth,howthehumansoulcomesto
inhabit the body of the child, and how the child is fashioned. Thou
knowestnothingaboutit,andthoucanstnotknow.Thereforedonot
lookabouttheetoseewhatthoucanstnotunderstand,andpryinto
whatisconcealedfromthee.Gooutandwork;gooutandpreach;go
outandinstructothers.Goouttoseektowinsouls.Thusshaltthou
prove,inverytruth,thatthouartnotdependentuponsurroundings
andcircumstances.
Again,dearfriend,provethisbyconsistentdiligence.Inthemorn
ing sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand. Be
instantinseason,outofseason.Ihadafriend,whohadlearnedthe
way to put a peculiar meaning upon that passage of Scripture, Let
notthyrighthandknowwhatthylefthanddoeth.Hethoughtthat
the best way was to have money in both pockets; put one hand into
eachpocket,andthenputbothhandsonthecollectionplate.Inever
objected to this interpretation of the passage. Now, the way to serve
Christ is to do all you possibly can, and then as much more. No,
says you, that cannot be. I do not know that it cannot be. I found
thatthebestthingIeverdidwasathingIcouldnotdo.WhatIcould
do well, that was my own; but what I could not do, but still did, in
the name and strength of the Eternal Jehovah, was the best thing I
had done. Beloved, sow in the morning, sow in the evening, sow at
night, sow all day long, for you can never tell what God will bless;
but by this constant sowing, you will prove to demonstration that
youarenotobservingthewinds,norregardingtheclouds.

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nowcometomyconcludingobservation:letuskeepthiseviloutof
ourheartsaswellasoutofourwork.And,first,letusgivenoheed
tothewindsandcloudsofdoctrinethatareeverywhereaboutus
now. Blow, blow, ye stormy winds; but you shall not move me.
Cloudsofhypothesesandinventions,comeupwithyou,asmanyas
you please, till you darken all the sky; but I will not fear you. Such
clouds have come before, and have disappeared, and these will dis
appear, too. If you sit down, and think of mans inventions of error,
and their novel doctrines, and how the churches have been be
witchedbythem,youwillgetintosuchastateofmindthatyouwill
neither sow nor reap. Just forget them. Give yourself to your holy
service as if there were no winds and no clouds; and God will give
you such comfort in your soul that you will rejoice before him, and
beconfidentinhistruth.
Andthen,next,letusnotlosehopebecauseofdoubtsandtempta
tions.Whenthecloudsandthewindsgetintoyourheart,whenyou
donotfeelasyouusedtofeel,whenyouhavenotthatjoyandelas
ticity of spirit you once had, when your ardour seems a little
damped,andevenyourfaithbeginstohesitatealittle,goyoutoGod
allthesame.Trusthimstill.

Andwhenthineeyeoffaithgrowsdim,
StillholdtoJesus,sinkorswim;
Stillathisfootstoolbowtheknee,
AndIsraelsGodthystrengthshallbe.

Donotgoupanddownlikethemercuryintheweatherglass;but
knowwhatyouknow,andbelievewhatyoubelieve.Holdtoit,and
God keep you in one mind, so that none can turn you; for, if not, if
youbegintonoticethesethings,youwillneithersownorreap.
Lastly, let us follow the Lords mind, and come what will. In a
word, set your face, like a flint, toserve God, by the maintenance of
histruth,byyourholylife,bythesavourofyourChristiancharacter;
and, that being done, defy earth and hell. If there were a crowd of
devils between you and Christ, kick a lane through them by holy
faith. They will fly before you. If you have but the courage to make
an advance, they cannot stop you. You shall make a clear gangway
through legions of them. Only be strong, and of good courage, and
I
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donotregardeventhecloudsfromhell,ortheblastsfromtheinfer
nal pit; but go straight on in the path of right, and God being with
you,youshallsowandyoushallreap,untohiseternalglory.
Will some poor sinner here tonight, whether he sinks or swims,
trustChrist?Come,ifyoufeellessinclinedtonighttohope,thanyou
ever did before. Have hope even now; hope against hope; belief
against belief. Cast yourself on Christ, even though he may seem to
stand with a drawn sword in his hand, to run you through; trust
evenanangryChrist.Thoughyoursinshavegrievedhim,comeand
trusthim.Donotstopforwindstoblowover,orcloudstoburst.Just
as thou art, without one trace of anything that is good about thee,
come and trust Christ as thy Saviour, and thou art saved. God give
yougracetodoso,forJesussake!Amen.

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