Skip to main content

Just So You Know


The next time you hear someone popping off about how Republicans who are Catholic or Christian more generally believe such and such that is contrary to Christian teaching, you can direct them to this post. This is just to clear the air.

I'm opposed to the death penalty, aggressive wars, abortion, torture, and any other thing offensive to human dignity. My only regret is that things had to get really bad and really stark before I understood the principles that underlie Catholic social teaching.

 

But I'm still a conservative. Before someone else goes blathering on about how cutting a social program hurts the poor, and the teaching says we should care about the poor, and so we should uncritically support whatever inane thing the Democrats are proposing, might I suggest that the efficacy of a certain program along with its intent should be our primary concern in public policy. I want to be the kind of conservative that says, "I hate poverty too, and that's why I hate your liberal policy just as much." I don't know why Democrats deserve points for compassion when their policies don't work, they don't dignify, and they don't have a moral foundation, beyond the self-gratification of whoever proposed them. Thomas Sowell may not be a Christian, but he's right about that. A government that is large enough to be the principal means by which economic and distributive justice takes place is large enough to trample human dignity. Ayn Rand may be anti-Christian, but she was right about that.

In recent times, the battle within conservatism broadly speaking has taken place between social conservatives and economic conservatives. This should not be. The strongest social conservative argument beyond that of natural law is that because of natural law, bad moral acts have social consequences that policymakers must face. Part of the lack of efficacy of our social safety net is that it failed to take account of the moral dimensions of not only the public policy, but the consequent reactions of those impacted by it. And so, we wander around and attempt to convince each other that public policy is amoral, when it never has been, and never will be. It is either in accord with reality, or it is not. Activists on the side of liberalizing policy in terms of social issues are well aware that policy has a social dimension; why should we be afraid of presenting the contrary, and presenting the good as having a beneficial social dimension that can be argued? Economic policy and any other kind has a moral dimension as well, and it is foolish to pretend otherwise. With respect, we cannot help but see that individual autonomy absolutized gives us both abortion, and unjust economic inequality. And that is not simply the result of a fair process, but is the result of pretending that a tool in the hand of an unjust person will somehow produce a just result. We have no right to blame the Bernie Madoffs of the world on a systemic flaw, yet we should not expect our system of "free enterprise" to function without the true freedom that comes by moral justice. If we teach our MBAs when they are undergraduates the truth is relative, then they will behave as though truth is relative when they steal the savings of the people they serve, and lie to the regulators, and defraud the taxpayers. I believe that a free market is a mutually beneficial free exchange of goods and services that is in accord with the moral order. Economic freedom is but a species of that true freedom that is ordered liberty. That ordered liberty is ordered to the common good, and is directed toward it, even when the person is not consciously aware of that orientation.

I will not hector you much longer, but I wanted the opportunity to sketch a brief outline of what I am thinking and feeling as a passionate conservative Republican who identifies first as a Christian.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con

Just Sayin.' Again.

One interesting objection to this chart has been to say that one gets stuck in a "loop" that doesn't resolve. This is a thinly-veiled way of putting forward the argument that we don't need absolute certainty in religious dogma. But Fred Noltie already dealt with this in the comments on another post. And to the specific objector, no less. I'll be blunt: The only principled thing to do is put down your Bible, resign your pulpit, and lead tours in Europe. Because a man must be able to distinguish dogma from human opinion, and this epistemology doesn't allow us to do that. One of dogma's distinguishing characteristics is infallibility; another is certainty. Without this, essential characteristics of God Himself are put into question. If we say that the most important Person any person could know is God, and the content of that knowledge (doctrine) is the means by which we know Him, it must be certain. This Reformed argument that certainty is a dangerous or un