Larison has an interesting restrospective on the so-called “conservative Christians” who hopped on Bush’s bandwagon:
“It makes no sense to blame Christian orthodoxy or traditional Christianity for the religiously-tinged ideology of the Bush administration and the resulting failures of this ideology’s optimistic and hubristic approach to the world. It is no accident that the most strident and early critics of the Bush administration hailed from traditionalist Catholic and Orthodox circles that make Linker’s bete noire of First Thingslook like the relatively liberal, ecumenist forum that it is. Mr. Bush espoused a horrifyingly heterodox religious vision, one far more akin to the messianic Americanism … than it is to anything that could fairly be called orthodoxy. To the extent that … the so-called “theocons,” were more or less entirely on board with what Mr. Bush was doing, even if they felt compelled to use their own teachings in distorted form to do it, they were not championing orthodoxy at all. One might go so far to say that as they became stronger supporters of Mr. Bush, the less orthodox they tended to become, because the arguments they had to employ to defend Mr. Bush’s outrageous actions and gnostic impulses necessarily ate away at orthodox teachings.”
There is much wisdom in this, and it gels with one of themes I’ve been pushing a lot here– that American Christians (including Catholics) are overly-influenced by American forms of religion. After all, as Harold Bloom said long ago, Gnosticism is the quintessential American religion, and all religions invented in the United States (from Christian Science to Mormonism to Scientology) are derivatively Gnostic.
Another reason I admire Larison’s writing is that he is one of the few commentators who does not mis-use the term “conservative”. For if its religious tradition is Gnostic, America’s political tradition is liberal, often in more undiluted forms that seen elsewhere. Thus debates are framed — on all sides of the political debate — by individual rights and the goals of satisfying individual wants and needs ahead of broader conceptions of the common good. And here we can get a “social contract” that deviates greatly from the common good — from the deification of free markets to writing the unborn out of the equation, from a glorification of gun ownership to a sexual free-for-all, from the mockery of global warming concerns to a redefinition of marriage. And of course, let’s not forget the division of the world into light and darkness, a metaphysical dualism that has the “good guys” locked into a permanent war with the “bad guys”, defined as terrorists, communists, liberals, conservatives, socialists– whoever is the latest enemy of the day. This affects American Catholics too, to the puzzlement of the rest of the world.
Wow MM, in almost 2 years reading here, I think this is the first item you have posted that I absolutely agree with.
Thanks
Gnostic or Calvinist or Jensenist or Leninist? You can’t keep adding adjectives forever here.
It seems like Larison is making a guilt by association argument. It’s also awfully vague. But maybe I’m misreading him, I don’t know.
Say for the sake of argument that all your complaints about America are true. What would you have us do?
Do we move to a different country? Do we stage a revolution? Do we want a Catholic state? Do we abstain from voting in America?
Again: what is it that you would have us do? Useful political commentary involves not just theorizing and criticism, but also something positive. Is there a path forward, or are we simply doomed?
It is no accident that the most strident and early critics of the Bush administration hailed from traditionalist Catholic and Orthodox circles that make Linker’s bete noire of First Things look like the relatively liberal, ecumenist forum that it is.
Worth just seeing a second time.
Zach I agree it is very vague and as the these various wings of the Conservative movement have been repeating this meme all week long I still see little meat attached to the argument.
The largely Pat Buchanan paleo Catholic wing never liked Bush so some of this does not come as a suprise to me.
You may say it’s vague or accuse someone of being “paleo Catholic” but you are missing the point – which is just as true on the “left” as on the “right.”
If you get too enamored with a politician it is easy to start twisting your theology to fit the politics you are supporting.
Something I see on Vox-Nova pretty much every day. I’m just agreeing that Bush supporters did it too.
Paul I might be missing the point. I guess I would like to see more meat to this argument. I can’t help but note that the Catholics he referenced that Opposed Bush often didn’t like his views on immigration, they didn’t like all this Free Trade etc etc
At Vox Nova’s Cousin blog :) they were discussing this and I thought Darwin made two short comments that sort of mirror my line of thought as to these charges
http://the-american-catholic.com/2009/04/16/bush-orthodoxy-damon-linker/#comment-9048
I just find that this not meet reality
Catholic Bush supporters disagreed with him on various issues (See immigration) and other aspects of his White House policy
Perhaps this will help JH. There is nothing theologically conservative about opposing gay marriage or being against abortion. Neither issue is of itself a real mark of orthodoxy, although they tend to be decent predicters. (Whether theologically conservative is even a decent descriptor is probably a debate for another day. I tend to think it isn’t.) What Sullivan and others like to do is base stealing here. Guy X opposes abortion and is religious. Therefore he is a theocon. Alas he supports pre-emptive war. Ergo pre-emptive war is theologically conservative. Everyone knows though that the justness of pre-emptive war is a recent theological innovation, regardless of whether or not one thinks pre-emptive war could be just.
I think it is also a pet peeve among many in the Orthodox and Catholic communions to have people claim the ideas from Rousseau and onwards are traditional or traditionalist, particularly in the religious context. Yes, it kind of makes it hard to have anything destinctly American be traditional, but by the same token it tends to better respect the 1700 years of history before that better.
M.Z. – the notion that a pre-emptive war could be just is not a new idea. I’m pretty sure Thomas Aquinas tackles that very idea in the Summa somewhere. I’ll work on getting a reference.
What do you think that President Obama is when it comes to religion?