Ever since I read about it, I’ve felt there was a something wrong with the Manhattan Manifesto. It reminded me of a political creed with talking points of a political part being turned into a religious document. Today I read a post from the end of November on Crunchy Con which I think really highlights the problem: the declaration really is wanting to keep in place the structures of sin which lead to the problems the authors complain about. I think it goes well as an example of what I was discussing in my post on liberalism.
The post can be read here in the full. In it, Rod is showing how an Orthodox writer (Ochlophobist) has found the declaration to be erroneous; the most telling quote I think is this:
Christians who actively support this culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing and at the same time actively oppose the choice for abortion or the choice for a homosexual marriage, only achieve a seeking to rob a Peter they happen to find distasteful, while they continue to pay the Paul to whom they happen to be addicted.
That is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier this week. As long as we fight to keep the liberal foundations of the culture of death in place, we will find it difficult to argue against the ramifications of that culture as they come up all around us.
[...] A Criticism of the Manhattan Declaration I Agree with [...]
Might I also suggest the Slacktivist’s critiqe of the Manhattan Declaration? It comes in three parts and is, typical of the Slacktivist, quite thought provoking.
While you might suggest it, I will also say much of it is something I disagree with for various reasons.
Rod also says:
“I also still support the Manhattan Declaration in spite of recognizing the great worth of Ochlophobist’s critique. As imperfect as the motivations of its signers may be, the fact is religious and social conservatives had better unite politically on this matter in some efficacious way, because there are big fights to come over important issues.”
I think a responsible Christian needs to distinguish, as Rod does, two components of Ochlophobist’s critique. The first is that Christians must oppose “this culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing.” Which is correct. The second is that the Manhattan Declaration and the signers thereof “actively support this culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing.” Which is ironic coming from a liberal, since it unavoidably judgmental. You and O don’t know thing one about either the prominent or the grassroots signers of the Declaration to be able to call them decadant hypocrites. In fact, granting the existence of such people spoken of so vilely, those people are the least likely people to be logging on to and reading or signing such a statement. The cross section population of any Christian or Catholic parish has persons of a greater or lesser degree of worldliness, and the persons in that parish who are most likely to take Christian asceticism seriously are the same people most likely to be actively interested in signing such declarations and supporting such organizations that promote them. The fact is that the people active in a pro-life group at Catholic parishes are the usually same people going to adoration and taking fasting (from comsumerism) more seriously. (The bishops who signed the Declaration are more likely to challenge their people to rigorous sacrifice of worldly attachments.) Likewise at an Evangelical church, the people most likely to be involved in advocating these social issues are the same people most likely to raise their children in disciplined, Biblical Christian lives rather than abandon them to comsumption of our pop and consumer culture. It is bare prejudice to smear the Declaration’s authors and signers with cultural buy-in that as a cross-section they are the most likely people to join you and O in rejecting.
And conspicuously apparent is the fact that the Manhattan Declaration itself in no way even slightly “supports” or approves of the consumerist and decadant culture.
Once you remove the judgmental and incorrect component of O’s criticism, which for the above reasons I think you must, your criticism is that the Declaration should have mentioned something it didn’t emphasize. That’s fair. But it isn’t even CLOSE to being able to claim that the Declaration and its signers actually “fight to keep the liberal foundations of the culture of death in place”.
Matt
I find it agrees with all kinds of presuppositions which I do not agree with, presuppositions which follow the liberal Enlightenment in ways I completely reject.
It seems to me if you want to form common ground on the issues of simple living from an ascetic Christian motivation, taking seriously things like fasting, material denial, reduced pop culture consumption, and therefore more simplistic living, the people likely to sign on to your project would be precisely the people in Catholic and Evangelical parishes who care and take action on pro-life, pro-marriage, and religious freedom efforts in such a manner as to even know about, much less care about, read, and sign the Manhattan Declaration, which itself in no way supports consumerist decadance. We’ve got 300 million people in this country, and less than 300,000 have signed this thing. Those people are not the people in Christian churches who are wallowing themselves and their children in worldliness! But you and O have just labelled all of them swine gleefully belching in the mud of consumerist decadance. Not exactly an open and welcoming spirit of coalition building from where I’m sitting.
So we should build coalitions not on the truth, but on fantasy of sin?
What are you talking about? I’m trying to have a respectful discussion. I’m contending that in every Christian or Catholic parish there is a diversity of persons at different levels of commitment to sacrificial Christian living, and that the people who really take to heart things like detachment from material possessions and worldly pleasures and cultural bombardment are very often the same people who actually do things in favor of protecting the unborn, and maintaining the definition of marriage, and supporting non-discrimination against Christians in society. O just opined that those people are abandoning their children to video games and iPods. Look, Catholic homeschoolers and committed Bible living Evangelicals are the first people to cut back on giving their children every material thing or letting the grandparents do so at Christmas, to prevent having televisions on in every room, and preferring feel good sermons to the message that there is a world after this one with serious consequences and you better be detached from the things this culture is selling and devoted purely to Christ.
The signers of the Manhattan Declaration are the last people in this culture fit the comsumerist description that O presented.
The problem with the Manhattan Declaration is that it is a conservative polemtical statement written by a conservative political activist. I can’t accept it as the heart-felt cry of people of faith. It is a political statement written for political purposes and with carefully chosen and misleading (if not dishonest) language.
We now have the nation of Uganda ready to enact laws to jail or even execute gay people. I am waiting for a declaration on that.
The Manhattan Declaration is merely a manifesto written by those who prefer the certainty of the rule of the powers with a gospel facade full of venomous, self-serving anger to the rule of the living Christ that is dangerously uncertain, self-emptying and full of joy.
Get to the good news, we are tired of waiting.
I have been a aware of american conservatives’ simultaneous deification and demonization of “choice” for a while now, so I agree very much with Ochlophobist’ insight there. His statements about gays and lesbians are uncharitable and unfortunate. It is ridiculous to claim that gays and lesbians who want to marry view sex as “entertainment” or their relationships as “commodities.”
The only really valid criticism I have heard on this declaration, were some qualms regarding the way it endorses religious liberty. I myself have not signed it, but I do support the goals as a general matter, and I think such projects have some real but limited value. Perhaps those critical of it for what it lacks should consider drafting a corollary, amendment, or addendum that could also be put out in a similar way.
Just read the M.D.
The Barmen Declaration it ain’t. What a joke.
The Ochlophobist replied to some of the criticisms here: http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-recent-admonishments.html
In regards to Mr. Iafrate, an excerpt from that reply the Ochlophobist gave:
SMF
Religious Liberty is Catholic doctrine affirmed by an ecumenical council. That notion is not something to have qualms about; however, the fundamental cultural basis for the MD is problematic and follows the culture of death and its ways while trying to deny its end result.
Michael: I agree that some of how he said it was problematic, and in his later post (http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-recent-admonishments.html — thanks MZ, and I see now he posted it) he tries to state it better; I do not think you will agree with it but I think the nuance helps further make his point and removes some of the troubling elements of it (imo).
I think the issue I had with what he said is that he made an extreme reduction of an issue which is not so simple as that reduction would make. I think for some people, both gays and straights alike, he is right about it all being a consumer good, which comes out of our economic materialism and how capitalism reduces everything to its monetary value. Nonetheless, I also think he is on the right track as to the M.D. itself, even if one might disagree with some of his details.
The is nothing “conservative” about the declaration. It is a hymn to liberalism written by American Catholic liberalism’s greatest champion, Robbie George. This guy nails it (though I would part company from him in his description of homosexuality).
MM
How is exactly Robbie Georgege the champion of American Liberalism. DO you then think his Landmark book “Making men Moral” is a example of that.
Also how do you depart with him on homosexuality
I must say I find nothing wrong with this declaration.
By the way I am emailing George these comments so he can comments and give his view which hopefully will get past some of the misconceptions. Hopefully a good debate will follow by a man that should be known by more than just as someone called him a “conservative activist”
Why is it that “pro-life” types are always interested in restricting other people’s behavior (points 1 and 2) and arguing for their own freedom (point 3)? They always seem to be making demands of other people, but they don’t seem to make demands of themselves. They make rules that are perfectly easy for themselves to live up to (or to violate in private), but put a burden on people they disapprove of.
Why don’t they add a point 4 and pledge to put their money where their mouth is, promising to give 10 percent of their income to help poor families (who might be tempted to have abortions), and the sick and elderly (who might be tempted to assisted suicide). And then they could add point 5, which would say, “If you know of any of us who are privately engaging in homosexual acts, or adultery, or fornication, or any other sexual impropriety, we authorize you go go to the media and expose our hypocrisy.”
By the way, can someone define the homosexual lifestyle for me and give me an estimate of how many homosexuals are living it? Is getting married and adopting kids part of the homosexual lifestyle?
JH – sorry if I was unclear but I meant to say I parted company with Ochlophobist on homosexuality, not George (though I might with George!).
As for his liberalism, look no further than his “American Principles Project” – it’s dominated by rights-based individualism, laissez faire liberalism, and American nationalism.
how can a decades long gay or lesbian partnership be labeled as a reflection of a “culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing?” In fact, the fact that the gay rights movement has led to the push for the legal recognition of gay marriage would seem to suggest that homosexuality is necessarily reflective of a such a culture. In fact, there are plenty examples of gay and lesbian partnerships that are rejections of the culture you rightly lament.
While it would certainly be neat and tidy to conclude that homosexuality is the product of the same dysfunctional cultural characteristics responsible for consumerism and the like, I think the witness of gay and lesbian fidelity shows that such an equation is not fair or accurate.
whoops, meant to say “NOT necessarily reflective of such a culture”
DN never dissapoints us in the certainty that he will casually dismiss human beings while posturing as a judge against pro-life Catholics.
He considers it “restricting other people’s behavior” when someone tries to STOP the oppression and unjust execution of innocent OTHER PEOPLE.
Oppression always paints itself as the victim, and its victims as oppressors. There’s nothing new under the sun.
I’ve read the MD and I’m not quite understanding the criticism. Henry, are you saying that the MD is flawed because it only addresses symptoms and not the “liberal foundations of the culture of death” from which these symptoms flow …. and even more so, that the MD actually reinforces or “fights to keep” these liberal foundations? Is that your position?
If so, to make a better MD, what should be changed in your opinion? If you were drafting a MD, what are the points you would raise?
These are honest questions – I’m trying to understand your position.
Did you actually click on the link, Thales? I think that gives a good explanation of the problem.
Henry,
I did click the link, but I’m still not quite understanding the criticism expressed by you and the link, and that is why I asked you to confirm whether my limited understanding is correct or not.
It seems that you and the link are suggesting that the “liberal foundations of the culture of death” involves decadence or consumerism or the idolatory of choice, and that the MD not only doesn’t identify this and speak out against it, but it supports and fights for it. Am I on the right track?
If I’m right about my understanding, then in part, I tend to agree with you. This idolatory of choice (maybe better described as “idolatory of the individual”?) is a “liberal foundation of the culture of death” from which many others symptoms flow. Perhaps we should have declarations which identify this, speak out against it, and urge citizens to act contrary to it. Perhaps it is a waste of breath to talk of abortion/SSM/religious freedom, and instead, we should be talking about the evil root. Is that what you’re getting at?
But here is why I’m uncertain about whether I’m getting your and the link’s point: assuming that the MD fails to identify the evil root and speak out against it, I’m not seeing where the MD actively supports the evil root. And maybe I’m repeating Matt Bowman’s point: I suspect that the very people who wrote and signed the MD are the same ones who would agree with you wholeheartedly that there is a evil root of decadence/consumerism/idolatory of choice and that we should actively work against it.
Anyways, I was hoping that by putting forward what you thought was needed in a better-written MD, it would clarify to me what exactly you thought we as a society should focus our energies on in order to bring the good news to the world.
[sorry if this double posts--having technical difficulties I guess]
Here’s one of those Manhattan Declaration signers who, as HK and O say, “actively supports this culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing” and “fights to keep the culture death in place”:
“But there’s something vampiric about the way consumerism works to “console” us for the loss of God…. John Paul argued that the habit of consumerist greed is “no less pernicious” in its effects than Nazism, Marxism, and Fascism. The effects are as deadly and as destructive as the murderous systems of the 20th century-ideologies…. The problem is that sex as a form of personal recreation is completely disordered. We’ve made it something utterly routine — a consumer commodity like everything else.”
I’m sorry I can’t quote more, but you find so many statements when you google his name, materialism, and consumerism, that I can’t possibly include them all.
That would be Archbishop Charles Chaput, someone liberal Catholics often love to hate. Fighting for the culture of death, indeed.
Unfortunately, the fact that Chaput fights hard against some aspects of the culture of death (and he certainly does do that) does not mean he is consistent in doing so, or that he does not in other ways promote key features of the culture of death.
…and here’s one of those MD Evangelicals whom O palpably disdains and whom HK criticizes for fighting to keep in place consumerist structures of sin:
“I have prayed for years that God would do something to get our attention, to shake the Church, so that we would repent of buying into the consumerist culture and ignoring our call to be salt and light in the world.”
“Consumerism becomes empty and leveling, leaving society full of possessions but drained of ideals. This is what Vaclav Havel calls “totalitarian
consumerism.”
“insofar as we Christians have abandoned our heritage and have bought into the idolatry of consumerism, we have betrayed not only our God, but the nation we love”
-Chuck Colson
Commenter Jeff is especially suspicious of such allies. HK do you consider it the “fantasy of sin” to suppose that Colson actually said these things, and therefore they could not form a basis for common ground with brother Christians (to say nothing of pro-life Catholics)?
Michael, the allegation is that MD leaders fight for the culture of death precisely in its character of consumerist decadance. But as you concede and everyone knows Chaput does fight against that culture’s manifestation in abortion, and these quotes show him fighting against consumerism. If you want to allege a third distinct thing he is fighting for in the culture of death, not consumerist decadance and not baby slaughter, go right ahead, but you’re running out of aspects of the culture of death to propose he is fighting for.
DN never dissapoints us in the certainty that he will casually dismiss human beings while posturing as a judge against pro-life Catholics.
Matt,
I don’t know why you find it so difficult to criticize what I say without criticizing me personally. I do acknowledge the point that those opposed to abortion believe they are acting on behalf of the unborn, whom they believe are persons. However, opponents of same-sex marriage I trying to limit the freedom of other people plain and simple, and they are not defending life. It amazes me that these two issues so often go hand in hand. From the viewpoint of pro-lifers, I would expect same-sex marriage to be a trivial issue. Actually, occasionally someone who is pro-life does actually say same-sex marriage is of minor importance. One would think it would come at the bottom of a long list, with a 50-percent divorce rate, a sky-high out-of wedlock birth rate, and many other social problems being much more serious.
Commenter Jeff is especially suspicious of such allies.
I am, for reasons that I documented. What’s so unique about Colson’s take on consumerism that we should feel compelled to strap ourselves by the wrist to him and his friends? There’s nothing particularly original about his perspective.
There are plenty of secularists, for instance, who would readily agree that a consumerist society built upon instant gratification is morally corrosive. They’d also point out, however, that it represents a threat to humanity due to the fact that it is unsustainable in the long run anyway. I could be wrong, but I doubt that Colson cares very much one way or the other about whether it is sustainable or not.