A Continuing Survey of Religion and Public Life

This Month:

• Bloody-Minded Compassion
• Unfair Fairness
• The Triumph of Ideology Over the Obvious
• Blaming the Victims' Defenders
• Discriminating Violence
• Getting Really Rich
• CBS Leads the Way
• Verdict First
• A Well-Funded Phantasm
• To Be Surprised by Joy
• But What About the Other Side?
• The Communities Missing From "Communitarianism"
• While We're At It

Nevertheless, there are a few voices at the edge of the pro-life movement that are now urging a reconsideration of the use of lethal force. The arguments, pro and con, are aired in Life Advocate, a national magazine published in Portland, Oregon. Publisher Andrew Burnett invokes authorities from the Bible to Blackstone in contending that the killing of abortionists is justified homicide. He relates a discussion with a pro-life activist who opposes the use of force. Burnett questions how much this fellow really cares about the thirty million children who have been killed since the Roe decision of 1973. Burnett writes: "At that point in the conversation I had to stop and ask him, 'Do you really believe that abortion is murder?' 'Of course I do,' he said. Then I probed a little deeper. I asked him if he viewed abortion the same way that he would view the murder of one of his own children or for that matter the shooting of an abortionist. He paused for a moment before he acknowledged that he didn't feel the same way about the death of children in abortion and the possible murder of his own child. I responded that I felt the same way. There is a special bond that we have with our kids. But our lack of 'feeling' towards the unborn should not get in the way of acknowledging that they do deserve the same protection that we would give the born."

In the same issue, associate editor Cathy Ramey asks the question, "So where do we go from here?" She answers: "I can't tell anyone what they ought to do, that they are obligated to the kind of action taken against Gunn and Tiller. For me, the issue is that we need to be articulating truth. Even though I may be unable to defend babies in the way that Shannon and Griffin (as accused) did, the truth is that Scripture supports defending your neighbor's life, even with lethal force. To accord these children less protection and to condemn their protectors is to agree with the abortion industry that they aren't really human. Their lives are not even as valuable as the life of a serial killer and, as someone who wrote a letter stated, we 'prefer live abortionists over live babies.'

"Unfortunately, many in the pro-life movement have paid the pinch of incense that the world demanded in order to justify the continual killing of children. You see, if pro-life leaders are saying that these children aren't legitimately entitled to the same level of care and protection as a born person (even a born killer) then it only stands to reason that perhaps pre-natal killings are just a matter of choice and not a grave moral evil."

Caricature and Credibility

The statement argues that "anyone who tries to justify the murder of abortionists who are about to kill preborn babies will not be able to stop at that point. . . . More steps will inevitably follow until some activists begin urging the execution of feminists who push for abortion and the politicians who vote for it. . . . Even if only a few misguided individuals stoop to murder, the public will turn against us. Recruiting will become almost impossible. Finally, the pro-abortion movement will gain the martyrs it has always needed for its own validation. The attention of the country will be forever diverted from graphic pictures of aborted preborn babies to even more explicit photographs of abortionists lying in pools of their own blood."

The statement does not deny the right, maybe the duty, to defend the innocent. "Yes, we may very well kill an intruder who threatens our children, but if we knew that such a killing would touch off a chain of events that could very well lead to the deaths of many more children, we would choose instead to restrain or disable the trespasser instead of taking his life." Not only would more children be killed, but there is a deep principle involved. "Nonviolence is a foundation stone of Christian activism. It cannot be removed without damaging everything that rests upon it. If we repudiate nonviolence, we will also betray the thousands of pro-lifers who have laid their very lives and all of their possessions on the line for the babies."

Clowes and the other signers go on to say, "We cannot always understand God's plan. What would have happened if someone had taken the life of the world's biggest abortionist in 1975? Bernard Nathanson would not be fighting for life today. What if someone had killed Carol Everett? Or George Bush? Or Ronald Reagan? They were all pro-abortion at one time. What if Christians had risen up at the beginning of Church history and had killed Saul as he presided over the stoning of Stephen? He was, after all, persecuting Christians. If they had killed their tormentor, Paul would not have proclaimed the Gospel in many nations, and thousands would not have been saved." The conclusion of the statement is emphatic: "God has not abandoned us. We must trust Him instead of relying on our own strength. The killing of human beings, either born or preborn, has absolutely no place in this movement."

Despite the efforts of Life Advocate and a few others, the question of the use of lethal force by the pro-life movement is, we believe, securely closed. Of course it is possible that it will happen again that someone who is mentally deranged or blinded by anguish for the unborn will kill an abortionist. In view of the many thousands of activists on all sides of the abortion dispute, there is no way of assuring that that will not happen again. If it does, we can be sure that it will be fully exploited by pro-choice forces. But the pro-life movement, we are confident, will remain determinedly nonviolent. That is because many, if not most, are committed to nonviolence as a pacifist principle. There is also the prudential judgment, expressed in the Clowes statement, that the use of violence would destroy the movement and result in the death of many more children.

Revolutionary Violence

Strange how things come around again. A long time ago your editor wrote with Peter Berger Movement and Revolution (Doubleday, 1970). Then the loose talk about revolutionary violence was coming from the left, and your editor's purpose was to write a cautionary essay, noting the ways in which "justified war doctrine" places severe moral strictures on the use of violence. Arguments now advanced by Life Advocate were then advanced by the proponents of radical change, including the change that was called "liberalized abortion." Cathy Ramey appeals to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor killed by the Nazis in 1945 for his part in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It is a suggestive comparison. Bonhoeffer had come to the firm conclusion that the Nazi regime was morally illegitimate and corrupt in all its parts, in theory and practice. He decided, in fear and trembling, that tyrannicide was the only available remedy. Do people like Cathy Ramey mean to say that that is our situation? Moreover, in view of alternative political orders and knowing the depravities of sinful humanity, how would one determine that the American regime is illegitimate?

Those are among the questions that need to be put to people who advocate the use of lethal force. In our judgment, to raise such questions is to answer them. This journal is not reluctant to pursue deeply disturbing questions, as is evident, for but one related example, in Russell Hittinger's sobering article, "When the Court Should Not Be Obeyed" (FT, October 1993). Conceivably the day may come when thoughtful citizens will be forced to conclude that this is not a legitimate regime, and to ponder the moral responsibilities that attend that conclusion. We all have a strong interest in hoping that we will never see that day, and an even stronger duty to do what we can to prevent it.

There is impressive moral and legal precedent affirming the duty to defend and the duty to rescue. In our historical circumstance, the same tradition forbids the use of violence in a misguided effort to exercise such duty. Talk about the use of lethal force is, in fact, talk about revolution and civil war. It could conceivably, if the talk were turned into action, lead to a great bloodletting and destruction for both the born and unborn. Much more likely, it would lead to the demise of a pro- life movement that bears the most luminous hope for the righting of a great wrong in this constitutional order that is still, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, the last, best hope of earth. We sincerely hope that Life Advocate and others who are tempted will abandon their flirtation with the culture of death.

Unfair Fairness

Their concern is entirely warranted, but it also reflects an interesting twist. Many years ago, mainline Protestants strongly favored the Fairness Doctrine. It gave them a crack at radio and television time, although usually in what came to be called "the Sunday morning ghetto." Fundamentalists (as Evangelicals were then called) remained aloof from such "worldly" communications, except for a few paid programs. In the last twenty years, however, Evangelical Protestants have built a veritable empire of hundreds of radio stations and cable television programs. Apart from Mother Angelica and the VISN cable program, Catholics and oldline Protestants have not been very adept in this field. Originally, the Fairness Doctrine gave Catholics and oldliners access to the "secular" media. Now Evangelicals oppose it for fear that it will give secularists access to their media.

So what's fair? According to the experts on fiber optics and the like, we're on the edge of a revolution in which the established networks will shrink in importance as average Americans will have access to hundreds of TV channels. As for radio, exaggerated reports of its demise forty years ago have long since given way to the recognition of its indispensability in maintaining free expression on public affairs. This is no time for expanding government control of communications. Let a thousand flowers bloom, and let the FCC keep its hands off them.

The Triumph of Ideology Over the Obvious

But why are people such as Ms. Pollitt and other "Apologists for Murphy Brown" so determined to deny the obvious? Because, says Carlin, they subscribe to an ideology of which the pivotal ethical doctrine is that the summum bonum of human life is virtually unlimited personal freedom. Carlin explains: "From this single axiom are deduced a number of doctrines. Heading the list is this: (1) the good society is the society whose only common good is the agreement not to agree on any common good. But this is followed by others: (2) cultural diversity is to be prized regardless of the content of the culture; (3) the sexual liberation movement is a great step forward in the advance of civilization; (4) the right to abortion is a fundamental human right; (5) the right to suicide is another fundamental human right; and of course (6) regardless of whether or not there are children involved, society has no business pressuring people to get married or remain married.

"These doctrines and others are part of an ideological package. Attack any one of them, and you have attacked the supreme axiom upon which they are all based; but attack the central axiom, and you have attacked all the other doctrines that are derived from it. An attack on any doctrine, then, is an attack on the whole system. It's like the three musketeers: one for all and all for one. Or it's like the traditional notion of the unity of Catholic doctrine: attack one doctrine, and you have attacked the church's teaching authority; hence you have indirectly attacked all church doctrine.

"At all events, subscribers to this ideology cannot afford to yield on a single point of doctrine, no matter how illogical or contrary to fact. This is why John Leo is as likely to persuade Katha Pollitt to change her mind as is the A.S.P.C.A. to persuade adherents of the Santaria faith to renounce the sacrifice of chickens.

"Mention of the Santaria reminds us that religion always involves sacrifice. Some religions sacrifice chickens. Others sacrifice contrite hearts. The secular religion of the cultural Left sacrifices the prosperity and happiness of millions of children."

Blaming the Victims' Defenders

"Note that the President challenged only those who have problems with abortion-not those who find having a child inconvenient just now, and use abortion as a method of birth control. Nor those who don't want to be tied down just yet, or who would really rather not interrupt their school year. Nor those who think a baby would get in the way of a career. Nor those who have repeated abortions because they're trying for a boy. Nor those who . . . well, you name your favorite morally dubious reason for having an abortion.

"Oppose abortion do you? The President's not very well disguised riposte: Then raise somebody else's child.

"The possibilities of this piece of clintonspeak are nigh endless: Oppose bank robberies do you? Then find some other way for the robber to get the money he's after. Oppose envy? Then manage to find some other way for the envious to get their heart's desire. Think drunk drivers should stay off the road? Then spend your nights driving drunks home. And so strangely on."

Discriminating Violence

The problem with "violence" on television, says Bowman, is that violent acts are detached from any context which could give them moral meaning. "Maybe the image of the lone lawman standing up to the bad guys was factitious and hackneyed and artistically clumsy, but it provided such a context-one which has dissipated as much in reality as on TV since the glamour of Matt Dillon was superseded by that of Bob Dylan. We need the glamour of discriminating violence in order to offset the collective moral lassitude induced by too much of the undiscriminating kind. Playing Simon Says with the government is certainly not going to bring it back-even if Simon were less simple than he is. Maybe nothing else is either. But if we all work to get as much violence on television as possible, maybe the effort to make sense of it all will result eventually in something like a plausible moral context." Maybe.

Getting Really Rich

Like others before him, Milken's "real crime" was to be a corporate raider. He had learned "to identify, buy, and dismember badly-managed companies whose shares did not reflect the value of their underlying assets. Later he began using his acquisitions to assemble conglomerates." Actually, says The Economist, in the 1980s comparatively few junk bonds were used to finance hostile takeovers. But a couple of instances caught the public's imagination and did Milken in. The Economist concludes that Milken and others "were punished at least as much for the unpopularity of their ideas as for breaking the law."

We have enough controversies on our plate, so we're not going to claim that Michael Milken would have been the greatest banker of the age, or even that what he did was good for business. Frankly, we don't know enough to make a judgment one way or the other. But this we do know: There are very reputable and morally responsible authorities who make a strong case that Milken and his junk bonds (junk meaning high risk) were a great boon to the economy. (As it happens, junk bonds seem to be coming back in a big way.) And this we do know: There is no clear moral principle that indicates it is wrong to make $500 million a year. The moral questions are what one does with it, and whether one's soul is captive to it, and whether, as Centesimus Annus teaches, the activity involved in getting it draws others into the circle of freedom in productivity and exchange. Mind you, our sympathy for Mr. Milken is limited. He is still really rich.

CBS Leads the Way

In this story, a genetic disorder prevents an attractive young couple from having healthy children. She is a devout Catholic and refuses to use artificial contraception. That is the story line that sets the stage for everybody in the sitcom to get in on the discussion of the ludicrousness of Catholic moral teaching. Her priest, a mousy fellow, hesitantly suggests they try "the rhythm method," to which the response is, "You must be joking." The priest mumbles that his hands are tied, since he would be "excommunicated" if he permitted contraception. A local Protestant minister (the collar suggests Lutheran or Episcopalian) gets in on the act, declaring that the Catholic position on contraception "is nuts." "This birth control thing goes to a larger conspiracy," he opines. "The Vatican wants the population explosion to help them achieve world domination." A judge, a sober and sympathetic member of the cast, warns, "If the Church doesn't take action, sooner or later the courts will." The day is coming, he warns, when the entire Catholic Church will be sued for its moral teaching. "And believe me," he says, "the last thing that anybody wants is for judges to start legislating religion. But if the Catholic Church stays rigid on some of these rules, that day is coming."

Let it be said that "Picket Fences" is a kooky program, sometimes amusingly so. In the same episode, a psychiatrist falls in love with his client, a lady cop who sets him up to be arrested for falling in love with her. Also, a stereotypically Jewish shyster lawyer gets an appellate court to agree that clients should not tell the truth to their counsel. The lawyer's client, who happens to be mayor of the town, dies by spontaneous combustion, leaving only a handful of ashes behind. In the context of such a crazy program, is the venom against the Catholic Church really to be taken seriously? The answer is definitely yes. In this episode, only the polemic against Catholicism is not held up to ridicule. The incident with the psychiatrist is not an indictment of psychiatry. It is one misguided man betrayed by an unstable woman. The ludicrous argument of the shyster lawyer is countered by a very sympathetic young black lawyer for the prosecution. And, of course, the death by spontaneous combustion is presented as bizarre and utterly implausible.

Only the attack on the Church is left standing on its own merits, so to speak. Indeed the most sympathetic characters in the program, including the judge, join in the attack. The priest who represents the Church's teaching is portrayed as a pitiable incompetent who obviously does not agree with the Church and is incapable of defending the teaching, which, viewers are left in no doubt, is in fact indefensible. There is a lot of intended monkey business in "Picket Fences." But that cannot disguise what is the serious business of this episode, which is anti-Catholicism on a vituperative scale. The Catholic League is right to protest, and it should not be left to protest alone. We hope the protest will do some good. Whether it does or not, let the record show that CBS is leading the way in the indulgence of religious bigotry in network television. The "creative" people at CBS-meaning writers and directors who confuse courage with obnoxiousness-will likely take that as a compliment.

Verdict First

"We are probably stepping way, way beyond the bounds of sexual correctness, but let us point out that the sexual conduct code of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a policy in want of basic fairness. By that we mean the policy and the process both fail to adequately safeguard the rights of the accused. There is no statute of limitations, investigations can begin based on hearsay, confessional privacy is not inviolate (which means it does not even exist), the accused-choosing to follow the process to the end-must testify, and as has happened, a pastor can find his or her synod bishop suddenly on the doorstep demanding the pastor's resignation, quite without benefit of having faced his or her accusers. (That hearing comes later.) It is a policy lacking evidentiary rules. It presumes guilt, not innocence. It inflicts grievous punishment prior to a finding.

"Here is our considered opinion should it happen to you. Do not resign on demand of the bishop without first getting thee to an attorney. Refuse private conversations with anyone connected with the accusation, including the bishop. Share what you must with the church council with your attorney present. The attorney can explain the disciplinary procedure and note the protective shortcomings of it. Refer further inquires to your attorney. If you think our advice drastic, consider the drastic consequences of trusting those charged with enforcing a policy so evidently open to abuse."

Extreme policies on sexual misconduct are largely driven by the demands of radical feminists who make no secret of their belief that all men are rapists or potential rapists. Such policies are generally implemented by timorous men who are terrified of getting on the wrong side of a woman's fury. The hard question for the churches is how much of the necessary trust between bishops, pastors, and parishioners-and how much elementary fairness and decency-they are prepared to sacrifice in order to prevent real, and relatively rare, instances of sexual misconduct.

A Well-Funded Phantasm

That does not stop CFC and its director, Frances Kissling, from taking full-page newspaper ads to present "an alternative Catholic view on abortion." Nor does it stop reporters in the prestige media from interviewing Ms. Kissling to get "the other side" on the Church and abortion. Kissling is not simply pro-choice, she is pro-abortion in the fullest sense of being part of the industry. Before directing CFC, she was cofounder of the National Abortion Federation, a trade association of abortion clinic managers. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are poured into CFC from sources such as the Sunnen Foundation, the Brush Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Unitarian Universalist Church- all major backers of pro-abortion and population control programs. CFC's first headquarters were located in the Planned Parenthood building in New York, and the two organizations collaborate in placing ads and other CFC efforts. And, of course, CFC is an affiliate of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.

In sum, CFC is in no way a voice of dissent from within American Catholicism. It is a deliberately deceptive instrument of anti-Catholic propaganda that is bankrolled and controlled by institutions that make no secret of their belief that the Catholic Church is the single greatest threat to abortion, eugenics, euthanasia, population control, and other policies on the agenda of putative progress. Of course, they are probably right about that. Now that CFC and Ms. Kissling have been so thoroughly discredited, one waits to see what new ploy will be devised to promote the phantasm of "an alternative Catholic view."

To Be Surprised by Joy

The passage is quoted in Daniel Callahan's marvelously thoughtful new book, The Troubled Dream of Life: Living With Mortality (Simon & Schuster), to which we will be returning in these pages. Callahan discusses the claim of the late theologian Paul Ramsey that "death with dignity" is a cruel delusion, that death is the final insult, the final indignity. With Santayana and others, Callahan wants to make the case that we can make sense of death as part of life. One opposing position, he notes, is the conceit that death can be conquered by medical science. Another, as in the case of Ramsey, is the hope of life beyond death that is offered by religion. But Callahan does not have it quite right. Paul Ramsey recognized as fully as Callahan all that is involved in "living with mortality." He did not need religion in order to cope with mortality. The Christian truth of the resurrection is utterly gratuitous. It is entirely a gift, both to those who can and those who cannot cope with mortality. It is not a coping mechanism. In response to Santayana's question, "What other end can anything have?" comes the answer: the fulness of life, namely, God.

Callahan says that he no longer considers himself a Christian. But he ends the book on this note. "Can death, and the life in which it is embedded, be transcended? I do not see this for myself, but I hope to live the remainder of my days in a way that at least puts me in a position to be (as Wordsworth put it) 'surprised by joy.' It is unlikely but perhaps not impossible. I wait and watch." As do we all. Although some of us have been persuaded that we know the One for whom we wait and watch.

But What About the Other Side?

Or we could have asked the editors of, say, the National Catholic Reporter to expand on their view that Catholics are once again forced to choose between the Pope's morality of principle and Jesus' morality of love (see item in While We're At It). Or we could have asked Lutheran theologian Hans Philippi to expatiate on his complaint that "the encyclical says nothing useful to my daughter, to my homosexual friends, and to all those who simply wish to live as men and women without fear and without the obligation of applying abstract rules." Or Italian Protestant theologian Sergio Rostagno might have been asked to extend his insight that the Pope is responding to ethical problems "by reaffirming obedience to the norms dictated by his own church." Then there is Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, who says, "This text seems to want to close a debate which should have been opened together ecumenically." Would it be interesting to see what a document like Veritatis Splendor would look like had it been written jointly by the Pope and the World Council of Churches? No, probably not.

And that's the answer to our subscriber's inquiry. We didn't include "the other side" because, quite frankly, it has nothing to say at this point that is very interesting. The purpose of our symposium was to positively set out the teaching of the encyclical and explore some of its implications. Disagreement with the teaching, if disagreement there must be, should follow the sympathetic engagement of the teaching. We're so old-fashioned that we hold to what now sounds like the novel idea that people should, before dissenting, know what they are dissenting from. The conversation continues, and there will be ample time for airing divergent arguments, also in these pages. Meanwhile, we continue to think that Veritatis Splendor is one of the more splendid things that has happened for moral reflection in this generally unreflective century.

The Communities Missing from "Communitarianism"

For communitarianism to ignore religion is to ignore the largest associational (i.e., communitarian) pattern in American life. Religious differences can fragment a movement, to be sure, but a communitarianism that does not address how we should live with our deepest differences would be a pretty timorous and feeble thing. In addition, while it is understandable that the movement wants to avoid the fevered disagreements over questions such as abortion-disagreements that are often religiously grounded-a bolder communitarianism would welcome the opportunity to explore the possibilities of civil accommodation on the most controverted issues. In any event, Abramowitz is right: to speak of moral revival in America without reference to religion is like speaking of nutrition without reference to food, or of literacy without reference to books. Communitarianism will become more plausible and effective when it learns what Tocqueville meant when he said that "religion is the first political institution" of American democracy.

While We're At It

• The World Council of Churches has called for the lifting of sanctions against Serbia. Serbia is generally thought to be the chief aggressor in the former Yugoslavia, having seized the lion's share of the territory and perpetrated a great deal of bloody nastiness. The WCC has a long record of supporting sanctions as an alternative to military action. In South Africa, Iraq, Haiti, and elsewhere. The Catholics of Croatia are not represented in the WCC. The Muslims of Bosnia are not represented in the WCC. The Serbian Orthodox Church is a member of the WCC. WCC officials deny that that has anything to do with their call for lifting the sanctions against Serbia. Whether one believes that is an indicator of where one draws the line between charity and naivete.
• Last year in this space we said, "When it works so well, do it again." We then announced the second annual seminar on "Centesimus Annus and the Free Society." Now we're announcing the third. This time it will be in Krakow, Poland, July 3 to 24. The faculty includes Michael Novak, George Weigel, James Nuechterlein, Russell Hittinger, and Richard John Neuhaus, plus distinguished Polish intellectuals and church leaders. Fellowships are available for ten American graduate students. Send curriculum vitae and 300-word essay on the meaning of liberty to Derek Cross, American Enterprise Institute, 1150 Seventeenth St., NW, Washington D.C. 20036. Application deadline is Apri1 1, 1994.
• As Bernard Nathanson forcefully argued in these pages (April 1992), C. Everett Koop, when he was Surgeon General, was a very doubtful friend of the pro-life movement. Now Koop is stumping the country for the Clinton health plan. Christianity Today caught up with him to ask his views on the state of the pro-life cause today. He opined that it is necessary to achieve some compromise. There is a difference, he said, "between ethical compromise and a political compromise." Fair enough. But then this: "Koop regards the Roe decision as a failed effort at conciliation: if pro-life advocates had allowed for abortion in cases of rape and incest rather than demanding a ban on all abortions, a sweeping court ruling such as Roe would have been avoided, or at least delayed. 'A compromise could have averted millions upon millions of abortions.' " Come again? In 1973, the year of Roe, there was no pro-life movement to speak of. There had been for several years an "abortion liberalization" movement that wanted to expand the circumstances in which babies could be legally terminated. By their own admission, the liberalizers were utterly surprised, and most of them were delighted, by the sweeping decision of the Court. Far from being interested in compromise, the Blackmun decision (reinforced by subsequent decisions) was a judicial diktat that removed the question of abortion from democratic deliberation and decision. Dr. Koop's revisionist history is bizarre. His blaming of pro-lifers for the thirty million abortions since Roe is unconscionable.
• As we've said before, in the absence of a No Comment Department, we are reduced to noting items that would qualify if we had one. For example, this National Catholic Reporter editorial on the recent encyclical, Veritatis Splendor: "The Pope wants us all to live in the world of Truth. But life, alas, is not like that. We live in the penultimate world of muddle and confusion, with sparks of goodness occasionally lighting up the darkness. And, when all is said and done, the pilgrim Catholic, encyclical in hand, is left with a dilemma: Where is the love? This, no matter how one reads it, is a harsh, negative, rigid, authoritarian document. The Christian searches vainly for the positive, affirming, all-embracing, compassionate tone of the Christ in whose name the Pope wrote his encyclical; the Christ who said to prostitutes and tax collectors and other rejects to come along and follow him, who was anything but absolute, putting up instead an umbrella big enough for everyone, and suggesting by his wholesome attitude that he respected the intelligence and conscience God had given to people in the first place. It is said that, 2,000 years later, the Pope sees as the culmination of his pontificate the casting in cold concrete of the glad, liberating message of Jesus. One can't help feeling that one of them got it wrong." We do not have a No Comment Department because we cannot resist commenting. That Our Lord's "big umbrella" approach to evil reflects his "wholesome attitude" is really a nice thing to say about Him. All that stuff about taking up your cross and following Him notwithstanding, He's really a regular guy. You can leave the fear and trembling business to that rigorous old Polish Pope. "The Pope wants us to live in the world of Truth." Just imagine.
• It started out some years ago as a very interesting publication. The National & International Religion Report (NIRR) contained valuable information not readily available elsewhere. Under its new editorship, however, it has tended downhill. NIRR has become more and more a sheet of puffery for myriad Evangelical groups claiming spectacular "Gospel awakenings" in places as various as Peru, Romania, and Des Moines. If half the awakenings and spiritual breakthroughs reported by Evangelical enthusiasts were true, the world would have been evangelized a long time ago. More problematic is the casual equation of success-measured by alleged conversions and money raised-with divine blessing. The concluding item in the issue of NIRR at hand is this: " 'Whenever there were, like, two outs or two strikes or something, I'd ask God for help-and it worked,' Long Beach (Calif.) Little League All-Stars shortstop and pitcher Sean Burroughs told NIRR. Through the Western regionals and the World Series, Burroughs pitched twenty consecutive innings without allowing a hit. During the Series, he struck out thirty-two batters and got nine hits, including two home runs. Burroughs, thirteen years old, told his mother that when his team needs to rally, 'I've been asking God to give me something to hit. He hasn't let me down yet.' " Not yet. And what is young Burroughs to think when God doesn't come through for him? Perhaps this is not as gross as the National Catholic Reporter's editorial commendation of Jesus for having a "wholesome attitude," but it's close. Given the fatuities peddled in the name of Christianity, one would prefer not to be a Christian, were it not true.
• The cross is "in." Upmarket catalogues and fashion magazines are featuring designer crosses by the dozens. This from Vogue: "Both as streetwise pendants and as couture pieces, crosses have had a popular revival. . . . With medieval-inspired fashion making its mark, a cross worn at the neck or pinned to a jacket will continue to be the definitive accessory of the moment-whether a simple wooden piece by Tom Binns or Verdura's extravagant aquamarine-and-yellow-sapphire cross (designed by Fulco di Verdura in tandem with Salvador Dali in 1942)." How an instrument of torture and death became a fashion statement is worth pondering. One cannot imagine the same thing happening to gallows, electric chair, or guillotine. A friend says it's a backhanded compliment to Christianity, since Easter removed the horror of the cross. We don't think so. The resurrection defeated death; it did not trivialize it. So what is a woman to do who wants to wear a cross as a statement of faith? The best thing is probably to make it starkly simple and very small, and, if asked what it means, respond with John 3:16. Then wait until next season when Vogue and its ilk proclaim that something else is "in." Maybe images of starving children in aquamarine- and-yellow-sapphire.
• The late Aaron Wildavsky reviews Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass (Morrow). Writing in The Public Interest, Wildavsky concludes with this: "Several times Magnet rightly lets us know that the intersection of poverty and race is critical to understanding the American condition. When Gunnar Myrdal wrote decades ago about the American dilemma, he had something else in mind: Most Americans were agreed that the values of the established culture-equality under the law and equal opportunity-had been systematically violated for black citizens. The problem was how to act so as to realize values we held in common. Nowadays the new American dilemma is that Americans in positions of power believe that equal opportunity and equality under the law lack meaning unless they are accompanied by greater equality of condition. Nowadays-hence the confusion and consternation Magnet so ably reports-our dilemma is that we do not agree about what ought to constitute, to use the old phrase, the American way of life. It is not just the struggle for the soul of the underclass but for the soul of America, which we once called 'our' America, that is revealed in this immensely valuable book."
• As noted here some while back, the question has again come up as to whether Church World Service (CWS), by far the largest part of the National Council of Churches (NCC), should split off from the council. Apparently the idea has been put on the back burner, again. Appointed as the new director of CWS is R. Lawrence Turnipseed, a United Methodist. NCC general secretary Joan Brown Campbell says, "Lonnie and I share a commitment to preserve the integrity of the council's work." We wish Lonnie Turnipseed well.
• Another "Future of the American Church Conference" in Washington, D.C., has come and gone. Even the National Catholic Reporter admits that it looks more like the past than the future. The participants are increasingly broad of beam and grey of head. The conference used to attract 2,000 and more, but this year-even though the theme was the hot topic of culture and gender-"the 600 participants, mostly women religious, were white, mainly over fifty, and already well educated about church tensions." Key speakers such as Father Charles Curran, Anthony Padovano, and Rosemary Ruether "came under fire . . . as 'old warhorse theologians' who come back as repeats on the conference schedule year after year." Curiously, the report ends with the observation that "People are tired of this grim-faced patriarchal church of old men who hang on too long to office to fight for the church of yesterday with no thought, or little thought, that they're losing the church of tomorrow." Old men like John Paul II at the world youth gathering in Denver, presumably. There was, apparently, one innovation at the Washington conference. It seems a new translation of the Bible was introduced. The report says that Franciscan Sister Fran Feder spoke on Paul's letter to the Galatians, "which states there is no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual, cleric and lay, white and multicultural." Pray that the Future of the Church conference will rest in peace, as the rest of us move on to the future of the Church.
• For reasons far from clear, Karen Armstrong's A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam garnered much acclaim when published in Britain (Knopf has just brought it out here). One can understand why the ostentatiously atheistic A. N. Wilson likes it. "This," he writes, "is the most fascinating and learned study of the biggest wild goose chase in history-the quest for God." But then Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury, effuses, "She refreshes the understanding of what one knows, and provides a clear introduction to the unfamiliar." One is forced to wonder what it is that His Grace thinks he knows. Toward the end of this 460-page tome, Armstrong, a former nun, allows, "Some people still find it possible to find meaning in the idea of God." She mentions Karl Barth, perhaps the most influential theologian of this century, as an example. But of him she remarks, "It seems unhealthy to combine such radical skepticism in the powers of the intellect with such an uncritical acceptance of the truths of scripture." So there. We are rather sure that it is unhealthy, if that's the word, to expose oneself unduly to the feather-brained ideas of an ill-informed ex-believer whose grasp of theological thought is as feeble as her hold on English style ("find it possible to find meaning," "skepticism in the powers of the intellect"). Really, Runcie.
• Lutheran Brotherhood, a fraternal insurance outfit, has this full- page ad in several Lutheran publications. The bold headline is "The Wall Street Journal recently reported our variable annuities are some of the best in the industry." Below that is a little cartoon fellow with a balloon that says, "Now that's what I call good news." As distinct from what Lutherans have usually insisted is the good news?
• One need not agree with Fr. Raymond Schroth about the possibility of women priests in order to agree with his point about meddling with the Bible in order to achieve that and so many other fashionable ends. This from "Let's Go to the Text" in America: "A faculty friend told me the story of the nineteenth-century abolitionist preacher who took his scissors and clipped all the references to slavery out of his Bible, as if that would further the cause of racial justice. We can try the same tactic, and we'll end up with a wishy-washy religion that eliminates anything from the gospel message that makes us feel ill at ease, anything odd or foreign or difficult to understand. Since there is no sound scriptural argument against women's ordination, the Scripture, truly understood, must be the best weapon for the liberation of women and men alike. The danger is that by the year 2000 this kind of movement for 'equality' will have so unsexed the liberating power of the Gospels that we won't have women priests. We'll have the same old male priests who will stand at the altar, raise their hands, and intone: 'The Force be with you.'"
• Writing on the death of approximately eighty-five Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, Daniel Wattenberg notes that all that artillery was brought to bear before David Koresh and his followers were even charged with a crime. As for the ballyhoo about their being armed and dangerous: "Texas Rangers recovered about two hundred guns from the crime scene, roughly two per resident. Statewide in Texas, seventeen million people own sixty million guns, or about four per resident." In view of the egregiously self-serving whitewash coming out of Janet Reno's Justice Department, one expects that there will be further examinations of what happened at Waco, possibly the most direct and bloody assault on religion by government force in American history, or at least since Joseph Smith and his followers were killed in 1844. It is a subject that will receive further attention in the pages of this journal.
• The University of Detroit Mercy is all in a stir over a book published by Jane Schaberg, until recently chairman of the religious studies department. Her book, The Illegitimacy of Jesus (HarperCollins, wouldn't you know), contends that Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary was raped by a man. Detroit Mercy, a Catholic school, has not been entirely supportive, Ms. Schaberg complains. She still has her job, she says, but "I didn't know the university was going to cave in like this." Reporter Robin Wilson continues: "She is reluctant to discuss her religious beliefs (she says she goes to church 'when I think I can handle my anger'). But she says it is important for feminist scholars to continue to address Catholic teachings. 'I believe that it's a very dangerous thing for women to simply opt out and say, "The male church can have the buildings, the institution, the money, the power, and we'll go somewhere else," she says. 'The Catholic Church is a living organism, and it's currently one of the most deadly to women.' " It puts one in mind of an admirably candid response by Rosemary Radford Ruether many years ago. Asked why-in view of all that she says she doesn't believe that the Church does believe and does believe that the Church doesn't believe-she still stays in the Church, Ms. Ruether answered, "That's where the xerox machines are." It makes sense, of a sort.
• ICEL (pronounced eye-sell) is the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, and it is in charge of liturgical texts for English-speaking churches around the world. A big issue, as you might imagine, is "inclusive" language. A reporter was asked to submit questions in writing to Dr. John Page, ICEL's executive secretary. Question: Are "man," "him," "his," and "he" inclusive of both sexes? Dr. Page's answer: "It is ICEL's position that those words are no longer generic terms inclusive of men as well as women. We would find sanction for this in various recent editions of standard English dictionaries, for example, the 1992 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language where the first meaning under the entry 'man' is 'an adult male human being.' " Responding to Dr. Page, Fr. Joseph Fessio, publisher of the Catholic World Report, wrote: "Dictionaries of the English language (going back to Old English) have for centuries given as the first meaning for 'man' 'a member of the human race; a person' or the equivalent. By the principle you [Page] are using, the word 'man' would never have meant 'an adult male person' until recently. Or, to put it in the form you used: 'It is ICEL's position that prior to 1992 "man" was not a specific term excluding women and children. We would find sanction for this in all editions of standard English dictionaries prior to 1992 where the first meaning under the entry "man" is "a member of the human race." ' " Fessio continued: "In fact, the dictionary you cite gives as the second of fourteen meanings of the entry 'man' (all still current) 'any human being as distinguished from an animal or deity; a member of the human race; a person,' and as the third meaning 'the human race; mankind.' Surely you don't think that because the second meaning replaced the first in one dictionary (most dictionaries retain the traditional order), the centuries-old generic meaning has vanished?" Giving an example of the wrongheadedness of Page's position, Fessio noted, "It's as if one said, 'The ICEL episcopal boardrooom is full of crooks,' explaining that the first meaning for that word in The American Heritage Dictionary is 'an implement or tool, such as a bishop's crosier . . . with a bent or crooked part.' " We do not know if Dr. Page has been heard from again.
• No, of course we didn't go to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago last summer. Some of the more mainstream Protestant and Catholic figures who gingerly hovered at its edges worried that big money behind sundry Asian and goddess groups might use the parliament to challenge more established interreligious enterprises. It seems unlikely. The parliament's manifesto, written by reliably dissident Catholic theologian Hans Kung, didn't mention God for fear of offending those whose theology takes them no further than "Ultimate Reality." The Orthodox churches, bad sports that they are, pulled out halfway through because of the systematic bashing of Christianity. But David Toolan of America stayed on. He says it was a "hoot," and Toolan knows a hoot when he sees one. Devotees of the Egyptian goddess Isis were so popular, he reports, that their ritual observances had to switch rooms three times in order to accommodate the crowds. Toolan continues: "One of the opportunities of a meeting like this is to suspend bias and stretch one's horizons. Dutifully, I went looking for Muslims who were willing to talk honestly about 'jihad.' Not much luck. I did better with benign witches. I went to hear Phyllis Currot, a New York attorney and president and high priestess of the largest Wicca organization, the Covenant of the Goddess. Ms. Currot's account of Western history was a bit crude, I found, but her theology (the 'indigenous religion of Europe,' she called it) sounded a good deal like Bernard of Clairvaux's nature mysticism and could have served as an introduction to a medieval vision of a sacramental universe. Her predictable enemy: an androcentric, patriarchal, and Cartesian Christianity that legitimizes ecological destruction. Chief Seattle, oracle of Pacific-Northwest Indians in the 1850s, you will not be surprised to hear, is a Wiccan hero. Nature, we were told, is an 'epiphany of God'-and for backup Ms. Currot cited Father Thomas Berry's Dream of the Earth. Nothing Satanic here, I thought, though on street corners outside the hotel the followers of the jailed Lyndon Larouche ('the nation's leading political prisoner,' they called him) were claiming that the whole conference agenda ('environmentalism, population control, and One Worldism') represented a New Age conspiracy and was the work of the Devil." Toolan may have a piece of a point, but Bernard of Clairvaux and the "medieval vision" did have a thing about Jesus Christ, Trinity, and so forth. As for the opinion of the execrable Lyndon Larouche, even a stopped clock is right sometime.

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