Sunday Night Journal — 5/13/2007

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Sunday Night Journal — 5/13/2007

May 14, 2007 by Daniel Nichols

A Permanent Culture War?

—Maclin Horton

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

11 Responses

on May 17, 2007 at 8:28 pm | Reply Christopher Zehnder

Maclin,

This is an interesting essay. I would add to it, however, that the modern world is not as divided as it might seem. People change religions because religion is a surface affair that doesn’t, finally, touch the deepest convictions of modernity. The real convictions of modernity are the those that arise from enlightenment secularism. Americans and Europeans, no matter their religion or lack thereof, basically share the same convictions as to the nature of human society, of the individual in relation to it, and the place of religious faith in relation to civil society. There may be differences in details about rights, for instance, but we’re all fundamentally liberal in our deepest convictions.

Most modern people no more question the principles of democracy, separation of church and state, or individualism than Medievals questioned the Trinity. Religion, being basically a private affair, can be changed because it doesn’t shake the deepest convictions. Some, indeed, come to question or reject modern assumptions on a number of heads, but even for them this requires a deep inner struggle and is not a matter of habit.

In short, it seems to me, that the “culture war” is a family squabble between either different kinds of liberals or those who hold to liberalism more perfectly and those who hold to it less perfectly.

Forgive me if this is unclear. I’m a good computer fried and need to go dig some earth.
on May 18, 2007 at 12:38 pm | Reply ben

Maclin’s already thought provoking post post is made more so by your comment Chistopher.

In my case, although it took a few years to work itself out, I have come to understand that my profession of faith means that I no longer adhere to fundamentally liberal theses in my deepst convictions.

I realize this is not true of most of my co-religionists, even the converts. But what do you make of the presence of these few? There are a number of non-liberals: both converts and those who have never been liberal in catholic and orthodox churches and even some protestant congregations (I’m thinking of Caleb Stegall here). There also seem to be large numbers on the fence of this very question (including perhaps Maclin Horton and Rod Dreher?). What do we make of these? And how do they relate to the “culture war”?
on May 18, 2007 at 9:13 pm | Reply maclin

Interesting comments. Partial agreement at least. Something that could bear a great deal more discussion, but I’m traveling with little computer access–at the moment using a computer in the hotel lobby–so will not try to reply at length now. Maybe next week when I’m back at home.

–Maclin
on May 19, 2007 at 12:44 am | Reply antiaphrodite

very interesting essay. hope you have a good trip :-)
on May 19, 2007 at 8:11 am | Reply Daniel Nichols

Totalitarianism or cataclysm do not seem the only options. Note that religiousity is, to Americans, mainly a matter of sentiment. Think of the tendency to hold what seem to be mutually contradictory attitudes, religion here as a feeling, behavior over there, accepted and excused or simply not reflected on. I think of various country stars who live worldly lives, but profess Christianity. Or people we all know- and to some degree we must count ourselves- whose lives little reflect their convictions. Perhaps the two camps will simply blur into a subjectivist blob. There is certainly evidence that evangelicalism tends to lower its standards with time. I remember when the Jesus movement began using rock music to reach the young; there was tremendous resistance among the mainline. Now it is mainline.
Or to look at something more substantive, the growth of conservative denominations while liberal ones fade has been much remarked upon, and generally it has been concluded that it was the doctrinal certainty that drew people.
However, I have read recently that 60% of this growth can be attributed to demographics: evangelicals once had larger families than liberal Protestants. No more; evangelical denominations are beginning to show shrinkage, as their families conform to the dominant 2 kid standard.
In general, evangelicals do not hold the line very well over time: when my grandma was still living, in the 70s, the Church of the Nazarene- a holiness denomination she belonged to before moving into Pentecostalism- demanded that women wear dresses, not cut their hair, and that no one watch television or go to see movies.
Now, the local Nazarene church has adopted the show biz model: rock band on the stage, spotlights, casual dress, etc.
Of course such things are not inherently moral issues, but the same tendency carries over into the moral realm, with increasing acceptance of behavior once deemed immoral. I predict that within our children’s lifetime homosexuality will be accepted- with certain demands for fidelity and such- by the larger evangelical denominations.
Of course much of this is simply the human condition, and affected people in the historic cultures of faith as well (writ large in the life of, say, a Ivan the Terrible, who exhibited appalling cruelty, heartfelt repentance, and devotion in his life) but I also think there is a uniquely American version of this, which combines a sentimental faith and little respect for asceticism or recognition of real holiness. No doubt this has a lot to do with America’s Protestant tradition, especially the Baptist notion of eternal security: have one emotional experience of Christ and you are safe for eternity. Not a lot of motivation there.
I would also take issue with your statement that most people at most times have not given a lot of thought to anything but the mundane. There is plenty of evidence that certain religious cultures lived in the light of eternity, which colored their every action. Think of the Russian peasant, bowing and crossing himself before the icons in his home, whenever he entered or left, or the Celtic crofter, who uttered poetic blessings for his every act- drawing water, reaping crops, tying knots, etc.
And at any rate, children seem to be spontaneously alive to the other world, at least until they were overstimulated by technological toys.
on May 19, 2007 at 2:13 pm | Reply Christopher Zehnder

Ben,

There are Christians, whether Catholic or not, who question and reject dominant cultural assumptions. And there are many who don’t who would if they knew that their Faith was opposed to it. But it requires for most of us (I include myself in this)a struggle. Our minds and hearts are formed by the culture; we do not only have to struggle againt the concupiscence of the flesh but of the mind and the sentiments. There may be some who do not have this struggle, but I doubt they are very many. Culture is second nature and it takes perhaps a lifetime and purification after death to eradicate cultural prejudice.

The problem is exacerabated by the fact that the predominant culture is not wrong in every point. How do we affirm what is true in it while rejecting what is false? How do we embrace truths for the right reasons rathe than wrong ones?

Here is an example. Modern folks would think we should use the force of law to prosecute anyone who would offer cures for, say, cancer that are not only ineffective but actually destructive. Our ancestors thought we should do the same for those who spread false religion. Moderns reject this, ostensibly on the grounds of freedom of conscience, but more deeply, I think, because they think religion a purely personal matter divorced from the concerns of the common good. Religion is merely a means of comforting individuals. It does not say anything to the wider concerns of society.

I think this is wrong and our ancestors basically right. However, there are grounds for upholding freedom of conscience, namely as the way by which men come to know the truth. But there’s a tension in saying this and then saying that those who spread error should not be allowed to deceive their neighbors. Vatican II is often seen as a rejection of earlier papal teaching on the duty of states to protect the true religion; the council seems to play into modern sensibilities. I think this a false interpretation but it is almost inevitable that people, living in a secularist milieu, will see it so. How do we enunciate and hold a view of the freedom of conscience in line with tradition without falling back into secularist assumptions?
on May 21, 2007 at 5:40 pm | Reply Maclin Horton

I won’t have time for another day or so to comment thoughtfully on this, but I have a question for ben: I didn’t follow your remark about people sitting on the fence. Which question exactly are you referring to there?
on May 22, 2007 at 12:54 pm | Reply Francesca

About one in six Americans have changed their religious identity at some point in their lives….. Boston University’s Peter Berger notes that “modernity in its essence means an enormous change in the human condition, from fate to choice” and that such switching is inevitable. (“Religion in America,” Touchstone, April 2007)

I’m not sure if this change of identity, or the change from ‘fate to choice’ is as absolute as all that. After all, Chaucer shows us, quite deliberately, a couple of dozens of variants, within both the clergy and the laity, on how far each character chooses to internalize their religious vocation or their commitment to the faith. A mediaeval person could be an average weekly church goer, or a ‘conversi’ (very keen lay person), or a member of a fraternity (very keen ritualist); if they were a cleric, they could, for instance, select either the relatively easy option of Benedictine monasticism or a hard order, like the Cistercians or the original mendicants. In the 14th and 15th century, the Dominicans fought over how ‘reformed’ or rigorous they were going to be – our current Provincial, Alan White, says that that is one reason they didn’t put up a fight at the Reformation, in Scotland – the rigorous ones thought, at first, that the reformers were doing their job for them, and by the time they saw where it was going, it was too late. But the point is not about ‘reform’ or rigour vs. slackness, but about the fact that people have always made some degree of choice – they’ve wanted their religious life to have such and such a colouration. ‘Christianity’ was never simply ‘fate’ for them, because people were choosing how they wanted a Christian life to be conceived and enacted.

As to Christopher’s question, I think the Vatican II ideal is misinterpreted when it is taken to mean that pluralism per se is the Top Value. Rather, the ideal is that, via free or democratic choices, a pluralist state should predominantly choose to be Christian – rather than having the faith imposed, eg by a monarch.
on May 22, 2007 at 1:59 pm | Reply Maclin Horton

Well, I’ve re-read these now, and am unsure whether any reply is needed. It may just be that my mind is fuzzy, as I’m just getting toward the end of one of the sort of semi-migraine headaches that I get from time to time. I don’t really see anything specific to disagree with in any of the responses, but there seems to be an implication of some divergence of opinion. It seems more to me that the comments are slightly aslant of the point I was making, if that makes sense.

So I’ll just think out loud for a bit before I get back to work: I certainly don’t dispute that many people take religion to be a matter of opinion and taste, and so find it easy to change religions. However, I was thinking about a different sort of person, the one who does take it very seriously, who really does try to act out of conviction. These exist, too, I don’t think any of you would deny. And they are the ones who are likely to take the moral questions of the culture war seriously enough to engage in political or other visible action to promote their views.

These also are aware that a change of religion is an existential possibility, in the sense that there is no external force to stop them. No matter how committed they are, they know that whatever they do and believe is not the only path open to them. This is just a fact, not a principle–it’s in the nature of the world we live in.

So fundamentally, what I was suggesting in the original piece, following Berger’s observation, is that this ability to entertain the possibility of change is (1) an inherent corollary of a world where one can’t not know about the existence of other religions and cultures (2) a guarantee–not metaphysically, but sociologically–that a certain number of people will in fact cross back and forth between the seriously religious and the seriously anti-religious sides in the culture war, which is at bottom a religious struggle. (Whether that’s an adequate description of the culture war is another topic–I think it’s broadly accurate.)

I need to get back to work now. One clarification, in reply to Daniel: in the original piece, I said “that the vast majority of mankind in all times and places have not given a great deal of thought to matters beyond the mundane, and that when they did so they thought in the categories with which their culture provided them.” I certainly don’t mean to suggest that they didn’t have and practice their religion–mainly I meant that they didn’t theologize. How much their religious practice was oriented toward eternity and how much to healing the cow is debatable. But it stands to reason that your Russian and Celt would have thought more about eternity than the average contemporary American, if only because their religion was more fully present and their position on earth more tenuous.

Christopher’s last point bears repeating: “How do we enunciate and hold a view of the freedom of conscience in line with tradition without falling back into secularist assumptions?” Good question. I don’t have an answer.
on May 22, 2007 at 2:29 pm | Reply Maclin Horton

We cross-posted, Francesca. Interesting that you would bring up Chaucer–I was thinking as I wrote the above that I should read him again, which I haven’t done since college, for insight into the religious life of the times.

There’s a big difference, though, between the variations within Christianity that you describe and the huge gulf between the two sides of the culture war. In the latter case there’s enough of a conflict of core principles that living together is getting increasingly difficult.
on May 22, 2007 at 2:40 pm | Reply Francesca

I think I agree about the general point, and the conclusion – that, in general, our society presents us with choices between various religions or none. I just felt that Berger’s ‘from fate to choice’ schema is overdrawn, a bit too reliant on the abstract sociological model of ‘medieval man’, and thus not taking into account that individual medieval men and women choose a wide variety of different attitudes to the meaning of their faith. I don’t doubt that, in general, having one religion ‘pre-selected’ for you, by the prevalent culture and its official organs, makes for a huge psychological, moral and political difference.