Persecution and the Black Church in the US

Ross Douthat, the younger of the resident conservative commentators at the New York Times, has posted an excellent reflection on Persecution and the Black Church in the United States. Bracing, sobering, and hopeful.

UPDATE: And here's the sequel: For the South, Against the Confederacy; a critique of Confederate nostalgia that can only be offered by a conservative. I haven't spent much time in the South, but quite long enough to see the appeal he talks about here, and to see the difficulty of putting it in the right perspective.

Second thoughts

Work trips put one behind on reading, and on blogging. Here are some things I've been looking at in the last six weeks or so, concerning, in some way, re-thinking a received position.

From the New York Times:
Mary Beard, on Roman book trade and culture
Looking back on decisions about prisoner interrogation
When “bad advice” is the best advice
On the off-brand presidency
On a recognition Israel doesn't need
On the decline of Christian communities in the Middle East

Web comics:
xkcd on changing the rules
PhD Comics on research topics guaranteed to be picked up by the news media

Blogs:
Byron Smith on dying with dignity
Scot McKnight on justification and the New Perspective on Paul: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and ... [one needs to be patient to do anything more than skim these]

Food for thought:
From an NYT op-ed opposed to the drone-war being fought in Pakistan, a comment with resonance for anyone opposed to extremist behaviour, including myself (let the reader understand):

Governments typically make several mistakes when attempting to separate violent extremists from populations in which they hide. First, they often overestimate the degree to which a population harboring an armed actor can influence that actor’s behavior. People don’t tolerate extremists in their midst because they like them, but rather because the extremists intimidate them. Breaking the power of extremists means removing their power to intimidate — something that strikes cannot do...

And from the LRB, Jenny Diski, in a (subscription-required) article on schooling, reflecting on teaching as a young idealist in the early 70s, in an inner-city comprehensive:

The lack of oversight, and of targets, must send a chill of horror through any modern manager of a school, and with some reason: it was pretty haphazard, and who was to say that only good teaching would or did come of the laissez-faire system? The line between liberty and libertarianism is very indistinct, and the desire to dismantle bureaucracy and social inequity leaves open the possibility of chaos, and creates endless opportunities for individual self-aggrandisement. But it seems to me that the risks were worth taking, now that we've seen the dismal results of our 20-year-long experiments with centralised targets, management echelons and paper-based accountability.

On Eve Tushnet and The Gathering Storm

The unclassifiable Eve Tushnet has a couple of posts on the notorious Gathering Storm advertisement on her blog.^[1] I'd heard about the ad being objectionable --- and indeed, it is --- so I was surprised to learn that Ms Tushnet actually does some work for NOM, the organisation that produced it. On the one hand I couldn't see how that could work out; on the other, I was fascinated, given my own situation.^[2]

Here she is speaking, from a position opposed to gay marriage, about criticisms of that position:

The best counterargument is the same as the best counterargument on all gay-marriage topics: “This isn’t just about gay marriage but about a whole panoply of prior changes, most of which have obvious good qualities as well, so you’re not seeking status quo so much as rollback.” ...

I see the force of that argument, and of course I acknowledge that there’s no way we would be having this conversation without the prior cultural changes which led to e.g. laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation. For that matter, every single day I take advantage of the cultural changes which have made it possible for me to be an out lesbian while facing very limited explicit hostility.

But I still disagree that gay marriage is only a trivial turn of the ratchet (do ratchets turn?? I’m really not the home-improvement kind of dykey!), a mere formality, or something you can only worry about if you also reject all of the prior cultural moves which brought us here. I think prudence can allow you to draw a line, and frankly, gay marriage is a really obvious place for that line. Gay marriage is a big deal for the same reasons given by its supporters!--it is a real change in the culture, a deeply significant change, and a change with far-reaching public implications. I don’t think you can write paeans to marriage as a public and cultural status, then turn around and say that gay marriage will have very limited public effects. Marriage isn’t designed to have limited public effects.

Her other comments ad loc are incisive, quite wide-ranging, and well-taken; and some of the links are fascinating. At the end of the day, though, I'm still confused about how she can reconcile herself to a group running an ad that she herself describes as fearmongering, and as “really, really cheesy”.

Because belonging to a lobby group or a movement is not the same as belonging to a church. I've elsewhere posted in admiration of Ms Tushnet's Catholicism and the resources it gives her, and the home it provides her; and for another example, the USCCB's Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children, also cited by Tushnet, is a good advertisement for the Catholic Church: one could disagree with the position, and still respect the practical advice; one could disagree with the advice, and still admire the humanity and maturity of its conception. I understand how one could disapprove of the church in other ways, but value the tradition that makes this sort of thing possible: I understand that because it's pretty much my own position. A propos of this, a friend pointed out that a church is not meant to be admired from a safe distance ... which is a good point, so let me put it this way: I can see how, being a Catholic, one might choose to stay one; I can see how, having become a Catholic, one might judge it to have been a good choice, any drawbacks apart.

But a lobby group or a movement is not like that. Achieving an effect, pushing a point of view or policy, effecting a particular change in society, is the point of the endeavour. That's what a lobby is about: there is no other “there” there. So when a lobby comes up with a cheesy, fearmongering advertisement, it is reasonable to view it as essentially discrediting, in a way that it's not when a person does something wrong, or a country does something objectionable, or a church says something silly. If a lobby is in the business of saying silly things, or saying things in an objectionable way, isn't it Just Bad?

Which brings me back to my own local concerns. One of my criticisms of the evangelical church, at least in this town, is related: I think it's confused about whether it's a movement or a church --- even worse, whether it's an insurgent movement or The Church, simpliciter. This has all sorts of implications for how one views membership, duty, loyalty, and the ethical position of both individuals and officials: I take a rather different view, for example, of a minister on the one hand, and a cadre of a movement on the other; if they are the same person, there is potentially a serious problem. But that is really a matter for its own post, on another occasion.

^[1] I can't seem to link to individual posts there. The ones I mean are from April 2009: scroll down to Wednesday, April 15, and look for "POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE" and “'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'".

^[2] Short version: I am a conservative Christian, in the Anglican tradition (and happy to be so), I live in Sydney, and while it would be misleading to call me an evangelical I'm probably more like that than anything else; and I was taught and trained by evangelicals, and I have friends in that ministry. And yet I find the public stance of the Sydney Diocese, in particular its official media presence, absolutely unbearable.

Four reactions to an apology

I guess even people outside Australia have noticed that on Wednesday the federal parliament passed a motion of apology to the nation's aboriginal people, in particular the so-called Stolen Generations: victims of policies of removal of aboriginal children from their families. Of almost equal symbolic importance was the speech by the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in support of the motion.

There has been a lot of talk on this during the week and in a sense I do not have much to add to it. But by chance it's my duty to offer prayers this morning, on behalf of the 10:00 AM congregation at my church, and so I have to reach some kind of publicly useful position on the week's business. On the one hand, this is dark history that (as the PM says) cries out for recognition and redress. On the other, it is a fearful thing to inject irrelevant polemic into a public prayer, and so I've been trying to understand to what extent this apology really is controversial. As a way of thinking through this, here are a couple of (very different) reactions I think should be rejected; and one, equally critical, that I think should be treated with respect. (Skip to the end if you want to get to the positive bit!!)

(1) Easiest to dismiss is Miranda Devine's statement in the Herald that the PM was fanning the flames of the "culture wars". Coming from a serial arsonist, this really was a bit much ... and if Ms Devine truly thinks (as she says) that Mr Rudd is taking up the approach of former prime minister Paul Keating, then her memory is worse than mine, or her imagination more powerful. I fully admit to having enjoyed Mr Keating's use of aboriginal rights and history as a cudgel to beat his political opponents: at the time, I also thought it was clever politics, a way of bringing the Labor Party in line to support land rights (after the initiative of the High Court) that it might otherwise have held at arms length. In retrospect he was wrong, and so was I. That polemical approach sowed the wind, and we then reaped the whirlwind for eleven-and-a-half long years: reaction that could point to what it reacted against, accuse it of partisan ideology and impracticality ... and be at least partly right.

So there, Ms Devine: I was wrong; so was Paul Keating, at least in this respect. As for the Labor Party, it is currently led by a dentist (figuratively speaking), a bureaucrat, a plain and uninspiring speaker (although his litany-inspired speech yesterday was, for him, unusually good) ... the kind of man who can say without irony that he is excited by establishing evidence-based policies. I take that as a token that the ALP is also willing, in this matter at least, to move on. Perhaps you could try it yourself. I understand that newspapers thrive on controversy, and on "debate" between "opposed" positions, and thus there's a kind of premium on taking a contrary view. But come on: this is important.

(2) Criticism instead from the left, and (as it were) from above, comes from a guest-post by Scott Stephens at Faith and Theology: The apology and the moral significance of guilt, accusing the PM and Parliament of tokenism and empty spectacle and (his words) enlisting aboriginal people "to take part in a kind of emotional pornography for the benefit of thousands of white Australian viewers".

I find this kind of purism --- this apology does not go far enough, so it is worse than useless --- infuriating. One could take issue with the details of the argument: for example, if it's intention that matters, as Mr Stephens Kants, doesn't that count against the approach of Paul Keating? (Mr Stephens faults the PM's language for not being as robust as PK's storied Redfern Speech: "we took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life … we committed the murders … " and so on.) As mentioned, I loved the Redfern Speech and I love PK, but the man can barely open his mouth without at least incidentally swiping at his enemies, Redfern not excepted: surely this is intentional at some level, and thereby compromises the action? Or if one's vice has become so ingrained that it proceeds without any higher-level volition, is it thereby innocent? (Hint: The Christian answer to that question is "no".)

But such arguments are incidental: I just cannot see the merit in trying and convicting the Prime Minister of compromise, of judging the limits of achievable consensus --- of being a politician. This is not news. Nor is it criticism. It is self-indulgence.

And yet ... Mr Stephens is held in regard by at least some other people I respect, and I have learned from experience to be careful of dismissing someone where this is true. There's also something a bit suspicious in a scientist accusing a theologian of contrariety and self-indulgence: because I would say that, wouldn't I? Maybe my reaction against this sort of posturing is part of some Two Cultures problem, however I have, as Mr Darcy would say, not yet learnt to condemn it.

(3) Both Ms Devine and Mr Stephens appeal for support to Noel Pearson, the aboriginal leader whose fierce independence of previous debate has won him enormous authority in the wider Australian community. Read his reflections the night before the apology, and also shortly after the election last year, and you will see why. In fact, one could profitably skip the Devine and Stephens articles and read Pearson alone: the substantial points against the current bien-pensant consensus are all there, but they are set in the midst of an argument that is actually about the problem of dealing with this history, and the present, in political terms, rather than using the apology as a tool in some other dispute.

Mr Pearson is in two minds about the apology, and seems to feel no need to condense his views into a easily-repeated "reaction". I will honour that restraint by simply saying: read what he has to say.


(4) As for me, I have no plan to repeat the apology later this morning: that would be presumptuous and unnecessary. But I do want to use it as a starting point, or (perhaps better) as background: for how can one ignore it this week? And when will we get a topic more fitting for reflection during Lent? "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", asks the hymn. The answer to the question is "Yes", but it is not a simple yes by any means, and some of the issues are the same.

At Good Friday services at the Lutheran church in Geneva --- it doubles as a kind of chaplaincy to visiting English-speakers, and (a little perversely) as a British Commonwealth get-together --- a striking hymn was sung in the nineties, adapted from a Zulu (and Xhosa?) protest song. It was powerfully used to invite reflection on the crucifixion, and on all human sin, especially sins committed in company: the simple chorus will stay with me all my life.

Senzenina --- What have we done? What have we done? What have we done?

Truthful myths

A thoughtful Herald today! Here are fighting words from John Gray, self-proclaimed sceptic:

While the myths of religion express enduring human realities, the myths of secular humanism serve only to conceal them. It may be a dim sense of the unreality of their beliefs makes militant atheists so vehement and dogmatic.

One searches in vain in the company of militant unbelievers for signs of the creative doubt that has energised many religious thinkers...

As a scientist who is also a relatively conservative Christian, I have been dismayed by the recent descent into Philistine belligerence in the ongoing Science-Religion turf war. Here's a hint, people: if you can look at the capital letters on "Science" and "Religion" in the preceding sentence, and not feel an immediate need to swathe them in inverted commas, you are probably part of the problem.

Talk is cheap

Now here's why I have mixed feelings about blogs: a succinct and measured remark on the recent "outing" of Hogwarts' headmaster, a mere paragraph in length, followed by 61 comments (and counting) of the most tedious nature imaginable.

In an earlier post, I remarked that there are related matters which are more plausible in the films than in JKR's text. Presumably other people have noticed this. So following this latest discussion, we can look forward to the film of Deathly Hallows being dragged into the culture wars.

Great. I'm really looking forward to that.

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UPDATE: There is an excellent reflection on this matter in the New York Times. Three cheers for the old-fashioned medium of print (which, of course, I access via the Web).