Via Will Wilkinson, I see that Alan Wolfe's grasp of economics is about as impressive as his grasp of American conservative thought.
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Alan Wolfe, Renaissance Man
09 Jul 2008 01:49 pm
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Comments (14)
Thanks for the FT article, Peter. Wolfe is getting a well-deserved smackdown.
Re: Wolfe from his perch at of all places a Jesuit Boston College has tried to get away for years with the thesis that Christians are really just ordinary, kindhearted liberals
Christians vary enormously in the their political opinions of course, but believe it or not the vast majority of them are not mouth-frothing theocrats looking to repeal the First Amendment, send gays to gulags, and keep every woman in America barefoot and pregnant. Wolfe is not incorrect at all when he notes that the culture wars are predominantly a pastime for the bored elite. Ordinary folk have too many more concrete and, well, ordinary things to worry about.
Re: The most audacious effort to acknowledge "Christian America" while, at the same time, redefining it in a way that raises no awkward questions, and especially no awkward questions for those who are not Christian
Huh? Why should the presence of Christians in America raise any awkward questions at all, either for those Christians or for anyone else? It's been the normal situation since the country was founded. Sure, Christians must ask themselves how to be in the world but not of it, but that's true everywhere and in every era.
Re: I have regularly attended to his writings of recent years in which he assures his readers that Christians do not really believe what they say they believe.
Odd, I do not see anywhere in Wolfe's writings where he suggests that Christians do not really believe in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, or in God, or in some form of afterlife. What Wolfe points out is that most Christians are not goose-stepping storm troopers marching behind Mssrs. Robertson, Dobson et al-- or behind Fr Neuhaus for that matter.
JonF, you don't have a clue about the sort of orthodox conservative Christians that follow Neuhaus et al in First Things. These people are far from the goose stepping straw men that you have in mind. They are part of a movement that has rather reasonably rejected the vacuousness of mainstream liberal Christianity In the long run this movement bids fair to put a firm intellectual footing and some spine back into the Christian religion in both Catholic and Protestant America.
Re: JonF, you don't have a clue about the sort of orthodox conservative Christians that follow Neuhaus et al in First Things.
I actually read the magazine, although I am not a Roman Catholic and its political diatribes (such as its recent detour into a purely secular global warming denialism) are increasingly obnoxious. Its theological, historical and cultural (in the larger sense) articles are very insightful and informative. When Fr Neuhaus manages to let go of politics even he can be a profitable read (e.g., "Death on a Friday Afternoon" and "As I Lay Dying".) There are few magazines these days which really take ideas seriously and this is the best of them. I only hope Joseph Bottum (the editor) doesn't allow the political passion du jour, rightwing edition, to overwhelm the deeper and far more important topics it handles.
Re: people are far from the goose stepping straw men that you have in mind.
Um, that was my point: Christians aren't a bunch of goosestepping theocrats. Have you been hanging around these parts long? I'm Orthodox (big "O") and yet politically liberal, on most issues. And for goodness sake, have you encountered Hector yet hereabouts?
Re: In the long run this movement bids fair to put a firm intellectual footing and some spine back into the Christian religion in both Catholic and Protestant America.
Christianity doesn't need spine-- or even intellectual heft, though as per above I very much appreciate the latter-- but that's a vanity of mine. But true Christianity needs faith and hope and love and (as St Paul wrote), love is the greatest of these. I often think the Christian faith is at its best when it is a minority, and a none to reputable one at that. Whoring after the things of Caesar and Mammon has never done the Church any good, or saved a single soul.
JonF, your last post is much more reasonable, but before you did verbally kneecap Catholics who disagree with you. I haven't met the goose steppers myself.
I don't think you can disown the several paragraphs you devoted to parody of right-wing Catholics. Of course, there is no such thing as a right-wing Catholic. And right-wing Catholics know there is no such thing as a left-wing....
???
Some people here really need a course in reading comprehension. Please go back to my first post on this thread. I did not parody Catholics at all. Rather, I noted the leftwing parody of Christians in general as would-be theocrats and stated the Wolfe's writings had served to debunk this false image.
How is this an attack by me on Catholics?
You should know that whenever I feel down and want to bring a smile to my face I take some time off and read your brilliant Wolfe smackdown. Seeing Drezner take part in the action fills me with glee.
Peter,
It's a bit rich to get so het up about JonF's remarks and in the same post call liberal Christians 'vacuous'.
There are many rooms in my father's house; Christianity has since even pre the Reformation had a multiplicity of views, and to completely dismiss all others which don't skew to the right isn't much better than fundamentalism.
JonF, your meaning regarding Neuhaus and conservative Christians was clear enough: What Wolfe points out is that most Christians are not goose-stepping storm troopers marching behind Mssrs. Robertson, Dobson et al-- or behind Fr Neuhaus for that matter.
James, frankly, though I happen to be a member of the Congregational Church, mainline Protestant Christianity, having essentially caved to hard-edged secularism, does tend toward the vacuous theologically and politically.. There are exceptions with individual pastors and local churches, though these prove the rule. Fr. Neuhaus in fact converted to Catholicism partly based on this reality.
Had forgotten I posted on this thread.
Just for clarity Peter, since you feel most problems are related to secularity, would you accept liberal Christians are on balance better than no Christians? You don't see them as a negative?
James,may I ask you what you mean by "liberal" Christian? Theologically liberal or politically liberal? The two are not synonyms at all, and no one should assume that someone whe affirms the Trinity or the literal Resurrection necessarily supports the Iraq War or supply-side economics.
JonF,
I'm not defining it at all, I'm just asking Peter something in relation to his definition of liberal Christianity.
the vacuousness of mainstream liberal Christianity.
Re: JonF, your meaning regarding Neuhaus and conservative Christians was clear enough
I dislike Neuhaus' politics, which I regard as nothing more than knee-jerk sycophancy to the entire toxic GOP agenda due to the fact the GOP puts on a good show of being the pro-Life party.
I actively despise Dobson and Robertson, the one is a latter-day pharisee (whited sepulchers and all that) the other a corrupt mammon-worshipper.
That I disagree with or dislike individual public figures is a far, far cry from saying that I am bashing all Christians.
Good grief.
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Wilkinson is almost as good as Fr. Neuhaus at exposing Wolfe as a lightweight. Wolfe from his perch at of all places a Jesuit Boston College has tried to get away for years with the thesis that Christians are really just ordinary, kindhearted liberals
Fr. Neuhaus writes in a recent article, Dechristianizing America:
The most audacious effort to acknowledge "Christian America" while, at the same time, redefining it in a way that raises no awkward questions, and especially no awkward questions for those who are not Christian, is represented by sociologist Alan Wolfe of Boston College. In FIRST THINGS, I have regularly attended to his writings of recent years in which he assures his readers that Christians do not really believe what they say they believe. Wolfe, who says he does not have a religious bone in his body, set out his oft-reiterated thesis in the 1999 book One Nation, After All: What Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, The Right, The Left and Each Other. Using interviews conducted by his assistants, Wolfe concludes that, except for their views on homosexuality, Americans are, despite their claims to be Christian, more or less good liberals like the rest of us. As for conservative Christians and the much-touted "religious right," they hardly show up on his radar screen. As with other "extremists," they are marginal, and must be kept that way.
Posted by Peter Leavitt | July 9, 2008 3:00 PM