‘The Theocons’
September 11, 2006, 4:54 pm
Posted by Grant Gallicho
Is Damon Linker’s The Theocons: Secular America Under Seige the slam-dunk some made it out to be? Not quite. Commonweal editor Paul Baumann explains in the most recent issue of the Washington Monthly.
Thanks for the excellent piece. It is surprising that Linker did not accuse Neuhaus of planning the destruction of the World Trade Center. Probably he did not only because at that time he was associated with Neuhaus and would have made himself complicit!
However I thought the most interesting point was Neuhaus’s own about how politics is all about getting and keeping power. I have long thought that this was all too true, although there are exceptions. Does Neuhaus consider himself one of the exceptions? Perhaps he should reread the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate in John’s Gospel.
One of the more significant statements Baumann makes is about the cultural issues:
“…many Democrats still don’t grasp the fact that cultural issues like marriage and the fate of traditional sexual morality are not peripheral to politics. Like Galston, Edsall argues that the culture wars determine how a crucial segment of the American electorate—one still coming to terms with the social, sexual, racial, and economic upheavals of the last 40 years—votes.”
This presents a very thorny issue for the Democrats, who are driven by extremely vocal special interests: abortion rights, gay marriage, and by groups constantly pushing for removal of all public displays of Chistianity, and to lesser extents, other religions. How they deal with them will determine the fate of the Democratic party.
It strikes me that Fr. Neuhaus is not one of the great theological heavyweights of his time and that some of his success must be attributed to the JPII bishops and priests who support him so strongly.
He does not seem to care about whether he’s divisive. That might be contrasted with the work of NPLC and Common Ground which seek a “vibrant Catholic center.” They reject a “remant” view so popular on the right.
It is true that he’s politically astute and has “juice.” Given Benedict XVI’s warning that the Church should be about service and not power, I’m not so sure that’s the desideratum some might think it is.