Pyrrhic Victory?
I have a lingering sense of unease over the flap around the Edwards bloggers. What Donohue et al have shown is that Catholics are an effective political interest group in this country–we protested because we felt insulted, and the offending bloggers are no longer with the campaign. We are just like every other effective political interest group in this respect.
But what’s the relationship between being an effective political interest group and being the body of Christ? “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, lie, and say all kinds of evil things about you because of me.” Matt. 5:11.
Do we need to think more about how protecting or political interests corresponds–or fails to correspond– to our underlying religious message?
I think the passage from the Beatitudes is an appropriate one for reflection in this context. It came to my mind also in response to Bob’s questions about why we shouldn’t spend more time policing the progressive blogs for this stuff. I think anti-Catholicism is not the most important issue for us to worry about (probably not even in the top ten).
On the other hand, there’s an obvious ambiguity in the beatitudes as well, no? After all, especially for those of us who prefer a liberationist reading of them, their blessing on the poor is not the same as a divine seal of approval of poverty (i.e., a statement that it’s not something we should denounce and work to change). The same would go for insults as well, I think.
I agree there is some ambiguity about some texts –particularly those we apply to other people. (Voluntary renunciation of worldly goods is treated differently than involuntary poverty in the tradition -even by liberation theologians. It’s one thing to turn your own cheek, it’s something else to turn someone else’s) But I think the general themes of turning the other cheek, forgiveness, suffering, returning good for evil, etc. are too strong to dissolve away.
I think they ought to make some difference in a Christian ethic, even a Christian political ethic. What that difference is, of course, is open to discussion.
What difference should it make here? What difference did it make here? Did we respond any differently because of our commitment to Christianity?
I’m not trying to dissolve anything, but I don’t necessarily see an inconsistency between calling an insult what it is and turning the other cheek (in this case, turning the other cheek probably meant not dwelling on the insult or making it more important than it is, in the scheme of things).
On the other hand, I’m not sure I agree with the way you’re framing the outcome as a victory for some “us” that includes Donohue.
I think there are multiple interests at play here. Donohue’s interest has always been (1) bolstering his own position as a self-proclaimed spokesman for Catholics; and (2) advancing his own particular amalgam of Catholicism and right-wing ideology. He may actually come out of this the big winner, but I don’t identify with him or his tactics.
My main interest in this has been the way it feeds into a broader narrative about the relationship between religion and the political left. My fear was that if people on the left pretended that Marcotte’s comments were anything but what they were (i.e., ugly remarks evincing gratuitous hostility towards the Catholic faith, and not just a searing critique of the Church’s views on reproductive issues), it would only reinforce the idea that the left itself is hostile to faith or that the religious community is not a valued part of the progressive coalition. And so, whether or not she was fired, I wanted to see some recognition of the offensive nature of her comments, perhaps in the form of a true apology (and not just the non-apology apology we saw).
As Grant observes in his post, that never really happened. Instead, the whole controversy flushed out a lot of pent-up rancor towards religion by certain lefty blogs, which ultimately just feeds into the problem and strengthens the hand of folks like Donohue. I guess this is a long way of saying, I sure don’t feel like my interests came out of this on top.
It was not the protests themselves that prompted them to resign, but the increasingly aggressive nature of the threats that they were receiving. The response in this occasion has failed absolutely with respect to the underlying religious message of Catholicism, unless that message is exists in a realm that is beyond discussion or ridicule, does not need to adhere to reality and can silence dissent with impunity.
As a result, I feel nothing but disappointment and dismay with respect to this situation – the punishment was so great and disproportionate to the offence. As religious people repeatedly play the role of victim, one wonders who is the real persecuted party? Is it the leaders of well-funded tax-exempt organizations who are readily given a voice by the mainstream media or the women who are threatened to the point where they feel they must quit their job?
In brief, with friends and apologists like W. Donohue, who need enemies?
Shaun is so on target on this. We should be more enraged by the threats of rape and violence to these women. It reminds of the Right to Life leaders who fund raised for the violence at abortion clinics.
Cathy’s point is equally poignant and necessary. We have watered down the gospel so much that we have virtually eliminated the words of the Sermon on the Mount as merely suggestive when they are really the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.
And what did it tell us when other Christians were so shocked at the immediate willingness to forgive of the Quaker families of the murdered girls? It is certainly moral to insist on our rights but our essential mandate is to overcome evil by good. If we are not as clamorous at those who threatened the rape and violence the witness is dimmed.
We do follow Constantine instead of Jesus. You had it right in the first post Cathy with Matt: 5:11.
We have become just another group protecting our rights rather than inspiring others by our forgiving, altruistic behavior.
I am a little confused. What the bloggers wrote never once rose to the status of any individual Christian being lied to, persecuted, insulted, etc as a result of her or his effort to follow Jesus. Taking offense at the speech of others when not directed at oneself is one thing, but to see such things as a cross to bear is quite another.
The best read of the Beatitudes I have come across is that they are descriptive and doxological, not normative. Literally, one experiences the presence of God, or is perhaps more open to that experience, under the circumstances described by Jesus, and so literally one is blessed and can give praise for that. This does not mean that one goes out looking for such situations simply on the grounds that they are possible routes the experience of God. Rather, Jesus is telling those who feel and are told they have/are nothing that in fact they are closer to God than they realize.
As for what was done to the two women, I wonder if there is a sense that objecting to their posts somehow makes one complicit by association with the horrible words and threats directed against them. This, obviously, would be nonsense. There is no reason why one cannot object to the original posts, and perhaps even more to the wider reaction by the left blogs to reasonable religious criticism, and also be horrified by those who would shame themselves and those associated with them by their violent words.
I guess I just fail to see how one has even been remotely less of a Christian by objecting to what was posted. Unless there is no validly Christian rationale for trying to have a public and political voice, then using that voice on behalf of political civility seems entirely legitimate. But as I say, I am confused, so perhaps I am missing something.
How, at all, does the WAY we respond to threats, insults, of Christianity reflect the basic message of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Is it entirely irrelevant?
I thinkone of the best readings of the role of the beatitudes is Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics. They have a tremendous role in Christina ethics, not just in doxology.
But it’s not just the beatitudes.
More generally, the manner in which Jesus responded to insult to persecution, to violence against himself has never been irrelevant to the history of Christian ethics –particularly so-called personal ethics, but in the twentieth century, to social ethics as well.
The distinctive “social virtue” of Christianity is agape –self-sacrificial love. Even Augustine, in getting the just war theory off the ground, recognized he had a problem in the relationship of love and justice.
Even in the case applied to war, even Augustine (who started the Constantinian project) recognized the problem. If it’s only your interests at stake, you must not resist. Justice comes in when it’s a question of how to love two or more neighbors. On this basis, Paul Ramsey argued that the just war theory was a way to incorporate the concerns of love –through –justice into statecraft.
I recognize Eduardo’s political point–I’m starting a new question: How should we think about the way our behavior in the underlying political realm affects the fundamental message we purport to be carrying? My question is theological, and ethical–not political.
My fundamental problem with Donohue is not that he is a blowhard; it’s he is an anti-evangelist. But it’s not just Donohue–we can’t do anything about him. It’s us. If you read the comments on the Catholic blogosphere, you’ll see some stuff that would make you wonder what Christianity’s main values were, anyway.
Is there a Christian way to protest insults?
The greatness of Christianity is that the Sermon on the Mount is normative. Of course one should not seek or provoke insults etc. They will infallibly come.
The casuists in the history of the church have done very helpful things in protecting people against an oppressive hierarchy and absurd sexual moralists. They have not done well in watering down the Sermon on the Mount.
Just to clarify something I noted above regarding whether or not the beatitudes are normative or descriptive.
1) I would enjoy a theological discussion in which I continue to defend the position that they are descriptive, rather than normative (however, what they describe has enormous normative consequences). However, this may not be the best place to have a long theological discussion, at least on this topic.
2) The Sermon on the Mount is more than the beatitudes, and my comment does not apply the all of Matthew 5, much of which is obviously normative for Christian theology.
I don’t accept an absolute distinction between descriptive and normative claims (for philosohical reasons). But my question is not Joe’s question, at least today.
I am interested in what a Christian response to insult would look like. Is there a need, for instance, for a hermeneutic of charity, and what it would look like?
No matter how sophisticated the commentary, this is identity politics arising out of personal grievance that one’s group isn’t considered so dominant that anyone who disses it in intemperate terms not approved of by the more liberal members shouldn’t immediately be squashed like a bug. While you navel gaze, the warmongers smoke cigars and drink champagne to toast their victory. Congratulations.
What it would look like, Cathy is a combination of Rogerian therapy and Christ-like theology. “While I/we applaud your passion for social justice, I wonder whether attacking a Christian belief is proper or helpful. Hopefully, any objections you may have to the Virgin birth can be discussed in a peaceful setting among reasonable people. Rest assured that no real Christian would threaten you at any time with violence of any kind. If I can help in any way please call me without hesitation. Wishing you all that is good…”
How is this?
I don’t think this is about identity politics at all. I am also inclined to think it is not even about the virgin birth. Instead I think it is about the dignity of politics and the role that religious ideas can play in expressing the dignity of politics. Those for whom religious ideas play an important role in their political analysis are rightly dismayed when childish, or at best sophmoric, cracks about Mary are seen as coin of the realm and perhaps even laudable among political analysts, especially analysts who share important social justice concerns.
As for a Christian response to insult, it would depend on who was doing the insulting. In any context, I remember that neither my worth nor anyone else’s is a matter of my evaluation, rather it is a worth comes from God. This worth must then be respected, regardless of what is said or who says it. Yet, precisely because human worth is from God, one must also stand firm in its defense. Perhaps this means going on the offensive sometimes. I wonder if one would present a better face for Christianity if one more thoroughly sought to reject in the most forceful terms possible the heretical expressions of Christianity that come from those with whom we more than disagree. That is, perhaps the Amandas and Melissas of the world would think us less craven if we were willing to be as outraged as they are at the behavior of certain so-called Christians.
Outrage is a legitimate Christian stance. The problem is that it is so often couched in the language of “taking offense” which turns the outrage into insult. This makes the fight a personal one, when it should always be on behalf of the gospel.
Just to add, I think it was Thomas Aquinas who said that Truth, Goodness, and Beauty were three words for the same reality. Related to the words normative and descriptive, I agree with Thomas (and with the pragmatists like Dewey and Peirce who gave an American version of much the same argument).
Joe,
You said “I think it was Thomas Aquinas who said that Truth, Goodness, and Beauty were three words for the same reality.”
I am quite sure that he did not say that nor did he think that.
Joseph: I yield to the expert on this. However, just for the record, having gone back to see what I was thinking about, I had in mind the following citation: “goodness and being arereally the same, and differ only in idea” (ST 1.5.1).
Perhaps I am failing entirely to understand this passage.
Joe,
Yes, he does say that goodness and being are the same as to reality, but differ in the way we think of them. However I don’t see either truth or beauty being mentioned here, i.e., in ST 1.5.1. In 1.16.3 he says that good and being are convertible, i.e., whatever is, is good and also whatever is, is true, except that good includes a relation to desire while true includes a relation to intellect. So I think you could say that whatever is good true and vice versa. However he does not put beauty in the same category as the true and the good.
Cathleen,
I have been contemplating your question and this is what I would say. Marcotte spoke offensively of matters belonging to Catholic belief, but I would not say that anything she said insulted me or was meant to. I think her main point, anyway, was about the teaching of Humanae Vitae, and certain related matters, from which many Catholics respectfully dissent. Her offensive remarks, like the Pope’s about Islam at Regensberg, were gratuitous and had the effect of distracting one from her main point, which in my view was worth attending to, as was the Pope’s.
As to the more general point, I would say that we as Christians should not do wrong to those who wrong us, say, by returning insult for insult etc. (Fortunately duelling is out anyway!). However we may even have a duty to explain our position and to refute the error someone who attacks us is making. St. Paul defends himself rather vigorously.
Joseph,
Well, two out of three is not so bad. How about this from 1.5.4. (apologies to others for this somewhat esoteric debate)?
“Beauty and goodness in a thing are identical fundamentally; for they are based upon the same thing, namely, the form; and consequently goodness is praised as beauty. But they differ logically, for goodness properly relates to the appetite (goodness being what all things desire); and therefore it has the aspect of an end (the appetite being a kind of movement towards a thing).”
So, if as you kindly suggest above that Truth can convert to Goodness, and if this text suggests Goodness can convert to Beauty, does not simple algebra at least put my original claim somewhat in the Thomistic ballpark? Granted, the terms are not strictly synonyms, but they do seem to have a remarkable metaphysical relationship in Thomas (and I think the pragmatists) that is often lost in conversations about such things as the naturalistic fallacy, facts vs. values, etc.
I think Joseph Gannon’s and Bill Mazella’s comments are very helpful.
The trouble with this dustup=-and in my view, the dustup over the Vagina Monologues, is that the language used prevents many people from getting to the heart of the questions, which are legitimate– the role of women in the church, the attitude of the church toward women.
Not that different from Regensberg, in its consequence for conversation.
But then, does someone like Donohue want conversation on the underlying issues? For that matter, does Marcotte?
Joe,
I am not sure that Thomas puts the beautiful in the same class with the true and the good. Notice what he says right after the passage you quoted: “On the other hand beauty relates to the cognitive faculty; for beautiful things are those which please when seen. Hence beauty consists in due proportion; for the senses delight in things duly proportioned, as in what is after their own kind–because every sense is a sort of reason, just as is every cognitive faculty.”
He holds that truth is related to intellect as good is to desire. Here he seems to be saying that beauty is also related to the cognitive, but properly to the sensuous. In other words I am not sure he ever talks about intelligible beauty, as Platonists do, and he does not include beauty among the attributes of God. So I doubt he would hold that the beautiful is a transcendental as are the good and the true.
Actually, I think that Marcotte does — and that’s why her style is so counterproductive. You aren’t likely to be successful in nudging someone who is inclined to disagree with you towards greater understanding of your point of view by screaming at them and hitting them. This is just too elementary; it defies common sense that Marcotte doesn’t understand this. That she appears not to is probably the result of her actual lack of any empathy for religion (her choice) and a certain level of immaturity which is apparent to nearly everyone else who isn’t on a first name basis with her. Still, her flaws are not the work of John Edwards, who, I believe, showed that he has an innate sense of fairness that many others lack. Throwing people overboard when they become inconvenient is one of the uglier traits of the modern political arena, and also won’t do much to convince the Marcottes of the world that their narrow tunnel of an ideological viewpoint (men presumptively bad; women put upon) is, to put it charitably, a little simplistic. For my part, I think the issue of what to do when you believe that your group has been insulted is quite obvious from a biblical standpoint — it is first to consider what you would have someone else do to you in the event that you insulted them, either knowingly or inadvertently. On that score, I’d want them to challenge me to be better, not instantly forgiving but calling me out on it and starting a dialogue. Marcotte seems to be quite impervious to dialogue, but Edwards clearly is not. For that reason, I believe that enduring offense over this dust up can only be attributable to group loyalty, also something that is too prevalent in the modern political arena.
On the role of women and the attitude of the church towards women, I was amazed to find reams of information in a book about modern women leaders and theologians in the church. This book which came out in March 2005 is called “Good Catholic Girls.” I am upset that I am discovering this book a good two years later.
It is a gem which gives detailed information about most of the women theologians and leaders of the church. I was aware of many of these women but there are many facts that I was not aware of about them. I have not finished it yet. Please share if you have read this marvelous work.
As usual, i come to this discussion pretty late. Overal I agree with Joe Petit’s Feb. 17, 1:06 p.m. comment.
Let me just add a point or tow.
a: We are both Christians and citizens. As a citizen, I ought to want political discourse to be as reasonable and sensible as possible. So there’s good civic reason, whether I’m Catholic or anything else, to find the bloggers’ remarks about Catholicism deserving of criticism.
b: By the same token, as a citizen, i should object to derogatory remarks made about any religious group. Self-pleading is generally self-defeating.
c: As a Christian, i should always distinguish between what someone does and who he or she is. As a christian I should extend forgiveness to every person, whatever he or she has done. It does not follow, however, that a Christian cannot condemn the deed and even seek punishment for it. In the case of the bloggers, i could call for their dismissal or for some other appropriate punishment. But I could not try to make them unemployable.
I know that all this sounds pretty abstract, but I do believe that making these distinctions, however hard they may be to apply, is, at bottom, part and parcel of trying to be a decent Christian.