Bobby Jindal on Religion
Bobby Jindal is under attack in the Louisiana governor’s race for some articles he wrote on religion (apparently before he entered politics). You can find links to the articles here (although you’ll have to pay to read the entire articles). According to the descriptions on the site, which appears to be affiliated with Jindal’s political opponents, Jindal says that non-Catholics are burdened with “utterly depraved minds”
and calls individuals who ignore the teachings of the Catholic church
intellectually dishonest.
Here’s Kos’s take on the controversy. I don’t have much to say about this, or about Jindal in general, but I thought dotCommonweal readers might find it interesting.
UPDATE: Here’s the “depraved minds” passage, with context:
Yet Christ would not have demanded unity without providing the
necessary leadership to maintain it. The same Catholic Church which
infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to
interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual
Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their “utterly
depraved” minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their
selfish desires, and other effects of original sin. The choice is
between Catholicism’s authoritative Magisterium and subjective
interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy.
I think it’s fair to say that Jindal’s critics are distorting his meaning. He does not seem to be saying that non-Catholics are somehow uniquely depraved, but rather that human beings in general are so depraved that they need the Church’s authority to reach the truth. I don’t agree with his theology, but I don’t think he is saying what his opponents are accusing him of saying.
UPDATE II: As the passage above makes clear, I think the substance of this attack ad has been pretty clearly discredited. This certainly does not reflect well on the integrity of Jindal’s opponents running the ad. What’s more interesting to me, though, is that Kos continues to flog this horse. Here’s his latest take, in which he seems to be defending the veracity of the ad. (FWIW, here’s a diary from another member of the DailyKos community taking on Kos’s support for the attack.) I don’t know much about Jindal’s politics, although I assume we don’t have much in common in that regard. (My main familiarity with him comes through my wife, who is Indian. Jindal is something of a celebrity in the Indian-American community for the completely improbable nature of his political rise in Louisiana.) But, whatever the merits of his political views, I don’t see how anyone with an ounce of integrity can defend the substance of these ads.
Another interesting angle here is the article in which Jindal takes a relatively moderate tone towards Hinduism, his former religion. The web site to which I linked above (which, again, seems to be run by his opponents) highlights that article along with the misrepresented summary of his article on protestantism. That confused me, but then I remembered that among some extremely conservative Protestants, Hinduism is a bit of a boogeyman. So Jindal’s opponents seem to be playing on that and trying to tar him — in ads that, as Kos says, are running mainly in the northern, Protestant part of the state — as intolerant of Protestantism and, at the same time, as too tolerant of Hinduism. Pretty ugly, hypocritical stuff.
UPDATE III: In response to some of the comments below and a few email I’ve recieved, I want to emphasize that I’m not saying that I share Jindal’s positions. I’m just saying that the substance of his views are not those attributed to him in the attack ads. The ads are therefore dishonest, and, I believe, knowingly so. The fact that there might be things that are questionable about Jindal’s views does not make the ads any less dishonest.
on August 21st, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Never heard of this guy, but if my impressions on him are correct (based on limited free content here), I must ask:
Is there a way we can kick him out of the Catholic Church?
With friends like him, who needs enemies?
on August 21st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
His ascerbity aside, we certainly don’t need spokespersons who think that the Trinitarian God died for our sins. For starters.
on August 21st, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I hope that “sold Scriptura” is a typo. If not, I may have to buy the whole article.
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=1296-jindal
on August 21st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
From another blog:
I purchased the first essay highlighted on the website that the Democrats set up to demonize Jindal’s writings. In this, they cleverly write hyperbolic descriptions of his essays while hiding behind the knowledge that readers will have to pay to read them from New Oxford Review. For instance, the description on the essay I bought claims that “Jindal explains how Catholicism has more merit than all other Religions. Jindal states non-Catholics are burndened [sic] with “utterly depraved minds” and calls individuals who ignore the teachings of the Catholic church intellectually dishonest.”
When I read Jindal’s essay, however, it says nothing of the sort. Jindal quotes John Calvin as saying that all men are born “utterly depraved” and then argues against it: […]
He also does not call Protestants “intellectually dishonest.” He says that it would not be intellectually honest to ignore the teachings of the Catholic Church when studying Christianity. That doesn’t mean all Protestants are dishonest, but that any comparative study of the religion without at least seeing for one’s self what Catholicism has to say about itself is intentionally self-limiting. He also calls on the Catholic Church to live up to those teachings in almost the same breath. Frankly, this piece is pretty much Catholic Apologetics 101. […]
Put frankly, the Louisiana Democratic Party is despicable. Anyone contributing to this campaign should be publicly outed for the bigots they are.
on August 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’ve purchased and read the article, and generally agree with Manfredo Felice’s comment above. I’ll be blunt: Commonweal should be above passing on such dishonest and partisan scaremongering.
on August 21st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
For what it’s worth, I once came across Bobby Jindal’s name, in a very different context:
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2003/11/jindal-and-dworkin.html
on August 21st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Stuart, you have no reason to be scandalized. When a Catholic politician is publicly accused of being anti-Protestant, it’s news here. Kos correctly points out that this ad is obviously the desperate work of a campaign with nothing to lose. (But he shows no sign of skepticism, which is a problem.) The New Oxford Review would do well to make available the articles in question. Of course, presuming Jindal holds the copyright, he could post them on his Web site, too.
on August 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Sure, what you’re defending is quite a common tactic among bloggers, but I’m not sure why you consider it acceptable. I.e., pass along a link to a contemptibly dishonest screed, and then when called on it, just back off and say, “Hey, I wasn’t expressing an opinion, I was just passing along the news.”
on August 21st, 2007 at 4:15 pm
When we’re called on it. Fantastic. All right, officer, should we have ignored the anti-Catholic bloggers who worked for John Edwards? If you could holster your weapon for a moment, Stuart, you might be able to grasp that there’s an opportunity here to get to the bottom of this.
on August 21st, 2007 at 4:17 pm
If you really want to read the whole article, just scroll most of the way down the Daily Kos page; some hapless commenter posted the entire text. Probably won’t be there for long.
on August 21st, 2007 at 4:17 pm
If you really want to read the whole article, just scroll most of the way down the Daily Kos page; some hapless commenter posted the entire text. Probably won’t be there for long.
on August 21st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
After reading the article in question in its entirety, I have to agree with the comments that Jindal’s opponents are doing a hatchet job on him. Jindal appears to be fervent in his Catholicism–something not unique in converts–and his article, rightly characterized as in the nature of apologetics, is laden with Scriptural citations, but it is not anti-Protestant in its overall tone and content. Here are the final three paragraphs to the article; Jindal is clearly enamored with Catholicism, and he wants non-Catholics to be enamored also, but he is also tolerant of the beliefs of others:
“I trust I have provided enough evidence to indicate that the Catholic Church deserves a careful examination by non-Catholics. It is not intellectually honest to ignore an institution with such a long and distinguished history and with such an impressively global reach. I am not asking non-Catholics to investigate the claims of my neighborhood minister, but rather am presenting a 2,000-year-old tradition, encompassing giants like Aquinas and Newman, with almost a billion living members, including modern prophets like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.
Nonetheless, the Catholic Church must live up to her name by incorporating the many Spirit-led movements found outside her walls. For example, the energy and fervor that animate the Baptist and Pentecostal denominations, the stirring biblical preaching of the Lutherans and Calvinists, and the liturgical solemnity of the Anglicans must find expression within Catholicism.
I am thrilled by the recent ecumenical discussions that have resulted in Catholics and Evangelicals discovering what they have in common, in terms of both theology and morality, and as exemplified by joining to oppose abortion and other fruits of an increasingly secular society, but I do not want our Evangelical friends to overlook those beliefs that make Catholicism unique. The challenge is for all Christians to follow Jesus wherever He leads; one significant part of that challenge is to consider seriously the claims of the Catholic Church.”
In the first hot link provided by Eduardo, there is also a link to an extended excerpt from an article by Jindal about his conversion from Hinduism to Catholicism. While respectful about the Hindu beliefs still present in most of his family, Jindal gives, IMO, a thoughtful analysis about why Hinduism was insufficient for him and why Catholicism filled the void in his faith journey.
on August 21st, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Stuart, this is about par for the course for you, but there’s really no reason to be such a jerk here. There was no agenda to this post. I have nothing against Jindal. I was just passing along the controversy, and I noted that the web site was linked to his opponents, in order to encourage skepticism. Once I had the text of the article, I posted an update.
on August 21st, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Grant — I still haven’t figured out what your last comment was about, so I’ll let you have the last word on whatever it is that seems to be bothering you.
Eduardo — Sorry to come across as a jerk. Nonetheless, if you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment: Imagine that I linked to an Ann Coulter piece praising local Republicans for an ad demonizing Hillary as having once written that Christians should have their children seized by the state. Imagine that, without taking the trouble to look at Hillary’s original article, I simply passed along this “news” with the opaque comment that Republicans are opposed to Hillary, but that I “don’t have much to say” about the story and “find it interesting.”
How would you react? Particularly if you youself took the minimal step of looking at Hillary’s original article and found that the Republican ad was flat-out lying? Would you politely demur and assume that I had the best of intentions? Or would you be a little blunt, and say that there’s no excuse for failing to check out such a facially absurd story from a hyper-partisan source before passing it along?
Well, this case is analogous. Jindal, a Rhodes Scholar and a politician, is supposed to have written an article denouncing half his constituents as “utterly depraved”? And this story is being spread by the Daily Kos? Even before I clicked on any of your links, alarm bells were going off.
You’re still misinterpreting Jindal, by the way. His article mentions the “utterly depraved” terminology twice, not once. The first time is in the passage that you quote. Particularly in light of the second passage (discussed below), he’s not arguing that man is utterly depraved. Instead, he’s making a clever argument that attempts to hang certain Calvinists by their own noose — that is, if you think that man is “utterly depraved” like Calvin, then why rely on man’s individual interpretation of Scripture?
Then, Jindal’s second reference to “utterly depraved” squarely argues that such a concept is untrue:
“Salvific faith involves transformed lives. One of the most consequential, and yet neglected, Reformation beliefs is the view that utterly depraved man is incapable of meaningful sanctification. This rejection of spiritual regeneration and subsequent separation of spiritual from physical realities has resulted in various widely held current beliefs, ranging from predestination to nominalism. Yet Luther was wrong to claim that our sins are as dung covered by snow, for he underestimated both God’s justice and His power. Faith does more than cause God to ignore our sins, for His grace is enough to accomplish a true spiritual rebirth.”
In other words, man is NOT “utterly depraved,” given God’s grace.
In short, this latest Democratic website and ad are far, far lower, sleazier, and more despicable than the Edwards blogger hire a few months back. At most, Edwards failed to exercise due diligence before hiring a blogger, but at least her anti-religious comments weren’t made on Edwards’ dime. Here, the Democrats are funding and trying to promote a website and an ad that blatantly lie about someone’s faith.
Maybe you should be more worried about THAT than about insulting me for vigorously disagreeing with intellectual dishonesty.
on August 21st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
That last phrase should be “intellectually sloppiness,” to refer to the post. I don’t think you were being dishonest at all. The dishonesty is on the part of Kos and the Democratic ad, not you.
on August 22nd, 2007 at 6:36 am
On a theological note: it’s possible to exaggerate the difference between Calvinism and Catholicism on the point of total depravity. At the heart of Calvin’s teaching is the conviction that without grace, human beings, who are inclined to sin, will not turn to God. This is also Catholic doctrine.
Also, the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints implies “transformed lives.”
I’m not saying that Catholicism and Calvinism are exactly alike (and I have nothing to say about the politics here). But sometimes we exaggerate our differences, and insofar as Jindal did that in his apologetics, he did the truth a disservice.
on August 22nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Seems to me that Jindal needs to release his writings to the public.
William Collier notes, “Jindal appears to be fervent in his Catholicism — something not unique in converts…” Such fervence can turn other folks — believers and non-believers alike — “off,” as in “What do you mean you’re better than I am, etc., etc., etc.”"
I’m retracting my qualified judgment of Jindal made yesterday, but I am reminded of what Will Rogers once said (modified for today): All I know is what I read in popular media including the internet.
Jindal has some explainin’ to do, and perhaps he needs a better strategy.
on August 22nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Joseph–
I wasn’t saying that I agreed with Jindal’s fundamentalist approach to Catholicism, only that his political foes unfairly characterized his comments about Protestantism. It seemed like a badly thought out political ploy to me. Folks, as you note, who might otherwise be turned off by Jindal’s views of Catholicism might instead feel sympathy for him because of the low blow nature of the political attack.
Bill
on August 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
William, we’re on the same page.
on November 9th, 2007 at 11:09 am
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