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Institutionalizing the Russell Kirk’s path The 3 things you need to critical race revolution to Christ make ‘socialism’ work APPLY NOW UNIVERSITYACTONORG Cover Photo: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris raise hands on August 20, 2020. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik.)

Eugene McCarthy, St. Damien of Molokai, and the limits of politics Medical conscience rights: the next civil rights struggle The 3 things need to you make Walter Williams Walter How irrationalityHow triumphed of freedomof Ryszard Legutko: the cursing Acton Briefs The road to Sino-serfdom

Rev. Ben Johnson Ben Rev. ‘socialism’ work 20 ESSAY 17 02 03 09 12 15 18

Institutionalizing the critical critical the Institutionalizing A new era of constitutional era of A new drift Russell Kirk’s path to Christ Russell path to Christ Kirk’s

race revolution ESSAY 13 Bradley J. Birzer ESSAY 05 Gonzalez Mike COVER STORY 07 Alexander William Salter ------de

de jure , which is a

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Religion & Liberty SPRING 2021 government to diverge from On a personal note, this is my final is final my is this note, personal a On Bradley Birzer and Ray Nothstine glean and Bradley Birzer pauseWe to remember Walter Williams Up-and-coming young author Chris Up-and-coming young The Discovery Institute’s Wesley J. Heritage Foundation scholar Mike Gon Mike scholar Foundation Heritage Alexander William Salter offers his first his offers Salter William Alexander While political fortunes ebb and flow,

Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is Exec Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) utive Editor of the Acton Institute. talented writers in these pages gives me solace. Please join me in yourself to the Lord, to liberty, and to the recommitting U.S. Constitution understood through the original intent of our Founding Fathers. Please stay in touch. And until we meet again, God bless. sue as Executive Editor. You will appre ciate the way economics motivated decision to decline another year at the my Acton Institute. Although our journey to – or at least gether a end to an comes pause – with this issue, the quality of the rights struggle.” insights from the lives of Russell Kirk and Eugene McCarthy. and take a somewhat tongue-in-cheek view of how “socialism” can succeed. itarian this way comes”: attempt to force Christian medical pro a coordinated viders to perform abortions, gender reas signment surgeries, and assisted suicides. Preserving the right of Christians and other faithful believers to express their values in their work life is “the next civil Nagavonski notes how enormous (and of (and enormous how notes Nagavonski threaten bills spending new deceptive) ten place our and economic standing both our in global affairs. Smith warns that “something author government,” he writes. He offers one ray of hope: That this nation will experience a new birth of freedom, one individual at a time. critical raceeye on his gimlet zalez turns theory, the “bizarre ideology,” which “has, state religion.”sadly, become our new this issue of special one for me. con a of midst the in “We’re contribution. “Consti warns. he revolution,” stitutional to the tutional drift refers tendency for facto our destiny remains in our That balanced own approach to the hands. newly in stalled guides administration Biden-Harris 1 Rev. Ben Johnson Rev. EDITOR’S NOTE EDITOR’S School shutdowns hurt Foreign aid pays for Muslim The economics behind the struggling students, girls imams to preach against smoking COVID-19 baby bust the worst: Study Rev. Ben Johnson Rev. Ben Johnson Rev. Ben Johnson ACTON INSTITUTE ACTON INSTITUTE ACTON INSTITUTE A Western foreign aid program paid re- At the beginning of the COVID-19 In-person school closures due to searchers to insert material into the ser- pandemic, some academics predicted a COVID-19 lockdowns widened the gap be- mons of Muslim imams. The UK allocated “baby boom,” as couples found themselves tween the rich and poor, a recent study £795,463 in taxpayer funds ($1.1 million locked down with nothing to do. But those conducted by Oxford University has found. U.S.) for imams to preach about the dan- familiar with economics knew differently – While young people of all demographic gers of second-hand smoke. and the data have now backed us up. groups fell behind during the period of re- Researchers gave anti-smoking talking The coronavirus “baby boom” has mote learning, those from the least edu- points to the Islamic religious leaders of 45 turned into a “baby bust.” The CDC report- cated homes were the hardest hit. mosques in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, Ban- ed that U.S. births in the month of Decem- Researchers studied elementary stu- gladesh, in the hopes of reducing indoor ber 2020, nine months after the lockdowns dents from age 8 to 11 in the Netherlands, smoking. “These messages will be worded began, fell by 8% compared with December because they found the country best suited within the mainstream Islamic discourse, 2019. The same pattern is seen in state- to endure the pandemic. Dutch schools test using faith-based decrees on addiction, by-state results reviewed by the media, in students twice a year, and 2020 tests fell just hygiene, health promotion, self-harm and places like Hawaii (30%), California (10%), before and after the eight-week suspension inflicting harm to others, and sanctity of Florida (8%), Ohio (7%), and Arizona (5%). of in-person education. The nation also has human life,” the grant stated. The Brookings Institution has esti- the world’s highest level of broadband pene- Bangladesh already bans indoor smok- mated 300,000 to 500,000 American tration, and its schools distributed electronic ing in most public places, but citizens re- babies will never be born due to the glob- devices to families that lacked them. fuse to comply due to “existing social at- al pandemic. And the Max Planck Insti- “[O]ur results reveal a learning loss … titudes.” (There is a broader lesson here tute for Demographic Research forecasted equivalent to one-fifth of a school year, the that applies to other nanny state programs the baby bust will last until August – the same period that schools remained closed,” and gun control laws.) longest streak of lowered fertility in 100 the researchers find. That is, students learned Though taxpayer funding doesn’t flow years, including the Great Depression and nothing during the eight-week break. directly to the imams, foreign aid dollars the 2008 recession. Like most things in life, the well-off altered the content of their sermons. “To Economics impact all of life, including endured the hardship better. The children’s compel a man to furnish contributions of the formation of new life. “When the la- “learning loss was particularly pronounced money for the propagation of opinions bor market is weak, aggregate birth rates for students from disadvantaged homes, which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful decline; when the labor market improves, confirming the fears held by many that and tyrannical,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in birth rates improve,” wrote Brookings school closures would cause socioeconomic the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. scholars Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine. gaps to widen,” the Oxford report states. He was speaking about state funding of As I wrote at The Stream in 2016: Levels of learning loss were “up to 60% the Episcopal church; one can only imagine Due to the Great Recession larger among students from less-educat- his thoughts about funding Bangladeshi 151,082 American women will never ed homes, confirming worries about the imams to preach against tobacco. be mothers. Princeton researchers uneven toll of the pandemic on children Should the government funding influ- Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt and families.” ence any religious figure to alter the con- found that more than 400,000 The policy put kids from deprived fam- tent of his sermons? Who will be wielding Americans will never be born, be- ilies even further behind. People with the this power? And which clergy will be on cause women became skittish about highest educational attainment earn on the take? marriage and childbearing after living average 47% more income than those with Perhaps a future U.S. administration through a period of high unemploy- an upper secondary education, according to could declare that homophobia is a pub- ment and the uncertainty it brings. the OECD. That should concern any nation lic health crisis and pay clerics to change This underscores a simple yet devoted to eradicating income inequality. Christian teachings on sexuality and mar- underappreciated truth: Econom- Worse yet, COVID-19 lockdowns placed riage. In 2015, then-Secretary of State ic policy affects the health and poorer families under additional pressure. and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton well-being of families. Healthy “Concurrent effects on the economy” caused declared that “religious beliefs” opposing family life and economic flourishing by closing the economy “make parents less abortion or same-sex marriage “have to walk hand in hand. equipped to provide support, as they strug- be changed.” The root word of “economics,” gle with economic uncertainty or demands People of all backgrounds should sup- οικονομικά, means the management of of working from home,” the study says. port the separation of mosque and state. a home. Social conservatives concerned Researchers also discovered, although And religious leaders entrusted with shar- about the nation’s plunging marriage and differences between the sexes were slight, ing God’s message must never substitute fertility rates should support policies that girls sustained modestly greater learning the talking points of the secular govern- lead to economic prosperity. loss than boys. ment for the Word of God.

2 Joe Biden addressed a joint session of Congress about his infrastructure bill on April 28, 2021. (Photo credit: Melina Mara/Pool Photo via AP, File)

------, which relied on a gener Politico resident Joe Biden has kicked offconfidently calling his for another four administration yearsof by wasteful and admin Biden-Harristhe Unfortunately,spending. harmful But the Biden administration is not just spending more than Or so one would think. First of all, Americans are increasing As turns it out, Americans are absolutely right to be skeptical An analysis the of by bill Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill, the “American Jobs Act,” ESSAY nonprofits under the guise of “racial equality and environmental justice” are not infrastructure by any meaningful the term. definition of $2 trillion on a grab bag of big government plans and progres agenda attached to such bills. ly skeptical of big infrastructure spending boondoggles. In 2018, 64% of the population supported President Donald Trump’s $1 trilliondollar infrastructure plan– an impressive levelcon of But time.the Leftat the onhysteria anti-Trump thegivensensus a CNBC nationwide survey from early in April showed2021 that only 36% of respondents backed Biden’s trillion$2.25 proposal. and roads fixing like supported respondents measures same The seem would it somargins, large broadbandexpanding by internet somethingthatraising people’selseis suspicions abouttheplan. that with do to administrationplansBiden-Harris the what about trillion $2.25 – because actual improvements to transportation, utilities,and communication make up lessthan half the of pro posed spending. showed thatous onlydefinition around of$930 “infrastructure,” billion of the bill’s proposed spending would go bridges,broadband, tangiblesimilarlyand projects. toward (Interesting roads, that’s pretty ly, trillion plan.) close $1 tothe price tag Trump’s of Politico describes the Biden administration’s efforts tothe classify remaining trillion $1.3 in the or bill “not even close” to the as “very “infrastructure” distant,” ther “stretching as things,” ei truth. Sen. Kirsten may Gillibrand,believe D-N.Y., that anything can be infrastructure, but a $10 billion “civilian climate andbillion in $20 grants corps” to inept city governments and far-Left istration’s fiscal agenda will slow the American economthe people’s slow agenda will fiscal istration’s ic growth at home, and undermine America’s ability to support its allies and challenge its competitors abroad. offers a worthwhile starting point.For decades, Democratsway and a infrastructureasto spendingturned have Republicansalike to demonstrate their willingness to “reach across the aisle” and “get things done.” After all, the public roads largely andbridges, and there seemsto be no supports political orcultural fixing The road to to The road Sino-serfdom Nagavonski Chris P

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3 sive politicians’ wish lists. The president Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin If most of Biden’s spending bills be- is requesting a $753 billion budget for the and Ethereum have great potential as come law, the American people will take Department of Defense in the next fiscal means of payment that transcend na- a hit. Democrats will find innovative ways year – even more than this year’s $740 tional borders. They offer increased to separate people from their money. billion. Like the “infrastructure” plan, confidentiality and remain immune to That includes a proposed capital gains tax though, this proposal stretches the defi- inept or malicious monetary policy in- hike that seems to be aimed squarely at nition of defense to include green energy flicted by governments. middle-class Americans who increased and climate initiatives. But while China’s digital yuan may their investments during the pandemic, The pandemic stimulus package from be a tempting choice for nations facing as well as a proposed mileage tax (now on earlier this year was also filled with sanctions from the United States, it is also hold) which would target drivers. The lat- wasteful, even likely to give the ter would have a particularly harsh impact harmful spending: Chinese regime on rural Americans. $129 billion went greater control Despite these tax increases, the Unit- to public schools, over world affairs. ed States will have to borrow more money with no condition We will never be able Privacy and de- to finance both parties’ government-ex- that they reopen centralization are panding agendas, often loaned to us by their doors. An- to take on hostile supposed to be the China. Alternately, the government can other $750 million main advantages simply print more money as it did at the went to overseas foreign nations if of any digital cur- height of the pandemic and hope that in- health programs, rency. One that is flation rates won’t soar. and more than $1 our own government controlled by an This is not how serious countries billion went to a authoritarian state maintain their financial health, much “racial justice in remains hostile to hostile to the West less how superpowers maintain their farming” initia- would offer none influence. This is how declining world tive that included the principles of of these benefits. powers cede ground to more pragmat- an “equity com- It is not clear ic and determined competitors – and mission” – pre- responsible spending how America can leave other nations with no choice sumably to ensure stop China from but to accept the growing power of a that an explicitly and governance. implementing a ruthless authoritarian state like China. race-based pro- digital yuan. Chi- Being more than $28 trillion in debt gram did not acci- na’s ascension as is a serious challenge. So is malicious dentally help the wrong people. All the a global economic powerbroker will not behavior by China. We will never be while, our national debt has soared past be reversed anytime soon. But the U.S. able to take on hostile foreign nations $28 trillion. government can certainly take steps to if our own government remains hostile The Biden-Harris’ administration’s strengthen the dollar as much as pos- to the principles of responsible spend- utterly misplaced budget and policy pri- sible and cement its legitimacy with the ing and governance. orities are an excellent way to weaken international community. At the very the international community’s confi- least, this would mean only spend- Chris Nagavonski is a writer and translator dence in America – and the status of the ing money on our needs. Infrastructure from Washington, D.C., who specializes in U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve cur- funds should go toward roads and bridg- Eastern European affairs. R & L rency. What incentives will any nation es, and defense spending should go to- have to cooperate with a country that ward providing for our national security seems hellbent on digging itself deeper instead of waging wars of choice abroad into debt in order to pursue a frivolous, and political purges of the armed ser- self-sabotaging agenda? vices at home. Worse, our irresponsible spending To truly get America back on track, makes it easier for our rivals to under- though, significant cuts are needed mine us. The United States owes at least across the board – an approach the $1.1 trillion to China, a country that has Biden administration is unlikely to con- been engaging in dishonest practices for sider. Conservatives need to get serious years – including economic (as well as about opposing every bit of wasteful governmental) espionage and the theft of and unconstitutional spending in the intellectual property – in order to main- next four years, even when it is not po - tain its export advantage. Now, China is litically expedient to do so. And they taking the lead on developing a digital need to keep opposing that spending currency that has the potential to displace after the next Republican administra- the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. tion takes power.

4 (Photo credit: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

------New York Post York New

Perfectionismand love read of Diversity seminars such as the one ing are humantraits, as evidenced by the fact we have all perfected our way from the Stone Age now and read on hand-held tablets. All theseof traitscontribute to aca demic and lifetime success. With out strivingfor perfection,a per son will accept shoddy work; love of reading will lead linearthinking makes a person try to learning; to work through contradictions. Carranza’s identity politics will not Carranza personifies the damage that thing about it. The problem has metas tasized,because typethis thinking was of not confronted until late inthe Trump Administration, when President banned CRT trainings from Trump federal work ers and contractors. There are now Com missar Carranzas in every school district andevery HR department at everycom pany in America. Carranza forces on his staff are not con tradictory by happenstance. The designers theseof struggle sessions understand that children need to read and write, and thus need to appreciate the written word; they know that objectivity is essential to solv ing quadratic equations; they are hard that incentivizes work. individualism aware educaachievementtheknowTheyin gap tion that they say they are trying to fix seriousis problem.a Their objective is not the just waste scarce resources, discomfort and among educators, cause but it will seriously imperil the future chances of a generation schoolchildren,of many of whom already face difficult odds. identity politics perpetrates onthe nation day by day, and why it is so urgent that ourcitizens understand its nature – and force their policymakers to do some consultants. Even worse, children. it As I wrote is in the hurting in 2019: ------It’s good work. It’s hard work. And I would hope that anybody thatfeels that somehow that process is beneficialnot them,to would very I respectfullysay they are the ones that need to reflectupon what they believe. even harder Matt Gonzales, an outside adviser on “white-supremacyout root orderto In This is critical race theory, and post Carranza flexed his muscles in early Carranza’s school diversity task force and director of the advocacy group New York Appleseed, states the obvious when says he of the reeducation camps, “it re teachers are drilled on stamping culture,” out “objectivity,” “individualism,” “per quires discomfort.” That pain is supposed tobe feltthe by educators, and that is bad enough – but they arewalk adults away and who seek can other employment. What the consciousness-raising struggle sessions aimed to do among the students is much worse. a “either/or “sense thinking,” fectionism,” and of “worship urgency,” of the written word.” The training programs for teach attemptan to amountwords,other in ers, to replace the hegemonicnarrative of America and the West – capitalism, free dom, and democracy – with a counter narrativethat sees reason, logic, truth, and objectivity as instruments to univer salize patriarchal Western oppression. modernistdeconstruction turned has into industry a multimillion-dollar outside of 2019, 2019, when he ordered that central principals, office supervisors, and superin ing 75,000 educators and, of course, the the of one-eighth impressionable most Big Apple’s population. tendents undergo mandatory training to root out the “white supremacy culture” and the “implicit bias” supposedly ram pantschools. Newin York With an almost religiousCarranza zeal, saidthe of train programs:ing ------

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ore and more, Americans arebecoming cognizant of something calledcritical race theory and the growing role

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What CRT is in practice was already

ESSAY 5 race revolution Gonzalez Mike Institutionalizing the critical critical the Institutionalizing

it it is playing in their lives now Biden-Harris administrationhas elevat that the ed this approach to the status of official howev new, hardly is ideology.state CRT and has been er, building momentumfor years,not if decades – wreaking havoc in schools, workplaces, and legislatures. To vastlysimplify matters, isthe CRT be lief that racism in America is structural, institutional, and systemic; therefore, to extirpate it from our lives, we must rad structures, all alter institutions, ically even the Americansystem itself through training programs and curricula that de construct our assumptions and thoughts. All racial disparities are evidence this of deeplyembedded racism and compel the heavy-handed use racial of prefer ences. CRT rejects the that racism is anindividual traditional issue, one in view prosecutedbe individualscanracist which when they act upon their racism by us ing the statutes created after the passage and Amendments Reconstruction the of the Civil Rights Act which of 1964, ended state-enforced racism. on display in New York City three yearsago, well before Joe Biden acceded to the presidency. One Richard Carranza, standard-bearer the chancellor the of was New York City Department of Education. Heis incharge the of largestpublic school system not just in the United States, but in the world. More than 1.1 million chil dren are taught at the city’s 1,700-plus public schools. Carranza oversees an an nual budget of $25 billion, which makes him extraordinarily powerful, and poten tially dangerous. Having drunk deep the witches’ brew of of identity politics and he gets to use his positionCRT, to impose his views on a staff of 135,000, includ M children (who are just collateral damage, the eggs broken on the way to making the social-engineering omelet), and they un- derstand that they are not offering a better pedagogy. What they want to do is destroy the liberal, free-enterprise system that best offers protection for man’s natural rights. Whether one believes these rights come from God or nature does not matter; what matters is that our rights are un- der attack. The seminar designers do not hide their intentions, and they justify the complete systemic overhaul they seek on the claim that racism is deeply ingrained in America’s very social framework. They attempt to intimidate and shame their critics into joining the fight against “white supremacy.” They are slightly less forthcoming about what they want to replace capital- ism and democracy with. Not many out- side the circles of Bernie Sanders and Al- will continue to create and chew up vic- Asians, American Indians and Semitic peo- exandria Ocasio-Cortez come out and say, tims.” Economically, “[t]he free enterprise ples.” That demands “different treatment “We are rooting out individualism, objec- system, which is built on the idea of win- for oppressed and disadvantaged groups. tivity, and perfectionism from the class- ners and losers, will continue to produce To promote social justice, I argue, social room, because we want to introduce so- new ones every day.” policy should sometimes accord special cialism.” But the mask slips often enough, In this way, the victimization and op- treatment to groups.” and they have moments of candor. What pressor–oppressed narratives become This bizarre ideology – which aims to they want is socialism – a large, Kantian, handy justifications for ever-growing gov- profoundly transform America – has, sad- Hegelian, and Marxist state that will force ernment intervention and the consequent ly, become our new state religion. “Equity” people to behave in ways the social en- diminution of our rights. Equality, the core has become the byword of the new admin- gineers have defined as good. This goes principle of the Declaration of Indepen- istration. In his very first act as president, against the grain of the American system dence and the central notion of the Amer- Joe Biden signed an extensive executive – a “system” that proponents of these ican way of life, is dropped in exchange order that puts equity – again, unequal ideologies denounce as racist and in need for its functional opposite, which critical treatment by government – on steroids. In of an overhaul. theorists call “equity.” Equity requires mid-March, the administration’s Depart- Seminars such as the ones Carranza unequal treatment by the schools, cor- ment of Education posted a new proposed required are the product of critical race porations, even the law. Whereas equality rule saying that it would give priority in theory, the smorgasbord of half-baked is understood to mean equality of oppor- grants to history and civics programs that ideas at the center of identity politics tunity, equity focuses on equality of out- followed the dictums of CRT. We now have that Americans are now having to reckon come, which requires the redistribution of a situation not unlike our neighbor to the with in the age of Biden. Critical race the- resources to those deemed to have a vic- south. Mexico’s old Partido Revoluciona- ory is the mutant child of critical theory tim status – whatever their real socioeco- rio Institucional (PRI) emerged after the and owes its birth to a workshop held in a nomic status may be. “If I had a poor white Mexican Revolution (1915-1920) as the convent, of all places, outside of Madison, male student and I had a middle-class ruling party in what became, for a centu- Wisconsin, in 1989. “Unlike traditional black boy, I would actually put my equita- ry, a one-party state. Many critics puzzled civil rights discourse, which stresses in- ble strategies and interventions into that about how an entity could at the same crementalism and step by step progress, middle-class black boy because over the time be revolutionizing and institutional. critical race theory questions the very course of his lifetime he will have less ac- Under Biden, our state ideology aims at foundations of the liberal order, including cess and less opportunities than that poor completely overhauling the state. It cries equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlight- white boy. That’s what racial equity is,” out “a million Carranzas now!” enment rationalism, and neutral princi- training consultant Darnisa Amante said at ples of constitutional law,” wrote Richard one of Carranza’s workshops. One of the Mike Gonzalez is a senior fellow at the Heri- Delgado and Jean Stefancic in their primer top critical theorists, Iris Marion Young, tage Foundation. This essay is adapted from on the subject. Unless we do something succinctly described the new dogma when his book The Plot to Change America, How drastic, “something inherent in the nature she wrote that, in America, “racism, as well Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of of our capitalist system [that] ineluctably as other group oppressions … condition the Free, first published in July 2020. R & L produces poverty and class segregation … the lives of most or all [b]lacks, Latinos,

6 Joe Biden and Kamala Harris raise hands on August 20, 2020. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik.) ------. This legislator, without constitutional drift de facto As for executive orders, Biden has While Biden’s actions are undoubt The same applies to the president’s The president’s designs for the Su should be understood as a symptom a of systemic probleminAmerican politics: The Bidenadministration is giving us a real-time view of particularly appalling, both are flagrant challenges to the separation of the of component powers,essential an supposedly system.American constitutional acted as a the of any traditional checks on legisla tive processes. By April the15, president signed more than 60 executive orders, greatera number than anypresident overthe same period intheir adminis trations: 23 of these specifically target ed the policies of his predecessor. When major policies can be reversed by presi dential whim, the stability of American governmentsuffers. Citizens won’t know what to expect from the state if dueling factions nullify each other’s policies ev ery time one captures the White House. Furthermore, governance executive by clearly usurps intendedfiat power rest to with Congress alone. This isn’t what the rule law of looks like. edlycalculated to advance Democratic interests, it would be a grave mistake to regard these policies as mere partisan ship. Instead, Biden’s executive overreach $2.3 $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal, the American Jobs Plan. “Infrastructure” defined is so broadly that it’s internetmeme:“Everything infrastruc is become an ture!” When most Americans hear about aninfrastructure they bill, think things of like roads, bridges, harbors, and airports. They don’t think change, and of child care, housing, all of dollars. of billions which of tune the to funds climate bill the Bidenis using infrastructure investment as an excuse to politicize the allocation of valuablecapital. preme Court are even worse. Biden cently announced anexploratory re com missionfor increasing the number of Supreme Court legislators inboth the House and Sen justices. ate introduced to expand a bill the court Democratic from nine seats.to 13 It’s unclear wheth er Democrats seriously want to pack the courts or merely to bully the sitting jus tices into submission. While the former is has been anissue long before Biden, and - -

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ust over 100 days into President Joe Biden’s administration,PresidentBiden’sheld whateverJoehopesinto we days 100 over ust outthat hewould govern moderateasa are gone. The president seems determined to transform American society from the top down. Candidate Biden promised na President Biden’s legislative agenda is both dangerous and dishonest. tril The $1.9

ESSAY governments and insolvent pensions might be good politics, but they have nothing to do with stemming the pandemic. 7 executive orders of dubious constitutionality. These are not program just strikes at bad the heart policies; of self-government itself. Americans Biden’s must be alert: We’re in the midst a constitutional of revolution. relief act, Americanlion but less than Rescue was Plan sold the to public COVID-19 as a 10% of that bill was directly devoted to fighting the virus. The vast majorityof the bill was a payout to longstanding progressive constituencies. Bailouts for profligate state tional unity and the restoration of lawful government. given Presidentus budget-busting spending Biden packages, has,interference thusin the courts, far, and a flurryof A new era of of era A new constitutional drift Alexander William Salter J in all likelihood will be a problem long af- ously guard its powers from the executive ket liberalization. Economics is import- ter him. If we have any hope of preventing branch. In reality, Congress seems happy ant, but it’s downstream from politics. constitutional drift, we must understand to fork over as much of its remaining pre- We must prepare now to right the ship how it works. rogatives as the president wants. of state when the opportunity presents Constitutional drift refers to the ten- Tragically, Joe Biden is a consum- itself. The longer the constitution drifts, dency for de facto government to diverge mate constitutional politician, with a the harder it is to set it back on course. from de jure government. In other words, lower-case c. Those of us who dread the F. A. Hayek famously extolled the vir- it means there’s a widening gulf between inevitable consequences of his policies tues of a “constitution of liberty.” Be- the paper Constitution and the real con- must learn that our complaints about cause of constitutional drift, these con- stitution. The procedures and immunities unlawful government are full of sound stitutions are exceedingly hard to ordain enshrined in America’s governing charter and fury, signifying nothing to those or keep. Citizens’ vigilance may not be no longer reflect the realities of political who know first-hand that the real law is enough to fix things. But it’s the only op- power. This is especially pernicious giv- something quite different than we imag- tion we’ve got left, and ordered liberty is en Americans’ reverence for the Consti- ine. I, too, wish Congress were a mean- always worth a try. tution and, hence, constitutional means ingful policymaking organ, that elected for addressing government abuses. If cit- officials exercised restraint in disbursing Alexander William Salter (@alexwsalter) is izens think the Constitution is one thing, public revenues, and that the Ninth and an associate professor of economics in the whereas politicians Tenth Amendments Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech Uni- know it’s some- were regarded as versity, a research fellow at its Free Market thing else, the peo- more than mere Institute, and a senior fellow with the Amer- ple won’t be able to curiosities. If only ican Institute for Economic Research’s Sound discipline those who Citizens’ vigilance may wishing made it so. Money Project. R & L govern them. How, then, can A m e r i c a n s not be enough to fix citizens participate sometimes have a things. But it’s the only in their government hard time under- and hold it account- standing constitu- option we’ve got left. able? What we, the tional drift because people, must learn of their attachment is that the only to formal constitutionalism. We think way to anchor a drifting constitution is the way to get lawful government is to to punish those who set it adrift. This is write down a set of rules for rule-making the citizen’s role in a democratic republic. – the Constitution – and then tell public We aren’t supposed to be passive specta- officials to follow them. Unfortunate- tors of the latest Washington boondog- ly, this rests on a narrow and parochial gles. The willingness of citizens to impose understanding of constitutions. Philoso- costs on executive branch adventurers, as phers of politics have been writing about well as those who aid and abet them in constitutions for millennia. For Aristot- Congress, is a crucial part of the Ameri- le, a constitution meant the balance of can system. Unfortunately, our electorate forces among holders of political power, has a habit of excusing political overreach which determined how the state made when their team is in power. Until and decisions. On this view, all constitutions unless a critical mass of voters proves it- are de facto constitutions. self willing to discipline politicians who do Prior to the Enlightenment, political the wrong thing for the right reason, the philosophers would have regarded writing Constitution will remain lost at sea. down a specific blueprint for government It’s probably too late to restrain the as silly. Either the formal constitution forces President Biden has unleashed. would match the informal constitution, Although it will be masked by the in which case the formal constitution is post-coronavirus recovery, the massive redundant, or the formal constitution increase in the scale and scope of govern- would not match the informal constitu- ment will eventually cause political-eco- tion, in which case the formal constitu- nomic sclerosis. “Only a crisis – actual or tion is useless. Thus, the lacuna in Amer- perceived – produces real change,” Milton icans’ beloved formal constitutionalism: Friedman warned. “When that crisis oc - We mistakenly think we can make politics curs, the actions that are taken depend algorithmic. Unfortunately, power follows on the ideas that are lying around.” This a logic of its own. We erred when we as- time, “the ideas that are lying around” sumed the legislative branch would zeal- better be more substantive than mar-

8 (Photo credit: Chaiwat Subprasom / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) ------tore the moral

Roe invented abortion as a , the, country has continued to Roe ing to impose a secularethic on omething authoritarian comes. this Powerful way forces are striv Roe v. WadeRoe v. Formost our of history, health care This rending began in earnest af These differences have exacerbated ESSAY the entire medical profession which – in the name of “patients’ rights” to compel – doctors, nurses, pharmacists, seeks andother medical professionalsto vio late their religious beliefs on issues like abortion. At stake is the right of doctors to practice medicine consistent with the Hippocratic Oath, and specificallyof Ro manCatholic hospitals and other religious run their insti to medical institutions tutions in conformity with their moral teachings. faith’s was not culturally controversial. In recent decades, that consensus shattered. Sub stantial disagreement now exists about the meaning no “do of harm.” ter Medical conscience rights: the next civil rights struggle Smith J. Wesley maintaining physical health. It now in cludes helping patients attainsatis life faction and personal fulfillment. our cultural discord over what constitutes “harm” in the medical context. For exam constitutional constitutional right. fabric of the country apart. In the years since splinter on the morality of health care. Many now see health care not aboutcuring sickness, but onlyalso as techa as nocraticendeavor extending beyondwell S

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9 ple, is it a harmful to block the puberty of This would mean that a faithful Cath- peals allowed the suit to proceed. There a child diagnosed with gender dysphoria olic doctor who opposes contraception were two bases for Dignity Health’s re- to prevent the development of secondary would have to prescribe birth control – fusal to permit the transgender operation. sexual characteristics – or, is it a harm even if she informed her patients before First, the surgery would have removed not to do so, because a later gender tran- being retained that she practices med- a patient’s healthy uterus. Under Cath- sition would become more difficult? icine according to her Church’s moral olic health care directives, a functioning The same intractability exists regard- teachings. Emanuel and Stahl also make organ can only be removed to treat or ing the contentious issue of physician-as- it explicit that pro-life OB/GYNs should prevent pathologies. Second, the surgery sisted suicide. Opponents see assisted be required to participate or be complicit in a would have sterilized the patient. Under suicide as the ultimate harm to a patient, non-therapeutic abortion, because “abor- Catholic teaching, medical acts resulting because it intends to cause death; more- tion is politically and culturally contested in sterilization can only be performed to over, is explicitly proscribed in the Hippo- [but] it is not medically controversial. It is treat serious conditions. cratic Oath. But supporters of what is eu- a standard obstetrical practice.” Note that these Catholic directives phemistically called “aid in dying” insist The authors would drive dissenting apply universally and do not invidiously that the real harm comes from denying doctors out of medicine: target particular patients. In other words, assisted suicide, because doing so “forc- Health care professionals who it is the purpose of the procedure that is es” a suffering patient to remain alive. are unwilling to accept these limits objectionable. Thus, a woman would be These dichotomous views are incapable have two choices: select an area of denied a hysterectomy at Dignity Health of reconciliation. Until recently, this grow- medicine, such as radiology, that that removed a healthy uterus for the ing cultural divide was successfully bridged will not put them in situations that purpose of not having children. But if by a truce: States that permit assisted sui- conflict with their per- she had uterine cancer, cide did not force doctors to participate sonal morality or, if the hospital would per- in them against their will. The same ar- there is no such area, form the surgery even rangement existed around abortion. leave the profession. Forcing medical though it would cause The uneasy peace that has allowed Similar articles have her sterilization as a these radical ethical differences to coexist been published in such professionals to secondary effect. At the has been shattered. The most prominent notable medical and bio- same time, a transgen- and influential names in bioethics now ethical professional pub- choose between der patient with a bro- urge that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lications as the Journal ken arm i would receive and others be required to provide patients of the American Medical living out their the same care as every with any legally available medical proce- Association and the Jour- other patient; indeed, it dure they seek – even when the provider nal of Medical Ethics. The religious beliefs would violate Catholic morally objects – so long as the request point of such advocacy is Healthcare Directives to will provide the patient with his or her not just to coerce doctors or pursuing do otherwise. desired medical benefit. to adopt secular values their careers But none of that According to this view, destroying in their professional lives mattered to the Court of medical conscience is a matter of sup- but to impose a uniform would harm Appeals, which ruled that porting “patients’ rights.” The bioethi- ideology throughout the the refusal to remove cist Ezekiel Emanuel – a prime architect healthcare system. the healthcare the transgender person’s of the Affordable Care Act and a promi- The campaign to de- uterus violated Califor- nent adviser to Presidents Barack Obama stroy medical conscience system and nia’s anti-discrimination and Joe Biden – put it this way in a 2017 has gone well beyond the law – and freedom of column titled “Physicians, Not Conscripts debate stage. The ACLU make a toxic religion offered no de- – Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” and others have brought fense. If the case goes co-authored with bioethicist Ronit Y. Stahl lawsuits to force compli- prescription to trial – the California in the New England Journal of Medicine: ance with the new medical Supreme Court refused Making the patient paramount orthodoxy. For example, for our divided to take the case and the means offering and providing ac- Catholic hospitals have country. U.S. Supreme Court has cepted medical interventions in been sued – so far, with - not ruled on a petition to accordance with patients’ reasoned out success – for refusing grant a hearing – and if decisions. Thus, a health care pro- to allow abortions and sterilizations on large damages are assessed by the jury, fessional cannot deny patients ac- their premises. Catholic institutions have legal attacks against Catholic hospitals cess to medications for mental been targeted for refusing to permit hys- will proliferate. health conditions, sexual dysfunc- terectomies as part of transgender sex Meanwhile, medical conscience is also tion, or contraception on the ba- transition procedures. under attack at the federal level. In 2016, sis of their conscience, since these One of these cases, Minton v. Dignity the Obama administration issued a rule drugs are professionally accepted as Health, shattered the religious freedom that interpreted the Affordable Care Act’s appropriate medical interventions. barrier when the California Court of Ap - nondiscrimination provision on the ba-

10 sis of sex as applying to gender identity But such a course could have a dra- they must be free to exercise their – meaning that it would require doctors matic and deleterious practical impact. professional judgment and to allow and hospitals to provide gender transition If we force health care professionals to their consciences to inform that surgeries. Notably, there was no religious violate their moral beliefs, we could see judgment. This freedom of pro- exemption to the rule. a mass exodus from the medical profes- fessional judgment informed by In the years since, several courts have sions of our most talented doctors and conscience must translate into the enjoined its enforcement under the Re- nurses. Meanwhile, gifted young people freedom not to be involved in cer- ligious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). may avoid the field altogether, know- tain activities or practices to which But a judgment enjoining enforcement ing that to pursue a career in health care there is a conscientious objection. on that basis has just been appealed. The would require them to leave their mor- Who would want to force someone to issue may well be finally decided by the al beliefs at home. Alas, I suspect that is perform medical procedures under du- Supreme Court. precisely what medical conscience oppo- ress? Who would want to deny practicing Of course, that assumes that RFRA re- nents want. Christians and other conscientious people mains relevant to the dispute. It could be- Opponents of medical conscience the right to engage in the healing arts? come moot if the “Equality Act” becomes claim that granting conscience rights is This issue is really about one side of our law. In the name of equal rights, the act a means of authorizing discrimination culture wars asserting hegemony over a would destroy medical conscience rights by against women and sexual minorities by vital sector of society. explicitly removing existing protections for stealth. But the protection is not aimed They might very well prevail. But at pro-life doctors and nurses on the grounds at discriminating against patients but at what cost? Forcing medical professionals that their views constitute discrimination protecting medical professionals from to choose between living out their religious against women based on pregnancy. The being compelled to participate in proce- beliefs or pursuing their careers would Charlotte Lozier Institute’s associate schol- dures that violate their most deeply held harm the health care system and make a ar Richard Doerflinger explained: moral beliefs. America has always recog- toxic prescription for our divided country. The Equality Act’s new free- nized that religious liberty is a definitive standing ban on pregnancy dis- civil rights issue, too. Award-winning author Wesley J. Smith is crimination … adds the new re- This country protects the conscience chairman of the Discovery Institute’s Center quirement for women to receive rights of individuals who hold the most on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant “treatment” for pregnancy that is heterodox viewpoints. We even permit to the Patients Rights Council. as “favorable” as treatment for any religious conscientious objectors to legal- other “physical condition” … And ly refuse military service in a time of war. it negates the existing religious If this country legally allows that extent freedom law that allows believers of disagreement when the country’s very to seek an exemption from such survival is at stake, surely federal and requirements based on sincere re- state law can accommodate healthcare ligious beliefs such as respect for professionals who find taking lives mor- human life. ally offensive, particularly when there are President Biden has promised to sign others willing to provide the requested the bill if it reaches his desk. procedure. Even worse for pro-life or religious Some will worry that this protection could result in patients being abandoned. medical professionals, the bill would gut Walter E. Williams in 2013. (Photo credit: The Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. CC BY 3.0.) RFRA as a defense against any acts the But medical conscience protections are bill deems discriminatory. Among other generally – and properly – restricted wrongs, this could force Catholic hospi- to what is sometimes called “elective” tals to perform sterilizations, abortions, treatment. So-called non-elective in- and transgender surgeries. terventions (that is emergency care and Do we really want to require doctors, life-sustaining treatment) are specifical- nurses, pharmacists, and others to partic- ly removed from these protections. The ipate in such acts if they consider them to International Declaration in Support of be immoral and sinful? Should healthcare Conscientious Objection in Healthcare policy declare lived faith to be non grata puts it succinctly: in the medical professions? Are we willing In health care, conscience plays to see the free exercise clause of the First an essential role in the professional Amendment, and religious protections in judgment – often subtle and deli- federal law, so gutted that they no longer cate – that practitioners must ex- protect freedom of conscience in health- ercise in their daily work. If health care? For those seeking to impose a uni- care workers are not to be reduced form ideology of health care, the answer to mere functionaries (of the state, clearly is yes. of the patient, of the legal system),

11 SPRING 2021 ACTON.ORG IN THE LIBERAL TRADITION WALTER WILLIAMS

REV. BEN JOHNSON

fastly warned against seeking a unitary he world lost a voice for logic, political solution to a problem rooted in liberty, and love of the U.S. Con- innumerable personal choices. stitution when economist Walter T He found a multitude of government Williams died on December 2, 2020, at programs retarding black progress: the the age of 84. Williams worked his way minimum wage, occupational licensing out of grinding poverty in the Philadel- laws, and the welfare state. A high min- phia housing projects to chair George imum wage increases unemployment by Mason University’s economics depart- requiring unskilled eemeployees to de- ment, author 10 books and more than mand more money than their work could 150 publications, and become one of justify. Occupational licensing laws limit the most insightful commentators of competition and prevent poor-but-in- the last four decades. Williams spread dustrious individuals from bettering his message of racial equality, the dig- their lot in life. And he demonstrated nity of work, and the morality of cap- with mathematical precision how so- italism through his syndicated news- cial assistance programs underwrote the paper column, PBS documentaries, and destruction of the black family. frequent radio and TV appearances. He often reminded complacent Walter Edward Williams was born Williams leveraged his expertise readers of American exceptionalism. on March 31, 1936, in Philadelphia. His in economics to promote the cause of Echoing Lord John Acton, Williams said, father abandoned the family, leav- racial equality – and to encourage his “Liberty is the rare state of affairs in ing his wife, Catherine, to raise their fellow citizens to root out all forms of mankind’s history. Arbitrary abuse and three-year-old son and two-year-old state-sanctioned discrimination. He control by others is the standard.” daughter. Williams credited his (ille- opposed the artificial barriers and ro- Williams also highlighted the ne- gal) child work history with instilling bust state interventionism that kept cessity of faith and virtue in maintain- the drive and habits that propelled him black people down in the Jim Crow ing our inalienable rights. “The attack to success. South. (He wrote a full-length book on on Christian ideas and Christian public Walter Williams earned his Ph.D. in eco- the statist economic underpinnings of displays is part and parcel of the leftist E. nomics from UCLA in 1972 and taught Williams South African apartheid, as well.) At the control agenda,” which demands “that at Philadelphia’s Temple University for same time, he believed all Affirmative our primary allegiance be with govern- in five years before moving to George Ma- 2013. Action programs, set-asides, and other ment,” he wrote. “As such, there must be son University, where he chaired the

(Photo forms of reverse discrimination should an attack on allegiances to the teach- economics department (1995-2001). For be abolished – putting him at odds ings of the church and family,” including credit: 40 years his nationally syndicated col- with modern so-called “antiracist the- its traditional teachings on marriage.

The umn, “A Minority View,” appeared in 140 orists” like Ibram X. Kendi. Williams’ superlative work, sin- Free newspapers. He wrote 10 books, begin- He believed the free market’s “vir- Market gular intellect, and unfailing honesty ning with 1982’s The State Against Blacks, tuous cycle” allowed all talented people are sorely missed. In addition to his

Institute often dealing with provocative ques- to thrive. “The people who are for dis- daughter, he leaves behind a gaping tions, such as 2011’s Race and Economics: crimination are also against markets, at hole in academia and a grateful world

Texas How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimina- because they know markets tend to be of friends and readers who benefited

Tech tion? He produced multiple documen- colorblind,” he said. “The morality of the from the fruits of his scholarship. University. taries for PBS, starting with 1985’s Good free market should be stressed because Intentions, and served as the guest host it is far superior to any other method of Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is the CC of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. allocating resources.” Williams stead-

BY Executive Editor of the Acton Institute. 3.0.)

12 (Photo credit: The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.) ------“Some mediums are charlatans, but Fromhis earliest memories as a child, and Swedenborgians, he witnessed “that uncanny of business,” automatic writing, the levitationsgreat-grandmothers, of chairs rocking on their own, musical in visita and strumentsplaying, mystically hadnot it been for the young Kirkbeing exposed to the excesses of spiritualism. obsessedespecially,was,ideathe Hewith ghosts,of anobsession that remained to his dying days. others possess genuine, inexplicaif ble Kirk and argueddangerous in power,” the with meddle to one no advise “I 1967. mindvery strongnot of is nextwhoworld and heart.” As late as 1973, Kirk contin ued to read tarot cards for guests, and he maintained his love of Halloween – “an annual occasion of dreadful house” – to joythe end of his life. “Kirk was at my oldhand at telling fortunesthe by Tar ot, long before the art was he taken wrote up of hippies,” himself by in a public ity brochure. “My fortunes invariably are melancholy, and as invariably come to he believed. pass,” raised been Having ghosts. in believed Kirk among deracinatedPuritans, Spiritualists, - - - - Kirk’s journey to Christian orthodoxy As Kirk grew into adulthood, he re the Kirk family had cometo practice séances, ghost writings, and levitations. For intents all and purposes, the Kirk women, especially, were witches. jected the explicit faith tenets – whether heterodox, of heretical, or Christian orthodox – but he remained fiercely in terested inthe spiritual manifestations he had witnessed as a child. It would not be anexaggeration to say that Kirk the hor being into come have not writerwouldror Sacrament,and his religious instruction to his sons. But what about Russell Kirk, the writer of horror stories, the authorpractitioner a postwarconservatism, and of of the occult arts (specifically tarot) late into his adult life? is a fascinating story and, at times, a fractiouspoormany one.learned butLike families in America and England at the turn of the nineteenthcenturies, the Kirks had embraced anin and twentieth tellectual variety of spiritualism. Though descended from New England Puritans, of publicof record via his letters–Tolkien and his several mystical experiences in his extremelife, devotion to the Blessed - - -

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SPRING 2021 veryonce while,a in someone on line, being either sincere or sin cerely mischievous, loves to ask

ESSAY 13 to Christ Birzer J. Bradley Russell path Kirk’s 1994). 1994). You don’t know my grandfather, mattera as – knowdo youcourse, but of ed that the church hasyet to recognize and, therefore, deserves our petitions for intercession? That list is fairly easy for me: my maternal grandfather (1907- J.R.R.whom1982); Tolkien (1892-1973), I’ve been asking for intercessionthe late since 1970s; and Russell Kirk (1918- about the status of unrecognized saints. Who is the person most likely to be saint E tions from the dead (sometimes in spec- but belief in a divine power, in a ten cited the opponents of Christianity, tral form). Séances were a normal part of life eternal, and in personal recti- whom he loathed, as inspiration to be- his upbringing. “Henry James was a man tude. Tradition, adherence to this come a full-blown Trinitarian. In the early with Swedenborgian forebears who didn’t tradition, was the sheet-anchor, 1950s, while teaching at the University of believe in ghosts; I am one with Sweden- and it held. Detroit, Kirk began to take instructions borgian forebears who DOES believe in Taken with the Stoic conception of the on becoming Roman Catholic from a Je- ghosts,” Kirk wrote in a private letter to Logos as well as St. Augustine’s descrip- suit priest. For whatever reason – and, the political philosopher Eric Voegelin. tion of the City of Man and man’s many frankly, it’s not clear from the historical “Everybody who stays here in my ances- follies, Kirk came to a sort of monothe- record exactly why – Kirk decided not tral house of Piety Hill becomes a more ism in the fall of 1942, while stationed to take the final step to be baptized and fervent believer than even I am,” he con- in a Utah desert chemical weapon’s fa- confirmed in the Roman Catholic faith. tinued. According to Kirk, the ghostly cility. Strangely enough, his awareness However, nearly a decade later – in phenomena only increased with the pass- of monotheism came on a hike into the the early 1960s – Kirk fell in love with ing of years, until 1975, when the house desert wilds. In a private letter to his best a devout Roman Catholic, Annette Cour- burned to the ground in a freak accident. friend, he wrote: temanche, and, in 1964, just prior to his Consumed by fire, all the ghosts departed I’ve grown to endure the coun- marriage to her, he fully converted and Piety Hill, Kirk believed. try in true Stoic fashion, and take became Russell Amos Augustine Kirk. Sometime in his college years, be- a certain pleasure in feeling that Not surprisingly, his confirmation saint tween 1936 and 1940 – influenced by I’m a tough inhabitant of one of was Augustine, and, throughout the re- Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More – the most blasted spots on the mainder of his years (1964-1994), Kirk Kirk adopted a form of Stoicism as his continent. There’s enough leisure remained deeply immersed in the Roman religion. Indeed, when called into the here, and that’s a lot; the winters Catholic tradition. Kirk firmly believed in service of the U.S. Army in 1942, Kirk are said to be dreadful, but I have his faith intellectually, and few men (or bought and took with him the complete found fears exceed realities here, women; especially regarding his wife An- works of Plato and of the Stoics. He as everywhere. Already we have nette) would ever reach similar heights found Marcus Aurelius especially com- very cold mornings and evenings, of charity. The Kirks not only housed the forting during the Second World War. He and as I write a great sand-laden homeless and the unwanted (sometimes also came to love the works of St. Au - wind very chilly, is howling around as many as 30 refugees from Cambodia gustine, even though he disagreed with the shacks of Dugway. Coming and Ethiopia at a time), but they gave most of the saint’s theological stances. here tends to make me lean toward away substantial sums of their income Kirk wrote of his grandfather: the Stoic belief in a special provi- to the poor and needy. Rarely, in my life, His high virtues were more dence – or, perhaps, more toward have I encountered souls as charitable as Stoic than Christian, although he the belief of Schopenhauer that we the Kirks. This was where Kirk’s winding lacked not charity, either material are punished for our sins, in pro- path to Christ ultimately led him. or spiritual; such habits and cus- portion to our sins, here on earth; toms had run in the family, ever for I’d been talking of Stoicism for Bradley J. Birzer holds the Russell Amos Kirk since Abraham Pierce had set- two or three months before I burst Chair in History at Hillsdale College. He is tled at Massachusetts’ Plymouth into Dugway and there never was also the author of numerous books and the in 1623. Puritanism among the a better and sterner test of a phi- co-founder of the website, The Imagina- Pierces had faded to the shad- losophy, within my little realm of tive Conservative. ow of a shade by the 1920’s, my personal experience – to be hurled grandfather and his household from the pleasures of the mind and never attending any church – al- the flesh, prosperity and friends though the domestic circle’s ways and ease, to so utterly desolate a might have been approved by Free plain, closed in by mountains like a Methodists, no strong drink ever yard within a spiked fence, with ev- being drunk nor any cigarette ever erywhere the suggestion of death smoked in that commodious bun- and futility and eternal emptiness. galow by the railroad tracks. There But, others, without any philoso- occurred no family prayers and no phy, live well enough here; and, as domestic sermonizing; all teach- Marcus Aurelius observes, if some ing was by example, not by pre- who think the pleasures of the cept, and it prevailed. Two or three world good still do not fear death, generations earlier, the family’s why should we? sojourn in the Burnt-Over Coun- For all intents and purposes, Kirk be- try of northern New York, seedbed came Kirk the day he had this revelation. of strange dissents, seems to have How Kirk became a Trinitarian remains left the Pierces with no dogmata a mystery. In his personal letters, he of-

14 Eugene McCarthy waves to supporters during the 1968 New Hampshire primary. (Photo credit: AP Photo.) , - - - No-Fault Politics No-Fault Thatitself is lessona on the limits McCarthy was known for his wit and In McCarthy’s book Despite McCarthy’s glamorized quest dead for more than years. 50 of politics, as is much of McCarthy’s po litical trajectory. Seemingly, McCarthy’s statureprolificandexample of a voice as of of McCarthy’s more obscure runs for the presidency in 1976, once said he “poet’s had attachment to the truth.” a humor, but there was tinge of brooding when he made statements like this one: “Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough understand to the gameand dumb enough to think it’s important.” editor Keith Burris introduced him as “a Catholic committed to social justice but a skeptic about reform, about do-good ers, about the power of the state and the competence government, of and about the liberal reliance uponmaterial cures for social problems.” for the presidency in 1968 and its infa mous campaign slogan, “Clean for Gene,” he was screen as mistakenly “Joseph McCarthy” at the 2008 memorialized Democrat National Convention, confusing on him with the former Republican senator from Wisconsin who had already been ------In many ways, the late was1960s the McCarthy, a devout Roman Catholic, was liberal on many issues, but even his entrance into the race as peace a can didate was a testament to the limits politics, of or that the government couldn’t solve everything. evolve His even more with time, as he with thinking would drew deeper into philosophical pursuits and his love for poetry. He his own even party in jolted 1980, endorsing Ronald Reagan. It was far from the first ortime. last Russell Kirk, who supported one drew from the race a few weeks later, in a drewin fromweeks fewtherace a later, televised speech in March 1968. Americanliberalism. of thetideWith high Great Society recently implemented and Johnson’s “guns-and-butter” policies in swing,full there wasbelief a that the na tion could wage war during a U.S.-Sovi et arms race while spending prodigiously on social engineering. Optimism in state power and bureaucratic expertise phed mor into what Amity Shlaes called “an almost mystical belief in the infinite po tentials American of society.” against the sitting president of his own party. President Johnson won but did not even reach 50% support from the voters. Politically eviscerated Vietnam by and the growing unrest at home, Johnson with - - - -

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SPRING 2021 rthy, rthy, D-Minn., ran four times, but his most memorable for president ormer U.S. Senator Eugene McCa

ESSAY 15 Ray NothstineRay of Molokai, and limits the politics of Eugene McCarthy, St. Damien nation primary of New Hampshire, gar nering a shockingly high 42% of the vote campaign was in 1968, where a strong insurgent showingfall led of President to Lyndon Baines the Johnson. politicalMcCarthy, in his first run, challenged down LBJ as a peace candidate in the first-in-the- F conscience had too little staying power fear still persisting in a post-vaccine within his own party to be remembered America. We see it incessantly through by his own name. At first a deep think- social media viral videos and in many of er, and an oft-times forgotten footnote, our own firsthand experiences. Fear has he was increasingly disillusioned by the caused some to beg for ever-more re- direction of politics and what it could strictive directives from federal and state solve. It’s a disillusionment we should all governments on COVID-19. feel, as politics and governmental power Fear can at times be an important gets elevated into spheres today where it leveling device. But fear, too, comes from never belonged. a lack a faith. This is a phenomenon that Right now, one can actually find a is particularly visible during the corona- striking contrast to the political shallow- virus pandemic, and it’s unraveling so- ness and selfishness in Congress on the ciety in new ways – where the fearful grounds of Capitol Hill. National Statuary empower the state to fill the void of un- Hall, adjacent to the Rotunda, houses two certainty. For many of a secular or even figures from each state. One of the fig- a modern mind, a fear of death trumps ures representing Hawaii is the Belgian everything else. native Damien De Veuster, more popularly Given that truth, one of the biggest known as Fr. Damien of Molokai. Damien mistakes many churches have made gave his life serving the undesirable lep- during COVID-19 is not offering an al- ers quarantined on the island of Molokai ternative to this powerful narrative of in the nineteenth century. Damien even- fear that has swallowed up so much of tually contracted the debilitating disease our culture, allowing us to see the folly that disfigured and killed him in 1889. of centralized power and directives. We Damien played an important role in all know the Church by definition limits my own turn away from the lure of pol- the state, and it should not serve as its itics. When I worked on Capitol Hill, near handmaiden. The many missed oppor- tears amidst a miserable day, I was pacing tunities by the Church to speak to those the halls and stumbled upon the bronze consumed by fear not only harmed the statue of Fr. Damien. I recognized Damien Church’s witness, but it diluted the paths immediately, because I had lived in Ha- to freedom beyond the material world. waii for a little over three years. I knew One of the greatest characteristics of pol- all about his life and story of sacrifice. itics is that it provides so many lessons The statue in Washington is essentially beyond politics. identical to the statue at the state Capitol Turning back to McCarthy, whether or building in Honolulu, which is frequent- not one agreed with his peace campaign, ly adorned with flower leis. Damien, who he did offer a model of courage to say was 49 years old when he died, is depict- something was amiss. He restored many ed as looking much older, his body rav- people’s hope in institutions and the vi- aged by leprosy. tal significance of a voice of conscience Damien provides a contrast of com- against herd-minded state action. peting servants, some oriented towards The enduring lesson is that all of us the things of this world and others ori- have to do a better job of collectively re- ented toward the next. He reveals a dif- covering a courageous voice of conscience, ferent path. That encounter helped to if we desire to remind people of the prop- quicken my enrollment in seminary and er limits of government. It’s vitally im- away from the political center of Wash- portant that we do so, or our disordered ington, D.C. political world will continue to spill over Damien’s legacy offers another con- and consume the deeper truths – truths trast related to the COVID-19 pandemic. which, while seemingly hidden away, are As a member of the clergy, he’s the op- desperate to be recovered. posite of our modern social distancer. He cleaned, helped bathe, and meticulously Ray Nothstine is opinion editor at the Caro- took care of the lepers under his charge, lina Journal, a publication of the John Locke often not taking the precautions advised Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is by health experts and church officials. a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary This kind of service and sacrifice to (M.Div.) and is the former managing editor of the afflicted towers over the culture of Religion & Liberty (2007-2014).

16 (Photo credit: Denis Abramov/Sputnik via AP.) ------diktats . Notions of poverty : Monks and nuns living : Monks: and nuns agree . : Monks and nuns vow a life Chastity TheWestdoes everything itsin power Obedience Socialism mimics this, but transfers it Chastity and obedience are prerequi living,A active, andobedient faith cialism” has to include two vows beyond dedication to economic equality: chastity and obedience. celibacy, of abstinence, and sexual puri ty (including in thought). Monastics take this vow so seriously that they will often notspeak to a memberthe of opposite sex. In fact, women are barred from visit ing Eastern Orthodoxy’s holiest monastic site, Mt. Athos. “Do not let your intellect be taken prisoner lust by through assent ing to sexual thoughts, defiling yourself wrote inwardly,” St. Mark the Ascetic in texts as knownmonastic of collection the the Philokalia toobliterate thisvirtue, from encourag four teenagersdressesfit wearthating to year olds to Planned Parenthood’s turbing sex dis “education” curriculum. Mo nasticism demands the spirit renunci of ation earthly of things, even in their licit use. This would lead to an austere life of asceticism – a necessary dispositionfor anyone living under socialism. After all, monks take a vow of “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” are bunk. to follow the orders of the monastery’sleader unquestioningly. The abbot or ab bess assigns work assignments and gives out material possessions – and privileg es – as he or she sees fit. Decisions are absolute, and there is no court of appeals. monomastate’ssecular the to powerthe niacal Slowly, ruler. the nation becomes a cult of personality. Even benign forms of socialism demand coercion. Jeremy Cor byn once informed the socialism, you’ll media, all cooperate.” Socialism “Under substitutes following government for walking in God’s commandments and the love and liberty – they bring. sites that make a life of sharing possible. One cannot underestimate the fact that, as celibates, monks do notfret them selves over the material their children spousal(nor nagging well-being about of it). But is that the full explanation: “no no Allmoney, honey”? three monastic vows omit the most important thing that made early church “socialism” work: Jesus Christ in ------ora et labora further their salvation, they they salvation, further their not a better life. Otherarrangements communal of liv Compare communes’ record of failure These monastic example prove that, if Whenmonks and nuns enterthe mon withmonastic success. The world’s oldest monastery, the Coptic Egyptian Monas it ever hopes to succeed, Christian “so astery, they give up all their worldly goodsworldly their all up give they astery, and vow to own nothing of their own. All the monastery’s goods are distributed by abbess,redistribwhoabbotor ruling the utes fromeach according to to his ability, each according to his need. The abbot’s supersensitive spiritual life, and knowl edge of the individuals who discernshim, the unseen confess spiritual needs to monkseach.All of offer their in common, without regard to personal benefit, because that best serves the sal modest)portiontheir(relativelyvation of of the population. If they find monasti cismdoes mayvoluntarily leave and returnto the world at any time. dog-eat-dog ing have been tried and found wanting. Joshua Muravchik noted that the medi anexistence early of socialist communes Israeliyears.Thetwo mere a to amounted kibbutzsystem similarly broke down over the children of theparents’give wishesto kibbutzim tery of St. Macarius the Great at Scetis,has lived the monastic lifestyle contin uously since 360 A.D. (Some claim that distinctionbelongs to the BulgarianOr thodox Church’s St. Athanasius Monas tery in the Thraciantiny village Zlatna of Livada.) A 2008 study found that “Bene dictinemonasteries inBaden-Würt temberg, Bavaria and German speaking Switzerland have an average lifetime of almost 500 years” – 463 specific. years, Monasticism is, to in be other words, a going concern. follows in its wake. For our purposes, let’s grantthe extremely tenuous assertion that these are somehow extraneous than intrinsic) features (rather of socialism. Fur thermore, monks and nuns often support themselves through enterprise. As Dylan Pahman has shown in his work on monasteries some mar monasticism, and kets did (and do) acquire vast communalthrough market-oriented exchange. But if wealth you’re less interested in social engineer ing than in living a life where people share things all incommon, monasteries are the only viable alternative. ------

ACTON.ORG

ccasionally,our antagonists think theyhave discoveredthe sil ver bullet argumentin favor of Acts Chapters of 4 and 5 Tell SPRING 2021

The Holy Spirits Work Apostlesto Establish SOCIALISM with The for The Christian further proof is needed ??? Church...What Recourseto the exceptional model of let’s However, agree that the apostles, follow that communities still areThere Before exploring how monasteries

ESSAY charity practiced the by early Christian community in Acts is 4:31-35 as perpetual erroneous.is it as As I’ve notedprint andin on television, the early church was not so church, my experience”“lived of The cialist. the Eastern Orthodox Church, has conclud ed that socialism will do anything to erad icate Christianity, and every other religion. inexactly one the of many church com munities they founded, “had all things in common” – that believers gladly laid all apostles’theearthly theirat goods “down feet: and distribution was made unto ev ery man according as he had need” (Acts 4:31-35). theearly church model radical of sharing. They’re called monasteries. show us how “socialism” can work, let me acknowledge that I’m hesitant to present monasticismThe as “socialism.” voluntary profession monasticism of has nothing to pro of means the seizing state the with do ductionor the mass terror that inevitably 17 Rev. Ben Johnson Rev. The 3 things need you maketo ‘socialism’ work

“Christian socialism.” One such apology recently came into my inbox. In its en tirety, read: it O the ascetic life do so to completely conse- BOOK crate their lives to Jesus Christ. Research- ers have found themselves unable to ex- plain why, for instance, monasteries do Ryszard Legutko: not have the frequent turnover of com- munes. In a 2009 paper, Nathan Smith ascribed this to the “addictive” character the cursing of freedom of worship: The cunning of freedom: saving the self in an age of false idols What makes monasteries dif- David P. Deavel and Jessica Hooten Wilson, eds. | University of Notre Dame ferent is that when monks and Press. 2020 | 392 pages nuns engage in worship (for which the monastery provides an espe- Reviewed by Kai Weiss cially favorable environment) they also build spiritual capital, thus ac- hat is freedom? Do we need freedom? And if so, to what ex- quiring an increasing “taste for” (or tent? These are questions that have been debated for mil- “productivity in”) worship, which Wlennia. Particularly in our time, when everyone is allegedly makes them unlikely to wish to in favor of freedom and liberality, the discussion has heated up. In leave the monastery in future. … The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols, Ryszard The “addictive” character of wor- Legutko aims to define “freedom,” but also to make a scathing cri- ship solves the turnover problem tique of prominent definitions of the term in our modern culture. and enables monasteries to make Legutko is undoubtedly one of the more interesting figures in the (voluntary) socialism work. ascending national conservative crowd. A philosophy professor at the But why, precisely, is worship so in- Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, he has simultaneously become a Member of toxicating? This author has heard church the European Parliament and co-chairman of the European Conservatives and Reform- choirs and cantors whose vocal stylings ists. He’s one of the most prominent political figures – and the intellectual heavyweight mimicked withdrawal symptoms. Smith is – of Poland’s Law & Justice Party, which has been engulfed in controversies over its missing something profound. allegedly illiberal policies. The intangible success behind this life Legutko reflects on three major themes of freedom: negative freedom, positive free- of sharing and self-denial is the indwelling dom, and inner freedom. Negative freedom is understood as freedom from coercion. It and perpetual cultivation of the Holy Spir- is best embodied in the mantra of “being able to do whatever one wants to do as long as it. The father of Western monasticism, St. one doesn’t hurt anyone.” For Legutko, there are varying degrees of negative freedom. Benedict of Nursia, concluded his Rule by He finds “absolute freedom” – which means being completely free as an individual from exhorting monks to “fulfill with the help of anyone else, depicted by Robinson Crusoe on a lonely island – to be a “nightmare” of Christ this minimum Rule which we have “loneliness.” Similarly, “maximum freedom” – the state-of-nature ideal of Locke and written for beginners; and then at length Rosseau but also the “department store” version of libertarianism – is unrealistic and under God’s protection you will attain to bound to fail, according to Legutko, for it dismisses anything beyond mere individual the loftier heights of doctrine and virtue.” pleasure and pain. Such pure selflessness cannot come about Legutko understands the least extreme version of negative freedom, “freedom except by a profound, all-encompass- from tyranny,” having lived through Soviet Communism. However, he still is dissatis- ing, and total faith in our Lord, God, and fied by the emphasis on freedom itself. Isn’t there much more to life than freedom? Savior Jesus Christ. “God is the beginning, For Legutko, political systems only based on individual liberty are nonsensical. More middle and end of everything good,” wrote so, there are no inalienable rights – or any rights whatsoever, from natural rights to St. Mark the Ascetic, “and it is impossible modern human rights. It is somewhat strange that a Roman Catholic like Legutko for us to have faith in anything good or to brushes aside any notions of God-given rights, but he seems to interpret the debase- carry it into effect except in Christ Jesus ment of human rights – which includes abortion and LGBTQ rights – as indicting the and the Holy Spirit.” This alone explains whole system. how they live a heavenly life on earth. Legutko makes a convincing case that setting maximum freedom as an ideal is Those who wish to live this kind of not only wrong, but also incompatible with human anthropology as social and po - lifestyle are invited to do so. But those litical beings. Libertarians, he argues, may think that a society is possible in which who speak of remaking society must be everyone can simply pick what he or she wants. But this is impossible in practice, willing to go the full distance, beginning because the citizens’ many, competing longings – religious beliefs, cultural and re - with themselves. Trying to make “social- ligious norms, and traditions –are incompatible with one another and, therefore, ism” work with anything short of this full cannot always coexist in the same polity. A libertarian society can only realistically commitment is the prelude to futility, work if it gets rid of everything opposed to this openness, he argues. Legutko seems apostasy, and destruction. too pessimistic about the prospects of pluralism and diversity, but at the same time, he raises legitimate concerns. Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is Exec- The second part of the book – positive freedom – presents different ways to ac - utive Editor of the Acton Institute. tively strive for freedom by presenting different personality types: the philosopher,

18 aristocrat, entrepreneur, and artist. It is clear that while he gutko pairs this idea of spontaneous order with an equally im - thinks all of them are on the wrong track in today’s world, he portant argument by Blaise Pascal: Even an individual in such an sympathizes the most with the first two. Neither the philoso - organic society needs faith and reason to attain inner freedom. pher nor the aristocrat strives for self-fulfillment, nor do they Indeed, those who want to be free still need to cultivate them- pursue goals based only on a cost-benefit analysis – and they selves and their communities. do not align with the politically correct status quo for fear of “The evolution of modern philosophy gradually undermined being canceled. They try their best not to succumb to bodily/ custom and social convention,” Legutko writes. It was this “weak- worldly needs and pleasures, unlike most of Western society. ening of custom and the decline of classical metaphysics, epis- Rather, they strive for self-control, cultivation of virtue, and temology, and Christian religion” that put us on the wrong path greater knowledge, especially of transcendent matters. This is, of freedom. But why abandon the liberal order completely? Why he explains in the third part, the “inner freedom” we should not try to rebuild this idea of freedom based on individual and want to achieve. Particularly this third section of the book, communal liberties and responsibilities, the cultivation of virtues where Legutko analyzes the preconditions of “inner freedom,” – the spirit of free enterprise, with traditions, mores, and insti- is stimulating and may give all readers food for thought in tutions building a strong social fabric? their personal lives. Yet his explanations occasionally suffer Sadly, Legutko doesn’t answer that question in The Cunning from an extreme form of dualism between body and mind: It is of Freedom. unclear why the “theology of the body” makes no appearance. Nonetheless, this is the strongest part of the book. Kai Weiss is the Research and Outreach Coordinator at the Austrian If only the same could be said about his analysis of the en- Economics Center and a board member of the Hayek Institute. trepreneur. He starts with a long quotation by Michael Novak on how the entrepreneur “is made in the image of God” and, through his creativity, pursues a “noble vocation,” to quote Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti. Nonetheless, Legutko descends into a heavy-handed critique of the “entrepreneur without a soul,” who lacks the courage to stand up for his own values and does what society wants him to do. Legutko may even be right about the “Woke entrepreneurs” of Big Tech whom he has in mind. But he hardly differentiates between Woke capital and the many en- trepreneurs who are not social justice warriors and pursue God’s work through their innovations. This is precisely the main problem with The Cunning of Free- dom: It lumps together different notions of freedom, liberalism, and entrepreneurship that are quite different in reality. This is most noticeable in the conclusion. Legutko argues that his cri- tique of liberalism holds for left-wing liberalism, classical liber- alism, libertarianism, ad infinitum, because “in each version, the problem remains the same.” He subsequently moves on for a fi- nal attack, showing how the types of freedoms he has analyzed result in creating “liberalism as a super-theory” which eventually encompasses – indeed, forces top-down – all of society’s cur - rents and processes into one bland whole of “openness,” “diversi- ty,” and “pluralism.” Everyone who does not agree with what the liberals think is “freedom” will be ostracized. This is in many regards a shockingly accurate critique of left-wing liberalism as we see it in its most extreme forms (and how Legutko has undoubtedly experienced it in the Eu - ropean Parliament). But how is this a critique of classical lib - eralism? Similarly, why is Woke capitalism used to bedevil free enterprise as a whole? Why is it necessary to throw out any notion of rights because human rights have been so falsely reconstructed? Why, indeed, is it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater? (Photo credit: AP Photo/Dan Anderson) This is all the more frustrating, since Legutko actually glanc- es a potential solution. A few pages buried in the section on “inner freedom” laud David Hume’s emphasis on “habits, so- cial practices, and a general rootedness in [a] society” that has evolved over time and history – “a social conservatism” not based on government force, but on “the power of custom.” Le-

19 SPRING 2021 ACTON.ORG This volume is a diagnostic book; it does not offer extensive solutions. Though written by a career academic, Trueman’s writing style is accessible and didactic. He explains complex philosophical concepts and theories in a way that makes this book accessible to the educated layman. This is a book for readers concerned about the current course of the Western world: Teachers, clergy, academics, and educat- ed laymen who want to understand our cultural moment will benefit from read- ing Triumph of the modern self. In Irrevers- ible Damage, Abigail Schrier outlines the rise in “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in teenage girls; the pseudonymously au- thored “When Sons become Daughters” series of essays by “Angus Fox” published by Quillette chronicle a similar rise in ROGD BOOK in teenage boys. Trueman provides the theoretical apparatus to help traditional- ists, conservatives, and religious individ- How irrationality uals understand how mainstream society reached the point of losing touch with such fundamental aspects of reality as biology. triumphed Trueman builds his argument carefully. The rise and triumph of the modern self: cultural amnesia, expressive individualism, and In the first two chapters, he crafts a theo- the road to sexual revolution retical apparatus from Phillip Rieff, Charles Carl R. Trueman. B&H Academic. 2020. 407 pages. Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre. From Rieff, Trueman extracts and explains the terms Reviewed by by Josh Herring “the triumph of the therapeutic, psycholog- ical man, the anticulture, and deathworks.” Perhaps the most helpful concept from ne of the great benefits of the university lies in the leisure for Rieff is the description of three “worlds” advanced study. While the tenured professor may be a dying of culture. First worlds and second worlds breed, the ideal of a profession whose adherents study important “justify their morality by appeal to some- questions so that they might then share their learning through thing transcendent, beyond the material Owriting, teaching, and speaking remains an important ideal for the uni- world.” First world cultures, like those of versity. While that ideal is rarely realized, Carl R. Trueman’s The rise and ancient Greece and Rome, rely upon fate; triumph of the modern self: cultural amnesia, expressive individualism, and the second world cultures depend on faith and road to sexual revolution brings together years of scholarly reading to provide an analysis reason. Rieff classifies the biblical faiths explaining a specific intellectual shift. (Judaism and Christianity) as second world Gender studies and critical theory classes are now common in the collegiate space, cultures. Third world cultures reject tran- but Trueman wants to explain how der zeitgeist has shifted such that a person who has scendence and, thus, have no concept of never taken such a class could say with complete sincerity, “I am a woman trapped in the sacred. “The culture with no sacred a man’s body.” There is, Trueman argues, an intellectual journey that has occurred in order therefore has the task – for Rieff, higher education whereby that statement is theoretically justifiable. How does a person the impossible task – of justifying itself who has never read Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, or Simone de Beauvoir make such a only by reference to itself.” claim? And why is such a statement received as a deep, personal expression of identity? Part of our dilemma, Trueman argues, These are Trueman’s questions, and to answer them, he combines deep reading with is the Christian’s perception of the world clear explanations reflecting a career spent communicating to undergraduates and writ- through a second-world cultural lens (Photo ing for a public audience. when the secular majority perceives re-

credit: Reading Triumph of the modern self is its own education. Trueman takes his readers on ality through a third-world cultural lens. Both individuals can then look at the same

AP a tour de force of key concepts developed by Jean Jacques Rousseau, key Romantic poets,

Photo/Dan Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Phillip Rieff, and Charles Taylor. By his conclusion, True- phenomenon, but lack the ability to share man equips his readers with the tools to understand the shift in our public perception of a common explanation. Rieff’s vocabulary

Anderson) reality, from a fixed to “plastic” self, and he closes by extrapolating future trajectories of pairs neatly with the analysis of Charles societal change in coming decades. Taylor. Trueman leans on Taylor for “the

20 dialogical nature of selfhood,” the “social views of the self, Trueman suggests, the in reviving natural law thinking in recent imaginary,” and how “the politics of recog- Christian message can be communicated decades; Trueman contends this is an area nition allow for answers to the question of more clearly. Our cry is not about the evils where Protestant thinkers need to do the why certain identities (e.g., LGBTQ+) enjoy of polyamory or transgenderism as such, same. Through a philosophically thick un- great cachet today while others (e.g., reli- but rather a message concerning creatures derstanding of natural law, Protestants gious conservatives) are increasingly mar- who have a place in God’s created order as can ground their views on sexuality in the ginalized.” Trueman closes his theoretical bearers of the divine image. When we can nature of the body as God’s creation (and, chapters by drawing on Alasdair McIntyre recover this stronger view of the self, and thus, subject to his laws). Much more work to show that “modern ethical discourse has thus address a deeper cause, the symp- remains to be done to articulate a Christian broken down because it rests ultimately toms will be more effectively treated. response to the present moment. on incommensurable narratives and that Trueman closes with three suggestions For those looking to understand the claims to moral truth are really expres- for the contemporary church. The first is intellectual history of the present cultural sions of emotional preference.” These three “that the church should reflect long and landscape, and its fixation on sexual iden- thinkers provide the vocabulary in which hard on the connection between aesthet- tity and selfhood, there is no better guide Trueman’s argument makes sense. ics and her core beliefs and practices.” For than Carl R. Trueman. Across 407 pages, Trueman contends that the outward the Christian church to maintain doctrinal Trueman offers aprolegomenon “ ” to the symptoms of our modern malaise (dis- consistency, Trueman argues, she must re- coming conversation between Christian agreement about sexual identity and be- ject the emotivist, testimony-driven, aes- scholarship and the secularizing West. In havior) are fundamentally caused by a shift thetic argumentation which the LGBTQ+ coming years, the church will be pressed in what it means to “be a self.” Beginning community asserts is the route to truth: to defend her teachings and pass them with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Ro- The debate on LGBTQ+ issues on faithfully to new generations. Where mantics, Trueman traces the development within the church must be de- previous iterations of American Christian- of what Taylor terms “expressive individ- cided on the basis of moral prin- ity have been able to presume a cultural ualism.” In this understanding of the self, ciples, not on the attractiveness homogeneity privileging biblical reason- each person forms his or her own selfhood and appeal of the narratives of the ing, the twenty-first century resembles through relationships with others; the people involved. If sex-as-identi- instead an era where the broader culture choices one makes become determinative ty is a category mistake, then the grows increasingly hostile to Christian for expressing the developing sense of self. narratives of suffering, exclusion, teachings, a time when “a pluralist soci- Rather than the older understanding of and refusals of recognition based ety has slowly but surely adopted beliefs, the self as fixed, the modern sense of self on that category mistake are really particularly beliefs about sexuality and is “plastic,” malleable and changeable. The of no significance in determining identity, that render Christianity immoral modern sense of self, Trueman concludes, what the church’s position on ho - and inimical to the civic stability of society is one that expresses itself in the ability mosexuality should be. as now understood.” Through analysis and to choose its own nature. While the Chris- Clear reasoning from the doctrine of explanation of Philip Rieff, Charles Taylor, tian may balk at such a notion, and insist the church should determine the church’s and Alasdaire MacIntyre – and by tracing he could never be swayed by it, Trueman stance on sexual concerns. the evolution of selfhood across the En- claims that “we are all part of that rev- Second, Trueman stresses the necessity lightenment through modernity – True- olution, and there is no way to avoid it.” of the church being “a community.” If Taylor man shows the connections between self- In shifting from a second to third world is right that “selves are socially construct- hood and sexual expression that restore culture, “expressive individualism has de- ed and only come to full self-consciousness the church to a place she has been many tached these concepts of individual dignity in dialogue with other self-consciousness,” times before: a “stranger in a strange and value from any kind of grounding in then the church as the primary community land” sojourning to a new home. True- a sacred order.” The absence of an agreed for the people of God becomes of primary man’s scholarship is a gift to the church, upon sacred order, Trueman argues, made importance. The church becomes the com- and his message could not be timelier. the West “a decreated world, exemplified munity that shapes the self-consciousness by its sexual chaos. It had come to reject of her members. Josh Herring is a humanities instructor at the created, divine image as the basis for Trueman closes with a third application: Thales Academy, a graduate of Southeastern its morality, and there was nothing left but “Protestants need to recover both natural Baptist Theological Seminary and Hillsdale a morass of competing tastes.” law and a high view of the body.” True- College, and a doctoral student in Faulkner Sexual immorality makes an easy tar- man recalls the work of James K.A. Smith University’s Great Books program. He has get, but the outward symptoms of “sexual in highlighting the need for Protestant written for Moral Apologetics, The Imagi- chaos” are themselves the result of a shift Christianity to consider the implications native Conservative, Think Christian, and in the understanding of the self. “To ad- of humans as “embodied souls.” Neither The Federalist. dress the symptoms adequately, we need Gnostic nor Platonic, Christianity has clear to think long and hard about the causes, teaching about the union of soul and body their wider ramifications, and our rela- in the bearing of the divine image. Through tionship as Christians to them.” When the neo-Thomist movement, Roman Cath- the church comprehends these divergent olic thinkers have done substantial work

21 SPRING 2021 ACTON.ORG COLUMN Editorial Board THE POLITICAL TEMPTATION Publisher: Rev. Robert A. Sirico Rev. Robert A. Sirico Executive Editor: Rev. Ben Johnson Formatting Support: Iron Light Serious proposals to fundamentally change the governance of these United States, made by unserious yet politically powerful people, are made with ever-increasing frequen- The Acton Institute for the Study of cy: statehood for the District of Columbia, the packing of the Supreme Court, and one Religion and Liberty promotes a free of the world’s largest taxes on capital gains have all been placed on the table and are society characterized by individual now the subject of public debate. Any reasonable observer knows that these proposals liberty and sustained by religious would alter the composition of the American republic, compromise its separation of principles. Letters and requests should powers (arguably the most important contribution the American founding offered to be directed to: political arrangements), and radically alter its capital markets. Underlying all of these fundamental proposals is a deep-seated suspicion that our democracy, institutions, and Religion & Liberty, Acton Institute. economy as currently configured cannot meet the challenges we face today, or that they 98 E. Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, were utterly corrupt from the outset. These suspicions deserved to be addressed hon- MI 49503. estly, because they contain valid criticisms. The COVID-19 pandemic, along with the ineffectual response to it by our political The Acton Institute was founded on the leaders, is a case in point. Massive government bailouts, pervasive restrictions on civil basis of ten core principles, integrating liberties, and enormous economic displacement have become commonplace. While sci- Judeo-Christian truths with free market entific innovation, the extraordinary sacrifices of individuals, and the innovative adap- principles. tations of communities to the crisis have contributed to advances against the pandemic, the political class has proved to be more of an obstacle than an aid to progress. • Dignity of the Person Liberty, Lord Acton famously said, is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization. Of • Social Nature of the Person course, change in life as well as politics, is often necessary and even salutary, but ill-con- • Importance of Social Institutions sidered change can imperil that delicate fruit. Such change is the fruit of a childish and • Human Action intemperate civilization that is unconnected to the wellsprings of human flourishing. • Sin Effective governance flows not out of a tempestuous and polarized politics, but from • Rule of Law and the Subsidiary the virtue and vigilance of ordinary citizens. In a time of frustration, it becomes all too Role of Government easy to blame others; real solutions lie not in politically hungry policy proposals that • Creation of Wealth empower the already powerful, but in the and honest and ruthless examination of our- • Economic Liberty selves. Michael Nagler, writing of the thought of Mahatma Gandhi, put it nicely when he • Economic Value said: “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world • Priority of Culture … as in being able to remake ourselves.” This is an essential truth of human nature: We be both free and responsible. Our The notion of shared values on both freedom gives us the concrete opportunity to respond to the crises of our moment by sides of the Atlantic has received taking the initiative to transform our own lives and communities. We can only grow new attention. Leaders like France’s in virtue though creative service to others in our own contexts, within our families, socialist ex-president François churches, businesses, and our local communities. When we lose sight of our freedom Hollande cite “democracy, freedoms and responsibility, it becomes easy to become captive to abstract “solutions” promised and the respect of every individual" as by power-hungry politicians. key values. But what about religious The political philosopher Eric Voegelin taught that believing that the disorder we see liberty, the breakdown of the welfare around us can be overcome by some special knowledge was really the retrieval of the an- state, advancing secularism and cient error of Gnosticism and that the desire to implement policies based on this knowl- the health of civil society? R&L edge was really an effort to “immanentize the eschaton,” as Voegelin phrased it: that is, to Transatlantic will cover these issues bring about Heaven on earth by means of public policy. To sidestep human freedom and here with new articles. responsibility, to outsource dealing with the challenges of the human condition, is not at all unlike the final temptation that Christ faced in the desert: “The devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and For archived issues or to subscribe, he said to Him, “All these I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me.” please visit www.acton.org. The views At a moment of many challenges, with a polarized and ever-changing political cli- of the authors expressed in Religion & mate, such temptations are routine. The only answer is the one Jesus gave Satan – a Liberty are not necessarily those of the refusal, coupled with a renewed life of service to God and neighbor: “Then Jesus said to Acton Institute. him, “Begone, Satan! for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:8-10). © 2021 Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Rev. Robert A. Sirico is co-founder and president of the Acton Institute.

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