Politics and Christianity: the Clear, the indifferent and the Difficult

I am always eager to integrate Christianity with life because doing so is integrating truth with life. There are some areas in which the application of moral truth is clear, even though unpopular or painful. But this is not always the case.

One difficulty with the integration of Christianity and life is that some people expect God to give us all the specific right answers about everything in black and white terms. But life as God created it is not always like that. There are indifferent things and things where, while there are right answers, it is not easy for humans to know or agree on those answers. And it is not always easy to separate the indifferent from the difficult.

Despite the impression I create on issues where the moral law is clear or my opinion is strong, law and politics full of indifferent areas where we are not faced with a choice between moral good and moral evil, but merely a choice. Politics and law are also filled with areas in which there is a right or at least best answer, but it is not easy to know and agree about that answer.

This is why, as C.S. Lewis said in his essay “Is Progress Possible?” that it may not be appropriate to have a Christian political party. Political parties have to take positions on all sorts of difficult and indifferent issues – issues on which Christians can and do disagree. But naming a political party as “Christian” has the unhappy result of implying our positions on indifferent or difficult issues are the only Christian positions when they are not necessarily so at all. I agree this is a real problem. It is also difficult to avoid all mention of faith in politics because it is necessary to rally those who agree on the moral issues and who share a common world view for the others.

In running a law school we have similar difficulties. I can express my own personal views on my blog. But where there is a spectrum of plausibly legitimate opinion among orthodox Bible believing Christians we have to teach the spectrum and the arguments for the different positions, not just the ones we personally think best. We may emphasize the arguments we believe best, but we want students to know that there are different opinions. But then we do not stop there. To learn the law one must understand the opinions of judges who are secular humanists or American Realists just as much as the opinions of Christian jurists. And most issues in law are indifferent matters or arguable matters where we may even agree with some of the faithless against the opinion of some of the faithful, about that matter.

So do not think that sharp opinions questions where the moral law is clear mean that everything is black and white. And do not think that because much of the law is murky, there can be no clarity on issues at all, because so issues are clear under the moral law.

The No-religious Test Cause and the Candidates for President

In the upcoming Republican primary, one of the candidates running is controversial because he is a Mormon. A prominent Christian talk show host, whom I admire and celebrate, has been making an argument that because the Constitution contains a clause against religious tests, no one should vote against Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon. While I greatly respect this talk show host and agree with him most of the time, I cannot agree with this argument. Whether or not you think you can vote for Mitt Romney in good conscience, the anti-religious test clause of the Constitution should not really have anything to do with it.

The anti-religious test clause, Article 6, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States, provides: “The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The no religious test clause or anti-religious test clause was included in the Constitution as a reaction against one of the forms of religious persecution common in Europe between the time of the Reformation and the American founding. This problem was a form of religious discrimination in which people were required to specify that they were members of a particular Christian denomination or group or creed in order to hold public office or undertake actions on behalf of their government. For example, in Catholic countries people were required to be Catholic. In Lutheran countries they were required to be Lutheran. In England they were required to give allegiance to Henry VIII as head of the church. These kinds of clauses were odious to the framers since many of their recent ancestors had left England and other countries in Europe in order to escape exactly such forms of religious persecution or discrimination.

Now let’s compare the question of not voting for Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon. If anyone suggested that Mormons could not hold offices in the federal government or carry out the public trust, they would be arguing contrary to the no religious test clause. The core meaning of the clause is clearly that no one can be prevented from doing public work or holding public office because they believe or do not believe any particular religious tenets. So, for example, the government of the United States cannot ban Quakers from holding public office. They cannot require all persons enlisting in the military to be Lutherans. The government cannot say that they will only allow public contracts with members of the Church of Religious Science. Senators should not refuse to confirm judges to the court of appeals because they are fundamentalists. This is the obvious meaning of the clause. But this all has to do with the action of the government or the nation as a whole in banning some particular class of people. It has nothing to do with who we vote for or why we vote for them as individuals.

What I think the talk show host would argue in response to my interpretation of the clause is that if we make religion an important matter in political choices like who we vote for for president, we’re violating the spirit of the American system since America is built on the idea that your individual religion is not relevant to your public life. But that argument clearly misunderstands the nature of the American republic and the nature of public office, public trust and campaigns for the positions involved with them. When we vote for someone for office, we are voting for the entire person. We should consider what they believe, what they know, what their skills, gifts, abilities, talents and virtues are. We should also consider the evidence of their particular addictions, vices and shortcomings. I would not vote for anyone for public office who holds beliefs about reality that are absurd or who does not know information necessary to be an effective office holder. For example, I would never vote for anyone who thought that the moon landing had been faked or that the Federal Reserve is really a shadow government that manipulates and controls world events. I would not vote for such people for several reasons. First, their willingness to believe things that are patently absurd means that one cannot trust their judgment about facts. Judgment about facts is constantly necessary in carrying out any government office. What we know about moral principles is of great importance. But what we believe about facts or know about facts is equally important. Everyone agrees that theft is wrong. But is taking someone’s property in order to build a shopping mall that will earn money for the community theft? What people believe about facts and their ability to figure out what the real facts are and how the facts are significant or how moral principles apply to them are all critical. It is also the case that peoples’ attitudes toward their beliefs and knowledge also are indicative about how they will behave in office and under stress. What people believe or don’t believe is also in some way indicative of their intelligence and wisdom. Are they gifted in their ability to learn, understand, communicate and discern? Do they understand the way things really work and see things as they really are? What a person believes shows me a lot about the answers to these questions.

Within the core of what someone believes are their religious beliefs. What someone believes about God, human nature, the origin of the universe, the order of the universe, the source of moral law, the source of rights, why human beings can learn language or learn anything at all, whether there are spiritual forces at work in the world, what factors affect human behavior and decision making, and what factors affect group behavior and decision making, are all of great importance and are all tied to one’s religious faith and belief. If one claims they are not tied to one’s religious faith and belief, that says something very clearly about what that person actually thinks and actually believes. What some Mormons believe about foundational ideas, as individuals, may be laudable. But what the Mormon Church historically has believed is not always Biblical, praiseworthy, or sensible.

It’s entirely possible that Mitt Romney could be the lesser evil of the presidential candidates—that he could be the best person to vote for out of the bunch. But to think that his belief in Mormonism should not be a factor when individuals decide whether or not they as individuals want Romney to be their president is to disregard the important factors. The Mormon religion has definite beliefs about human nature, etc. It has teachings about all of these things. If Mitt Romney believes Mormon teaching and doctrine, then his decision making as president will be affected by those beliefs. Or if he does not really believe Mormon teaching and doctrine, but rather believes in political liberalism and simply chooses to associate himself with Mormonism, or if he believes in materialism and chooses to associate himself with Mormonism, this is no less problematic because it means that Mr. Romney disregards the teachings of religious faith (especially with regard to these issues) and believes instead what materialists or political liberals believe about them.

It is not so much that Romney is a Mormon; rather it is that he is not a Christian. Of course there are many people who call themselves Christians who don’t hold to what Christians ought to believe about human nature, etc. But that says something about them as well, doesn’t it? Ideally, a candidate for president sees the universe as it really is. He understands what people are really like and where moral law comes from and where rights come from. Unless someone has the proper beliefs about these things, they are going to be a worse president than someone who does. If you cannot find anyone who believes the right things about the world (a very sorry situation indeed), then I suppose you have to pick the best or the least bad from among those who remain. But it should not ever be thought that you are doing well or not compromising or not settling for a lesser evil if you have to pick a candidate for political office who doesn’t even have a proper understanding of what it means to be a human being.

Sure, a person who doesn’t have the right beliefs about reality or who isn’t wise or knowledgeable can still agree with you on a checklist of issues. They may still tell you that they are opposed to abortion and favor low taxes and would allow home schooling. But what happens when the situation changes? What happens when the person’s views on the issues come into question? What happens when a new issue comes up that requires a de novo application of fundamental principles to an unconsidered reality? I can tell you exactly what happens. The person who doesn’t believe the right things about reality is very likely to come to the wrong answer about the new issue. A good example is cloning. There are a number of people in political power who have been happy to side with pro-lifers on abortion. But when cloning has come up, because their cosmology and their understanding of human nature and reality is weak, they suddenly do not realize that unborn human beings or human beings conceived in petrie dishes are still human. Instead, they try to rationalize that a human being is determined by its location or its likelihood of survival. To someone who sees the world as it really is, this is not only absurd but frightening. Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who ask ridiculous questions like whether or not clones can have souls. (Of course they do. They wouldn’t be alive if they didn’t have a soul.) In fact, we already had trouble with Mormons and cutting-edge issues. One of the prominent Republican senators, who is a Mormon, on the Judiciary Committee has been helpful on abortion, but extremely unhelpful on embryonic stem cell research because he does not understand these simple fundamental questions.

Mormons don’t agree with orthodox historical Christianity about the fundamental truths about God, morality and reality. In addition, believing in Mormonism is clearly ridiculous. A detailed study of what Mormons believe shows it to be quite incredible in many ways. I understand that many people are Mormons because their ancestors were. I also understand that many people are attracted to Mormonism for cultural reasons because Mormons emphasize family and clean living. There are also some Mormons who don’t really believe in any of the teachings of Mormonism, just as there are some people who call themselves Christians who do not really believe in any of the teachings of the Bible. But regardless of whether or not Mitt Romney is a liberal Mormon or a hereditary Mormon or a cultural Mormon, he has still chosen to continue to associate himself with a religion whose tenets are patently absurd and whose history is highly suspect. I consider that a mark against him in terms of my evaluation of his qualifications to be president of the United States.

I also consider a Mormon’s candidacy for the presidency problematic because if a Mormon becomes president, it will make Mormonism even more mainstream and acceptable than it already is. If Mormonism becomes more culturally acceptable, more people will become Mormons. If more people become Mormons, more people will not be saved. Now while I am a Calvinist and believe that God is ultimately the one responsible for whether people are elect or not elect, I also understand that from a practical human point of view, our choices appear to matter in terms of people being saved or not saved. If we fail to share the Gospel with people, they may not be the elect. If we share the Gospel with people, it is very likely that we will discover that God has elected some of them. If a Mormon becomes president, it will probably turn out to be fewer people elected to the true church in America than would otherwise be the case. So this is another reason why I would be reluctant to vote for Mr. Romney, unless he is clearly the lesser of evils.

All of this is not to say that I like most of the other presidential candidates. Candidates who are atheists, materialists, or who call themselves Christians but who are non-believers can be as problematic. Some of the candidates are not too bright. Some of them have real ego problems. Some are all image and no substance. But isn’t there someone in America who would be a qualified, reasonable, competent president who has good character and who believes in the teachings of orthodox Christianity? If not we will have to vote for the nest candidate we have. That might be Romney or Thompson or someone else. But we really ought to have better choices. But whoever we choose, for individual voters to consider the candidates religious views is not a violation of the no religious clause test.

Abortion: UK Gives Some Hope

Did you know that in much of “liberal” Europe there are greater restrictions on abortion than in the USA?

For example, in the UK, according to the Evening Standard:

“Abortion is legal in Britain up to nine months if doctors believe the baby has a severe disability or the mother's life is at risk.
But termination for 'social' reasons - the effect of the pregnancy on the mental health and well-being of the mother - is legal up to 24 weeks.”

By contrast, though out nearly all the US abortion is legal for any reason for all nine months. Why can’t we limit the killing of unborn human beings at least as much as the UK when over 70% of Americans are willing to accept such limits?

In another improvement in the UK, the Evening Standard reports many public health service doctors are refusing to perform abortions on ethical grounds. The government has been forced to hire increasing numbers of private doctors to meet the tragic demand for abortion. But the trend among doctors shows that conscience is still alive, even in the UK.

California Mischief

The California legislature seems to do little but get into mischief. Current bills under consideration include AB 374, titled the “California Compassionate Choices Act,” which authorizes physician-assisted suicide. There is also legislation to legalize homosexual marriage (AB 43), create additional rights for homosexuals (AB 14 and SB 777), restrict parents’ right to discipline children (AB 755) and allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses (SB 60). Hat tip to Pacific Justice Institute.

Second Amendment Rights and the Constitution

There is an excellent article in the Weekly Standard by Erin Sheley concerning Parker v. District of Columbia, the D.C. circuit case interpreting the Second Amendment in a reasonable sort of way. As the article has pointed out, judges don’t like the Second Amendment. While they are generous in interpreting constitutional clauses they like and even inventing clauses for the Constitution that you cannot find in the text, judges have been extremely stingy in enforcing the right to bear arms. Part of the reason is that the Second Amendment is not like many of the other amendments to the Constitution. It actually says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Notice anything unusual? The amendment does not purport to create a right to bear arms; instead it recognizes one and gives an additional reason for that right not being infringed.

When the Constitution was enacted, the framers already believed in what we would call natural rights and/or natural law. They believed that God had given mankind certain rights which governments were not to infringe. Among the rights recognized traditionally as flowing from natural law within reformed Christianity was the right and obligation to defend others. Defending others, of course, if it’s to be done effectively, necessitates arms and the existence of government to facilitate the coordination of that defense. Natural rights scholars, by contrast, emphasize a right to self defense. While this is, in a sense, less biblical, it has the same result in indicating that people ought to be entitled to the means necessary to defend themselves.

During the English revolutionary period, the people of England deposed and beheaded one king and deposed a second king in part because they sought to interfere with the right of people to bear arms. They made their new king and queen, William and Mary of Orange, sign a declaration of rights that essentially recognized that their predecessors in the crown had been wrong in seeking to disarm the people, especially during a time of crisis. The founders of the United States were well aware of the understanding of common law in England, that there was a right to bear arms. They knew that this was a right of the people, not a right of the state or the collective. But they also knew that in the peaceful society that they imagined, there might be a temptation to think that the right to bear arms was less necessary than it would be in a government with a greater propensity to tyranny. Perhaps this is why they gave a reason for the government’s obligation to avoid infringing the pre-existing right to bear arms. They reasoned that a well-regulated militia was necessary to the security of a free state. Today we don’t have militias in the sense that the founders meant. We do not call up all able-bodied men to fight on behalf of the state. We wouldn’t expect them to bring their own firearms even if we did. But it is still true that people have a need to defend others, and that the state cannot always be the guarantor of our safety. As a result, we still have a natural law right to bear arms. This right is explicitly recognized by the Second Amendment. In fact, I think that there is a good argument that it is also one of the sort of pre-existing rights recognized in the Ninth Amendment, the provision of the Bill of Rights that says, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Supreme Court held some time ago that the right of travel, for example, clearly recognized in the Middle Ages and Magna Carta, is one of the rights protected by the Ninth Amendment. If the Second Amendment didn’t protect the right to bear arms, the Ninth Amendment clearly would. It is a well-known and long held common law right and if the government took away our right to defend others or ourselves by owning weapons that are reasonable for that purpose, it would be doing us a grave disservice and injustice.

Bravo to the D.C. court for getting this one right. Let’s hope that the Supreme Court of the United States eventually does likewise.

Book Review: Stephen Grabill's Book Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theologiocal Ethics

Until fairly recently, Protestants in the last fifty years have neglected their historic roots in natural law theory. Protestant Christian jurisprudential writers have preferred secular philosophies of law like American realism and pragmatism to the legal philosophy held by the Reformers. In fact, to a large extent Protestants in the last fifty years have ignored what the Reformers had to say about law or political philosophy. Stephen Grabill attempts in this noble book, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics, to explain some of the reasons why recent Protestants have avoided natural law and exactly what Calvin and some of his most noted successors actually believed about natural law.

In his conclusion, Grabill discusses the gradual slide of scholars away from natural law theory. As empiricism and skepticism grew and belief in Augustinianism and the classic understanding of Reformed epistemology diminished, Protestants became increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated philosophical attack in the areas of law and epistemology. While Grabill does not discuss the next phase much in his book, the rise of skepticism succeeded in pummeling many Protestant Christians into pietism and anti-intellectualism during the 1800 and 1900s. Grabill does discuss Karl Barth’s contribution to the loss of natural law awareness. Barth, in substituting a false but spiritual sounding nonsense for the philosophy of higher criticism, convinced many people that in adopting his rejection of God’s general revelation they were being very biblical and very Protestant despite the fact that they were rejecting both what the Bible says about natural law and the beliefs of most of the Christian church prior to 1950. Barth confidently claimed that Calvin himself did not believe in natural law although anyone who actually reads portions of Calvin’s Institutes dealing with these issues can easily see that Calvin did believe in natural law. But Barth’s popularity was such that he swayed many people toward his side and also promulgated the belief that natural law was a Roman Catholic doctrine rather than a Christian doctrine. Grabill goes through much of the history of prominent natural law thinking within Reformed Protestantism. He discusses the views not only of John Calvin but of Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), Johannes Althusius (1557-1638), Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590), Francis Turretin (1623-1687) and others. Most of these important second and third generation Reformers believed in natural law.

These various Reformed theologians had slight differences in their theories of natural law and their understandings of its application, but they had a great deal of agreement as well. Grabill summarizes it this way: “Calvin, Vermigli, and Reformed scholastics all share the conviction that Scripture is the cognitive foundation (principium cognoscendi) of theology and that moral arguments can be based on axioms derived from that principium. Consequently they recognize the existence of a natural knowledge of God that is present in the natural order and discernable either in conjunction with or apart from Scripture. This knowledge, however, has no saving efficacy and merely serves to render all people to be ‘without excuse’ for their moral infractions, as Romans 1:20 attests.” The Reformers agreed that knowledge of right and wrong didn’t cause you to do what was right or cause you to be saved. But they did believe that God has not left Himself without witnesses. In addition to the direct and superior testimony of Scripture, God has also revealed Himself by writing the law on our hearts - a law that is very much the same as the principles behind the Ten Commandments. These Reformed scholars were also Augustinian in their epistemology. They recognized that God makes human knowledge, thought, and language possible, in addition to providing us with a moral compass.

Grabill does not go into depth in discussing the political and legal implications of natural law philosophy and its accompanying Augustinian epistemology. I would argue that our Western understanding of law, the rule of law, and the proper nature of jurisprudence, were originally based on the same presuppositions held by the Reformed theologians discussed by Grabill. Men like Richard Hooker and Coke, who shaped the theory and practice of the common law, understood that men were fallen, sinful and not to be trusted to reason or act properly. But they also understood that God had endowed man with the ability to learn language and communicate in a practical way, with an ability to understand universals like justice, goodness, truth, property, beauty, etc. and with a basic knowledge of good and evil in addition to providing man with the ability to reason, albeit an ability damaged by the fall. The way Western law developed presumes all of these things.

The current emphasis in post-modernism and pragmatism on our inability to communicate or know anything objective about right or wrong is changing the meaning of the phrase “the rule of law” and rending the fabric of American law filament by filament. If Christian legal scholars want to reform the American legal system, they must do more than carry it a few decades back up the slippery slope down which it has slipped, and instead restore the theological and philosophical foundations upon which a proper legal system is built. Stephen Grabill’s book is a wonderful step in that direction. I hope and pray that we will see many more similar works appearing in print in the relatively near future.

Movie Review: Amazing Grace

I went to see Amazing Grace on its opening weekend. I was glad I did. It was an extraordinary film with excellent acting, costuming, locations and story.

Amazing Grace is the story of William Wilberforce and his work to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. Wilberforce was a very interesting man on the human level, and worked for civility in politics and humane treatment of animals in addition to his political work against slavery. He was not always right about everything. He did not completely foresee the danger of Napoleon or the futility of negotiating with Napoleon during the wars between England and France. But Wilberforce was a great man who succeeded in convincing England to end the slave trade and eventually to end slavery itself.

The film has a variety of flashbacks and can be a bit confusing to people who don’t know something about the history or story line in advance or who are inattentive to the hints and clues given in the early parts of the film. One of the critical supports to Wilberforce is his own school teacher, John Newton. Newton had been a slave trader and upon converting to Christianity, gave up the trade. Nevertheless, he was haunted throughout his life with the memories and images of the brutality he had participated in. Newton became a clergyman and was also the author of the famous hymn, Amazing Grace.

Also important in Wilberforce’s life were the Clapham Circle—friends who supported abolition and did research toward that end, his extended family, and his wife. The romance between Wilberforce and his wife-to-be is a prominent feature of the movie, and shows the tremendous difference that a good marriage can make in the lives of individuals who are seeking to serve God in stressful fields.

The film also conveys something of the wisdom Wilberforce eventually obtained in dealing with political problems. He learned that sometimes a direct assault is not the best way to achieve political goals. Instead, they can sometimes be achieved incrementally through measures designed to have indirect effects that will make more radical change possible later on.

Unquestionably, Wilberforce is one of the most important figures in the history of the West. His efforts at political and moral reform in England were of the greatest importance. The end of the English slave trade also contributed to making it possible for America to end the slave trade and eventually abolish slavery here as well. Christians today should study Wilberforce and take lessons from his failures and successes as they too seek to influence society by limiting evil and promoting good.

It is not possible for Christians to transform earth into heaven. It is not even possible to eliminate all corruption from politics. But it is possible to work for the good and to eliminate some institutions such as slavery. The Bible instructs us to not only share the Gospel with our neighbors, but to free those who are oppressed and to help those who are hungry, thirsty and impoverished. Politics is not always the best way to achieve these goals, but it does serve a contributing part, particularly in ending oppression. William Wilberforce is an excellent example for us of how to bring about lasting and significant political change.

The Selfishness of Pacifism

While I have some respect for pacifists because of their commitment to an ideal many of them believe is biblical, I have recently been re-reading a book of views about war and I have been impressed by the overall selfishness of pacifist and non-resistant positions. Constantly, people with pacifist or non-resistant positions toward war talk about themselves and their enemies. They constantly focus on how they will respond to the enemy, what they will do, what they feel, what they think, what God thinks of them, and what God requires of them. Nowhere in the articles about just war or non-resistant positions do I see people thinking about the victims of aggressive totalitarian regimes. I think the real question involved in the morality of war is not whether we are going to fight back ourselves, but whether we are going to protect others. If it was just a matter of the defender and the attacker, the defender might be justified in turning the other cheek and not resisting evil. But it isn’t like that at all. In the situation of war, we have many people who are being attacked by the aggressor (or in the case of a preventive war, who would have been attacked by the aggressor if the aggressor hadn’t been attacked first). War theory has to think about these third party innocents, not just about the belligerents. In discussing whether or not it was right to fight the Nazis, we have to take into account the Holocaust and the atrocities against the Poles and others. In deciding whether or not war is right in general, we have to think about the third party victims of unrestrained aggressive regimes.

Prepare for refugees

Following the American re-deployment and drawdown from Viet Nam, thousands of people fled for their lives from Viet Nam. Many who did not flee were executed, imprisoned or sent to re-education camps. Many spent years after the fall of Saigon attempting to get out of Viet Nam and come to the United States. If American forces leave Iraq prematurely, the result is likely to be similar or worse.

If American retreats from Iraq and surrenders it as a theater in the war against Islamo-Fascism, all of the people in Iraq who strongly supported democracy, a moderate understanding of Islam, and freedom for women and religious minorities as well as everyone who is not a Muslim will be in danger for their lives. If the United States intends to withdraw as the Congress appears to be preparing to force the president to do through a web of binding and harassing laws and resolutions designed to prevent the effective continuance of the war in Iraq, then we must either prepare ourselves to watch hundreds of thousands of people be massacred, or to accept them here in the United States as political refugees.

Why Federalism is not Enough

Recently one of the early candidates for president has said that he has switched from being pro-abortion to being pro-life. But news articles report that he bases his “pro-life” stance on federalism. He says that he believes that abortion is a matter for state legislatures rather than for the federal courts. This is still a problematic view. From the standpoint of a really pro-life position, there should be no right to abortion because unborn human beings are human beings and all human beings have an unalienable right not to be killed with malice aforethought and without justification or excuse. While supporting a federalist view of the problem or any regulations on abortion may be desirable incremental steps, the fundamental philosophical change which we need is recognition of the rights of all human beings at all stages of development.

At conception, a living egg and a living sperm come together to form a living human being - the kind of thing made in the image of God. Humans, even when very small, are due dignity, respect, and fundamental rights from the moment of conception onward. Even the body of a dead human being is entitled to a certain degree of respect, though not the degree of respect accorded to a living human being.

Until jurisprudence catches up with this scientific and moral reality, abortion will continue to distort American law and justice. The existence of a legal doctrine in which we decide that some human beings are not entitled to the protections of the law because they are at a particular stage of development or do not evidence particular characteristics is a delegitimizing factor weighing against the overall legitimacy of America’s regime and legal system. Until we fix this problem, we are going to continue to have difficulties as a nation and as a people. Devaluing human life always has consequences even though they are not always directly understood or observed.

Good News from D.C. - Republicans on House Judiciary Committee Protect Presidential Powers

There are some things you never hear about in the news media. One is when the Republicans actually do something right and show up the Democrats. This happened recently in the House Judiciary Committee. The Democrats were planning on hearings to savagely attack presidential signing statements. Signing statements are explanations of the president’s view of a bill given when the president signs the bill into law. The statement might say what the president believes the bill is designed to do, give the president’s opinions on the mischiefs the bill is designed to combat, or indicate how a vague portion of the new law is meant to be interpreted, or even say that the president expects a portion of the law to be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Some legislators hate presidential signing statements because they form a competing intent behind the bill. One of the major accusations his opponents have had against President Bush is that he has issued many signing statements.

The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee did not prepare well for their hearing. The hearing was designed to attack signing statements and they had witnesses lined up to complain about the practice. What they did not really do was look into the long-term history of signing statements. The Republicans did do that and came prepared. The Republicans laid out that presidents had been issuing signing statements regularly since the time of Andrew Jackson. It is not a new practice or a practice unique to Republican presidents.

Hooray for the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee! In this instance they undermined the Democrats’ attempts to create a constitutional crisis by enacting legislation designed to change presidential powers without amending the Constitution.

Movie Review: Miss Potter

Last week I had the opportunity to see the delightful film, “Miss Potter.” Miss Potter is the story of the author of Peter Rabbit and other well-known children’s stories. Beatrix Potter not only wrote the stories, but painted the illustrations herself. She was also unusually involved in overseeing just how the books were put into print. Her children’s books became the best selling children’s books in history. And, Beatrix Potter also became a major conserver of farmland in the lakes district of northwestern England.

The film is a picture of a large portion of Miss Potter’s life. It is essentially a biographical film. It contains tragedy and sadness as well as triumph and success. It also has a great deal of humor and romance. The acting in the film is excellent and Renee Zellweger does an outstanding job of portraying the endearing but somewhat eccentric Miss Potter. The costuming, scenery, furniture and locations are also done with care and perfection. It gives us a window into the whole Victorian world with its odd class system and opportunities.

The movie is not really a children’s film because of the subtle sophistication of the humor and story and the presence of great tragedy. There is also a possibility that children will misunderstand and misapply a “carpe diem” (seize the day) lesson from the film. This film is extraordinary in that it contains nothing that is really bad or objectionable compared to the vast majority of modern films. It is exactly the sort of film that Christians are always saying people should make (apart from its not containing any overt elements of faith or Christianity). It is a sweet, delightful movie and I really congratulate everyone involved with it on their courage in making such a wonderful film and not trying to add strange, post-modern elements to it. There are a couple of moments that I think people might attempt to misinterpret and use to insert their own notions. But they are moments that are certainly possible in the Victorian world and would not have carried any extra baggage at that time. They would have simply been innocent and natural.

The film also involves a kind and gentle father and a mother who is overly ambitious for her daughter’s social standing. The film is a true-to-life depictions of the world in which Miss Potter lived.

God and Governing: A Conference on Ethics, Virtue, and Statesmanship

Trinity International Universities' California Campus is putting on a conference on Ethics and Government. The text bellow, taken from the Trinity site describes the reason for the conference. An ad for the conference appeared in Christianity Today and other magazines this February. Go to www.tls.edu/conference for additional information.

Evangelical Christians and Politics
According to the news media, evangelical Christianity obtained an unparalleled level of political power in Washington, D.C., during the last fifteen years. Newspaper and magazine editors have warned of "theocracy" and of the coming of a regime of oppressive Christian morality. But, not only have these warnings not been justified, evangelicals themselves have been disappointed with the ineffectiveness of their political contacts in Washington.
Professed friends of the so-called "religious right" have been caught up in ethical scandals. Leaders associated with evangelical Christianity in the popular mind have alienated many people through their intemperate statements and actions. Despite claims of evangelical power, little or no progress has been made upon implementing the perceived agenda of evangelical Christians on moral issues such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, bioethics, the protection of the family, care for the poor, ending international religious persecution, securing educational freedom, and caring for the weak and powerless among us. Instead, many voices claim that evangelicals have been used and manipulated for their votes and money without policy makers having any real intention of following through on their promises to the evangelical community.
Appropriate Christian Involvement
We know from the Scripture that we must not place too much hope in human governments. The interests of the kingdom of God are furthered by the preaching of the Gospel and by discipleship, not by the work of government. But the Scripture does command us to seek justice, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to seek freedom for the oppressed and liberty for the captive, to rescue those being led away to death, and to stand up for the powerless and the widow and orphan. These biblical injunctions would seem to encourage some political involvement, especially in a republic.
But why, if evangelicals have really been so powerful, have they been so ineffective in helping the poor and oppressed? Why has it been difficult to achieve reasonable limited results?
Practical Answers
This conference on God and Governing seeks real practical answers to these questions. We do not gather to condemn all Christian calling to statesmanship and politics, nor do we gather to validate the false claim that the kingdom of God can be brought in through the work of human governments. Instead, we seek to discuss the practical ways in which Christians can execute their duty to love their neighbor and help the oppressed, in the context of politics, with greater effectiveness and greater glory to Jesus Christ.
At the God and Governing Conference, which is being held at the Westin Hotel South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California, major figures from the Christian world of ideas will wrestle with this difficult topic. In addition to the major presentations and speeches by the likes of Os Guinness, Dallas Willard, David Wells, Paul Marshall, Vishal Mangalwadi, and Stephen Kennedy, there will be critiques and discussions by panel members who will include pastors, lawyers, and Christian professors.
This opportunity for finding and renewing a commitment to mature character, virtue, and just purposes in Christian involvement in politics should not be missed by Christian leaders who have an interest in political or media affairs. At the edge of the presidential primary season, this conference is provocatively timed relevant to the questions Christians will need to be asking as they go to the polls and if they go to Washington.
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Is War the Enemy?

One of my friends was recently having a discussion with me about the Iraq War. In this discussion I talked about the terrible situation in which the rise of Islamo-Fascism threatens the entire world. But my friend wanted to insist that Islamo-Fascism is merely an illusion and a matter for law enforcement rather than a matter for military action or diplomacy on a massive scale. Instead, he’s very worried about the American military and its power. He said, “To my way of thinking, war is the enemy.”

War is the enemy? I didn’t say much at the time but it occurred to me that this is something like saying “surgery is the enemy.” After all, tens of thousands of people around the world die in surgery every year. Even when successful, surgery causes immense pain and suffering. Surgery frequently has lasting unpleasant side effects. But would we all be better off without surgery? No, because there is something worse. Surgery is how we fight certain kinds of disease. War is really the same sort of thing. If we decided that when any resolute and armed group of people desire to loot, rape and pillage some other part of the world, we would merely let them do whatever they wanted to their heart’s content, there would be no wars. But there would be something worse. There are actually some things worse than war. While there are some wars in which groups mutually bent on pillage fight it out between each other, and while it is also true that civilizations are never perfect or holy, it is often the case that wars occur between one armed group bent on pillaging and enslaving another and a group that is resisting being looted and pillaged. America has been involved on behalf of other countries that are the target of looting and enslavement. To come to the aid of others in this situation is extremely biblical. The entire Bible is full of injunctions to aid those that are oppressed. None of this is to say that war is not painful or difficult, but rather to say that in a fallen world, it is a necessary tool.

I don’t think that my friend is alone though. There are many people who somehow believe that war is a sort of force or thing or entity that compels people to desire greater armaments and to waste their time and effort and resources in pursuing marshal pleasures. But I don’t think that is a realistic view of the world. Totalitarian regimes do occasionally stir up a desire for marshal ardor. And in truth, there is nothing wrong with honoring the just warrior—the valiant knight who protects the interests of the poor, the powerless, the oppressed, and the suffering. The happy warrior is deservedly happy, provided he is a warrior for good rather than for ill.

I suspect that my friend’s misconception arises not really from a belief that war is a mysterious force that robs people of their reason, but rather from a belief that human beings are basically good and are somehow manipulated by their environment or the greed of others into making foolish choices. I think he believes that war is always one of those choices which should be deemed foolish. Undoubtedly he probably believes that if we just gave dictators a little bribery money and treated them with the dignity and respect due to their megalomania, they would live happily with their neighbors and not need to be checked by armed forces. Sadly, I do not think this is the way the world really is. While no human being is perfect or sinless or entirely altruistic, the world is full of people who suffer not merely from run-of-the-mill temptations but from desires more contrary to the will of God and the best interests of their neighbors. This has been true since ancient times when the Bible discusses “Nimrod” who translations often describe as a mighty hunter before the Lord but whose context would seem to say that he was a mighty warrior against the Lord (to the degree one can struggle against a sovereign God). Islamo-Fascism is merely the latest in thousands of years of movements dedicated to bad ideas and forcing those bad ideas on as many human beings as possible. The study of these movements needs to be based not upon wishful thinking or upon the propaganda that they provide to the West, but rather upon an examination of their own ideology and literature. There is plenty of that available to the public and plenty of analysis of that ideology and literature is available as well.

My friend would probably think that the pentagon is full of the very sort of “Nimrods” described above. But that is not my experience. Nearly all of the people in the “military industrial complex” that I have met, or known about second hand, or known from their writings, have been very decent virtuous individuals who really did want peace and justice and liberty under the rule of law etc.

My friend is also concerned that war endangers civil rights. There are certainly some domestic dangers in the fight against Islamo-Fascism. I do worry that because Islamo-Fascism is based upon a sort of fundamentalist religion, the struggle against it will result in a backlash against Christians who genuinely believe in the Bible and the truths of Christianity. I also do have concerns about how our constitutional liberties could be usurped in the name of homeland security and secrecy if the focus of the war changes from offense against Islamo-Fascists to a defensive cordon of security around every one of the millions of possible targets in the United States. But I do not believe that either of these risks is worse than the risks of not fighting Islamo-Fascism itself. This is a case in which the cancer requires surgery or it will kill the patient in the long run long before the patient’s life would naturally expire. And this surgery requires not only a war of weapons, but a war of ideas in which truth is brandished as the greatest weapon of all.