Natural Law Symposium at Liberty

I have recently returned from presenting a paper at a Natural Law Symposium at Liberty Law School put on by the Liberty Law School Law Review. The event was really splendid. I was impressed with Liberty’s hospitality and with their students and faculty members. All of the invited speakers were very interesting and very much worth hearing and talking to. There were many interesting questions raised at the symposium. Here at the blog I will address some of these questions in future posts.

Your Questions Answered: Why is Huckabee Still Running?

I’ve been asked why Arkansas governor Mick Huckabee has stayed in the presidential race even though it is quite clear that he cannot win the nomination based on delegate count. I have some speculative reasons why he would continue the race:
1. The more delegates he has, the more influence he can have at the convention in matters like platform votes or discussions. I think Huckabee would stand firmly for the pro-life plank of the Republican platform and it will be important to have people who are willing to fight against legalizing stem cell research in the Republican platform.
2. I think he wants to be able to say that he came in second in the presidential primary season rather than third or fourth if there is another opportunity to run in four or eight years.
3. This is politics—you never know what might happen. What if, heaven forbid, McCain has a heart attack or a stroke before the convention? The more delegates Huckabee has committed to him at the convention, the more likely he might be able to salvage a nomination in the event of an unforeseeable crisis or emergency.
4. I think he likes running for president. People really enjoy traveling and making speeches, etc.
5. This is probably designed to help him be in a better position for a presidential run in four or eight years vis á vis people knowing him, understanding him, and having a campaign machine available to him. I’m not conversant enough on the current incarnation of the campaign finance laws to know whether it would be legal or not, but I imagine he can maintain a campaign war chest for the next time around with whatever money he is able to raise this time. In fact, he may need more money to pay off debts from this campaign.

So, those are my speculations about why he continues to run.

Neiswonger on Post-Modernism etc.

Click on the title for a link to an interesting blog by TLS alum and TIU grad student Chris Neiswonger on Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Church.

The Death Penalty and Belief

As many have pointed out, if you are a thinking radical materialist, there are few things worse than death. So, such secular people tend to oppose the death penalty. At this link is a Weekly Standard article on how religious people tend to be more comfortable with the death penalty:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/656wdzwt.asp?pg=1 . Hat tip to "This Wasn't in the Plan": http://vesler.blogspot.com/ .

If you believe in Christianity, death is not the end or the worst thing that can happen at all. So it sort of makes sense that Christians are more likely to allow the death penalty. The Bible justifies the death penalty by noting the special dignity of human beings as persons made "in the image of God."

I have been unhappy with the death penalty as applied. Too many innocent people get convicted in our courts. But I do believe it is in accord with justice and moral law when properly applied. Taking life intentionally and unjustly forfeits the right to life of the murderer. Human life is too sacred not to have the highest penalty for its destruction. But, as I say, you need to be sure the person you seek to execute is really guilty of murder.

Archbishop Forgets Last Three Millennia of Struggle for the Rule of Law

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that one law for everyone is not a good idea. Instead, Rowan Williams said Muslims in the UK should be allowed to have Sharia law, at least in some way or to some extent. Articles have appeared on Feb. 7 at "Cranmer" ( http://www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/), "if Sam . . ." (http://samtarran.blogspot.com/2008/02/is-it-ever-unavoidable.html), "Gates of Vienna" ( http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/02/archdhimmi-speaks-out.html#readfurther) and elsewhere.

Americans, Englishman, and many others (even Frenchmen) have fought for centuries against the idea of special castes and classes with separate laws. Part of real freedom is the idea that everyone is equal before the law and subject to the same law, and we make the law the most reasonable, proportionate, enlightened and prudent compromise between human weakness and pure morality that we can achieve in a society as a whole, with added respect for liberty to choose among goods, and with a healthy margin of safety against tyranny.

Some people claim that human laws are all about power and interest groups. If that were true, what the Archbishop proposes might make sense. But it is not so. Law is about unity and justice and mercy - about punishing evil and coordinating for the common good. There can be no justice if we licence some people to do things we know to be wrong because they belong to a group we are afraid of.

There is nothing wrong with protecting religious liberty with the occasional religious exemption. It is sometimes appropriate not to make some things that are immoral illegal because people cannot or will not abide by the law. Occasionally society cannot agree on what is best either because the application of morality is unclear or because the facts are unclear, and in those instances we often leave people at liberty. But when, as with slavery, something is wrong, even though it is popular with those who profit by it, we struggle for equality under the law for all human beings - even if a few examples with "Stockholm syndrome" or "false consciousness" can be found to claim that they love being in slavery.

We cannot let Sharia become the law of a separate caste within the west. We do so at our peril.

UPDATE: Williams did say in the interview "That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a western democracy" which makes his conclusion even more puzzling.

An Interesting Health Care Observation

At the God and Governing conference Paul Marshall made a humorous observation with a point. He was critical of the way Pietists and Anabaptists are opposed to Christian involvement with government because they see (wrongly) government as solely a realm of evil under the control of the powers of darkness - the "antichrist." But many of the same people support socialized medicine - a huge enlargement of government power over our everyday lives. Marshall then quipped "Is it wise to entrust our health care to the antichrist?"

Civility in Government

One of the recurring themes of God and Governing, a Conference on Virtue Ethics and Statesmanship was civility. All of the speakers mentioned the need for civility in politics and government. Os Guinness specifically spoke at length on the role of civility in the dispute over how our freedom of religion and freedom from establishment of religion should play out in the public square. He advocated a "civil public square" as opposed to a sacred public square or a secular public square.

After the conference, my friend Marc brought up an interesting idea. Everyone had mentioned the need for civility at the same time as we advocate zealously for different ideas and points of view. Marc noted that the old fashioned civility of Common Law Lawyers of the past and many lawyers still today is a good model for the handling of conflict in a civil and civilized way. While I have run into very uncivil lawyers, and occasionally should have been more willing to have lunch with my opponent's counsel my self, it is true that the tradition of the bar is one of civility, especially outside the courtroom. It is a model for how things should be.

Trinity Law School Video

Here is the new promotional video for Trinity Law School.

Post Conference Euphoria

Trinity Law School and the California campus of Trinity Graduate School just held our first major conference in ten years. By all accounts "God and Governing: A Conference on Virtue, Ethics, and Statesmanship" was a great success. DVD's of the conference should be available in a month or two.

Last Chance to Sign Up for God and Governing Conference

February 1 & 2 Trinity Law School will be hosting God and Governing; a Conference on Virtue, Ethics and Statesmanship at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Orange County California. The conference features Pat Nolan, Os Guinness, Dallas Willard, David Wells, Paul Marshall, Vishal Mangalwadi, Stephen Kennedy, and myself speaking on topics related to what evangelical Christians are doing right, doing wrong, and needing to do in the political and governmental realm. The conference is non-partisan.

Time is almost up. We have had to give the hotel a final call on meals, so if you do not sign up in the next few days you may not be able to enjoy the great food at this excellent hotel.

You can register on line at the link to the right on this site.

Hope to see you there!

E. U. Realizes Cloned Animals Suffer

At the link, the E. U. has finally realized that the animals that are the result of cloning experiments are likely to suffer in many ways, and that as a result, they may need to ban such experiments. Let us indeed pray that people realize the same suffering would attend the victims of human cloning research.

Book Review: The Victory of Reason

Over Christmas vacation, I finished reading The Victory of Reason; How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark. I found this book to be extremely interesting. I take exception with Max Weber’s explanation of the prosperity of Northern Europe. Rodney Stark believes that western prosperity and inventiveness started far earlier than the Protestant Reformation, and he gives many historical examples. Stark looks at the development of capitalism among Italian city-states in what are normally called “the Dark Ages.” He discusses how that capitalism moved north into the Netherlands and then across the English Channel into England. He also discusses how the most successful early capitalist enterprises were later squelched in Southern Europe but were eventually allowed to flourish in England.

What Stark argues is that a number of factors were necessary to sustain the prosperity, inventiveness, and the growth that occurred in the West and resulted in the development and dominance of western civilization up until recent times. Stark identifies Christianity as the source of all of the basic factors that he sees as behind the success of western civilization. He compares the brief periods of success in other civilizations with the sustained growth in the West to make his point. The factors that Stark identifies as flowing from Christianity include, first of all, the fact that Christianity, as it was known for nearly its first 1,800 years, was a rational faith, second that it was a faith that believed in progress, and third, that it believed in freedom.

Unlike many other global religions, Christianity emphasized logic and reason. It also believed in progress. Christians historically recognized that as time goes by, the process of using reason to evaluate the will of God as expressed in special and general revelation may result in increased knowledge and recognition of God’s will and how it can best be carried out. As a result, the Christian West had no vested interest in maintaining the status quo but rather fostered an endless drive toward greater freedom and greater prosperity in addition to greater faith and commitment to God. Aside from a few anomalies that Stark discusses, the church was largely supportive of science and the development of new inventions such as the water and windmills, the horse-drawn plow, the horse collar, the modern wagon, and the clock—all of which came out of the period we commonly refer to as “the Dark Ages” and yet which were necessary for the future revolutionizing of the western world. Stark notes how capitalism itself originated among devout Christians and flourished where Christianity was the most dominant and the most practiced. He notes that the same types of frugality, industry, and philanthropy associated with the Reformation in Northern Europe were equally present in the capitalist Italian city-states of the so-called Dark Ages.

Stark also sees freedom as fundamental to the success of the West. He believes that freedom flows from the rational Christianity of Western Europe. The rise of political freedom in given areas coincided with the rise in prosperity. By the idea of freedom Stark includes the rule of law, respect for property rights, freedom from state confiscation, freedom to innovate, freedom from restrictions of wages, prices, and business practices, and freedom from command economics. Stark points out how in contrast to the effects of freedom, the imposition of confiscatory and manipulative governments on the Italian city-states eventually quelled their capitalistic expansion and initiated their decline.

Overall, I think Rodney Stark’s historical arguments and examples are fascinating and compelling. The one thing with which I would take exception is his insistence that official Roman Catholicism is not problematic in terms of its effect on politics and the economy. Stark uses the argument that prosperity existed before the Reformation to say that the historic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church do not interfere with the prosperity and freedom that he discusses. But he is ignoring the fact that prior to the Reformation all of the persons and views that later became Protestantism were within the Roman Church alongside the views that later became Tridentine Roman Catholicism. The Reformation did not constitute the creation of a new set of theological views, but rather a coup d’ état in which a particular branch of the church was able to gain control of the church hierarchy to the degree necessary to force out those who held different views. The exodus of the university professors, theologians, pastors, priests and Christians who would constitute the “Protestants” changed the makeup and complexion of the Roman Church that remained. The teachings of Tridentine Roman Catholicism between the time of the Reformation and the time of Vatican II have largely been supportive of the very types of government and approaches that are antithetical to political freedom, capitalism, and the progressive application of reason that Stark identifies with the success of the West. Yet today it is true that in many ways the church has transformed and become much closer to the Protestant church. Nevertheless, deep divisions still remain despite some closing of the historic gap. It can be said that with the Roman Church’s current emphasis on ideas like political freedom and subsidiarity, Catholicism’s current approach to politics and economics has become much more like that of the Reformation and also and much more like the pre-reformation church’s approach prior to the various changes and instabilities that led to the rise of authoritarian governments in much of Europe during the Renaissance and the modern era.

One of Stark’s most fascinating conclusions is his belief that a free market in religion is helpful to the growth of Christianity and that the denial of that free market and the maintenance of a monopoly in religion in the areas of the New World south of the Rio Grande has been inimical to the growth and flourishing of capitalism and true Christianity among the people up until fairly recent times.

Stark’s book is an enjoyable and fascinating work which is well worth reading.

Chesterton Quote

I love the Chesterton quote from Huckabee's Iowa victor speech:

"G.K. Chesterton once said that 'a true soldier fights not because he hates those who are in front of him but because he loves those who are behind him'."

The End of the Slave trade

My pastor, Don Shoemaker, reminded our church members today that January 1, 1808 was the day the legal importation of slaves to the US was abolished. It is sad it took so much more time and bloodshed to end illegal slave importation and slavery within the united States. Never-the-less, the abolition of the United States' legal international slave trade was an important mile stone and should be celebrated.

I hope that 200 years from now the great injustices and problems of our time will have been eliminated. I think of the following: abortion on demand; human clone research; Islamo-fascism; legally sanctioned cruelty to women and children around the world; widespread religious persecution by Islam, secularists, and state sponsored religions; stubborn anti-rationality within many sectors of society; widespread ignorance of the Bible, Christian theology, history, economics, and basic truth about human nature and human institutions; the instrumentalist/materialist assumptions of most legal education; And, the rejection of the classic Christian understanding of the Rule of Law.

But I am encouraged. We are still very blessed by a patient, long suffering, gracious and forgiving Providence. We have the freedom and the tools to make the needed changes. I pray God gives us the faith, the hope, the grace, and the will to do so.

Happy New Year.