The Wisdom of Alexander von Humbodlt

Alexander von Humboldt was once among the most famous names in all America, a fact testified to by the dozens of cities, rivers, bays, and species that were named after him. An explorer, commentator, and philosopher, he is best remembered today, if he is remembered at all, as the father of the 19th century scientific movement that bears his name and stresses the interrelatedness of the various aspects of nature and of humanity and nature.

More interesting to me, however, are these comments he made about liberty in America. For as strong as America's love was for Humboldt--and for a time Humboldt returned that affection, particularly through a personal friendship with Thomas Jefferson--Humboldt proved himself a willing and able critic of American hypocrisy. At a time when the American rhetoric about liberty was its most eloquent and its failure to live up to that rhetoric most obvious, Humboldt made this observation:

In the United States there has, it is true, arisen a great love for me, but the whole there presents to my mind the sad spectacle of liberty reduced to a mere mechanism in the element of utility, exercising little ennobling or elevating influence upon mind and soul, which, after all, should be the aim of political liberty. Hence indifference on the subject of slavery. But the United States are a Cartesian vortex, carrying everything with them, grading everything to the level of monotony.

Americans are less philosophical in their ideals and less overt in their failure to live up to them, but I suspect that Humboldt's criticism remains largely accurate.

The Demise of Sensationalism

Having given you a taste of the failed prognostications about the demise of American Christianity, let me share now an even more radical and even less true prediction from another article in the New York Times of 1927. In this case, the author is Edward P. Gates, the General Secretary of the United Society of Christian Endeavor. Unlike most powerful Christians of his day, Gates was arguing against censorship of newspapers and books. He reasoned:

In the case of the printing of the details of the Snyder-Gray murder trial, about which there have been numerous protests, I think the press is justified in doing so for the reason that the public obviously demands this type of news. By doing this the press will eventually nauseate the public on sordid cases of this sort, and the public taste will automatically right itself and demand less sensational stories.

Poor, sweet Mr. Gates. It's almost a pity that we cannot give him a window into our time to see how inestimably wrong he was. The lack of censorship in the press did not nauseate the public; it desensitized them. Now reality is not nauseating enough, and we must sate ourselves on sensational virtual stories of an increasingly graphic and increasingly public type.

The solution, of course, is not the restrain the press but to restrain the will. Unfortunately, the former is not only more easily accomplished but more likely, even with America's vaunted freedom of the press. Humanity will let go of freedom before it will let go of sin, an irony and a paradox.

[The Execution of Ruth Snyder - Tom Howard, New York Daily Times, Jan. 12, 1928]

An Anarchist Manifesto

The following is part of the Anarchy in May series which examines Christian anarchism and quotes prominent Christian anarchist thinkers. For a more detailed introduction and a table of contents, please see Anarchy in May: Brief Introduction and Contents.
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Below, I would like to offer a summary and adaptation of Vernard Eller's twelve "basic principles of Christian Anarchy," which he adapted and expanded from Jacques Ellul. Admittedly, I have some reservations about some of Eller's points, and what follows will often gloss over or actively change those aspects in an effort to give a depiction of anarchism which I think more nearly aligns with the Christian ethos. Additionally, it warrants mention that I by no means believe that these twelve represent the best or even most basic aspects of Christian anarchism. There are principles which I would include that Eller did not. There are omissions that I would have made, even omissions of points with which I wholeheartedly agree, simply because I do not think they are basic or essential to anarchism. With all those disclaimers having been made, however, what Eller offers in this list from Christian Anarchy is a collection of important statements and clarifications about the shape of anarchism particularly suited as an apology for those facing uninformed criticisms about what it is to be a Christian anarchist.

1. In Christian anarchism, the separation from and eventual dissolution of human governments is not an end in itself.  It is only ever endorsed and pursued with the aim of making room for and anticipating the ultimate and absolute reign of God.
2. Christian anarchists are not concerned with commending anarchism as a political system superior to contemporary power structures.  As a rejection of humanly devised political systems, it would be hypocritical to propose political anarchism as an alternative to traditional hierarchical systems.
3. Christian anarchism does not even suffer from the delusion that anarchism is viable for secular society.  It admits that human structures are a necessary (or at least efficient) means for ordering a humanist world.
4. As such, Christian anarchism sees no particular threat in the existence of human structures of power.  The danger is only in accepting the legitimacy of their claims to power and mistaking for real the illusory authority they purport to possess.
5. The problem with human structures of power is not that they are "of the devil" necessarily, but that they are human.  Just as humans are invariable sinful so to are the governments they construct for themselves.  Just as humans are only redeemable in dying to themselves and being reborn to God, so anarchists look for an eschatological death of human powers and the fulfillment of the divine Kingdom.
6. Just because all structures of power are equally human (and therefore necessarily sinful) does not meant that all structures of power are equally evil, at least not teleologically.  In recognizing that the the United States government is not righteous and inevitably corrupts whoever participates in it, anarchists are not prevented from appreciating moral distinctions between the USA and Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.  It is possible to be aware of and even grateful for human governments that are less overtly atrocious than others without endorsing, participating in, or falling at the feet of any human government.
7. The purpose of Christian anarchism is not to actively attempt to unseat or overthrow human governments, even as their dissolution is earnestly anticipated.  As already mentioned, Christian anarchism is not intended to be an alternative political system and recognizes that pure, political anarchism is untenable as a large scale social system.  Since it would be impossible for humanity to implement anything but a human government, it would be hypocritical to attempt by human effort to replace world governments with anything else.  What's more, the very notion of actively overthrowing a human government implies an appropriation of the very coercive and sinful means that mark human governments as incompatible with the Christian religion.  "To undertake a fight against evil on its own terms (to pit power against power) is the first step in becoming the evil one opposes."
8. This unwillingness to attempt forcibly to overthrow human governments does not translate into apathy toward their evils or silence about their injustices.  "[Christ] challenges every attempt to validate the political realm and rejects its authority because it does not conform to the will of God."  Christian anarchism is not retiring simply because it refuses to incite political revolution.
9. Just as it is not silent about the evil of government, it is not apathetic about the injustices in society.  Anarchists are not so lost in the eschatological vision of a God who is going to "settle things in the end anyway" that it lacks the grounds for social engagement.  In truth, it is the eschatological vision of a legitimate power structure and the church's proleptic experience of that reality on which the social ethic is grounded.  Anarchists seek to be like Jeremiah's exiles in Babylon, to "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf."  Such a social conscience cannot, however, be construed as an endorsement of the legitimacy of Babylon.
10. Christian anarchists are not ignorant or afraid of politics, not if they are responsible Christians.  Anarchists are always willing to engage with human governments, but always as outsiders, always true to their critique of finite structures of power, and always aware of the ethical dangers involved in political contact.
11. Christian anarchism is active but not activist, clearly and definitely engaged in the world without any false pretension about the scope of human ability or goodness.  It is eschatological rather than utopian, recognizing that the human mind is incapable of independently conceiving of what a perfect society might look like.  It is narrowly rather than broadly focused, thoroughly skeptical of any suggestion that changes at the top might invoke a systemic reformation of society.  Finally it is realistic rather than dramatic; because it is not interested in selling a partisan vision of the world in an effort to provoke action from one end of the spectrum or the other it has the benefit of being able to candidly assess what is and is not in the scope of human ability.
12. Christian anarchism is committed to the Christian notion of freedom which is distinct from the political notion of autonomy.  Governments, and all human structures of power, cannot give you either, though it is common in the prevailing rhetoric to hear the latter promised under the name of the former.  Christian anarchism, on the other hand, rejects the stress on autonomy characteristic of secular, political anarchism of all stripes in favor of the Christian notion of freedom, the freedom to pursue God and to attempt to enact His will free from any artificial and exterior constraints.  It is, in essence, the freedom from the second master of humanistic politics and the recognition that in trying to serve both, Christians are wont to emphasize that which appears nearer rather than the God who seems distant.

Then again...(or Positive Secularism Fights Back)

Perhaps my last offering was prematurely triumphant. I awoke this morning to find an article analyzing President Obama's decision to press the issue of faith-based organizations providing sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients as part of their health insurance regardless of any moral qualms or religious conscience. The position taken by the executive branch seems more ideological than practical, forcing Catholic groups to provide birth control which is freely and widely available elsewhere. For the author of the article, the message the government is sending is clear:

Obama's decision also reflects a certain view of liberalism. Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-clericalism.

I don't know that this can necessarily be cast as "anti-clericalism," and I certainly reject the provocative claim that "the war on religion is now formally declared." This is, however, indicative of this shift in American conceptions of liberalism that I referenced last night, away from the idea of non-intrusive freedom that dominated, at the very least, in the antebellum period and toward a new idea of government sponsored, socially mandated positive pluralism. It is no longer enough to merely not infringe upon the life and liberty of another; in fact, infringing on that liberty can be seen as a moral good provide it is done in the service of securing an increasingly bloated list of rights on behalf of another. (Imagine suggesting to an American two hundred years ago--or one hundred, or fifty, or twenty--that abortion, sterilization, and birth control were inalienable human rights that trumped religious liberty.) There does some to be a clash in cultures occurring here--though again, not some vague war on religion--which no longer sees conscience as the liberty so essential that it became enshrined in the very first amendment to the Constitution, but instead considers it to be a private peccadillo to be tolerated so long as it doesn't interfere with the liberated mindset of post-sexual revolution America.

Without climbing too high onto my soapbox, I'd like to suggest that this viewpoint is only possible because of the trivial way contemporary Christians have handled their faith, allowing it to become more about politics than piety, more about sexual ethics than kingdom ethics. I am ultimately convicted that if Christians were to take faith in Christ as the all-consuming, life-transforming, community-constituting reality that it is and allowed it to distinguish us from society at large rather than trying to conform it to social expectations, perhaps it would be harder for the world to see faith as secondary in importance to the all-powerful right to have a thin, lubricated layer of latex between you and the sexual partner of your choice.

Another Blow to the Myth that Secularism is Neutral

While teachers in religious schools may be sitting on the edge of their seats, Christian counseling students are breathing a sigh of relief today. In part of what is becoming a trend of high-profile legal victories for religious liberty, the 6th District U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of an Eastern Michigan University student who was dismissed from her program after requesting that a homosexual patient be allowed to be transferred to another counselor.

Julea Ward, a student in the university’s graduate level counseling program, had only four courses remaining to earn her degree when she enrolled in a one-on-one counseling practicum in 2009. As part of the practicum Ward was assigned a potential client “seeking assistance regarding a sexual relationship that was contrary to her religious convictions,” explained the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the legal advocacy group that represented Ward in the case. “Ward recognized the potential conscience issue with the client, and asked her supervisor how to handle the matter.”

After directing her to turn the client over to another counselor, EMU officials informed Ward that in order to stay in the counseling program she would have to undergo a “remediation” program designed to deal with her unsatisfactory viewpoint regarding homosexual relationships.

"Remediation" was apparently not pretty, and after undergoing what her attorneys described as an ideology-driven flogging by unsympathetic members of the faculty, Ward was booted from the program. In spite of this, she has won the day, and while I obviously disagree with Christians finding recourse for justice in the legal system, I cannot help but be glad that this basic right of conscience is being preserved in the system. In its report on the ruling, the court issued an important clarification, one which I first encountered in Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy:

Surely, for example, the ban on discrimination against clients based on their religion (1) does not require a Muslim counselor to tell a Jewish client that his religious beliefs are correct if the conversation takes a turn in that direction and (2) does not require an atheist counselor to tell a person of faith that there is a God if the client is wrestling with faith-based issues. Tolerance is a two-way street. Otherwise, the rule mandates orthodoxy, not anti-discrimination.

This critique hits the mark squarely. What the counseling department at Eastern Michigan was insisting on was an adherence to a competing ideology, one which endorses certain behaviors without qualification. The problem is a persistent one in the counseling field, and--in the very few courses in counseling that I have been required to take--I have heard horror stories from professionals who have been turned out of jobs, schools, and professional societies for an unwillingness to compromise their values and encourage patients to engage in behaviors which they believe to be ultimately destructive. This stretches beyond questions of sexuality. One such counselor shared that he had fought most of his career against the prevailing notion that there are times when it is appropriate to counsel a couple to divorce. Taking the biblical prohibition on divorce seriously, he refused to budge and (according to his rendition) has suffered as a result.

Certainly there are greater challenges being faced by Christians, even here in the religiously comfortable climes of theologically temperate North America. Still, there should be a strong sense of victory here both for Christians and proponents of religious freedom. After all, anti-discrimination has been slowly creeping (though, at times, it feels more like a headlong rush) closer and closer toward positive pluralism as a litmus test for academic, social, and professional acceptability. People have incorrectly confused disapproval with discrimination and have been too quick to infringe on each other's freedom to disagree. Even everyone's government-given right to be an idiot. That means that Christians can take principled stands (with such offensive attendant actions as referring patients to therapists who do not share their moral qualms, thus benefiting both patient and counselor), homosexuals can have left-coast parades in leather thongs, Westboro baptists can ascribe hatred and vindictiveness to God, occupiers can stand up for their incendiary, binary view of society by squatting on public land, and birthers can stack conspiracy theory on conspiracy theory until their house of cards crumbles. If this country is really committed to the kind of blind, non-intrusive freedom it claims to be, then that includes not only your freedom to be a heteroromantic asexual but also Julea Ward's freedom to refer you for treatment elsewhere and the Lutheran Church's freedom to not employ people who, contrary to clear Christian teaching, choose to settle Christian disputes in secular courts.

A Question of Historiography

At the September 5th Palmetto Freedom Forum, Ron Paul gave a not unsurprising glimpse into the historiographical paradigm which he believes governs all of history. In an introductory speech on the first principles of American government, Paul commented, "If we believe in liberty, we have to also understand exactly what our revolution was all about, because the contest then, at that time, was against tyranny--as all history has been, tyranny versus liberty." In the sweeping declaration of his final clause, Paul readily admits the prism through which he understands human history and the context in which he places his own struggle for reform.

Christianity, for its part, has proposed more dominant and enduring historiographical paradigms, the most popular of which has been the Fall-Redemption paradigm which has dominated Western thought at least since the time of Anselm and which found a profound invigoration from the dominance of Calvinism in Protestant culture. Panayiotis Nellas has proposed that, alternatively, Eastern Christendom has operated with a Creation-Deification paradigm for understanding history, which I find to be a superior system at least for understanding the overarching and decidedly metaphysical understand Christians have of history. It is clear to me, however, the Paul is not proposing so much of an ideological paradigm for understanding all of history so much as he is proposing a system for understanding the history of human governance. Christianity has a corrective answer for this as well.

Notably, David Lipscomb, would have objected to a characterization in which history could be reduced to a struggle for liberty against tyranny in which, Paul believes, the early days of America were the "best taste of liberty ever." Quite the opposite, Lipscomb insisted that America no less than any other civil government in history was an evil, violent, coercive institution which had set itself up in an arrogant attempt to usurp the governing authority of God. In contrast, Lipscomb proposed a Christian historiography which was best understood, not as a battle between liberty and tyranny, but instead a struggle between liberty and autonomy. Such a juxtaposition grates against our modern sense of freedom which considers "liberty" and "autonomy" to be near synonyms.

Embracing this modern construction of liberty, Paul appeals to the founding fathers: "Thomas Jefferson was very clear about liberty and he told us where liberty came from. It came from our creator; it didn't come from our government." While Paul clearly interprets the Declaration of Independence the way Jefferson intended it to be read, there is a hidden irony in the declaration that liberty comes from God. For Christians, freedom is not libertinism and it is not autonomy. Freedom is a freedom to actualize human potential, to become that which God in His infinite and beneficent wisdom has ordained for all of us. Liberty is a liberation from the evils of this world that would enslave and entangle us. That is why Paul (the apostles, not the politician) can in the same breath speak of being free and being a servant to all; it is why Peter can boldly declare that Christians are a free people and still slaves to God; it is why the psalmist can draw a causal connection between being free and being obedient.

It is this kind of freedom, secured by God and not by civil government, which is the truly substantial form of liberty and which can never be taken away. When we remember that it is the truth that sets us free and not a republican political ideal, we begin to see the flaws in Congressman Paul's historiography. History has not been, cannot have been the struggle between freedom and the rule of tyrannical governments because in truth liberty eschews all self-rule, whether it is "tyrannical" by Paul's standards or not. Political history is the sordid tale of humanity crying out for self-rule and then chaffing under their own structures of power, of Israel demanding of God a king and then having that royal house lead the charge into political, social, and religious chaos. Only when we embrace this historiography (insofar as it applies) can we begin to correct the modern Christian approach to self-government, both politically and personally. Perhaps then we can baptize and embrace another Jeffersonian principle and avoid entangling alliances between those governed by God and those pursuing self-rule. Or, in the rougher parlance of my former history professor, it is time to realize that when church and state get into bed together, inevitably it is the church who plays the whore.