On friday I received in my campus mail box the latest issue of my favourite periodical, First Things, which is published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York and edited by the redoubtable Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. I suppose one might describe it as a largely Catholic journal, with significant confessional protestant and observant Jewish contributions as well. Its tone is probably best described as neoconservative. While I myself cannot in good conscience call myself a neoconservative as such, I am quite happy to admit that thoughtful articles of substance appear in every issue making it well worth reading.
I continued with this:
Along with this affection for the American experiment comes what I would label a sort of highbrow populism. In his Public Square pieces in particular one can read, on the one hand, a diatribe against the debased character of contemporary popular culture, and, on the other hand, an invective against the political and cultural élites of his adopted country for pushing secularizing reforms against the presumably less corrupt mores of a confusedly “christian America.” If at some point America ceases to be christian and takes on the more overt secular identity of a France or a post-1960s Québec, Neuhaus will be hard pressed to continue with his present approach if he intends to retain his fidelity to the Christian gospel. I am confident Neuhaus does indeed believe in a transcendent standard of justice, but his principal method of argumentation here is basically historicist.
Moreover, while Neuhaus’ barbs at contemporary liberalism are always well aimed, he must finally be considered a liberal critic of liberalism. That is, he critiques late liberalism – or the advocates of what I call the choice-enhancement state in my book – but without actually repudiating liberal first principles.
Although for the time being I continue to subscribe to FT, much of what I wrote in 2003 no longer applies to the magazine as a whole, especially under the editorship of R. R. Reno, a former Anglican convert to Roman Catholicism. I myself have written online for FT on occasion, beginning in 2009, but I have done so much less frequently in recent years. Part of the reason is that, while I continue to appreciate many of the articles published, especially those of George Weigel and Carl Trueman, the latter of whom I was privileged to spend time with last year, I have become less enthusiastic about the overall editorial direction of the magazine.
To be sure, I believe that Reno is more discerning with respect to the flaws of liberal individualism than his predecessor. He is by no means "a liberal critic of liberalism," as I described Neuhaus in that earlier post. Reno can more easily see the spiritual roots of liberalism and its tendency to atomize people and to reduce communities to their component individuals. However, whenever we come to see through the pretensions of one idol, we are tempted to embrace another—often one that is the polar opposite of the previous one, but an idol no less. I fear that in FT's case, this is populism, something which has been present in some fashion from the outset but has overtaken its editorial stance to an excessive degree. This can be seen with respect to Reno signing on to the cause of Donald Trump for close to a decade now.
I understand that many people, including Christians, felt they had no choice but to vote against the Democratic standard bearer in three successive elections due to that party's weak record on religious freedom and on beginning and end of life issues. I can more easily sympathize with voters who were conflicted over the abysmal choice with which they were confronted and ended up reluctantly casting a ballot for the candidate they considered the lesser of evils.
But during the four years of the first Trump presidency and the second four years when he was out of office, Reno has gone out of his way to defend him, even when Trump's actions were indefensible. Lending support to the stolen election narrative and the tales of persecution by hostile media may appeal to the fears of a certain demographic, but it only succeeds in exacerbating the doubts many already have about the formal political processes established more than two centuries ago to enable people with conflicting interests to live together in relative peace. A general respect for the rule of law is a precious commodity without which public justice becomes precarious indeed. But once such respect has declined, it is difficult to bring it back to the level at which it once existed.
Whether I will continue to subscribe to First Things I do not know at this point. Two recent articles in particular have stretched the limits of good judgement at the very least. Published last autumn, The Rhetoric of Assassination has Reno charging that those calling attention to the dangers of another Trump presidency provide a "verbal atmosphere that will encourage further attempts on Trump’s life." This is irresponsible rhetoric. And now Joshua P. Hochschild has written Begging Your Pardon, in which he attempts to whitewash the events of 6 January 2021. FT continues to publish important articles that need to be read and pondered. But if it continues in this vein, it will have squandered whatever good it has accomplished for the sake of supporting someone who would happily toss it aside if it no longer served his purposes.
Remarkably, FT continues to give a voice to George Weigel, who sounds a rather different note within the larger editorial ethos. Weigel is, of course, the well-known biographer of the late Pope John Paul II and an associate of Fr. Neuhaus. In 2016 he penned this article, Resisting the Demagogue. Recognizing that Americans had much to be angry about, Weigel wrote: "please don’t channel that anger into support for a candidate who is utterly unfit—by character, by wit, or by life experience—to lead America for the next four years." Addressing his fellow Catholics, he continued:
There is nothing remotely Catholic about the Trump sensibility. There is nothing in Mr. Trump’s record or his current campaign to suggest that he gives a fig for the life issues, for religious freedom in full, or for the constitutionalism that is America’s unique expression of Catholic social doctrine’s principle of subsidiarity. Rather than lifting us above anger to renewed common purpose, Mr. Trump is dragging our politics even deeper into the muck, impeding a serious conversation about freedom’s relationship to self-command—about greatness rooted in virtue.
Weigel's warnings have proved to be correct. Reading him since then, I have seen little to suggest that he has changed his mind. Where FT will go from here I obviously cannot foresee, but I hope that eventually the voices of people like Weigel—and Trueman—will prevail.
1 comment:
Thank you, David. Needed to be said.
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