Pagans and Christians in the City - A Review

There are times when the so-called Culture War is spoken of as if it were an invention of the 1980’s Moral Majority. Since many of the participants in that movement were and are Christian Fundamentalists, and fundamentalists of any type are easy to mock, this seems to answer the question and we can simply thank God (or our gracious non-theism) that we aren’t like those people.

But culture wars, as it were, were not invented in the 1980’s. Nor were they invented in the 1960’s, nor the ‘20’s. They are a fact of human history. Wherever different cultures come together, there you will find conflict between them.

One thing that has changed in the contemporary Western conception of cultural conflict is that there have been well-meaning philosophers that have promoted the idea that we can have a shared culture that is neutral with respect to controversial aspects of what is good and right. As Robert George notes in his introduction to Pagans and Christians in the City:

“It was the distinctive claim of the most influential late twentieth-century liberal political philosophers, including most notably John Rawls and Ronal Dworkin, to be proposing theories of political morality that identified principles of justice (and suggested institutional structures and practices to implement those principles) that were neutral as between controversial conceptions of what makes for or detracts from a valuable and morally worthy way of life.”

In other words, there are those within our culture that believe that somehow the government and civil society can function without friction between competing worldviews. This is behind arguments that “you shouldn’t legislate morality” that surround the invention of same-sex marriage and restrictions on abortion, for example. But the failure of moral neutrality is obvious, since broadening legal boundaries necessarily affirms the moral good of the activities that are not restricted. If abortion is a morally repugnant form of homicide, then legislation that allows (or funds that encourage it) are not morally neutral, no matter how much its proponents might claim it is.

Cultural conflict—that is culture wars—are, therefore, inevitable. The bigger concern should be how we deal with them.

Steven Smith’s book, Pagans and Christianity in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, encourages Christians (and, perhaps, from others) to step outside of the myopic focus on contemporary concerns as first-time-in-history novelties. Christians have been engaged in Culture Wars from the very beginning, because Christianity critiques all cultures, though often in different ways.

Smith writes from within a conservative, orthodox Christian framework. His writing in the volume shows gives evidence of broad reading, as well as appreciation of some of the usual Christian voices on society and morality, like T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis. Those Christian humanists, especially a cluster of thinkers in the U.K. from early in the 20th century, wrestled with the destruction of Christendom—that is, an approximately Judeo-Christian cultural consensus––due to the effects of modernity on culture. Eliot argued that the options were Christianity or paganism, which are the poles that Smith follows in this book.

In this context, paganism is not to be understood necessarily as involving blood sacrifices to idols or the various overtly religious practices that one associates with ancient paganism. But contemporary culture has its gods, and those gods are not Christian. The gods of our culture also tend to be physical (health, wealth, and sexual indulgence), much like the ancient pagan gods. The difference is that instead of burning incense in the temple of a mythical being, we tend to throw our offerings at companies that promise us happiness, political action campaigns that promise free love, and organizations that will help us increase our salaries.

Summary

Smith’s book, as he explains while setting the background in Chapter One, seeks to explain how culture wars have been waged throughout Western history, how that relates to the contemporary struggles, with some implied recommendations along the way.

Chapter Two sets out to explain that all humans are religious. This is a further expansion of the definition of pagan offered in the first chapter. The religiousity of all humans is also an essential fact, because it undermines the assertions of Rawls and others that we can (and should) exclude religious reasoning from the public square. The simple fact is that even those who are atheistic and overtly “anti-religious” carry with them truth claims and foundational presuppositions that are inherently religious. By excluding overtly religious claims from public debate, proponents of neutrality are simply biasing the argument against religion.

In Chapters Three and Four Smith begins to make good on his promise to cover the early days of Christianity. He notes that the Romans were known for being religiously tolerant, but also notes that (as history has shown) the tolerance assumed that other gods could be celebrated, but mandated accession to culturally approved ceremonies, most of which were repudiated by Christians. Because Christianity demands total worship of only one God, therefore it was at odds with the cults of Rome. Although many Romans did not believe (and, indeed, the tradition of the philosophers was to debunk) the mythical aspects of Roman religion, it was expected that people participate. Just as some patriots might ostracize someone who refuses to stand for the national anthem, salute the flag, or say the pledge of allegiance, some Romans found the Christian resistance to civil religion divisive and unacceptable. In Chapter Five, Smith explores the differences between Christianity and the Roman religion that made it impossible for the two to simply “get along” as if there was no fundamental conflict. The sixth chapter further explains why persecutions periodically erupted prior to the Constantinian shift, despite the fact that Christian were, in many ways, exemplary citizens.

Chapter Seven shifts from those primarily religious considerations to the cultural and political changes that led to the ascendency of Christianity. He provides a historically balanced that explains how Christianity was slowly becoming dominant in the Roman Empire even before Constantine’s conversion. The eighth chapter explores the continued existence of paganism under the canopy of a Christian society. In fact, some of the elements of paganism were increasingly incorporated into Christianity, with the reconfiguration of some pagan holidays as saint’s feasts, the increased use of images in Christian architecture, etc. Pagan influences never left the Christian imagination, as is apparent with many of the themes in Medieval and, later, Renaissance art created for and by Christians.

There is a bit of a jump in the timeline beginning in Chapter Nine, as Smith takes up questions about the shift toward secularization, which began around the time of the Renaissance (all these shifts are gradual, with few arbitrary points one can anchor a timeline on) and has continued through our day. He explores some of the shifts of modernity, including the abolition of the sacred, that have only continued to gain steam, despite the persistence of transcendent religions. Smith also summarizes some of the non-theistic pursuits of wonder and the sacred, which still infuse much of our “scientific” culture, particularly as people face the miserable emptiness of nihilism that is spawned from a desacralized world.

Chapters Ten and Eleven shift to contemporary American concerns, with Smith, who is a legal scholar by profession, shifting toward analyses of court cases in the United States, the thinking behind them, and how that reflects the struggles between paganism and the generally Judeo-Christian ethos around which our shared culture was built. The connections between the two main segments of the book are fairly obvious, as the conflicts of ancient Rome are similar to the conflicts of contemporary Western culture. Smith’s work in analyzing the legal record helps parse out some of the clearer thinking on the topic (rather than trolling social media for the wingnuts) to show how thinking has changed and where the points of cultural conflict are.
The book concludes with the twelfth chapter, which summarizes the earlier argument, but also helps to explain why, as with Roman intolerance of Christianity, there is a growing intolerance of Christian orthodoxy. As Smith notes, there is intolerance of people simply holding culturally disfavored views, “Ultimately, in fact, it is not merely the overt expression of the offending view that inflicts injury, but rather the fat that someone holds the offending view and is known to hold it.” It is clear, based on Smith’s description, that we are in for a rough ride in the years to come.

Analysis and Conclusion

This is an excellent book, which I highly recommend for a broad readership.

Smith demonstrates a breadth and depth of reading in ancient sources and modern historiography that make his analysis of early conflicts between Roman culture and Christianity balanced and informative. He has a consistent perspective, which favors Christianity, but he deals with opposing viewpoints (both contemporary and historic) in responsible ways, so that this book is more informative than polemical in tone. As a legal scholar, Smith exposes numerous cases and arguments which many readers may otherwise not encounter. His years of experience in research and teaching make those chapters of this book a goldmine of contemporary argumentation.

The weakness of this volume, such as it is, can be found in the jump between analysis of ancient Roman culture to the contemporary culture wars. Smith leaves a great deal on the table regarding cultural conflict during the period we might call “Christendom.” Those seeking a comprehensive analysis of all cultural conflict from the beginning of Christianity to now will have to find that elsewhere (though I do not know where). In the end, this is not so much a weakness as it is the nature of the book Smith wrote. The subtitle led me to expect a bit more continuity, though looking back that is an assumption I imported. Regardless, what Smith accomplishes in what he writes is phenomenal.

Pagans and Christians in the City will be most useful for theologians, political scientists, historians, and ethicists thinking about the intersection of faith and culture, church and state, or other related topics.  This would make a remarkable textbook for an upper level elective on one of those topics at the graduate level or above. The writing is clear, but the subject matter is focused and sometimes a bit technical for more general application.

This volume can also form, especially the first two-thirds of the book, the cultural analysis that often accompanies classical education, especially in homeschool and private Christian environments. It is not likely to be the right book for a class text in those settings, but would deepen an instructor’s knowledge and ability to speak intelligently and in a balanced way. Smith undermines many myths and offers substantive critique in their place.

Pagans and Christians in the City is also a pleasure to read. Smith’s prose is clear, his vocabulary is non-technical or, when technical, clearly defined. The flow of the book is measured and fairly consistent.

In short, this excellent book is a pleasure to read for scholars or hobbyists alike.

Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion)

By Smith, Steven D.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Karl Barth's Political Theology

One model of political engagement for contemporary Protestant Christians can be drawn from the 20th century, Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. Barth is perhaps more well-known for his copious systematic theology, Church Dogmatics, or his public feud with his colleague, Emil Brunner, over the function of natural theology in shaping Christian doctrine and practice. However, amid his other, more famous works, Barth also produced a coherent, tested, and helpful political theology.

Barth was a citizen of Switzerland, but taught in German Universities beginning in 1921. During this period between the World Wars, Barth witnessed the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazi party, with its infamous leader, Adolf Hitler. As a citizen of a neighboring nation, Barth observed the changes in German society, particularly in German Christianity, from within. He was eventually expelled from Germany in 1935 due to his resistance to the Nazi party, particularly his opposition to efforts to institute governmental control of various German churches. One result of Barth’s lived experience was the development of a political theology that maintains active engagement of Christians in politics while preventing churches from either controlling or being subsumed by the government.

Historical Challenge

In its essence, Nazism is not simply a political movement, but a worldview (weltanshaung) for the German people. One of the foreseeable consequences of the punitive sanctions enforced by the Allied victors of World War I in the Treaty of Versailles was the impoverishment of the German nation, which resulted in a sense of bitterness and desire for relief from oppression. The Nazi platform was, as a result, geared toward restoring national pride through a comprehensive social program that included such infamous institutions as the Hitler Youth, which aimed to build support for the rising National Socialist party and its vision for Germany from an early age.

The smothering nature of such a worldview program could not leave the independence of the German churches alone. As Arthur Cochrane observes, “The National Socialist ideology was actually a political religion.” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 21) At the heart of this political religion was the exaltation of the Aryan race, which began to take on cult-like characteristics, particularly when Hitler’s virulent hatred of the Jews began to spread. In his infamous screed, Mein Kampf, Hitler blamed Europe’s Jews for most of the problems of German, writing, “It was the Jews who plotted the First World War, and they are the power behind Germany’s two archenemies: international capitalism and international Bolshevism.” (quoted in Cochrane, 1976, 23) The National Socialist movement was, thus, in many ways a religious movement. Hitler’s vision was for “the State to control and to direct every area of life. All social, cultural, and economic life was supervised by the Party.” (Cochrane, 1976, 29) This included total control of churches. (Barth, 1939, p. 5)

Early on in his political career, before taking power, Hitler had deceived Christians regarding his position on independence in church doctrine and practice. Cochrane notes, “In Mein Kampf he [Hitler] stressed that the part would be neutral with respect to the confessional or denominational differences. . . . He maintained that Church and State should be strictly separated, and he condemned political parties that owed allegiance to any particular denomination . . .” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 35) Is should have been obvious early on, however, that National Socialism was a totalizing worldview that could not exist peaceably with Christianity or any other religion. Yet, on the 23rd of March in 1933—in the lead-up to his 1934 election—Hitler reiterated, “The rights of the Churches will not be diminished, nor their position as regards the State altered.” (Quoted in Barth, 1962, p. 24) Many Germans believed him.

Despite Hitler’s claims to the contrary, once in power, Hitler began placing officials in the ecclesiastical hierarchies in Germany. He also recognized a “German Christian” party, whose membership consisted of individuals who supported the totalizing worldview of National Socialism while still claiming to be Christian. Cochrane observes, “While the Church was engaged in withstanding the State’s encroachment upon its offices and government, it also had to combat the Neopaganism of the ‘German Faith Movement’ which the government, at first secretly and later openly, espoused, as well as the nationalist and racial ideology of the Party . . . .” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 37) The conflation of Church and State, largely through the State’s attempts to take over various German churches required political and spiritual resistance. It also required the development of a political theology upon which an appropriate resistance to State intrusion could be based. Karl Barth would provide that political theology.

The Resistance

Some Christian clergy in Germany resisted the Nazi inroads and immoral impositions in the life of the churches. (Haddorff, 2004, p. 3) However, after the dust settled in 1945, the evidence shows there had been very little civil resistance to National Socialism. “On the other hand,” Barth notes in Eine Schweizer Stimme, from the very first months on there was a German Church struggle. Even it was not a total resistance against National Socialism. . . . It confined itself to the Church’s Confession, to the Church service, and to Church order as such. It was only a partial resistance.” (Barth, 1945, p. 5) Barth’s vision for the Christian resistance to the totalizing civil religion of National Socialism required a total commitment.

The main points of Barth’s political theology, as it was published during the heat of the struggle against Nazism, were contained in seed form in his Bonn lectures on Ethics from the 1920’s. (Barth, 1981, pp. 440-51) Many of the same elements are discernable in his 1928 and 1929 lectures on ethics at Münster. (Barth, 1981, pp. 517-21) Though the origins are visible early on, Barth’s political theology was more fully developed and expressed more clearly as the challenges from National Socialism changed. In a short book, Theological Existence To-day!, published in 1933, Barth called German Evangelical churches to retain their independence from the National Socialist regime and instead honor the Word of God—that is, the Bible.

Barth’s critique focused on the syncretism of the German Faith Movement, or “German Christians,” with the German government. It was not simply that candidates and policies of one political party were being affirmed by a Christian group. (Hankins, 2008, pp. 143-76) That is usually done on a case-by-case basis. Rather, the theologically liberal (which is to say amorphous) “German Christian” faction merged itself with the German national government of the Nazi’s. The goal of the “German Christians” was to be indistinguishable from the German culture of the day, so that every German would want to return to Church to be built up for the vocation to which the national government was calling the German people—that is, the good “Christians” in Germany who happened to be of the Aryan race. (Barth, 1962, pp. 48-49)

Although the “German Christians” had a theology that would be more consistent with that of mainline denominations in the United States, it would be a significant mistake to overlook the fact that this blending of civil religion and Christianity can take place within self-described orthodox circles. Simply because one affirms the virgin birth, the inerrancy of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the doctrines of the Trinity is no guarantee that a thoughtless loyalty to party or politician is not a ready danger. Barth’s critique is as effective for theologically left leaning Americans who ignore the horrors of abortion and revise doctrines to embrace the sexual revolution as it is for right-leaning, Bible-thumping Christians who adapt their faith in other ways to overlook evils in the marketplace or in the politician’s personal life.

On this side of the horrors of World War II and the Nazi desecrations of the imago Dei in the Holocaust, it is hard to understand why the German Evangelical Churches were not more active in their resistance of the Nazi party. Barth chided German evangelicals for their passivity, and noted that a sort of pragmatic realism was a driving force for the acceptance of the advance of the Nazis and the ecclesiological affronts of the “German Christian” movement. Despite this, Barth’s early contentions were mainly theological rather than political. In other words, his concern was not that the government was doing evil things to people, but rather that there was a merging of the government of the Church and the national government. (Barth, 1963, pp. 55-61) His concern was that the Church would cease to be distinct as the differences between Christians and non-Christians dissolved in conjunction with the merger of Church and State. (Barth, 1962, 67-71)

Even if it seems Barth’s emphasis was misdirected in retrospect, his focus on maintaining theological freedom of the Churches to preach a biblically formed doctrine—even in opposition to prevailing political trends—is an essential aspect of a free society that can resist evil. (Jehle, 2002, p. 99). Barth’s goal was that the Church could continue to preach the gospel to the State and to the whole world. This is an essential aspect of encouraging justice in society. In the conclusion to Theological Existence To-day!, Barth (1962) wrote,

[T]heology and the Church cannot enter upon a winter sleep within the ‘Total State’; no moratorium and no ‘Assimilation’ (Gleichschaltung) can befall them. They are the natural frontiers of everything, even the ‘Totalitarian State.’ For even in this ‘Total State’ the nation always lives by the Word of God, the content of which is ‘forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.’ To this Word the Church and theology have to render service for the people. . . . The Church must be allowed to be true to her proper pragmatic function, and be willing to be true. (p. 84)

Although it would turn out to be insufficient, Barth’s call for theological action in response to the “German Christian” movement contributed to the formation of the Pastor’s Emergency League in 1933 and continued through the adoption of the Barmen Declaration in 1934.

The Barmen Declaration was a succinct, ecumenical statement of evangelical belief designed to help faithful, orthodox Christians to resist the encroaching power of Nazism. David Haddorf (2004) helpfully summarizes the six paragraphs of the statement:

1) The church must hear and obey the one Word of God (Jesus Christ) and no other voice, person, events, powers, or sources of truth as God’s revelation; 2) Jesus Christ claims our whole life, and rejects the idea that other “lords” rule over other areas of our lives; 3) the church, too, must not be forced to have its message altered by prevailing social ideologies or political convictions; 4) the church does have a proper form of government, but rejects the notion that there are special leaders (Fuhrer) of authority over and within the church; 5) draws for a separation of duties of church and state, and rejects the state becoming the church and the church becoming the state; 6) the church’s task and mission should not be corrupted by its pride and desire for power and prestige.” (pp. 23-24)

This theological statement, which was largely drafted by Barth, was affirmed by the Confessing Church in May 1934. At that point, Barth’s welcome in Germany was nearly exhausted. (Clark, 1963, p. 47) This, perhaps, indicates the importance of his perspective and how significant a challenge his views were to National Socialism.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

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Once Barth was removed from Germany and sent back to his native Switzerland in 1935, he continued to write on political theology. His three main political works between 1935 and 1946 were “Gospel and Law” (1935), “Church and State” (1938), and “The Christian Community and the Civil Community” (1946). Barth also published another helpful essay during this time, The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day (1939). These four works, which are expansions of themes found earlier in Barth, provide a framework for his vision of political theology, especially the relationship of the Church and State. All of his works reiterate the need for separation between Church and State with each entity playing its proper, limited role.

In his brief volume, “Church and State,” Barth argues that both institutions are ordained by God, but each has a particular role. The church is to proclaim justification through faith; the state is to enforce justice. (Barth, 1991, pp. 38-40) As such, rather than a sharp distinction between the two institutions, there is a vital relationship. The Church proclaims the gospel and reminds the State of its role under subjection to Christ. The State should subject itself to God’s intent (not the Church’s authority) and provide justice, especially the justice that allows the Church to proclaim the gospel freely, even to the state itself. This effectively recognized the legitimacy of government as declared in Romans 13, but rejecting anything like a totalizing state that could control truth.

The State, according to Barth, should be neutral with respect to truth. (1991, p. 42) This means it is not the role of the State to determine or regulate truths like Church doctrines. When the State oversteps its epistemic limits, it quickly becomes “demonic” because it fails to fulfill its God ordained duty and, instead, attempts to direct worship toward itself. As Barth argues, “The state becomes ‘demonic’ not so much by an unwarrantable assumption of autonomy—as is often assumed—as by the loss of its legitimate, relative independence, as by a renunciation of its true substance, dignity, function and purpose, a renunciation which works out in Caesar—worship, the myth of the State and the like.” (1991, p. 53) When the roles of the State and Church are blended, both institutions lose their value and must thus be resisted by faithful Christians.

The key to Barth’s perspective is contained in the last section of “Church and State.” Barth calls for the Church to pray for the State, but he notes that the Church must fulfill this service whether or not the State provides justice and without considering whether the State is worthy of continued existence. The Church should expect the State to fulfill its role in protecting the preaching of justification, but the Church should be prepared “to carry this preaching into practice by suffering injustice instead of receiving justice, and thereby acknowledging the State’s power to be . . . God-given.” (1991, p. 77) Continued prayer for the State, however, does not constitute support for all the efforts of the State, as when it is “guilty of opposition to the Lord of lords, to that divine ordinance to which it owes its power.” (Barth, 1991, p. 78) This radical submission, even to an unjust State, could take the form of being a victim of the State’s injustice. Suffering persecution for the proclamation of the gospel and the pursuit of justice would be the Christians’ duty as citizens. Since, as Barth argues, “Christians would, in point of fact, become enemies of any State if, when the State threatens their freedom, they did not resist, or if they concealed their resistance—although this resistance would be very calm and dignified.” (1991, p. 79)

In short, according to Barth’s political theology, the Church has the responsibility to help the State be what it ought to be rather than simply resist it carte blanche or support it uncritically. The Church also has a responsibility to refrain from attempting to control the State. The Church is always political, though it should never seek to replace the State. (Barth, 1946, 154) For Barth, Christians have the responsibility to remain engaged in shaping society without seeking to dominate it to introduce a theocracy. Such a careful balance between critical participation and refusing to control is a challenge for the Church, but is essential if the Church is to retain its prophetic voice.

Conclusion

In the United States, the Constitution prevents religious tests for public office and numerous court cases have been heard through the years to ensure the government remains distinct from the hierarchy of any religion. However, recent shifts in laws that have been passed have—sometimes by design, it seems—required abandonment of conscience protections for some Christians to enter into the public square. Even in the liberal democracy that is the U.S., there are threats of the government failing to remain neutral on questions of truth and attempting to become a Totalizing State. Elsewhere in the world this is more significant, though the threat is growing in the U. S.

Following Karl Barth, the Christian response to attempts by the government to seize power should be to continue to preach the gospel and to use appropriate means to convince the State to fulfill its role in guaranteeing the freedom to do so.

Perhaps more significantly for our day, Christians as individuals and the Church as a collective (to the extent that a Church catholic can be said to exist in the U. S.) should be very careful that they do not support an unjust State by giving unwarranted support or cheerfully ignoring (or defending) the shortcomings of a favored politician. Even if the formal roles of Church and State are not blended, the prophetic, gospel witness of the Church is at risk when it becomes too entangled in the role of the State or blind support for how the State’s role is carried out.

NOTE: I wrote a longer version of this argument, which was published in the Spring 2018 edition of Criswell Theological Review.

Shantung Compound - A Review

One of the biggest problems with political thought is that everyone is trying to argue for a solution to a given problem, but few of those speaking have truly taken time to understand the nature and complexity of the problem. They may have compiled statistics, done interviews, or taken pictures to represent the symptoms of the problem, but rarely have they taken the time to look beyond the symptoms to the source.

In general, those who have the most confidence in their solutions being the panacea for whatever ails society, whether in politics or in economics, have done the least consideration of what it is to be human. Drugs, violent crime, sexual perversions, racial hatred, and systemic inequity are all symptoms. The heart of the problem is humanity and the sin nature we all were born with.

Langdon Gilkey’s book, Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure, is both a memoir and a well-considered assessment of humanity. Though Gilkey was a theologian, this book is much more interesting for its discussions of human nature regarding political and economic order.

The book contains fourteen chapters. There is a rough chronology to it, but its core is presented thematically. Gilkey covers adaptation to deprivation in an internment camp, establishment of political order, the rise and fall of the black market, the significance of the human desire for space, and the search for meaning in the narrowed confines of a prison camp.

Shantung Compound is, in part, an explanation of why Gilkey came to reject the anthropology of his liberal Protestant upbringing and take a much less idealistic view of what is politically possible. Gilkey is neither socialist nor capitalist. In fact, he offers significant questions for rigid adherents to both poles of economic order.

Throughout the book, Gilkey is exceedingly critical (and likely somewhat dishonest toward) religious adherents, particularly the Protestant missionaries that were incarcerated alongside him. However, he also raises significant questions about the way so many of the Protestant missionaries failed to live out their ideals of selflessness and sacrifice when their basic needs were encroached upon. Gilkey is adamantly non-exclusive in his understanding of salvation and morality, but at the same time he affirms the necessity of the existence of a god as the best explanation for the order that exists.

Those interested in accounts of World War II will find this another interesting perspective. It shares with Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning multiple significant traits: it deals with prisoners in an enemy camp, faced with physically trying conditions, and, more significantly, the strong potential for despair. Both the agnostic Frankl and Gilkey arrive at similar conclusions that humans must find meaning outside of themselves if they are to keep from despair and social anarchy when everything is stripped away. Intriguingly, both men argue there must be meaning behind work besides mere survival and economic reward.

Frankl’s classic book provides a deeper look at the individual human condition, because it was written based on his time in a Nazi concentration camp. Gilkey’s experience, though harsh, was much less horrid because he spent the war in a civilian run prison camp. Neither experience was pleasant, but Gilkey’s allowed him to observe the construction of a new, basically independent society within the prison camp.

The international collection of prisoners in the Shantung Compound had autonomy to set up their own councils, manage their own cooking, and distribute those resources provided according to whatever rules they could establish. This self-contained society, who resources were limited and provided by their captors (with the exception of limited black-market goods), had to establish order without recourse to force, encourage each other through entertainments, and maintain satisfaction with relatively equitable distribution of very limited goods. The accounts of how that was accomplished reveal a great deal about political theory.

At the same time, the artificial circumstances limit the applicability of some of its lessons. At the end, Gilkey attempts to argue for greater international aid as a way to establish lasting peace. Setting aside the rafts of evidence that have been published since 1966 by people from both sides of the political spectrum, which shows the dangers of long-term aid, his case is not proved by this account because of the involuntary isolation of this community. In other words, some of the lessons are very helpful, but it is dangerous to draw too many firm conclusions because the same fences and guards that created the experiment also create the artificiality that keeps the lessons of Shantung Compound from being universally applicable. We cannot check our reason on the basic even of a well-considered anecdote.

Gilkey’s Shantung Compound is an important book, I think, for those considering the nature of humanity. It is the record of an experiment that ran for quite long enough to draw some conclusions. There is some helpful reasoning in the volume about ethics, politics, and human nature. It is the sort of book that those thinking about political theory and economics would do well to consider, especially as Western societies wrestle with the excesses of affluence and the cultural rot that has resulted.

Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure

By Langdon Gilkey

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The Gardeners' Dirty Hands - A Review

Noah Toly is Professor of Urban Studies and Politics & International Relations, as well as Director of the Center for Urban Engagement at Wheaton College in Illinois. He has previously studied theology academically. His book, The Garderners’ Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics and Christian Ethics, is more political science of environmental concerns than theology, but it written from a distinct theological perspective that sits well within the bounds of orthodoxy. The book seeks to offer an approach to environmental policy that is more helpful than more idealistic perspectives.

The weakness in many approaches to economics and environment is the failure to recognize the need for tradeoffs. Solutions must be either black or white. Businesses must be either evil monstrosities or saviors of society. Either you are for certain environmental policies or you want to pillage the created order.

These sorts of positions on political problems are rewarded by society today. However, they are rarely honest representations of reality. There are always tradeoffs. When we close coal power plants, a number of people lose their jobs, are dislocated from their neighborhoods, and have their lives disrupted. When a new wind farm is put in place, there are going to be birds killed and people unhappy about the noise and sight of the turbines. The funding for the cleanup project may take money from another socially beneficial plan. We can’t have everything.

Most activists and theoreticians retreat from these prickly realities into vague generalities. The easy part of politics is coming up with a goal that sounds good to enough people that you can get elected. The hard part is wrestling with the realistic impact of the steps necessary to achieve that goal.

The chief triumph of The Gardeners’ Dirty Hands is that helps explain there are no perfect solutions and provide some ideas on how to approach the real implications of environmental governance.

The book is brief. It contains only five chapters after a brief preface. In Chapter One, Toly introduces the concept of the tragic, which frames the argument of the book. The tragic is the idea that there is no solution that provides only benefits. Chapter Two builds on the concept of tragedy and adds scarcity and risk as additional forms of the tragic for environmental decisions. In the third chapter Toly provides some examples of the tragic in environmental ethics in the real world, discussing limitations, harm, and the prevalence of economic analysis to ignore instances of abuse and oppression. Chapter Four provides some handholds intended to assist the reader in using the Christian tradition to respond to environmental tradeoffs. In the fifth chapter Toly argues that the ability of humans to impact the global environment is more significant than ever and likely to stay that way. It is imperative that we begin to wrestle with the tradeoffs and not to ignore them for the benefit of or to the detriment of the environment.

The crux of the book, I think, can be summed up by quoting the first sentence of Chapter Four:

“The burden of environmental governance is to weigh competing claims, measuring risk against risk, right against right, confronting moral dilemmas of extraordinary scale and scope in the context of increasing power to shape the future of the planet.” (p. 79)

If this volume begins to shift the balance of arguments about environmental policy toward actually doing these things, it will have accomplished a great deal. This is a worthwhile volume.

The argument made in this volume is limited the repeated reliance on Bonhoeffer’s ethics to show how we should reason through difficult moral decisions. Bonhoeffer is helpful in many regards, but his basic ethical methodology is one of conflicting absolutes. That is, God’s moral law can conflict with itself leaving humans in a situation where all options lead to sin. That position is problematic on several fronts, not least because it raises Christological concerns.

Conflicting absolutes feels right for environmental ethics, but its problems remain. In reality, the majority of the conflicts can be solved by properly defining the summum bonum and what, scripturally speaking, defines sin in a particular instance. This is, of course, much more difficult to do than to say, particularly on a societal level.

Additionally, part of the dirt on the gardeners’ hands is there because many penultimate goods are treated like ultimate things. And proverbial dirt is also generated by the simple inability to know what will come from a given action or even what the real impact a particular environmental policy will have. We are beset by complications on all sides, but we automatically fail by ignoring obvious problems because of complexity.

The Gardeners’ Dirty Hands requires readers to wrestle with the hard questions of environmental policy. Serious thinkers about the relationship between politics and ecology––particularly those working from a Christian worldview––would do well to read this book and begin to recognize both the importance of the questions and their complexity.

The Gardeners' Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics and Christian Ethics

By Noah J. Toly

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NOTE: I was given a gratis copy of this volume by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law - A Review

There are some who have the impression that C. S. Lewis was a non-political thinker. After all, this is the man who stated that he didn’t read the newspaper (others would tell you the most important events) and who once wrote: “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion.” (“Membership”, Weight of Glory, 109)

If one takes in only Lewis’ book-length works, it is easy to maintain this opinion. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Lewis had a lot to say about politics and had some clear views about what politics ought to be about. At the same time, Lewis generally wrote at a conceptual level, though he occasionally had something say about particular political propositions. However, in these cases, he focused on the issue, with its supporting arguments, rather than the people and power structures involved.

In their recent book, C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law, Justin Buckley Dyer from the University of Missouri and Micah J Watson at Calvin College have worked to offer a systematic presentation of Lewis’ writing on politics and natural law. Although Lewis wrote a great deal about politics and natural law, he did not write a single reference volume. Thus, the work that Dyer and Watson have done contributes to both political science and Lewis studies.

This brief book has seven chapters. It begins by debunking the misperception that Lewis was not political in Chapter One. In the second chapter, the authors summarize the pattern of the Christian worldview–– Creation, Fall, and Redemption––which is always present and often overt in Lewis’ writing. Chapter Three puts Lewis’ work in contact with some of the significant criticisms of natural law theory, particularly the critique of Karl Barth.

In the fourth chapter, Watson and Dyer focus on one of Lewis’ most important works for both ethics and political science, The Abolition of Man. In that chapter they outline some of the many changes in culture that Lewis was responding to in that short volume. Chapter Five contains the most debatable proposition of the volume, where they argue that Lewis’ held to a form of Lockean Liberalism. There is evidence to support their case, though Lewis never cites Locke; the authors remain on safe ground by arguing that Lewis and Locke shared many tenets in their political philosophy. In the sixth chapter, the authors discuss some of Lewis’ writing on political discourse and the place of Christianity in the political sphere. There is much to be learned from Lewis in this regard. The book concludes with Chapter Seven, the authors summarize their arguments and urge the reader to continue to engage contemporary issues through the work of C. S. Lewis.

At times, given the amount of secondary literature on C. S. Lewis, one wonders whether there is much more to say about him. Whether academic studies of Lewis will run their course remains to be seen, but Dyer and Watson have demonstrated that there is still more to be gleaned from the voluminous work of C. S. Lewis. This book adds to the ongoing conversation about political theology, political science, and the work of C. S. Lewis.

A significant danger with dual-authored volumes is uneven writing styles, which can make them difficult to read. This volume, however, has a consistent flow throughout and is a pleasure to read. C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law is a book that has potential to be a ready resource for years to come.

This volume presents Lewis fairly and thoroughly and it makes it clear how Lewis can be helpful for Christians. One area that deserves further exploration is how Lewis and natural law can be helpful in building a common understanding beyond the ranks of the redeemed.

The more Lewis I read, the more I find him helpful. Dyer and Watson’s book both supports that sentiment and deepens it. They have done excellent work in producing a readable volume that is both illuminating and applicable.

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law

By Justin Buckley Dyer, Micah J. Watson

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Political Church - A Review

As C. S. Lewis once wrote, “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion.” By this metric our society is very diseased. Even given the special focus on politics caused by it being a Presidential election year, society is excessively focused on politics because our society is a festering wound of dislike and division.

One might think a book on political theology would simply contribute to the excessive focus on politics and the sickening mix of politics and religion that we are seeing with the Religious Left openly lobbying for their flawed candidates and the Religious Right arguing for theirs, too.

However, in the hangover from this election, the church will do well to pick up Jonathan Leeman’s recent book, Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ’s Rule. This is the book on nutrition for the glutton suffering from indigestion after binging on junk food.

The thesis of Leeman’s book is that “the church is a kind of embassy, only it represents a kingdom of even greater political consequence to the nations and their governors. And this embassy represents a kingdom not from across geographical space but from across eschatological time.”

This would be a dangerous theory if Leeman were arguing that the church has the same political purpose as a parliament or congress. There is a difference between the church and the state; they have overlapping magisteria but different means of influence. Leeman’s vision of the church and the state is not of two kingdoms, but of a single kingdom with state and church reflecting the authorities of the current kingdom and the future kingdom, respectively. Leeman stands well within the Augustinian tradition via a deep interest, though not uniformity, with Oliver O’Donovan.

Summary

This is not an introductory volume on political theology. Leeman’s discussion is a distinct approach to the place of the church in contemporary politics, but understanding this volume requires a fair understanding of the various political theologies that he is critiques and is building upon.

At the same time, Leeman’s volume begins a step before many others do by addressing some of the basic questions that one must understand before attempting a political theology. The first two chapters of the volume address the important questions, (1) What is politics? and (2) What is an institution? The various meanings of these terms are discussed in some depth before moving on. Though Leeman leaves some flexibility in the terms for his own use, his discussions of historic definitions provide context for the remainder of the book.

The next four chapters outline a positive political theological using a biblical theology as a foundation. The chapters run along the progression of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

The chapter on creation places God at the center of all politics. He made this world and is the just and righteous judge of all things. It is his authority that is represented through the work of both the government and the church. The nature of politics is shaped by the nature of the creator God.

In dealing with the fall, Leeman goes beyond the actual original sin of the primal couple to discuss how falleness has influenced all human interactions since that time. Leeman walks through the biblical storyline to show how sin has influenced government and increased the need for its justice.

The chapter on the politics of the new covenant focuses on the ongoing need for the work of the cross to be done in public. This means repentance, forgiveness, and good natured striving for the common good. Leeman is careful to distance his view from theonomy. In fact, he notes that attempts to bring about the eschatological kingdom on earth now never end well. Instead, Christians should work to apply the gospel as much as possible to earthly situations as one would expect of citizens on the new covenant kingdom.

The last chapter deals with the politics of the kingdom. However, this doesn’t refer to the eschatological kingdom, but is an especial focus on the polity of the local congregation. Leeman exercises his Baptist muscles in talking about the importance of church membership, credo baptism, and right practice of the Lord’s Supper. These are elements of the church that prefigure the coming kingdom. By being faithful to justly administer its own borders, the church stands as witness to the kingdom that is to come. The church is a political body because its policies and ministry influence the world, though it begins at a very local, individual level.

Analysis

Leeman’s book is a helpful approach to political theology because it begins with the narrative of Scripture and asks what the text says about the church’s political engagement. By beginning with the ideas of Scripture and working out, he formulates a much more distinctively Christian political theology.

In other words, political theology generally begins with a vision of what good is, which is often derived from an interpretation of Scripture. However, most political theologies then apply an extra-biblical method to achieve the desired goods.

For example, the Social Gospel movement sought (or seeks) to bring about the kingdom largely through a Rawlsian approach to government that favors strong individualism and a preference for government engagement in solutions at nearly every level. This approach then creates an implicit need for the church to pursue justice by seeking greater government control and introducing more radical human freedoms. The church’s main role in this vision of political theology is as a lobbyist to influence the state’s earthly authority.

A similar criticism could be levelled against movements that are more theologically conservative, as well.

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• Ethics
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• Social Justice
• Christian Mind

The point is that Leeman’s volume offers an approach that is designed to constrain the Church to her proper role in pursuing a right polity within her own area of influence. The message of the gospel as it is preached in the church should affect all of life, but the authority of the Church in the present age is somewhat limited. Leeman’s biblical theological approach to political theology helps to keep the church in her lane, and rightly focused on the gospel.

Leeman’s point is that the church is an inherently political institution. When it is functioning well, it cannot help but influence the world around with the message of the gospel. If the church fails to equip people and influence communities toward justice, as it is biblically defined, it has failed in its mission. However, when the church begins to engage in politics to increase redistribution of wealth through taxation or enforce certain moral codes through judicial means, then the church has exceeded its authority. Between these failures is the proper political role of the church.

This is a helpful resource for those who are familiar with the general content of political theology. Leeman’s approach is innovative and fresh. It is distinctly biblical. As such, it is a useful resource for those seeking to live rightly in our fallen world.

Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ's Rule (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture)

$24.93

By Jonathan Leeman

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.