Beliefs Of A Feather

The Palace of Reason ^ | 02 December 2003 | Francis W. Porretto

[Lando Lincoln]

December 2, 2003

Q: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian?
A: Someone who knocks on people's doors all day but isn't sure why.

Your Curmudgeon is of the opinion that the words "conservative" and "liberal" are labels for emotional predispositions rather than well-formed, consistent political ideologies. Partly, this is because of the divergent applications to which the words are put in Europe and Asia. Partly it's because the positions self-nominated conservatives and liberals have held have gone through a number of changes even in the past few decades. And partly it's because there are associations other than the political ones, which add emotional coloration to both words.

The liberal predisposition is to believe that Man is inherently good and must be made bad by social or environmental distortions. This is at the root of liberal emphasis on "social justice." The sincere liberal tends to believe that everyone would behave peacefully and civilly if only there were enough jobs and government-funded social services. Since this worldview denies the possibility of consciously chosen evil, it is incompatible with other beliefs to which the concept of volitional evil is an important component.

The conservative predisposition is to believe that Man's will is free, that in the main individuals choose good or evil as roads to what they want. This is at the root of conservative emphasis on uniform and reliable criminal justice. The sincere conservative tends to believe that people can be deterred from choosing evil if the punishment for evil is made sufficiently certain and harsh. Since this worldview refuses to exculpate a predator on the grounds that his upbringing or environment twisted him willy-nilly into his anti-social shape, it is incompatible with other beliefs that postulate impersonal social influences that can override free will or numb the moral sense.

The Democratic Party is generally identified as the party of liberalism, though there are exceptions and partial divergences (e.g., Zell Miller, Joseph Lieberman). Your Curmudgeon has been straining to name orthodox Roman Catholics, who hold and promulgate Catholic positions, among Democratic public figures. So far, he's come up with Robert Casey, former governor of Pennsylvania. The Democrats appear to be equally devoid of representatives of the more evangelical or fundamental Protestant denominations. John Ashcroft has no opposite number in the Democrats' ranks.

Liberals are made extremely uneasy by churches that hold to the classical concept of evil as a willed choice. Given their predisposition, it's no surprise. We can find both religionists and agnostics among the Democrats, but the more strongly a church holds to the classical premise of free will as a moral fundamental, the less likely a Democrat is to cotton to it.

By contrast, Republicans, who are generally identified with conservatism, can be found all over the theological map. (Granted that not many espouse hard-core atheism.) Republicans who adhere to the more liberal Protestant denominations are often critics of their churches, who'd like to draw them back to older concepts of moral responsibility and the need for human self-restraint. Many a conservative has been heard to say that "the churches are a total loss," that they no longer preach a moral message but rather seek to clothe the modern doctrine of "whatever feels good must therefore be good" in theological garb. In some cases, this is demonstrably true.

The linkages could hardly be clearer, which is why your Curmudgeon was not shocked to read about the burgeoning interest in the more traditional Christian churches among young Americans.

Young adults appear to be trending politically conservative. This is not an arbitrary choice of mental decor. It requires that they align themselves with the underpinnings of conservative belief, including the belief in absolute evil and the freedom of the human will. In their quest for mental and moral integration, many of these young folks will continue their explorations into the realm of religion. There, they'll find the more traditional sects to be more to their taste than the doctrinally looser and less demanding forms preferred by liberals.

This is not an unmixed blessing. The young who are seized by a compelling idea can become very self-righteous, and correspondingly intolerant. Some sects making gains among the young preach hatred of others who hold competing beliefs. And history does record a fair number of persons who've used religious cover for atrocious deeds.

Still, that increasing numbers of young Americans are embracing the postulate of human free will and the associated moral obligations is unalloyed good news. As Thomas Sowell and Peter Huber have both written, whether or not we actually have free wills -- a proposition for which there can be no conclusive test -- the health of society requires that we structure our laws and customs to that assumption.

Joseph Sobran has written that a church is by its nature a conservative institution, in that it promulgates a creed of fixed principles concerning right, wrong, and Man's relation to God. This creed must resist alteration over time if the church itself is to endure. This statement has the qualities of a definition, in that it specifies a characteristic that sets churches apart from other institutions that are not churches. By this difference shall ye know them.

If we take Sobran's statement as the definition of a church, rather than merely an observation about one of the properties of churches, there are precious few actual churches left. Yet it is these that are enjoying the current upswing in communicants and active participation, while the liberalized "whatever feels good" denominations are hemorrhaging members and gradually transforming themselves into social clubs that are theologically and doctrinally void.

[Lando Lincoln]

Thanks again!

Lando