The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker

The New York Times ^ | 12/16/09 | David D. Kirkpatrick

[marshmallow]

On a September afternoon, about 60 prominent Christians assembled in the library of the Metropolitan Club on the east side of Central Park. It was a gathering of unusual diversity and power. Many in attendance were conservative evangelicals like the born-again Watergate felon Chuck Colson, who helped initiate the meeting. Metropolitan Jonah, the primate of the Orthodox Church in America, was there as well. And so were more than half a dozen of this country’s most influential Roman Catholic bishops, including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, Archbishop John Myers of Newark and Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia.

At the center of the event was Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence and a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker. Dressed in his usual uniform of three-piece suit, New College, Oxford cuff links and rimless glasses­, George convened the meeting with a note of thanks and a reminder of its purpose. Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage.

Two months later, at a Washington press conference to present the group’s “Manhattan Declaration,” George stepped aside to let Cardinal Rigali sum up just what made the statement, and much of George’s work, distinctive. These principles did not belong to the Christian faith alone, the cardinal declared; they rested on a foundation of universal reason. “They are principles that can be known and honored by men and women of good will .........

[ruralvoter]

Thank you for posting this. He has an interesting approach to providing clarity and priority to the conservative Church and their support of political issues.

[Cicero]

Thanks for posting this. I hadn’t seen it, and now come to it a week late. It certainly deserves to be more widely read, especially by those who aren’t already familiar with Robert P. George and his work.

The writer can’t resist the usual snide and inane jabs from time to time (and probably he needs to insert them if he wants to keep writing for the NY Times). But on the whole it’s a good introduction to George.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I love Robbie George.