Pro Ecclesia VII:1 (Winter 1998): 17-47

The End of Convenient Stereotypes:

How the First Things and Baxter Controversies Inaugurate Extraordinary Politics

Scott H. Moore
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Baylor University


Who would have thought we have arrived at an age in which the disagreements between Gertrude Himmelfarb and Richard John Neuhaus would be so grievous as to produce prolonged public debate, but that Daniel Berrigan and Ralph McInerny would make common cause? During the Fall and Winter seasons of 1996 and 1997, two events have played out in the United States which have demonstrated that the currency of the convenient stereotypes of "liberal" and "conservative," with respect to religion and politics, is now bankrupt. The two events in question have both been described in the national media as "confusing" the very categories used to make sense of our national conversation on religion and public life. "Confusing" is an understatement. In truth, while observers of the delicate church-state balance in this country have long recognized that "liberal" and "conservative" are at best stipulative labels, the terms of the debate can now be recognized to be radically, if perhaps reluctantly, recast. Such terms can be recognized as recast because there is much more at stake than merely our convenient stereotypes--at issue is the continued viability of our contemporary political and religious discourse.

The events in question are the published symposium (and its response) on the judicial usurpation of politics at the Institute on Religion and Public Life and the controversial hiring of a young priest at the University of Notre Dame. Critics of both actions have lodged strong protests on both procedural and substantial grounds. On this much, at least, most agree: the church-state issues here are at the heart of questions about how Christians (and serious religious believers of all faiths) should relate to government, particularly the present government of the United States.

Though the cast of characters and the issues underlying these events overlap in numerous ways, there has, as yet, been no attempt to view these events together with an eye toward determining what they might signify for the larger conversation on religion, Enlightenment Liberal culture, and participatory democracy. This essay is just such an attempt. I argue that these two events place in clear relief an inadequacy of the traditional labels of "left" and "right" with respect to religion and politics. On the basis of that evidence, I prosecute the more significant thesis that these traditional labels now seem unsatisfactory precisely because the larger context of Enlightenment Liberalism, for which these labels were designed and within which they made sense, can no longer be taken for granted.

First Things Symposium: The End of Democracy?

First Things is the monthly publication of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. Since its initial publication in March 1990, it has become one of the most visible national magazines on religion and perhaps the most widely read publication on religion and politics. Despite the fact that it presents a wide range of opinions in its feature articles, by most standards, First Things is a decidedly "conservative" publication. Its editorials, opinion essays, and reviews echo conservative themes, and Editor-in-Chief Richard John Neuhaus's monthly column, "The Public Square," is an often rambunctious, satirical commentary on current publications and happenings and on what he takes to be liberalism's self-delusory seriousness.

Richard John Neuhaus is the heart and soul of First Things. Not only its founder and editor-in-chief, he is the President of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. Described by US News and World Report as one of the thirty-two most significant American intellectuals, Neuhaus is a vocal opponent of abortion rights and a principal player in the "culture wars." Neuhaus converted to Catholicism from his Lutheran faith in 1990. As a Lutheran pastor in the 1960's, he had been a proponent of civil rights and has noted that he "was proud to have been sent to jail with Dr. King." In recent years, though his activism has certainly not diminished, he has become far more identified with traditionally conservative causes and agendas.

In its November 1996 issue, the journal First Things published a symposium entitled "The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics."[1] The symposium included articles by Russell Hittinger, Robert Bork, Hadley Arkes, Charles Colson, and Robert George, and an introductory editorial authored by Neuhaus. The symposium investigated the question of whether the consent of the governed is compromised, or even forfeited, by a Judiciary which has "in effect declared that the most important questions about how we ought to order our life together are outside the purview of 'the things of [the citizenry's] knowledge.'" The symposiasts asked whether the Judicial usurpation of politics (i.e., the Judiciary's repeated foreclosing on the process of legislative debate and decision through the creation of previously unrecognized constitutional rights) perhaps constituted the end of the American experiment in democracy.

In the "Introduction" to the contributed essays, Neuhaus notes that this symposium is an "extension" of a May 1996 First Things editorial, "The Ninth Circuit's Fatal Overreach." The "overreach" in question was the Ninth Circuit's decision to overturn a Washington State law banning physician-assisted suicide on the grounds that the Constitution guarantees a "liberty right" to assisted suicide. The May editorial suggested that if "the Supreme Court upholds the Ninth Circuit, the battle over abortion would likely be transformed into near unconditional warfare against the arrogance of the courts that short-circuit democratic deliberation by the imposition of their moral (or grossly immoral) dictates."[2]

In the November symposium, the contributors do find such dictates to be immoral. Invoking the principle shared by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a multitude of others that "Among the most elementary principles of Western Civilization is the truth that laws which violate the moral law are null and void and must in conscience be disobeyed," the symposiasts explored the question of "whether we have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime."

The symposium did not (pace its critics) condone or even offer an analysis of the range of responses ("from noncompliance to resistance to civil disobedience to morally justified revolution") which conscientious citizens might employ when confronted with legal obligations which they find to be morally suspect. Indeed, in an editorial entitled "To Reclaim our Democratic Heritage" (accompanying a collection of follow-up essays by William J. Bennett, Mary Ann Glendon, Midge Decter, John Leo, and James Dobson) in the January 1997 issue of First Things, the editors were at pains to state explicitly their purposes and to guard their ideas from being misappropriated by the ever-expanding, anti-government, militia culture in the United States. Reiterating that none of the November essays asserted that the present government of the United States is in fact illegitimate, the editors emphasized that the recognition of "the displacement of a constitutional order by a regime that does not have, will not obtain, and cannot command the consent of the people" is an important step in inaugurating a national conversation designed to reclaim our democratic heritage. Near the end of the essay, the editors affirm

Response to the First Things Symposium

Response to the symposium was not long in coming. Gertrude Himmelfarb and Peter Berger resigned from the First Things Editorial Board, and Walter Berns resigned from the Editorial Advisory Board. Despite the fact that the National Review offered an editorial[4] and The Weekly Standard devoted an entire article[5] to the symposium immediately after it was published, it was Jacob Heilbrunn's cover article in The New Republic[6] ("Neocon v. Theocon") which focused national attention on the symposium and delivered to us the new abbreviations of the hour. Heilbrunn examined not just the symposium but also on Himmelfarb's, Berger's, and Bern's resignations. To Heilbrunn, the brouhaha at the Institute on Religion and Public Life was indicative of "the widening schism on the intellectual right."

Heilbrunn tells the story of the symposium and the subsequent resignations with an eye toward demonstrating how the Catholic, theologically-oriented conservatives (the "Theocons") at First Things edged out the largely Jewish, economically-oriented neo-conservatives (the "Neocons") because the former (in concert with the Religious Right) have aspirations for a "Christian nation" which the latter can neither stomach nor understand. Pointing to the rift in the Republican party over whether to lead in the '96 election with social or economic conservatism (and ultimately doing neither with any discernible effect), Heilbrunn proclaims that these tensions are the inevitable result of the irreconcilable differences between the Neocon's Straussian view of politics and the Theocon's Thomistic Catholicism.

In truth, Heilbrunn's essay is embarrassingly inaccurate. Most of his gaffes are enumerated in a published exchange between Robert George, Michael Novak, and Heilbrunn in the February 3 issue of TNR.[7] For instance, though Heilbrunn pits the debate as the Catholics against the Jews, he fails to recognize that of the five original symposiasts, there are two Protestants (Bork and Colson), two Catholics (Hittinger and George), and one Jew (Arkes). Furthermore, the "Christian nation" rhetoric of the Religious Right is noticeably absent from the original symposium. More importantly, Heilbrunn's explication of natural law, Strauss, Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic theologian Germain Grisez, and the relationship between theological and political discourse in general leaves quite a lot to be desired. And yet, Heilbrunn characterized this debate as a schism within conservatism, and most commentators followed his lead. In this regard, most commentators have misunderstood the symposium.

As noted above, in January 1997, First Things attempted to clarify matters and continue the discussion by offering a response to some of the early criticism. January and February also saw a spate of articles coming out of The Washington Post, Lingua Franca, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Spectator, The National Review (again), The New Republic (also again), Crisis, and more. Commentary devoted most of its February issue to a symposium of its own entitled "On the Future of Conservatism."[8] Most of the Commentary contributors repudiated the "incendiary" rhetoric of the original First Things symposium, and almost to a person, the Commentary symposiasts lamented the damage done to national conservative causes and politics. I will return to this objection because it is an important one, but it is an objection which I read as suffering from a fundamental misunderstanding of the aims and purposes of the First Things symposium.

Michael Baxter, CSC, and the Notre Dame Theology Department

The University of Notre Dame was founded by the Priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross (CSC) in 1842. Though the order no longer exercises primary control of the institution, the CSC continues to maintain a prominent, if less visible, presence on campus. There are certain provisions within Notre Dame's by-laws which guarantee a connection to the order and the university's heritage. Among other provisions, such require that the President of Notre Dame shall be a priest of the CSC (of the Indiana Province) and that, with regard to faculty hiring, the CSC shall constitute an affirmative action category at Notre Dame. (To hire a CSC priest, an academic department is given an additional faculty line, but the person must meet expected qualifications.)

Michael Baxter, 41, is a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross. A past graduate of the Notre Dame theology department (Master of Divinity, 1983), Baxter received his doctorate in theological ethics at Duke University. While at Duke he received several awards, including the prestigious Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Before coming to Notre Dame, Baxter received a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Center for the Study of American Religion at Princeton University. He has made numerous conference presentations and published in both theological and jurisprudence journals. He serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

A pacifist, Baxter is also a proponent of the Catholic Worker Movement begun by Dorothy Day and exemplified by Catholics everywhere who see themselves as seeking to curb the exploitative consequences of market-driven capitalism. In the 1980's, Baxter served as co-founder and later director of the Andre House of Hospitality for the homeless and poor and the St. Joseph the Worker Job Service, both in Phoenix, Arizona. During his years at Notre Dame, he had established the Center for Draft and Military Counseling. In Germany during the Gulf War, he counseled conscientious objectors in the United States military.

Above it is stated that the First Things symposiasts were exploring the question of "whether have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime." Baxter has already reached this point. In 1983, he was arrested and later convicted in a federal court for an anti-nuclear arms protest at the Davis Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona. The conviction, which Baxter refers to as "one of our nation's highest honors," brought a sentence of two years probation and two hundred hours of community service. Requiring a priest whose calling includes serving the homeless to perform community service might also be seen as one of our nation's most astute sentences.

During the Spring academic term of 1996, Baxter applied for a position in the Notre Dame theology department. Baxter's nomination was rejected by the appointments committee. University President Edward A. Malloy, CSC, subsequently appointed Baxter to a visiting three-year position in the department over the wishes of the appointments committee.

During the Fall academic term, the theology department's rejection of Baxter and his subsequent appointment by Malloy were all the rage of conversation on the Notre Dame campus. The rationale behind both actions was far from clear, however. While some members of the theology department expressed dismay over Baxter's rejection, others defended the appointments committee's action on the substantial grounds that Baxter was not a qualified candidate. Malloy clearly believed otherwise.

In a letter written July 24, 1996, to theology department Chair Lawrence Cunningham, Malloy emphasized that he intended Baxter's visiting appointment as a "compromise." Malloy gave the following reasons for his decision to give Baxter this visiting appointment: (1) The president is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that university statutes and by-laws are faithfully discharged. These statutes include "mak[ing] full use of the unique skills and dedication of the members of the Priests of Holy Cross" and "eagerly and openly" pursuing qualified CSC priest-scholars. Malloy felt that Michael Baxter was not eagerly pursued. (2) Recognizing that Baxter's dissertation director at Duke, Stanley Hauerwas, was not only a former member of the Notre Dame theology department but also a participant in "some of the more controversial discussions" within that department, Malloy felt that Baxter "was unfortunately connected, if only unconsciously, with certain disputes in the Department's history." (3) On the basis of a professional judgment about Baxter's "scholarly and teaching credentials in [Malloy's] own subfield of theological ethics," Malloy felt that Baxter's qualifications warranted the appointment.

During the Fall term, members of the theology department brought this situation to the attention of the Notre Dame community at large. Theology department critics of Malloy's action voiced first substantial and later procedural objections to Baxter's appointment. It was, of course, exclusively a matter between the administration, the department, and the candidate, but it quickly became a matter of campus-wide controversy. As Alfred Freddoso of the philosophy department would later say, "certain members of the [theology] department have vociferously urged the rest of us on the faculty to treat their business as our business," and such certainly seems to be the case. In the year's first issue of the left-of-center independent newspaper Common Sense, Joseph Blenkinsopp (John A. O'Brien Professor in the Theology Department) repudiated Malloy's tendency to make major policy decisions during the summer when many faculty "resist the temptation to enjoy the summer in the heart of rural Indiana." Without mentioning Baxter by name, Blenkinsopp reported how a CSC priest with a Ph.D. from Duke University had applied for a position, been rejected by the department, and "unilaterally appointed" to a visiting position. Noting that the Notre Dame department ranked twelfth nationally, Blenkinsopp asserted, "It is therefore hardly one of those depressing cases of a mediocre department rejecting an outstanding candidate."[9]

The case had already become a depressing one for most of those involved. On September 11, Faculty Senate Vice Chair (and member of the theology department) Jean Porter reported to the Senate and presented a resolution from the Executive Committee which expressed "grave concern" over the manner in which the appointment was made. By way of background information, Porter affirmed (in summary) that the theology department "did not consider him qualified for an appointment and turned down the application."[10] The Senate appointed its Academic Affairs Committee to investigate the matter in order to see if there had been any improprieties of governance with respect to Baxter's appointment over the wishes of the theology appointments committee and report its findings to the Senate. The Senate did not question Malloy's prerogative to overrule or his ultimate responsibility in matters of faculty appointments.

In its November 7 meeting, the Academic Affairs Committee presented its report along with a minority report authored by G. Robert Blakey, O'Neil Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School. Blakey alleged that there were grievous procedural violations in that the Academic Affairs Committee did not conduct a full and fair investigation. It neither heard testimony nor gathered evidence beyond assembling various correspondence. Blakey argued that it was improper for the Senate to speak on matters about which it had not gathered adequate evidence.

For its part, the Senate accepted both the majority report and Blakey's dissenting views and (contra Blakey) found "no evidence that the Theology Department failed to observe its responsibility to give 'special consideration' to a C.S.C. candidate" and "no justification either for President Malloy's unilateral decision to appoint or for the manner in which he appointed a C.S.C. candidate to a faculty position." Noting that the President's action "harms the Theology Department and the University as a whole by undermining the well-established and beneficial model of rational collaboration that exists between a departmental faculty and the university's administration with regard to hiring decisions," the Senate expressed "its strong disapproval of President Malloy's handling of the 'special relationship' and its strong disapproval of his decision to appoint a Visiting Professor." On December 3, 1996, the Senate passed a resolution which affirmed that President Malloy's decision "seriously erodes the confidence that a faculty ought to have in a President." The resolution passed 29 to 5, with three abstentions.[11]11

Response to the Baxter Controversy

The Chronicle of Higher Education described the controversy in its "Faculty Notes" section of the December 13, 1996, issue. The Chronicle asserted (erroneously) that Baxter's appointment had come against the unanimous recommendation of the department. The event was also the subject of an article in the National Catholic Reporter. Pamela Schaeffer described how the priest had been "imposed on the faculty," and "[f]ollowing months of controversy, the university's Faculty Senate denounced the president's administrative style in a formal resolution."[12] Schaeffer did note that it was the five-member theology appointments committee, and not the entire theology department, which had unanimously opposed Baxter's hiring.

Baxter was not, however, without his supporters. Fifteen scholars from six prestigious universities who knew Baxter and his work responded with a letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education correcting its assertion that departmental opposition to Baxter's appointment was unanimous and affirming that they were "highly impressed" with his scholarly work. The fifteen signatories were Scott Appleby, John Garvey, Philip Gleason, George Marsden, Marvin O'Connell, and David Solomon from Notre Dame; Alasdair MacIntyre, Frank Lentricchia, and Kenneth Surin from Duke; Robert George, Leigh Schmidt, and Robert Wuthnow from Princeton; Thomas Hibbs from Boston College, Beth Wenger from Pennsylvania, and Ruth Marie Griffith from Northwestern.[13]

Other Notre Dame colleagues David Burrell, CSC, (Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology) and Alfred Freddoso (Professor of Philosophy) both wrote responses to the National Catholic Reporter [NCR]. In Burrell's letter of December 11, he expressed mystery over the entire incident. Why should such an extraordinarily well-qualified candidate be rejected? Not because of any bias against CSC priests since "discrimination against the Congregation of Holy Cross would hardly characterize the department of Theology." Burrell believed the answer lay in the fact that "many extraneous factors impeded a clear appreciation of [Baxter's] intellectual prowess as well as of his potential to carry forward theological discussion with those willing to engage in a thoroughgoing inquiry."[14]

What are the extraneous factors? Apparently one of the dominant factors was the issue of Baxter's dissertation director, Stanley Hauerwas, to which Malloy alluded. Indeed, Burrell also notes that this connection was problematic for Baxter. Freddoso cuts to the chase alluded to by Malloy. Freddoso noted "an ongoing and nasty feud between [Baxter's] dissertation director, a former Notre Dame theologian, and several senior members of the theology department." Richard P. McBrien (Crowley-O'Brien-Walter Professor of Theology) denied that such was the case. Malloy, Burrell, Freddoso, and many others on campus thought otherwise. Their sentiments seemed confirmed in department chair Cunningham's assessment of Baxter's dissertation. Cunningham wrote, "He [Baxter] also shows traces of his mentor's habits of pugnaciousness and bombast but in conversation pulls back when challenged."[15]

Feuds, rumors of feuds, and rampant pugnaciousness are neither new nor uncommon to the Academy. On the contrary, the old joke about why academic politics is so dirty (because the stakes are so small) seems confirmed on every campus in the country, from the most obscure community college to the most visible research university. Thus, in many respects, the Baxter situation is unremarkable, however much grief, pain, and mistrust it may have bred in South Bend. My interest in this event lies in why the appointment of a clearly radical priest, supported by Berrigan and lauded in the pages of newspapers like the Houston Catholic Worker,[16] has generated animosity at such a bulwark of the Catholic and religious left as the Notre Dame theology department. And to understand this we have to turn to Schaeffer's second NCR article.[17]

The National Catholic Reporter describes itself as "The Independent, Lay-edited Catholic Newsweekly." It is a veritable mainstay of the liberal Catholic establishment in the United States. Its pages regularly report the institutional silencing of dissident priests and the progress of liberationist and base community movements in Latin America and elsewhere; its editorials frequently call for the Catholic Church to embrace more "democratic" procedures for the establishment of accepted doctrine and practice. The NCR has long valued the unique contributions of leftist Catholic scholars, priests, and activists; indeed, Richard McBrien has a regular column which appears in its pages. It is for this reason that the NCR's positive assessment of Baxter is so interesting and so profound.

In this second article, Schaeffer recognized that the controversy at Notre Dame focused on a "question critical to American Catholicism--the right relationship of Catholicism to culture, of religion to politics." Though on the surface the question appeared to be why a bright and accomplished priest failed to gain the support of the department, "under the surface lurks a youthful challenge to American Catholicism's old guard." Baxter represented a shift, according to Schaeffer, "in the way Catholicism is defined and practiced in the United States. Baxter's allies say he blows apart the usual liberal-conservative categories that have often been used to describe Catholics since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's." And indeed he does. I will return to Schaeffer's assessment of Baxter.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Some might question both the significance of and the connection between these events. The Baxter affair might be just another squabble between university administrators and faculty, not unlike the sorts of disputes that erupt every year on every campus in the land. Furthermore, could the First Things symposium possibly be more than just a tempest in a teapot? Francis Fukuyama is correct: it is hard to imagine "Richard John Neuhaus holed up in a farmhouse shooting it out with ATF officers anytime soon . . ."[18] Even if it is granted that Catholic ethicists and Natural Law theorists might find something provocative in these two events, it is not immediately obvious why Protestants, secularists, non-residents of South Bend, and a host of others should take an interest in these matters.

Obviously, I see things differently. I believe that these events are not only connected but also significant for the larger conversation on the relation between church and state, or more precisely, between the exercise of Christian faith and democracy. It is my contention that just as Neuhaus and the First Things symposium have wreaked havoc with traditional sensibilities about religion and politics on the right, so has Baxter rendered problematic the traditional sensibilities about religion and politics on the left. Viewed together, these events offer a window through which to view the incoherence of Enlightenment Liberalism's status quo.

How are these events connected? There are a number of individuals whose projects and associations are intertwined with both the Baxter and First Things controversies. Some of these individuals have been major contributors toward the emerging critique of Enlightenment Liberalism. Alasdair MacIntyre certainly stands at the top of any such list. Through his volumes, After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, he has done as much as anyone else to call into question the hegemony of Enlightenment Liberalism. George Marsden and Robert Wuthnow have played similar roles: Marsden with respect to history and the role of religion in higher education and Wuthnow with respect to the sociology of the American religious experience. As noted above, Robert George, one of the original First Things symposiasts, was also one of the fifteen signatories to the letter of support for Baxter which appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Observer.

The most obvious individual relevant to both events, of course, is Stanley Hauerwas, Baxter's dissertation director and member of the First Things Editorial Board (from which Himmelfarb and Berger resigned). Described by Lingua Franca's David Glenn as "impossible-to-pigeonhole," Hauerwas has expressed support for the First Things symposium: "I think it shows that the magazine has great integrity." Hauerwas continues, "The problem isn't with the courts. The problem is the American people! The conservatives don't want to admit that this is what the American people want! They want assisted suicide! They believe in autonomy!"[19] These allegedly "autonomous Americans" are the embodiment of Enlightenment Liberalism.

Charles Colson refers to Hauerwas in his contribution to the November symposium. Colson agrees with David Smolin's conclusion that in an increasingly hostile environment, religious believers will be forced either "to abandon their religious beliefs and accommodate themselves to an amoral, libertarian regime" or abandon "their political interests, becoming what the theologian Stanley Hauerwas has called 'resident aliens' in America --no longer concerned about the fortunes or misfortunes of a flawed republic, no longer considering this land their country."[20] (David Brooks cites this passage as evidence of the "anti-American" temptation in his piece in The Weekly Standard.) Colson's presentation of Hauerwas's position is misleading. While Hauerwas and William Willimon have popularized the notion of "resident aliens," it is inaccurate to suggest that Hauerwas is "no longer concerned about the fortunes or misfortunes of a flawed republic."

And yet it is this inaccurate rendering of Hauerwas which is at the heart of the theology department's rejection of Baxter. Hauerwas is often regarded as affirming a "sectarian" stance concerning the engagement of religion and politics. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, edited by McBrien, defines "sectarian" as "one who defines the church as the exclusive locus of God's activity, and the mission of the church as limited to a countercultural, otherworldly salvation."[21] Schaeffer noted that McBrien "alluded to his concerns about Hauerwas and his Catholic students in his encyclopedia, where he wrote, 'Although sectarianism is diametrically opposed to Catholicism, a certain sectarian orientation has emerged in recent years in portions of the Catholic peace movement and in some younger Catholic moral theologians influenced by Protestant sectarian ethicists.'"[22]

Below I will return to this larger issue, but some foreshadowing is perhaps in order. Alasdair MacIntyre in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry described the "Encyclopeadia" approach as one of the three dominant attempts to classify and define moral enquiry.[23] The Encyclopedist assumes an ahistorical posture and attempts to present a clear distinction between "facts" and "values." The "facts" can be labeled and defined in such a way so that one may simply "look up" a definition in order to know what a thing might be. This is the essence of the encyclopedia. The Enlightenment is in many ways exemplified by this quest for "definitive" representations. However, if the definition in question turns out to be a contested one (as most definitions of interesting terms are), the "definitive" nature of the encyclopedia is undermined. In the modern context, the classic Enlightenment Liberal move is to offer definitions in such a way so as to preordain the terms (and consequences) of the debate. This phenomenon is clearly illustrated in the polemical definition of "sectarianism" which appears in McBrien's Encyclopedia of Catholicism.

The entry describes sectarians as "appealing to the individualistic aspects of Christianity,"[24] but that hardly seems the best way to describe Hauerwas. Rather than "sectarian," Hauerwas's approach, and that of Baxter, is better described as affirming confessionally particularist approaches to morality, politics, and faith. (Their approach is not, however, to be confused with Richard Niebuhr's "Confessionalism" in Christian ethics.) Hauerwas is a Methodist, Baxter a Holy Cross priest. They differ in that they utilize different resources (and similar resources in different ways) for addressing the problems presented by a moral engagement with politics. They concur in that they affirm that one must employ confessionally particular resources; there are no religiously generic resources. It is safe to say that one of the dreams of Enlightenment Liberalism was the desire to remove the scandal of particularity from the engagement of religion and politics. (It is for this reason that Liberalism will eventually insist upon the privatization of religion because historical religions cannot be divorced from their particularities.) Baxter and Hauerwas recognize that the scandal of particularity cannot be removed without compromising authentically Christian convictions.

Now while Neuhaus cannot be described as "sectarian," he also recognizes the tension between the confessionally particular and the religiously generic and the role this tension plays in the debate over the place of religion in the public square. Indeed, the dispute between the generically religious and the particularly Christian is at the heart of the conflict between Himmelfarb and Neuhaus, as I will demonstrate below. For the moment, it is enough to see that this tension is exemplified by Neuhaus's increasing recognition of the inadequacy of purely procedural commitments for ensuring the legitimacy of government. The strong commitment to "procedure" is an Enlightenment move, and it is clearly seen in Himmelfarb's assertion that the legitimacy of government should not be discussed under the rubric of religious commitments and that the question of the very nature of government is not up for discussion.

Neuhaus and Baxter (and Hauerwas) are in agreement with regard to their dissatisfaction with Himmelfarb here. A point of clarification is in order. Neuhaus, Baxter, and Hauerwas are not suggesting alternative forms of government, and contrary to popular opinion, Hauerwas does not advocate the modern retreat to Walden Pond (or Ruby Ridge) which might be inferred from Colson's comment above. (Hauerwas and Thoreau are quite far apart indeed.) But Neuhaus, Baxter, and Hauerwas are suggesting (Neuhaus more reluctantly than the others) that it is not inconceivable that "the American experiment in democracy" should fail with respect to its ability either to define an acceptable relationship between religion and the state or to protect religious expression therein defined.

This observation leads to one of the most obvious similarities between Baxter and the First Things symposiasts which is also one of the most odd. Both have been labeled "anti-American." To be specific, Heilbrunn accused the First Things editors' Thomism of being "not so much anti-American as un-American,"[25] and David Brooks's entire essay in The Weekly Standard was entitled "The Right's Anti-American Temptation."[26] These are curious charges to be leveled against "conservatives"--especially conservatives like Neuhaus who are allegedly the brains of the "God and country" Religious Right.

As for Baxter, he has consistently articulated a critique of the "Americanist" impulse in Catholic thought (the notion, exemplified by John Courtney Murray and others, that the guiding principles of American polity fit neatly with Catholic doctrine and social teachings), so the charge of "anti-Americanism" might come as no surprise. What is curious, however, is where the charge comes from. Lawrence Cunningham had written in his analysis of Baxter's dissertation, "The supreme irony, of course, is that Baxter wants an appointment in an institution that is the embodiment of the Americanist tradition. How does Baxter hope to be a member of a community which holds up as its ideal: God, Country, and Notre Dame?"[27] In his letter to the NCR, Freddoso responded "As far as I know, other departments in the University do not use nationalism as a criterion for appointment."[28] Cunningham later reported to Pamela Schaeffer that his comment (though included in his official evaluation of Baxter's dissertation) was made in jest.

The irony of Cunningham's accusation (jest or no) extends far beyond Freddoso's jab. Academic departments at major American universities are one of the last places one would expect to find inordinate nationalism. These departments are largely populated with (what Richard Rorty has described as) contestants in "the America sucks sweepstakes."[29] One would think that Baxter's critique would be appealing to most traditionally liberal departments of theology, but such is not the case. Furthermore, the presence of an alternative vision like Baxter's seems compatible with current academic preoccupation with multiculturalism, diversity, and pluralism. But again, such turns out to be not the case.

When Schaeffer asked McBrien if the unpopular nature of Baxter's views about the Americanist tradition was the reason for his rejection, McBrien replied, "I'm saying [the countercultural approach] is not representative of the Catholic tradition. It's like a dissenting opinion. Should it be represented? Of course. Should it be over represented? I hope not." Schaeffer noted that McBrien believed that Baxter's view was adequately represented in the theology department by John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite.[30] Of course, Baxter is not a Mennonite, and whatever similar commitments Baxter and Yoder may share about "counterculturalism," Baxter represents a challenge to Catholic coherence and faithfulness which Yoder does not. And this, of course, is the heart of the matter. Baxter's work poses a challenge to what he calls the "Catholics to the rescue" mentality which is embodied in the Americanist tradition. It is obvious that an Americanist Catholic who might be intrigued by Yoder might reject Baxter, precisely because Yoder's work does not pose an internal challenge to Catholic sensibilities in the way that Baxter does. Neither Schaeffer nor McBrien commented on whether there was a Catholic theologian in the department who affirmed Baxter's position.

This commitment to "superficial or cosmetic" diversity usually amounts to a commitment to what Stanley Fish has called "boutique multiculturalism." According to Fish, "boutique multiculturalists will always stop short of approving other cultures at a point where some value at their center generates an act that offends against the canons of civilized decency."[31] In the end, the differing vision cannot be tolerated because it calls into question the core commitments of the establishment vision. In this case, both Neuhaus (reluctantly) and Baxter (emphatically) reject the notion that it is always possible to be both faithful Christians and "good Americans." Neuhaus writes

"God and country" is a motto that has in the past come easily, some would say too easily, to almost all Americans. What are the cultural and political consequences when many more Americans, perhaps even a majority, come to the conclusion the question is "God or country"?[32]

When the very different Michael Baxter and Richard Neuhaus agree and the extraordinarily different Neocons and Notre Dame liberals find the substance of the Baxter-Neuhaus agreement appalling, we can recognize that we have at long last reached the end of our convenient stereotypes.

The End of Convenient Stereotypes as the Inauguration of "Extraordinary Politics"

One of the difficulties in writing an essay such as this one is that I must employ the very terminology which my thesis calls into question. Toward these ends, a word of clarification is in order. As is common, when I speak of (capital "L") Liberalism (or "Enlightenment Liberalism"), I am referring to the grand Western Liberal tradition which professes to affirm "value neutrality" and regards the autonomy of the individual as not only an intrinsic good which democratic government can guarantee but also as a foundational good which trumps all other values. It is this grand tradition (which always affirms that it is not a "tradition" strictly speaking) which has secured religious liberty but which is increasingly accused of privatizing (and trivializing) religion in the process. When I speak of (lower case "l") liberalism, I am referring to the recent tradition which values comprehensive government in the modern welfare state. Likewise, the term "conservative" refers to the corresponding tradition of minimalist government. (In this essay I do not treat the grand and complex Western Conservative tradition.) Both liberals and conservatives participate in the larger Enlightenment Liberal culture.

As stated above, these traditional labels of "left" and "right" now seem unsatisfactory precisely because the larger context of Enlightenment Liberalism, which defines the traditional spectrum on which the traditional labels fall, can no longer be taken for granted. To say that the tradition "can no longer be taken for granted" is not to say that it has passed from the scene, has been replaced, or is even challenged by a viable alternative; rather, the tradition's giveness is simply now problematic. One can draw an analogy to Thomas Kuhn's analysis of how scientific revolutions proceed.[33]

According to Kuhn, during periods of "normal science" within which there is a single dominant paradigm, scientific activity takes the form of "puzzle solving." There are always problems in science which cannot be solved, but as long as these problems are at the margins of inquiry or are dwarfed by more pressing concerns, the dominant paradigm remains unchallenged. Making the analogy to politics, Liberalism has been the dominant "puzzle solving" paradigm of the West for the last three hundred years.[34] In the twentieth century, Enlightenment Liberalism has reached its apex and (as many have speculated) begun its decline.

There is an interesting historical question toward which I can only gesture and for which I will not argue at this time. It seems obvious that while there were always difficulties with Enlightenment Liberalism (enumerated, for instance, in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche or Max Horkheimer), Liberalism has looked utterly compelling in the face of the twentieth century options of Nazism, Stalinism, and Communism. (Jacques Maritain seems to be making a point similar to this one in Integral Humanism.) A Constantinian Christianity of the day (though quite different from what Maritain had in mind) could even make common cause with this Enlightenment Liberalism in order "to make the world safe for democracy."

Notice, however, how even this common catch phrase ("to make the world safe for democracy") betrays the conviction that the guiding teleology was not one of religion but of a certain sort of politics. (Some readers may even be thinking, "Yes, of course, that was the point.") But why was that the point? Because the culture of Enlightenment Liberalism condoned the exportation of our Western political morality even when it rejected the exportation of our Western religious morality. Indeed, Christianity is seen here as a precursor and ground clearer for the development of a more essential state that is to come, namely that of secular democracy in places where it doesn't yet exist. In common parlance, "It would be nice if those folks were Christian, but it is a necessity that they become Democratic."

The question remains, however, once the world has been made safe for democracy, what need does it have of Christianity? Very little. Hence, we see the increasing privatization and the trivialization of religion in the public square. Eliminating religious discourse from public life becomes, as Wendy Kaminer suggests, "the last taboo."[35] Indeed, Christianity becomes more and more to be viewed through Enlightenment Liberalism's "neutral" eyes as not only unnecessary but as dangerous in its "unregulated" forms. This is also Richard Cohen's argument in his Washington Post editorial, "When Morality Begets Violence." Responding to the First Things symposium, Cohen suggests that "the prospect of 'a showdown between church and state' [Colson's phrase] is downright chilling" and asserts that those who frame debate in "moralistic terms have to understand that, inadvertently or not, they are providing a justification for violence."[36] Jean Bethke Elshtain responds to Cohen by noting that to label debate which appeals to morality chilling "is to desire political speech itself to be chilled, so long as those put in the deep freeze are not those whose views one shares."[37]

Liberalism's internal tensions become obvious in an exchange such as this one. What starts out as a defense of neutral procedure against an intolerant viewpoint becomes a defense of an opposing (equally intolerant) viewpoint which must suspend procedure in the light of new-found dangers. It is another version of Fish's boutique multiculturalism, and it is further evidence of Fish's more general claim that "Liberalism doesn't exist."[38]

My suspicion is that once the Cold War began to wind down and the external challenges to Liberalism receded into the shadows, the internal problems (like the ones mentioned here) which had been at the margins of Liberal inquiry come to the forefront. The result is that we begin to see just how thin and brittle Enlightenment Liberalism really is.

For Kuhn, rival paradigms emerge because the "puzzle solving" resources are no longer adequate to meet the challenges of the new day. The emergence of rival paradigms during a period of "normal science" inaugurates a period of "extraordinary science." Periods of "extraordinary science" are often chaotic not only because fundamental assumptions have been called into question but also because any appeal to the "facts" will be inconclusive precisely because the interlocutors cannot agree on what the "facts" are (since to do so would require agreement on interpretative, foundational assumptions). As Fish has noted in another context, "Disagreements are not settled by the facts, but are the means by which the facts are settled."[39]

So too is it the case with regard to our contemporary discourse on religion and public life. The First Things and Baxter affairs have inaugurated a period of "extraordinary politics" with respect to discourse on church and state. In terms of the two cases before us, the commitments of the principal figures will only look incoherent or confused if one assumes that they are seeking to articulate one of the traditional agendas within American politics. Within the traditional agendas, it might seem incoherent for one to offer a vocal protest against both the pervasive abortion-rights culture and the pervasive military culture in our country. But that merely demonstrates how distorted the traditional agendas are. Both movements protest the ease with which our country condones institutions which are predicated upon the violent destruction of life. In this sense, both of these institutions contribute to what Pope John Paul II has called "a culture of death."

If, however, Baxter and Neuhaus have an altogether different objective (including different objectives--as we all know to be the case), it is quite possible that there is nothing incoherent about their actions at all. Moreover, it might be that their speech is more coherent when viewed apart from the distorting traditional labels and agendas of our "politics as usual." If such is the case, it is quite obviously beside the point that one or the other has "damaged" national conservative or liberal religious politics. I will return to this point.

Make no mistake: Baxter and Neuhaus disagree on many things. They differ with regard to national economic policy as well as national military policy. This latter difference is exemplified by their contrasting opinions on the Gulf War.[40] They perhaps differ with regard to how moral convictions inform theology (and vice versa). This alleged difference has been recently articulated by Neuhaus. In the April 1997 issue of First Things, Neuhaus offered a critique of what he took to be Baxter's use of pacifism as the lens through which Christian theology should be viewed. Even though Neuhaus acknowledges that Baxter is "philosophically and theologically light years removed from Kant," he described Baxter's approach as an instance of Kantian "religion within the limits of morality"--an interpretation which Baxter would no doubt dispute.

And yet even in Neuhaus's negative assessment of an article by Baxter, Neuhaus expressed sympathy with much of Baxter's larger critique. Indeed, in a parenthetical note, Neuhaus noted Baxter's Notre Dame woes and asserted, "the above criticisms notwithstanding, I'm on his side."[41] In the May 1997 issue of First Things, Neuhaus followed this comment with an expanded statement on Baxter's "furious dispute" at Notre Dame. And yet, as this statement also makes amply clear, their profound differences notwithstanding, both are unwavering in their fidelity to the Christian Gospel over and against a political agenda which, though it may affirm many common elements, requires the person of faith and conscience to violate both in the name of procedural rationality and democratic process. While Neuhaus cannot bring himself to emulate Baxter's embrace of Hauerwasian (for lack of a better word) "particularism," he has become a reluctant belligerent in the clash with an Enlightenment Liberalism of which his own cultural and political conservatism is part and parcel.

As a devout Christian, Neuhaus recognizes that he can have no personal religious agendas. And since Neuhaus agrees with Aristotle that politics is free persons deliberating the question "how ought we order our lives together," Neuhaus's political programme is not ultimately about propping up conservatism in general or the Religious Right in particular, though he seems pleased when the commitments coalesce. For Neuhaus, the question is one of conscience and Christian faith--but not about the creation of a mythical "Christian nation." He has reluctantly found himself in his present role, but it is a role he has not shirked.

One is reminded of that marvelous scene in the film Chariots of Fire. The young Scottish Christian Eric Liddel has refused, on grounds of principle, to race on Sunday during the 1924 Paris Olympics. Sitting in the stands with his brother-in-law on the day of race and immediately prior to its running, the brother-in-law turns to the Olympian and asks, "Any regrets?" Liddel responds, "Regrets? Yes. But no doubts."

This is the situation into which both the Supreme Court and the larger Liberal culture has placed a reluctant Richard John Neuhaus.

Two Conversations

In what follows I hope to demonstrate that the thesis about the demise of Enlightenment Liberalism as an unchallenged paradigm is warranted. I cannot attempt to substantiate my historical musings on the reasons for the decline of Liberalism or on Neuhaus's "reluctant sectarianism." About this latter observation, I may simply be mistaken; Neuhaus's May 1997 article "The Liberalism of John Paul II"[42] demonstrates the depth of the passion of his tortured soul on these questions. This article is critical not only of current defenses, which Neuhaus calls "distortions," of Liberalism (like that of Rawls and Dworkin) but also of current critiques of Liberalism (like that of Hauerwas and MacIntyre). Neuhaus is clearly calling for the Church to engage in an extraordinary politics of a sort, though he mistakenly thinks it can be achieved through the attempt to "reappropriate and rebuild the liberal tradition." Neuhaus understands this endeavor as "contending for the soul of the liberal tradition." However, to understand oneself as "contending for the soul of the liberal tradition" is already to have placed oneself against and outside of Liberalism. This "tradition," so-called, is one which denies the very idea of soul and which has lived and died on the assumption that it is not the embodiment of a tradition but rather of those neutral, self-evident realities the recognition of which is necessary to sustain a rather truncated version of human freedom in society. Neuhaus certainly recognizes this difficulty even if he thinks it might be accomplished through a reinvigorated Liberalism.

If I cannot satisfactorily address those questions, I can, however, point to evidence which demonstrates that Neuhaus and Baxter are compelled by a different agenda from that of our dominant, secular Liberal culture which has traditionally manifested itself in the Religious Right and the Religious Left. To prosecute this thesis, I want to point to two conversations, one prior to both the First Things symposium and the Baxter controversy and one culminating after it, in which the disagreements between the principals (and those closely associated with them) and the Enlightenment Liberal culture are set in bold relief.

The End of Neutrality and a Conflict of Faiths

While tensions between the supposed "Theocons" and "Neocons" have run deep for some time, the distinctions between them (as well as their connection to the Baxter affair) were obvious on at least one occasion some fourteen months before the "End of Democracy?" symposium. Himmelfarb and Neuhaus, together with James William McClendon of Fuller Theological Seminary and David Solomon (Baxter support signatory) of Notre Dame appeared on stage together at an academic symposium in Waco, Texas at the inauguration of Robert B. Sloan, the twelfth president of Baylor University.

It is not inappropriate to suggest that McClendon, noted "baptist" theologian, represents a perspective with which Baxter resonates. In fact, Baxter has spoken of his great respect for McClendon, "especially McClendon's understanding of the proclamation of the Word as shaping how we see the world. Much of my work has been an attempt to expand on that point by means of a liturgical understanding of proclaiming and reading scripture." McClendon and Baxter's now (in)famous dissertation director Hauerwas are close friends. In a festschrift for McClendon which Hauerwas co-edited, Hauerwas described McClendon as "a master craftsman" who has taught us that "in a world without foundations, all we have is the church. That such is the case is no deficiency since that is all we have ever had or could ever want."[43]

The subject of the Baylor symposium was "University, Church, and Society: Traditions in Tension," and Solomon was the moderator. Though the question of what relation the Christian should have to the University is a very different question from that of what relation the Christian should have to the government,[44] both questions address the complex issue of faith and institutional identity. Moreover, both questions are (inadequately) framed by the procedural and substantial assumptions of Enlightenment Liberalism.

McClendon spoke first on "The Baptist Idea of a University."[45] Arguing that the university has an unpaid moral debt to the church from whence it has come, McClendon suggested that this debt can only be satisfied if the university gives to society what it has been given by the church. Noting that "moral thinking attends to practices," McClendon defined "practices" as "complex traditional human endeavors, carried on by those engaging in them with a view to moral ends whose achievement justifies the practices and fulfills the lives of those so engaged." Agreeing with Jonathan Edwards that morality can express itself better in terms of "beauty" than with the metaphor of "debt," McClendon argued that by "fitly nurturing its own proper practices," the university not only discovers and progressively repays its moral debt but also answers to and corresponds with the beauty which is "the holiness of redemption, the wholeness of creation, God's holy wholeness."[46]

Himmelfarb offered an essay under the title "The Christian University: A Call to Counterrevolution." The counterrevolution, according to Himmelfarb, is the conservative attempt "to restore and revitalize the traditional academic dogma" against the postmodern dangers which threaten the university. Himmelfarb cited approvingly Matthew Arnold's definition of culture as "the best which has been thought and said in the world." This understanding of culture is important because it betrays her commitment to a supposed neutrality based on the presupposition that the "best" ideas are always the exemplification of a culture's heritage. (The best team always wins the knowledge olympics.) This notion has become problematic given the increasingly marginalized status of an Enlightenment perspective. If Enlightenment ideals are supplanted by "post-Enlightenment" (or "postmodern") ones, were they really superior? Of course, even to speak in these terms assumes that there is a standard by which one can evaluate (and rank) ideas. Enlightenment proponents (like Himmelfarb) will note that the postmodernists have not "played by the rules;" they have cheated, so to speak, thus one cannot rightfully speak of their "winning" anything.

The issue which is most important for our purposes is Himmelfarb's use of Robert Nisbet's The Degradation of the Academic Dogma. Himmelfarb explicitly points to Nisbet's use of religious terminology to describe the revolution which occurred in universities during the sixties. Himmelfarb notes, "Nisbet reminded them of the 'dogma,' as he called it, that had sustained the university for centuries: the 'faith' (again, this was his word) in reason and knowledge, in the rational, dispassionate search for truth, and in the dissemination of knowledge for the sake of knowledge."[47] Himmelfarb uses this religious terminology throughout her presentation. In speaking of the commitment of the university, she affirms, "throughout the centuries, the essential dogma--the commitment to truth, knowledge, and objectivity--remained intact." Later, Himmelfarb juxtaposes the new postmodern "unholy Trinity of race, class, and gender" with the traditional "dogma" of "truth, objectivity, and knowledge."

It is not mere coincidence that Himmelfarb should speak of the academic "dogmas" in this way. Himmelfarb's "faith" in the Enlightenment ideal is profoundly religious. In truth, the Enlightenment commitment to "the rational, dispassionate search for truth, and . . . the dissemination of knowledge for the sake of knowledge" is a kind of religion. More importantly, it is a fundamental religion which requires an absolute faithfulness since it alone possesses the capacity to adjudicate between the irrational excesses of traditional religions. As stated above, Enlightenment doctrine is not plagued by the "scandal of particularity" which consumes every historical religion. It is accessible to all and in every place. This rational religion need not necessarily deprecate traditional faiths since it is "neutral" and "dispassionate" with regard to the traditional faiths. Rather, it is "the rational, dispassionate search for truth, and . . . the dissemination of knowledge for the sake of knowledge." Fr. Neuhaus, of course, practices a different religion.

The third presentation was made by Neuhaus, and the deep tensions between Neuhaus and Himmelfarb could not have been more striking, even if on the surface they identified common enemies and celebrated common causes. Neuhaus offered "Eleven Theses"[48] on the idea of the Christian University. The former Lutheran pastor quipped that the audience "will no doubt be grateful that there are not ninety-five theses." The first thesis set Himmelfarb's faith in Enlightenment neutrality in bold relief: "There is no such thing as a university pure and simple." Unequivocally denying the neutrality thesis, Neuhaus continued: "A secular university is not a university pure and simple; it is a secular university. Secular is not a synonym for neutral."

Neuhaus's eighth thesis was "In a Christian university there is no 'role' for religion. Rather, it is within religion--more accurately, it is within the Christian understanding of reality--that everything finds its role." Neuhaus's clarifying clause ("more accurately, it is within the Christian understanding of reality") is important for two reasons. On the one hand, he is rejecting the generic account of religion in favor of a particular (i.e., a Christian) one. On the other hand, he (like McClendon here) is recognizing the comprehensive nature of the Christian commitment. Himmelfarb fails to recognize either distinction. In her presentation, she had spoken of religious universities as "respectful of religion and of the moral virtues derived from religion." Neuhaus's point is the opposite. Within a Christian university, "religion" does not occupy a respected "role" precisely because it is from within that commitment that all else finds its role.

Similarly, the Christian operating in the public square does not "respect" religion in a way in which the secularist does not. Rather, the Christian is simply a Christian. Whether he or she will be able to consent will ultimately have a material rather than a formal explanation. Himmelfarb assumes that these matters can be decided upon formal grounds; indeed, to do otherwise would violate the Enlightenment commitment to neutrality which is the formal guarantee. To place religious commitment outside of the province of the endeavor itself (whether in a respected or depreciated position) is still to domesticate religion. Himmelfarb mistakenly assumes that "being respectful of religion" will be enough. But this move already entails the privatization and trivialization of specific religious commitments.

However, for Neuhaus, McClendon, and Baxter, where the Enlightenment dogmas hold sway, there is always the possibility that the Christian will not be able to consent. In point of fact, when Enlightenment dogma is taken as the arbiter of "acceptable" religious convictions, there can never be a real "separation of church and state" because the principle itself is predicated upon the prior establishment of a particular faith, a conflicting dogma.

Robert George made this point to The Chronicle of Higher Education about the First Things symposium. George notes "Our objection is to the idea that liberalism itself is a kind of neutral playing field, as opposed to a substantive theory about human nature, destiny, and dignity. We dispute the idea that liberalism itself is a neutral view that doesn't compete with others. It certainly has the right to compete in the public square with other philosophies, but it is certainly not given any privileged position by the Constitution."[49]

Baxter and Hauerwas make a similar point about Liberalism (though not about the Constitution) in their essay "The Kingship of Christ," and it is the point which (it seems to me) Neuhaus has reluctantly come to articulate. The difference, of course, is that while Baxter and Hauerwas seem to imply that such could never be otherwise, Neuhaus wishes that such were not the case; indeed, he longs to hold the two sides in respectful tension. This is not to suggest that Neuhaus desires an equilibrium, but rather that he thinks that if the state respects the Natural Law, the areas where Christians will find a conflict of conscience will be limited. This is the hope of traditional Natural Law theory, especially as it has been articulated by Thomists like Maritain and Ralph McInerny.

Beyond Liberalism and Conservatism

If the seeds of discontent were obvious at the Baylor gathering, it is possible to see the flowering of these disagreements in the ways in which the principals have responded to the juxtaposition of Christian faith with Enlightenment Liberalism.

Time, space, and prudence do not allow for engagements and summaries of all of the many responses and critiques to the First Things symposium. In light of her comments at Baylor, however, Gertrude Himmelfarb's response to the First Things symposium is particularly illuminating and bears a closer look. To my knowledge, she has responded in print to the First Things symposium three times: her letter of resignation to First Things , a letter to The American Spectator, and her contribution to the Commentary symposium. In her letter of resignation (printed in First Things, January 1997), she expressed her agreement with the symposium participants in their conviction that the courts had overstepped their bounds, but she strongly disagreed with the notion that such a conclusion warrants questioning the legitimacy of the government. She found that it was "absurd and irresponsible" to suggest an analogy between the "revolutionary" situations of 1776 and the present day. She objected to the use of the word "regime" for such "suggests that it is not the legitimacy of a particular institution or branch of government that is at stake but the very nature of our government." For Himmelfarb, as noted above, this is not "a proper mode of political discourse." In effect, Himmelfarb is arguing not only that the legitimacy of government should not be discussed under the rubric of religious commitments and morality but also that the question of the very nature of government is not up for discussion.

Himmelfarb amplified these comments in her longer contribution to Commentary's February symposium. Here she also begins by contrasting the "Gingrich revolution" with the specter of revolution behind the First Things symposium but quickly notes that talk about "revolution" is not "a proper mode of conservative discourse or politics."[50]

In Himmelfarb's opinion, it is when the First Things editors cite the "authority of Western civilization and two papal encyclicals" that "laws which violate the moral law are null and void and must in conscience be disobeyed" that their argument becomes confused. She is quite frankly shocked and dismayed at this line of reasoning. It is understandable that Himmelfarb would be confused at this point because she is using the converse of the hermeneutical principle employed by the First Things editors. For some of them, "Western civilization" is interpreted in the light of the encyclicals; for Himmelfarb, it has to be the other way around.

But Himmelfarb misunderstands the confusion. She takes the "real issue" to be "abortion and euthanasia."[51] Himmelfarb goes on to speculate how the First Things editors would respond if the legalization of abortion had come through the legislature instead of the judiciary: "if it betokened not the 'end of democracy' but the very exercise of democracy."

Essential to the Enlightenment Liberal culture is a claim to advocacy of a procedural "come what may." Himmelfarb makes precisely this point. She writes, "If conservatives do take democracy and the Constitution seriously, if we are truly exercised by the usurpation of judicial power, we must also be prepared for the possibility that vox populi might differ from many of us on the subject of abortion."[52] Whereas Neuhaus interprets the "legal" in light of the "moral," Himmelfarb does the opposite. According to Himmelfarb, those who disagree with the properly procedural implications of democracy, "have neither the moral nor the legal right, in the name of democracy, to impose their view upon the polity, any more than the judiciary today has that right."

Surely Himmelfarb has missed the point. Neuhaus and company were arguing that until recently, the consent of the governed was not in question. Recent judicial actions have called that consent into question. Nowhere does Neuhaus (or by extension, Baxter) suggest that his view should be imposed upon the polity. His view is that the repeated violation of conscience makes the question of consent problematic.

The objective of Himmelfarb's article is to demonstrate that the First Things symposium places the delicate alliance of "economic conservatives and social conservatives, evangelicals and secularists, federalists, pro-lifers, flat-taxers, and a variety of one-issue partisans" in peril. Surely Neuhaus regrets such a consequence, but it is equally the case that such is obviously beside the point. The Theocons and Baxter have taken the positions they have on the basis of principle--not on the basis of procedural politics. Thus all the Commentary authors' complaints about how the First Things symposium hurts national conservative politics is both true and trivial. In my opinion, the symposium was never about sustaining or affirming a national conservative agenda; had it been so, it would have been the contradiction in terms which its critics lamented. More to the point, if the First Things symposium was merely about affirming a traditional conservative, political agenda, it could never have existed.

The case is even more stark with regard to Baxter. As Freddoso noted, "Baxter has forcefully articulated the position that there is an inherent tension between the demands of Christian witness and the founding principles of the American polity, with the result that Christian witness in the American context will inevitably be counter-cultural . . ." It is precisely the founding principles of this polity which Himmelfarb refuses to subject to scrutiny. According to Himmelfarb and the Neocons in general, the founding principles of the American polity are immune to scrutiny because they assume that the political and economic realms can be separated from the spiritual realm. While such a separation is entirely consistent with the culture of Enlightenment Liberalism, it is not acceptable from an historically Christian position, as recent papal encyclicals have demonstrated.

Pope John Paul II has been more than willing to subject these principles of Enlightenment Liberalism to scrutiny. John Paul II's Centesimus Annus (1991) celebrates the hundredth anniversary and follows the tradition of Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum. (It is worth remembering that it was Leo XIII and Aeterni Patris to whom Alasdair MacIntyre turned for an example of Tradition-constituted moral inquiry over and against an Enlightenment "Encyclopedia" and a Counter-Enlightenment "Genealogy" models.) Rerum Novarum challenged the Liberal notion that economics is determined exclusively by its own laws and processes. Hauerwas, in an essay entitled "In Praise of Centesimus Annus," notes that Rerum Novarum sought to undermine this alleged independence of economics by making a worker's just wage "the criterion for good economic relations. For the 'just wage' is determined by calculating what is required for the sustaining of families and children, not by the exigencies of the autonomous market."[53]

Centesimus Annus focuses on the extraordinary changes which occurred in the world in 1989, not the least of which was the collapse of the communist states and their collectivist economies. Thus while Centesimus Annus celebrates the progress and the potential of democracy over totalitarian regimes it also explicitly rejects the Neocons' assumption that economics can be separated from the spiritual realm. Noting that the "modern business economy has positive aspects," John Paul II asserts that economic activity "includes the right of freedom as well as the duty of making responsible use of freedom."[54] And later, "economic freedom is only one element of human freedom."[55] This responsible use of freedom includes a recognition of the moral character of work. "It is becoming clearer how a person's work is naturally interrelated with the work of others. More than ever, work is work with others and work for others: It is a matter of doing something for someone else."[56] There is, of course, a tension between a capitalist and a communitarian orientation here, and the capitalists have often downplayed the fact that life and work in a capitalist economy does indeed have a communally recognized spiritual dimension. John Paul II leaves no doubt where the Christian tradition stands on this matter:

Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to the person because he is a person, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity.[57]

In Evangelium Vitae (1995), John Paul II's endorsement of democracy has become even more qualified. As such, the Pope has amplified his comments by affirming that there is more to the moral life than talk about democratic and economic rights. For John Paul II, a democracy worthy of the name must recognize the value of human life.

Both Baxter and Neuhaus are responding in accordance with John Paul II's insight that Enlightenment Liberalism's regulation of difference through mere procedural rationality is not sufficient. Democracy as "a mere mechanism for regulating different and opposing interests" not a moral justification. According to John Paul II,

Gertrude Himmelfarb could never affirm this language or the ideas it expresses because it allows discussion on "the very nature of our government." Democracy could never become an empty word. And here is the final irony. An Enlightenment Liberalism which professes to be committed only to formal procedure and never material substance in the end affirms a particular substance over any and all procedural challenges. Of course, as ironies go, this one is not all that surprising.

Conclusion

What follows from these observations? The notion that the traditional labels of "left" and "right" with respect to religion and politics are now clearly inadequate seems pretty tame and rather inconsequential itself. "Okay, so the labels don't work. We'll invent new ones." But this conclusion is more problematic than it might first appear. First, what would the new labels look like? What label will we employ which adequately identifies two Catholic priests, who, though they have more in common than in difference, move in almost exactly opposite directions with respect to economic theory or the possible use of violence? Obviously, any such acceptable labels will require a new set of grounding assumptions about what kinds of agreement are essential and what kinds of disagreement are marginal. Our period of extraordinary politics demonstrates that we probably have only the barest of outlines of those assumptions at the moment.

Second, what will our political and religious discourse look like without our favorite ad hominems? Can we even imagine a state of affairs in which we abandon recourse to the convenient stereotypes of "fundamentalist" or "liberal"? (Our contemporary political discourse encourages the inevitable and speedy extension of extremist labels. Here, "right of me" quickly becomes "fundamentalist". The situation is equally grievous with regard to the left. Here, even the traditional label "liberal" is disparaged.) Depending on one's community or context, to establish that my opponent is a "fundamentalist" or a "liberal" produces the de facto conclusion that his or her opinions need not be considered. In the case of this new "f-word," it is such a mainstay of mainstream politics in this country that its mere presence as an accusation is the definitive conversation stopper and ultimate put-down. It is another whopping irony that we so-called intellectuals take so much undeserved comfort in this petty fallacy. Real fundamentalists produce plenty of genuine evidence of the challenge they pose; if we fear or reject their politics and ideology, we have ample resources without stooping to self-satisfying (and increasingly, unpersuasive) accusations.

Of course, many will be unimpressed with this assessment. To some, where one stands on the issue of abortion is ultimately all that matters in determining political identity. For these observers, because Baxter and Neuhaus both vocally oppose abortion, they are necessarily "right-wing fundamentalists," and that's all there is to it. But this is wrong-headed on several counts. First, it is now common knowledge among reflective observers that the abortion controversy pulled off the great switcheroo on politics as usual in this country. If coherence and consistency mattered to any of the principals, then the freedom-loving, "keep the government out of my affairs" conservatives should have been the proponents of abortion rights and the pro-environment, "government has the obligation to protect what can't protect itself (especially from the money-grubbing technological-industrial complex)" liberals should have been defending the rights of the fetus. Does it make sense that the spotted owl deserves the government's protection more than a human fetus? The answer may not be obvious to all, but it is certainly curious why these vulnerable groups have different defenders.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the inadequacy (and inaccuracy) of the single-issue identity determinant (particularly the issue of abortion) is more obvious now than ever. More and more pro-life Democrats and Feminists for Life are emerging precisely as an ever-more vocal minority of the Republican party seeks to eliminate the abortion plank from its platform. Could the hobgoblin of little minds be re-entering American politics? No, this is simply more evidence of the insufficiency of the traditional labels of "left" and "right."

The problem here, of course, is not just that the current labels are no longer satisfactory. The problem is that, without our labels, we increasingly recognize that we do not know how to think and talk about what it means to be a Christian in the public square. Perhaps we do not know what it means to be a Christian in the public square because we harbor such conflicting commitments about what it means to a Christian at all. Perhaps we do not know how to speak as Christians in the public square because we know so few public languages which have not been formed by Enlightenment Liberalism. We Christians must move beyond Liberalism's convenient stereotypes. We Christians must craft a new literacy if we want to remain Christians at all. A new way of thinking and speaking will not dissolve old disagreements, but it may offer us new (and old) resources for addressing the new circumstances in which we encounter those disagreements.

It is far from clear what will come from a new way of thinking and speaking about religion and politics. Even (especially?) among Christians there will continue to be tensions over many questions--from economics to national defense. Hopefully, there will be few disagreements over whether the Christian will contribute to a culture of life (in all its many and varied forms) rather than be used by a culture of death (in all its many and varied forms). Perhaps there will be more honesty, less self-delusion, better Fourth-of-July church services and sermons. There most certainly will not be a "Christian nation," a "Christian political party," or some other such nonsense; there will most assuredly be much miscommunication and failure (at least as far as our society reckons success). But perhaps there will be more integrity, less willingness to co-opt and to be co-opted by groups who do not share the Christian confession of faith. As stated above, a new model of politics will require a new set of grounding assumptions about what kinds of agreement are essential and what kinds of disagreement are marginal. The end of our convenient stereotypes does not necessarily mean the "end of democracy," but it does mean the beginning of extraordinary politics.

Notes

1First Things 67 (November 1996): 18-42.
2"The Ninth Circuit's Fatal Overreach," First Things 63 (May 1996): 13.
3"To Reclaim our Democratic Heritage," First Things 69 (January 1997): 28.
4"First Things First," National Review (November 11, 1996): 16-18.
5David Brooks, "The Right's Anti-American Temptation," The Weekly Standard, (November 11, 1996): 23-26.
6Jacob Heilbrunn, "Neocon v. Theocon," The New Republic (December 30, 1996): 20-24.
7"Neocon v. Theocon: An Exchange," The New Republic (February 3, 1997): 28-29.
8"On the Future of Conservatism," Commentary 103:2 (February 1997): 14-43. Contributors to the Commentary symposium include: Robert L. Bartley, Peter Berger, Walter Berns, William F. Buckley, Jr., Midge Decter, David Frum, Francis Fukuyama, Mark Helprin, Gertrude Himmelfarb, William Kristol, Michael Novak, Norman Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, George Wiegel, and Ruth R. Wisse.
9Joseph Blenkinsopp, "The Summer of our Discontent," Common Sense 11:1 (October 1996), 1.
10Notre Dame Faculty Senate Proceedings Minutes, September 11, 1996.
11Notre Dame Faculty Senate Resolution, December 3, 1996.
12Pamela Schaeffer, "Irish Fighting: Faculty denounces ND President," National Catholic Reporter, December 13, 1996.
13Only three signatures (Solomon, Lentricchia, and Wuthnow) appeared in The Chronicle (February 7, 1997) because of its policy of printing no more than three for any given letter. All of the signatures appeared in The Observer (February 6, 1997).
14David Burrell to NCR, excerpted by Pamela Schaeffer, January 31, 1997.
15Cited in Blakey, "Dissenting Views," p. 10.
16"Student Finds God at Notre Dame," "Is Dorothy Day's Laetare Medal in Jeopardy?" and "ND Professor defends Baxter," Houston Catholic Worker XVII:1 (Jan-Feb, 1997).
17Pamela Schaeffer, "Notre Dame Dispute May Signal a Shift: Countercultural Catholic Voice Stirs a Storm," National Catholic Reporter, January 31, 1997.
18"On the Future of Conservatism," 27.
19David Glenn, "The Schism," Lingua Franca (February 1997), 26.
20Charles W. Colson, "Kingdoms in Conflict," First Things 67 (November 1996): 35.
21Richard McBrien, Ed., HarperCollins Encylopedia of Catholicism (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 1180.
22Ibid. Schaeffer, NCR, January 31, 1997.
23Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1990).
24McBrien, 1180.
25Heilbrunn, 24.
26The Weekly Standard, (November 11, 1996): 23-26.
27Schaeffer, NCR, January 31, 1997.
28Ibid.
29Richard Rorty, "Wild Orchids and Trotsky," in Wild Orchids and Trotsky, edited by Mark Edmundson (New York: Penguin, 1994).
30Schaeffer,NCR, January 31, 1997.
31Stanley Fish, "Boutique Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals are Incapable of Thinking about Hate Speech," Critical Inquiry 23 (Winter 1997): 378.
32"Introduction," First Things (Nov 96), 20.
33Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). In many respects, I am reluctant to use Kuhn here because the notion of "paradigm shifts" has become so over-used as to be trite. Rhetorically, however, the analogy does lend itself well to the more important idea of "extraordinary politics."
34George Parkin Grant, English-Speaking Justice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985).
35Wendy Kaminer, "The Last Taboo: Why America Needs Atheism," The New Republic (October 14, 1996): 24-32.
36Richard Cohen, "When Morality Begets Violence," The Washington Post (January 23, 1997): A17.
37Jean Bethke Elsthain, "The Hard Questions: Civil Rites," The New Republic (February 24, 1997): 23.
38Stanley Fish, "Liberalism Doesn't Exist," There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, too (New York: Oxford, 1994), 134-38.
39Stanley Fish, "What Makes an Interpretation Acceptable?" Is There a Text in This Class? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 338.
40Baxter and Hauerwas affirm similar versions of pacifism. For their differences with Neuhaus on the Gulf War see Hauerwas and Neuhaus, "Pacifism, Just War, and the Gulf," First Things 13 (May 1991): 39-45.
41Neuhaus, "Religion within the Limits of Morality Alone," First Things (April 1997): 61.
42Richard John Neuhaus, "The Liberalism of John Paul II," First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.
43Stanley Hauerwas, "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord," Theology Without Foundations: Religious Practice and the Future of Theological Truth, eds. Stanley Hauerwas, Nancey Murphy, and Mark Nation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 144.
44I personally believe this distinction to be a very important one.
45James Wm. McClendon, Jr., "The Baptist Idea of a University," Unpublished presentation, Baylor University, September 15, 1995.
46Ibid, p. 3.
47Gertrude Himmelfarb, "The Christian University: A Call to Counterrevolution," First Things 59 (January 1996): 16-19.
48Richard John Neuhaus, "The Christian University: Eleven Theses," First Things 59 (January 1996): 20-22.
49Christopher Shea, "'Natural Law' Theory is at the Crux of a Nasty Intellectual Debate," The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 7, 1997): A14.
50"On the Future of Conservatism," 30.
51Ibid., 31.
52Ibid.
53Stanley Hauerwas, "In Praise of Centesimus Annus, " In Good Company: The Church as Polis (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 128.
54Centesimus Annus, 32.
55Ibid., 39.
56Ibid., 31.
57Ibid., 34.
58Evangelium Vitae, 70.
59Ibid.


Pro Ecclesia VII:1 (Winter 1998): 17-47