Is it wrong to speak as though favoring religious freedom and opposing slavery are basic Christian principles? Yes, says S.M. Hutchens of Touchstone, a signer of the Manhattan Declaration (henceforth ‘MD’). At the magazine’s blog Mere Comments, Hutchens criticizes MD for making what he sees as that mistake. Given that a major conference to be held next month in Albuquerque will center on the MD, it’s worth pondering Hutchen’s argument.
According to the MD, he says,
… “modern democracy,” (!) women’s suffrage, and opposition to slavery (which the scriptures do not abolish, but regulate in such a way as to discourage most of its forms), are put in the same moral category as opposition to homosexualism, abortion, and euthanasia. This admixture appears based upon the conjunction of revealed religion with the natural law as set in creation by its Creator, at the head of which is the mind of man–law which defines nature’s constitution from the physical to the structure of human society, including the general moral precepts by which it must be governed. Clearly the Declaration was composed in such a way as to be acceptable to the largest possible number of professing American Christians, but in doing this I believe it has attempted to mix the oil of Christianity with the water of popular American religion…
Surely Hutchens’ point about “modern democracy” and “women’s suffrage” has merit. For one thing, there is no single form of goverment identifiable with the former. So it cannot be said that Christianity as such, which contributed to the American founding, entails any unqualified endorsement of modern democracy. Purists will be quick to point out, for example, that the U.S. is a republic not a democracy. Moreover, the American Christians most in favor of the Revolution were Protestant dissenters from Anglicanism; such forms of Protestantism cannot be identified tout court with Christianity. But MD just does give unqualified endorsement to something called modern democracy, as though the desirability of such a thing were obvious to Christians as such. And the same criticism goesa fortiori for women’s suffrage. The very idea of suffrage, women’s or otherwise, makes sense only in the context of representative government, which MD endorses by implication. Yet if no particular form of such government is entailed, logically or in some looser sense, by the revelation in Jesus Christ, then extending the franchise cannot be so entailed either.
But when it comes to more basic values such as religous freedom and the abolition of slavery, Hutchens’s argument isn’t as cogent. Here’s what he says about the former:
Freedom of religion is not a Christian principle. It is a secular constitutional principle which, as understood and enforced in the United States, has favored the majority of religious Americans, relieving them from the burden of establishment, and giving the Republic the manifest advantages of a free religious citizenry. There is, however, another distinctly unpopular but unquestionably Christian side to the matter: The Massachusetts Puritans regarded belief that a person should be allowed the public service of whatever religion he chooses as a radical failure of charity, a license for false doctrine and social anarchy. (The generality of American Christians, provoked by the activities of groups like the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, has shown similar impatience at the limits of its own tolerance.)
One might add that the Catholic Church once thought as the “Massachusetts Puritans” did; or perhaps one should say that the latter, along with other sorts of Protestants at the time, had inherited the former’s attitude. So there might seem to be some justice in Hutchen’s point, which is that however we may conceive and value religious freedom as Americans, the idea itself is not distinctively Christian.
Surely, though, Christians of most stripes have learned from history that they cannot reasonably claim religious freedom for people who share their theology while denying it to those who don’t, or who have no theology at all. Although that might appear to be a conclusion of mere practical reason, first reached by the so-called Enlightenment, there is also a case to be made for it in terms of biblical Christianity as well as “natural law” or secular utilitarianism. John Courtney Murray, the 20th-century Jesuit who so influenced the Second Vatican Council, comes to mind. Admittedly it took Americans, both before and after the Revolution, some time to learn the needed lesson; but learn it they eventually did. As evidenced in Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, even the Catholic Church has learned it—and she had a lot more to unlearn than America’s Calvinist and Anglican colonists did. Of course there are limits to what people may do, morally as well as legally, in the name of religious liberty. And where to locate those limits is a legitimate subject of debate for loyal Christians and loyal Americans—two human sets which amply intersect. But the notion that religious freedom is not a Christian principle is based a logical mistake. From the fact that Christians took a long time to come to favor religious freedom, it does not follow that a moral obligation to respect such freedom cannot be extracted from the sources of revelation, i.e. Scripture and Tradition. To suppose it does follow is to conflate the empirical with the normative.
The same sort of problem with Hutchens’ argument can be observed in the case of slavery. Until the 16th century, the only recorded instance of any churchman or theologian, anywhere, condemning all slavery was St. Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century. And even he, a powerful bishop, didn’t order his flock to liberate their slaves. In response to the cruelties of New World slavery, which popes initially endorsed, some a few 16th-century Dominicans started questioning the morality of slavery. After that, there were a few instances when popes condemned the Atlantic slave trade for its cruelties; and in the 18th and 19th centuries, Protestant abolitionists in England and America produced theological arguments against slavery merely as such. But as late as the American Civil War, all Christendom–Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox–was divided on the question of the morality of involuntary servitude itself, as distinct from the cruelties associated with some forms of it. It wasn’t until the 20th century that a consensus developed against slavery as such, which is reflected in the statements of Vatican II, Pope John Paul II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. All that is progress not just in American or secular terms, but in Christian terms.
Theologically, the issue Hutchen’s argument raises is the “development of doctrine.” Like the soon-to-be-beatified John Henry Newman, who coined the phrase and studied what it meant, there are Christians who want to steer safely between the Scylla of fundamentalism and the Charybdis of modernism. Most of MD’s signatories may be regarded as such Christians. If, as a body, they assume the intrinsic goodness of religious freedom and the intrinsic evil of slavery, perhaps that is because the development of Christian doctrine has rightly tended in that direction—and thus steered between dangers that are theological as well as political.
July 27th, 2010 | 9:37 pm
If he disagrees with the MD, why did he sign it???
July 27th, 2010 | 11:00 pm
MD’s preamble reads, “[blockquote]Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, [i]seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny[/i], (italics mine) and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.”[/blockquote] Wow, that’s an overreaching statement if ever there was one. Granted, some Christians held those beliefs but many – too many – had enough to do staying abreast of the first and last items, and in the interests of survival were forced to give up on the middle two.
To me it looks like Hutchens has a point.
July 28th, 2010 | 12:13 am
Thank you for dealing accurately with my Mere Comments posting. Please note the opinions there are my own, and not necessarily those of my fellow Touchstone editors.
Slavery is a issue with which Christians in the public square need to take special care. Too easily modern Christians, reflecting on the manifest evils of American chattel slavery, are willing to say the church has admitted a change of mind, opening the way for arguments that it has likewise been wrong about other matters upon which enlightened opinion insists upon evangelizing it.
Accurate treatment of Judeo-Christian tradition demands, however, much more nuance than the pro or con. The Torah makes carefully governed servitude a humane response to certain social problems, and St. Paul, who calls himself a “slave of Christ Jesus,” does not instruct Philemon to emancipate his servant, but (with the heaviest pregnancy) treat him as a fellow-Christian. One simply cannot say “slavery is evil” with the Bible behind him. There must be commentary on how and when it is evil, and how and when it is an unqualified good.
In Protestantism, our development of doctrine advocates are generally called “liberals.” Newman’s idea is radically different than theirs (he disliked theological liberalism intensely)–that what comes after cannot destroy the foundation upon which it arises. If that is the case, the first question becomes whether there has in fact been a change in the church’s understanding of slavery, and then, if so, how it comports with what is found in the ancient documents.
July 28th, 2010 | 12:31 am
However much one can rightly point out Hutchins’ inconsistency, that really is shocking about “modern democracy.” How and why did they sneak that in there? Is it a sign that the real god of the Manhattan Declaration prefers to speak in English and to drive on the right-hand side of the road?
July 28th, 2010 | 2:07 am
One can not argue with a person who argues on different premises. Thus absolute freedom of religion is an untenable position. Shall we tolerate voodoo or Tantra where on fringe, children are sacrificed?
July 28th, 2010 | 11:10 am
To see why Hutchens has a legitimate point to make, I would recognize reading Robert Kraynak’s Christian Faith and Modern Democracy.
Kraynak does a very good job of demonstrating, both historically and theologically/philosophically, that Christianity is not necessarily compatible with modern liberal democracy. Throughout the book Kraynak’s tone is measured and careful, but always clear and firm.
July 28th, 2010 | 11:11 am
“Recognize”?! That should be “recommend.” I can’t recommend the book highly enough.
July 29th, 2010 | 8:39 am
Mike, you say ” In response to the cruelties of New World slavery, which popes initially endorsed, some a few 16th-century Dominicans started questioning the morality of slavery. After that, there were a few instances when popes condemned the Atlantic slave trade for its cruelties.”
Seems to me that the condemnation from the Vatican was a little earlier and a lot stronger than THAT. In 1537 in Sublimus Dei, Pope Paul III says
“which none may obtain save through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it is necessary that he should possess the nature and faculties enabling him to receive that faith; and that whoever is thus endowed should be capable of receiving that same faith. Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it….
” The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction… to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith.
” Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved…
The pope’s declaration is categorical: all peoples. And it condemns not just the cruelties of the specific slave trade, it condemns slavery itself.
July 29th, 2010 | 1:57 pm
Mr Hutchens:
Thanks for responding. Though you’re not a Catholic, your position on slavery is very similar to that of the Vatican as expressed in a Holy Office responsum of 1866. We have moved beyond that. Such a development cannot be criticized on the ground that it jettisons any irreformable precept. One would have to make the case that it simply isn’t warranted by the basic impetus of Tradition.
Best,
Mike
July 29th, 2010 | 1:59 pm
Tony:
I shall make the same recommendation to you that I made to Jeff Culbreath. Read this book: http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P00980. Then get back to me.
Best,
Mike
July 29th, 2010 | 2:05 pm
Tony, I forgot to add this (accurate) paragraph from Peter Steinfels’ review of said book:
“His exhibit A is slavery. John Paul II included slavery among matters that are ”intrinsically evil” — prohibited ”always and forever” and ”without any exception” — a violation of a universal, immutable norm. Yet slavery in some form was accepted as a fact of life in both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, in much Christian theology and in Catholic teaching well into the 19th century. Noonan says that Christianity achieved a radical transvaluation of slavery. Jesus presented himself as a slave; slaves became saints; slavery became a metaphor and model for Christian life. Yet neither Jesus nor his followers directly challenged the institution of slavery. The fathers of the church accepted the buying, selling and owning of human beings. So did the popes: Muslim slaves were manning papal galleys until 1800. So did religious orders: Jesuits in colonial Maryland owned slaves, as did nuns in Europe and Latin America. Even St. Peter Claver, who in Colombia befriended, instructed and baptized African slaves, bought slaves to serve as interpreters. Theologians challenged abuses of slaveholding but rarely the practice itself.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/books/review/22STEINFE.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
July 29th, 2010 | 5:38 pm
There will also be a major conference on the Manhattan Declaration in the SF Bay Area: http://www.sapi.org/mforum.
July 29th, 2010 | 7:30 pm
[...] Liccione writing at First Things / First Thoughts: “At the magazine’s blog Mere Comments, Hutchens criticizes [the Manhattan Declaration] for [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 8:53 pm
Mike, perhaps Noonan does the refutation for you, but I cannot debate the book here. Does he take Pope Paul III’s condemnation and parse it out to say that owning slaves is OK? Here’s the Pope, again:
“the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property,”
I think that one can admit that it speaks more fully to “peoples” rather than individuals. At least in theory, this could mean (just for example) that it is always wrong to enslave a person merely on account of his being a member of “a people”, but possibly not (necessarily) always wrong to enslave someone on account of their actions. Such as enslaving cowards who throw down their arms in battle and run away. This understanding would not have banned all slavery as such. But it would STILL have condemned the slavery that was in practice in Colombia, and Maryland, and (probably) the papal galleys, and so on. The fact that some men were ignorant of the Pope’s teaching doesn’t make the teaching not part of the Church’s heritage.
At least on this issue, I find the facts that are cited about ancient and medieval teaching about slavery not so much in CONTRAST to the modern teaching, but merely silent about it. Saying the Church reversed herself on this (on what I have seen so far) would be like saying that Newton reversed the prior understanding of calculus from the ancients. The same treatment would conclude that the Church has recently reversed her position on cloning, since she never used to condemn it. (Warning: bridge slippery when hyperbole is present, don’t slip on it.)
August 7th, 2010 | 7:43 pm
Surely the key is in the word “basic”; many things are arguably deducible from Christianity’s basic principles, and may even be important articles of the Faith without being at all foundational. To the extent these subsidiary tenets are based on these principles, they draw life from them, and express these principles in all areas of life and culture. The problem is that many things which once proceeded from Christian consciousness are now being dealt with in the context of a secular mindset radically divorced from these principles. Divorced from their proper First Principles, in which are contained the true knowledge of Man and the World, and applied to a profoundly false idea of Man and His place in the World, these things cannot but be anti-nature, and therefore unnatural, and inhuman insofar as Human nature is part of that nature with which Modernity is at war. That all Men are created equal, and should therefore not be forced into demeaning servitude is arguably a deduction from basic Christian principles, but it is not one of those principles. It is the movement of the subsidiary tenet of Freedom to the very apex of the pyramid of value that created the Satanic virtue of revolution which has led to the intricately twisted system of values currently at work in all our institutions, and that our courts rely on in their rulings. My sense is that the use of freedom in The Manhattan Declaration is more closely related to the secular understanding than the Christian one.
Having got rid of slavery is one of the things Modern Man characteristically breaks an arm patting himself on the back about, but it should be noted that it didn’t happen until machines had largely taken over the role of slavery in reducing the cost of labor. Without either slaves or labor-reducing machinery, it would probably be impossible for anyone to get really rich, because the cost of labor would be too high; this would, though, be conducive to a condition in which every workman swiftly found the path to self-sufficiency. For those who desire to live in a community composed of equal citizens, this would clearly be the most desirable state; there is, however, implanted deep in the human heart a desire to be lifted far above the reeking masses, and those who have surrendered to this unholy passion will always be at work to keep the laborer from becoming self sufficient, and will create conditions in which he is forced to work his entire life for just his bare sustenance. The weight of one person’s riches always forces his brother’s face into the mire; this is an inexorable law of the world in which we live, and something for which our Lord will hold those who have acquired great riches accountable . A slave at least has value as a domestic animal; in our system, workers are simply thrown away by their employers as soon as there is a machine to do the work more cheaply. I’m not sure we are to be so greatly congratulated for making so many formerly productive people “unemployable”, thereby making them into a kind of industrial waste.
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