So says Mike Huckabee:
[Y]ou cannot have a strong economy if you have a social structure that’s falling apart. If you look at the most runaway costs of government, it’s Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid—all of which are essentially programs government designed to pick up the pieces of broken people. There was a day in our culture when families would have taken care of their family members. Two-thirds of women today who are impoverished, their children would not be in poverty if they were married to the fathers. There’s a $3 billion Dad deficit, which is the direct cost that results from absentee fathers and single parents. I know some people who are fiscal conservatives who aren’t necessarily social conservatives, and they may even be philosophically—they just don’t think it’s all that urgent. But the truth is the social conservative movement is also the foundation of the fiscal conservative movement.
I’m basically inclined to agree with this statement.
To be sure, you can cut government spending on social problems without giving any thought to those problems, letting the chips fall where they may, but I think that it’s not only politically smarter but truer and more principled to argue that limited government works best with a healthy civil society. People who aren’t embedded in happy families or viable communities are more likely to demand help from government. And unless you think (mistakenly, I might add) that you can abolish all the programs for which they’d be eligible, you’re much better off (and, more importantly, they’re much better off) working to deal with the issues that have landed them in this predicament.
This is, of course, only the beginning of the argument or inquiry. We can still debate how best to shore up the institutions that enable human flourishing. And the checks don’t necessarily have to be signed by a government employee.
February 24th, 2011 | 2:29 pm
There’s a huge gap here.
How do things Huckabee mentions relate to actual social conservative causes–like defunding Planned Parenthood, amending state constitutions to prohibit gay marriage, opposing embryonic stem cell research, opposing gays in the military, opposing affirmative action policies, etc.?
February 24th, 2011 | 3:12 pm
C. Ehrlich,
Ya keep lobbing softballs like that an’ we’re gonna think yer turning conservative yerself…
Defunding PP – a society which opposes killing children in utero, rejects ambivalence toward sex slavery, and takes the megaphone away from the you-can-have-all-the-sex-you-want-just-be-protected shills is on the journey back to a saner moral footing.
Refusing to endorse gay pseudogamy – admittedly this is less of a positive move than an attempt to keep the cracks in the dam from breaking even farther apart; still, it is an attempt to take one little step toward a healthy appreciation for stable marriages and families.
Opposing embryonic stem cell research – If a society doesn’t protect the most helpless humans, how can it be expected to stand firm for less vulnerable families, adults, and children?
Opposing gays in the military- This like the pseudogamy debate is more of an attempt to hold back the sea than to advance a positive agenda. Nevertheless, it is certainly an attempt to prevent the endorsement of destructive moral norms.
Opposing legalized discrimination – Conservatives generally believe that a moral and enduring society is one that disadvantages no one on the basis of irrelevant factors such as “race”.
February 24th, 2011 | 3:46 pm
C. Ehrlich,
I can’t claim to know the thoughts of Huckabee himself, but I feel I can give you the rational behind some of those issues, from the perspective of a “social conservative” (though I’ve been accused of being an “arch-liberal” when it comes to some issues):
1. Defunding Planned Parenthood: If not for abortion, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid would not be facing future deficits and funding crises, as the extra 42 million people in the workforce would have kept the number of workers contributing per recipient from falling as it is now. Quite simple, really.
2. Gay marriages. The government never should have gotten into the business of marrying people in the first place. Government should not, as it has in Canada, engage in unconstitutional punishment of religions for their stance on marriage.
3. Embryonic stem cell research has, to me knowledge, yet to bring about a single viable therapy, while adult stem cell research has progressed to the point as to render embryonic research essentially unnecessary. Aside from moral implications, it’s simply fiscal sense not to waste money on embryonic stem cell research.
February 24th, 2011 | 4:16 pm
Well–if you buy into the ideology–you might conclude that fiscal conservatives need to install a Federal Reserve Chairman who will make decisions based purely upon biblical faith, fasting and prayer, trusting God to provide the rest.
As we see in some of the responses above, the religious ideologue sees no gap in this line of reasoning.
February 24th, 2011 | 4:40 pm
C. Ehrlich, not at all. Such a snidely secular response belies a bitter ignorance about what constitutes a Christian worldview.
In short, no Bible-believing disciple would ever think that merely sitting around praying and fasting would get any practical job done. While those things have profound value, without attendant work, they’ll avail little economic results. “By the sweat of your brow,” etc. Haven’t you ever heard of the Puritan work ethic?
Besides that, your criticism doesn’t seem to logically follow from the points other commenters have provided. If you have substance to offer, please do so.
February 24th, 2011 | 4:55 pm
How do things Huckabee mentions relate to actual social conservative causes–like defunding Planned Parenthood, amending state constitutions to prohibit gay marriage, opposing embryonic stem cell research, opposing gays in the military, opposing affirmative action policies, etc.?
This has actually been explained – and argued – so many times, that I wonder why so many people continue to act as if an argument has never been put forward.
It is one thing to say “I have heard the arguments and they do not persuade me.”
It is another thing altogether to pretend nobody has ever offered an argument, when people are going blue in the face from offering their arguments yet again – hoping this time they’ll be addressed.
I will try to explain it really clearly:
All human beings are too weak and puny to survive outside of a social unit.
The two choices of basic social unit are “family” and “government”.
The social unit may be defined as that which has the responsibility to nurture you until maturity, provide and care for you in times of crisis or weakness, and so on. In return, the social unit claims the right to demand that you share its values and beliefs, that your behavior adheres to the social unit’s behavioral code, and so on.
There are many problems with government-as-basic social unit. These have been well documented, but the one problem that stands out enough that I must mention it specifically is that, in America (which is a large nation with many many people), so far every attempt to have government for our daddy has resulted in skyrocketing costs, because of things like corruption, the cost of bureaucracy, and so on.
The problem of course is that left wing policies rely on weakening the family.
It is a zero sum situation: either we have families, and the government is limited to the role of “safety net” – or we have government for our daddy, in which case government must appropriate all the rights as well as all the responsibilities.
In other words, the problem with government-as-Daddy is the Borg (resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!) is that government does not know how to spend money wisely. It pays Big Sister way too much to do her chores, and it gives Little Sister an increase in her allowance every time Little Sister goes and has another illegitimate baby (babies cost money, you know).
So those of us who know how to be part of a good family really do not see any advantage in promoting rules that transfer power and rights from our family to Daddy Government. That’s where the whole “personal responsibility” comes in.
February 24th, 2011 | 4:55 pm
C. Ehrlich,
Well, other posters composed their responses before I did. I couldn’t help noticing that – your brief diversionary complaint notwithstanding – the posters responded to your actual bullet points.
I suspect you’ve been on these boards enough to have heard the arguments before – but you just don’t agree with them. That’s fair – but your “I don’t get it” comment is less than convincing.
Especially taking the first point on your list. Given Planned Parenthood’s recent history, I think you’ll find honest debaters across the entire social/political spectrum re-evaluating their unequivocal support of PP as an organization ‘just dedicated to helping women.’ You’ll find them looking at you a little askance if you plan to claim no link between the actions of this organization both locally and nationally, and the social and economic fabric of which it’s a part. I’m surprised to see you place opposition to defunding it at the top of your list.
When an organization spreads throughout a country’s youth culture the idea that the profound human experience of sexual intimacy really *doesn’t* need to have any consequences at all, one might expect that culture’s ability to make family commitments and stick with them to atrophy.
One might further expect this diminishing of any sense of ‘finality’ from one’s actions to affect as well one’s other decisions in life. Their sense of long-term careers, investment and retirement planning, for example.
When the same organization fights tooth and nail to insure that in *this* arena alone, parents should be completely carved away legally and in the court of popular public opinion from having any say in the matter of their minor children’s decisions, you might expect there to be a further shattering of the family structure in other ways. Can you think of a way this might be tied to economic health?
But maybe it just all comes down to math. Since 1973 our country has removed in excess of 50 million citizens from the tax base. Which is something like an eighth of our total population. Please don’t tell me that all 50 million, over four decades, would have been a drag on society.
Or maybe it’s economically good news that our population growth is below the replenishment line. An interesting website, this:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
February 24th, 2011 | 6:27 pm
“Fiscal Conservatism needs Social Conservatism”
Since when is this news to anyone?
February 24th, 2011 | 6:29 pm
There’s a real temptation developing to overemphasize fiscal conservatism and drop the socially conservative planks of the Republican Party.
Notwithstanding those who don’t get Huckabee’s point, most of whom won’t vote Republican in any case: If the Republicans throw social conservatism overboard, they lose in 2012.
Those of us who were part of any electoral success the Republicans have had in the past 20 years understand this.
February 24th, 2011 | 7:17 pm
Actually, one limited government conservatism to enable both social and fiscal conservatism. Expansive government has the ability to mold society according to its own whim. To do so, it must spend excessively to finance its own initiatives.
If I had to choose, I would say fiscal conservatism enables social conservatism more than social conservatism enables fiscal conservatism, since social conservatives can always find excuses for government intervention in areas it believes proper. On the other hand, fiscal conservatism systematically reduces the impact of government by starving it of resources. That, in turn, renders government incapable of intrusive interventions in the private sphere, where it does the most damage in reshaping sociaty.
February 24th, 2011 | 7:56 pm
Problem is that government can do little about the things social conservatives want. By the time it hits the policy level it’s too late: it’s ingrained into the popular psyche.
So you get the sense of trying to stop a tide. You need more revivalists or popular culture makers rather than politicians.
February 24th, 2011 | 8:27 pm
The problem with Huckabee’s analysis is that he has misidentified the sources of the various diseases affecting us. He’s right that entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) are a large part of the problem, but he needs to add the defense budget as well.
The way to cut the cost of entitlements is to create jobs that pay well enough to support families. The wealth of the middle class doubled between 1945-1975, but since then, the wealthy have grown even richer, and the working and middle classes have watched their earnings erode even as their productivity rose.
Since Reagan took office, the average household income for 99% of Americans before taxes has remained roughly flat while that of the wealthiest 1% has almost quadrupled. After taxes, the share of income of 80% of us has declined, while the share of the top 20% has risen by 25% and the share of the top 1% has surged 120%.
Fixing this problem will take a new industrial, manufacturing, banking, financial, and educational policies, which will mean not limited government but smarter government, one that works with business, unions, churches, and families. The prosperity arose across the nineteenth century and then blossomed in the mid-twentieth century was the result not of “limited” government but of smart government. Even during the laissez-faire era, government was involved, often in bad ways but also sometimes in good ways.
Smart social policies will be required, but they’re not the starting point. Not by a long shot.
February 24th, 2011 | 10:42 pm
We interrupt this discussion for a brief message from Hunter Baker.
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2011/02/a-useful-idea-for-commenters-to-consider/
Wonder if he had anyone in mind?
February 24th, 2011 | 10:59 pm
And “Defense Conservatism” will ruin them both, since there’s nothing conservative or realistic about it, just a desire to impose a version of Americanism that is leftist in nature on a world for whom it is unintelligible.
February 25th, 2011 | 7:53 am
“And “Defense Conservatism” will ruin them both, since there’s nothing conservative or realistic about it, just a desire to impose a version of Americanism that is leftist in nature on a world for whom it is unintelligible.”
Matt seems like another person who is not aware either of the benefits that American military superiority brings both to the United States and the world, or how little the United States actually spends on defense in return for the commitments it must fulfill if Matt is to enjoy both security and prosperity.
February 25th, 2011 | 9:26 am
“Fixing this problem will take a new industrial, manufacturing, banking, financial, and educational policies, which will mean not limited government but smarter government, one that works with business, unions, churches, and families.”
Every problem began as a solution. Remember this, Michael–it is the beginning of wisdom. Whenever you feel the need to rush in to fix something, sit down, put on a cold compress and wait for the urge to pass.
February 25th, 2011 | 9:53 am
Of the programs he mentioned, are Social Security and Medicare, in particular, “essentially programs government designed to pick up the pieces of broken people.” Is that true? Perhaps, if your definition of broken people includes the elderly and the retired.
Was there a day in our culture when when family would take care of their family members? I think Governor Huckabee must be remembering a utopia that didn’t exist. I’ll go back and check some of the history, but I thought there was quite a bit of elder poverty when Social Security came into existence. Were families able to pay for the costs of healthcare for their parents and grandparents before Medicare?
I think when Governor Huckabee paints all government programs with a negative brush, he loses some reasonable people when he gets to the point of his argument that actually makes sense – his comments on the “Dad deficit” and how this deficit results in able-bodied individuals and families looking to the closest thing they know to a dad, an generous relative named Uncle Sam.
February 25th, 2011 | 10:15 am
Just remember that the first government-run pension plan was established by Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who was pretty transparent in his objectives: he wanted to make the workers and the middle class utterly dependent on the state for their well being in old age, on the assumption that they would not then rebel against their only means of support.
Those who think that government should pick up the tab for health care must needs think of the ramifications: once government pays for health care, it has a “compelling interest” in keeping you healthy (because that reduces its costs), which then allows the government to micromanage what you eat, what you drink, what you do, and even what you think (there are many in the “helping professions” who believe that religious faith is a kind of mental illness).
If you want to open this Pandora’s Box, do so at your peril.
February 25th, 2011 | 10:21 am
“2. Gay marriages. The government never should have gotten into the business of marrying people in the first place. Government should not, as it has in Canada, engage in unconstitutional punishment of religions for their stance on marriage.”
Actually, it is the Church that never should have gotten into the business of “marrying” people. In Western civilization, marriage has always been a contractual relationship between a man and a woman concerning the generation of progeny and the disposition of property. The state DOES have a vested interest in that–it needs stable families to produce the next generation of tax paying, military serving citizens, without which the state collapses; it also needs an orderly transfer of property from one generation to the next. Marriage as a legal construct is how that is accomplished.
The Church, on the other hand, has a purely sacramental interest in marriage. In fact, the Church did not really begin to involve itself with the legal and social aspects of marriage until the 9th century, when the Roman Empire ceded responsibility for the administration of marriage to the state.
If the Church stopped acting as a deputed magistrate of the state in the execution of marriage licenses (“By the power vested in me, by the State of ____”. . . ), then it could ignore the entire issue of gay marriage, divorce, remarriage, etc., and focus on bearing witness to its own teaching about the sacramental nature of the marital bond.
February 25th, 2011 | 10:24 am
“There’s a real temptation developing to overemphasize fiscal conservatism and drop the socially conservative planks of the Republican Party.”
I have no problem with that, because true fiscal conservatism makes it impossible for government to impose a socially progressive agenda upon the rest of us.
On the other hand, social conservatives seem to think government can solve social problems–which is precisely what liberals believe. Flip sides of the same coin, only the definition of the problems and the nature of the solutions to be imposed differ between them.
February 25th, 2011 | 11:02 am
Stuart Koehl, I’m a bit confused concerning your thoughts on marriage, Church, and State. In part of the post you say the Church never should’ve gotten involved in marriage, but at the end you say it should “focus on the sacramental nature of the marital bond”.
In my mind, those statements of yours appear to contradict each other. Focusing on the sacrament of marriage is exactly what the Church is doing and has done.
I dispute your claim that the Church didn’t get involved in marriage until the 9th century. The roots for faith involvement go back to the Law of Moses, and Jesus makes God’s stance on the matter very clear, in today’s gospel reading no less (Mark 10:1-12). The lore surrounding St. Valentine, who was reputedly killed for performing marriages in defiance of the Roman Emperor’s ban on them is but one of many proofs the Church concerned herself with marriage from Her earliest days–even when it brought priests into conflict with the State.
For a committed Christian, who wishes to be faithful to all the teachings of Christ, one has to support marriage between a man and woman only (as He says God intended it to be), and highly discourage divorce.
That said, if some other faith is going to choose to marry Adam & Steve, I’m not going to ban them, though I will speak out against it. The moment the government says my faith has to violate its teachings and perform that ceremony, however, is the moment religious freedom is gone and it’s time for (if necessary) armed revolution against a tyrannical regime.
February 25th, 2011 | 11:06 am
Hence my earlier statement that the government ought not be involved in recognizing or regulating marriages at all. Too many problems arise with such “all or nothing” political policy.
February 25th, 2011 | 1:08 pm
Actually, it is the Church that never should have gotten into the business of “marrying” people. In Western civilization, marriage has always been a contractual relationship between a man and a woman concerning the generation of progeny and the disposition of property. The state DOES have a vested interest in that–it needs stable families to produce the next generation of tax paying, military serving citizens, without which the state collapses; it also needs an orderly transfer of property from one generation to the next. Marriage as a legal construct is how that is accomplished.
That is what is really at dispute.
Will families continue to be defined by kinship, with exceptions being only when an accident or crisis makes it in the best interests of the child to sever the familial bond?
Or will we change the basic rules of what constitutes a family, so that people are related to whatever they feel like being related to – with the old kinship preferences being declared “bigoted” (how dare you prefer people who actually cluster according to real blood bonds? Those rules suggest that the woman I hired to make my baby with is my child’s real mother, which makes my partner feel bad!”.
It isn’t a matter of live and let live, with each preferring his own way. The crucial bone of contention is the recognition of a gay couple as being the same in kind as a procreative couple.
This would fundamentally change the rules of procreation.
Right now, all 50 states recognize that a child has a right to a relationship with both natural mother and father, with exceptions being ruled entirely by the “child’s best interest” (and a judge being the only one who can sever the tie).
If gay marriage passes, those rules change. A child no longer has a legal right to a relationship with his natural parents, because we’ve elevated the rights of the parents over the “child’s best interest” standard.
If an infertile man’s wife uses some stranger on the street to get pregnant by, the infertile man is presumed the father because the wife and/or the couple committed an act of fraud. There are two victims of this fraud – the child and the stranger who now has a child.
If gay marriage passes, what is currently a fraud will be sanctioned by the state: it will be a gay man or woman’s legal right to engage in whatever activities are necessary to accommodate this couple’s desire to “pass for procreative”.
Their desire to pretend to be like real families will be the top priority – justifying all sorts of “lesser” violations in the name of “equality”. Don’t like being forced to change your beliefs according to what makes them feel “affirmed”? Too bad – truth and honesty are now lesser values, and if you’re told to lie, you’d better be prepared to lie, because equality is now about making sure everyone feels “equally accepted’ or “equally respected” or something – except, of course, for the discarded people who were used to make babies (they’re not equal, they’re just trash – if they’re lucky they’ll get some coins tossed at them). And of course the child of the union is not equal – he’s just a thing to be bought and sold, and he’ll be happy when he’s told, like a good little prop.
And of course when these gay couples break up, we’ll see exactly what we’re already seeing in at least one notable lesbian custody case: “Why should someone who isn’t actually related to my child at all get custody rights? I mean – it was okay to play at make-believe when we’re together, but why is this person still hanging on to a child who isn’t at all related to her?”
And one has to ask, what at this point is the benefit to that child, of being granted the right to continue to be the child of “lesbian parents”, under the circumstances? The benefit appears to be entirely about the lesbian’s rights, at the expense of rather than because of the child’s best interest.
February 25th, 2011 | 2:03 pm
“Stuart Koehl, I’m a bit confused concerning your thoughts on marriage, Church, and State. In part of the post you say the Church never should’ve gotten involved in marriage, but at the end you say it should “focus on the sacramental nature of the marital bond”.”
The Church should never have gotten involved in the legal/contractual aspects of marriage. In the pre-Constantinian era, Church marriages had no legal standing, as Tertullian pointed out in one of his apologetic works: “We Christians love our women more than you Romans who call your women wives”. Even after Christianity became a licit religion under Constantine, only civil marriages had legal standing. It was well into the sixth century that a Church marriage became just ONE of the criteria used to determine if a legal union existed. The Church did not begin to concern itself with the legal aspects of marriage until the Emperor Leo VI abolished civil marriage altogether and gave the entire mess to the bishops to manage.
“The lore surrounding St. Valentine, who was reputedly killed for performing marriages in defiance of the Roman Emperor’s ban on them is but one of many proofs the Church concerned herself with marriage from Her earliest days–even when it brought priests into conflict with the State.”
Your example proves my point: If Valentine was performing marriages, they were illicit because the Church had no legal standing (the Church itself was also illicit, but there is it). The situation in late antiquity was much the same as that which pertains in many European countries: one must first obtain a civil marriage from a secular magistrate, then go to the church for a sacramental marriage.
It was for that reason that the early Church did not involve itself in matters such as divorce and remarriage. The universal Tradition in both East and West upheld marriage as a once-in-a-lifetime sacrament, so the Church did not recognize divorce and did not perform second marriages for any reason whatsoever.
The Tradition in the West gradually evolved to see marriage as a life contract terminated at the death of one of the spouses, while prohibiting remarriage as long as both of the spouses lived. In the East, the Church did not perform second marriages at all as a matter of principle, but as a matter of oikonomia (concession to human weakness) would work to reconcile the remarried with the Church through prayer, fasting and temporary excommunication (typically 2-5 years); it also, following the admonition of St. Basil the Great, refused to recognize any more than three marriages in a lifetime.
When the Emperor Leo VI (who, ironically, was excommunicated by the Church of Constantinople for contracting a fourth marriage, a decision he ended up appealing to the Pope) abolished civil marriage, the Church was forced to concern itself with the legal and social ramifications of marriage, including divorce and remarriage. It was only then that the Eastern Churches began performing second marriages through a non-sacramental rite called, simply, “Remarriage”, as a way in which to uphold the indissoluability of sacramental marriage while also dealing with the realities of marriage as a human institution.
“The roots for faith involvement go back to the Law of Moses, and Jesus makes God’s stance on the matter very clear, in today’s gospel reading no less (Mark 10:1-12).”
Be very clear: marriage under the Old Covenant had a very different purpose than under the New Covenant, being principally concerned with obtaining vicarious immortality through progeny (hence the importance of begetting children and the rite of the levirate to continue the family line). Christian marriage is a sacrament, a typos of the relationship between Christ and the Church, and has no worldly purpose.
February 25th, 2011 | 2:08 pm
“Will families continue to be defined by kinship, with exceptions being only when an accident or crisis makes it in the best interests of the child to sever the familial bond?”
Only kinship bonds have proven stable and durable enough to ensure for the greatest number a secure environment for the raising of children. That is why, throughout all of history, in all places and at all times, marriage has always been defined as a union between a man and a woman (sometimes more than one),but never as a union of two people of the same sex. Even cultures that were tolerant of homosexuality did not extend the name, let alone the legal perquisites of marriage to same-sex unions. One can deduce, therefore, that marriage is an organic element of human nature, rather than a social construct; as such, it cannot be amended to fit passing social fancies. Gay marriage is, therefore, an oxymoron, because marriage by its natural definition is a union of man and woman.
February 25th, 2011 | 2:15 pm
Some time ago, in the British House of Commons, a member was reflecting nostalgically on the days when the elderly were cared for by their families.
It was pointed out to him that 25% of women in the 45-55 age range are childless and that this pattern is being repeated across the developed world
February 25th, 2011 | 2:45 pm
“To be sure, you can cut government spending on social problems without giving any thought to those problems, letting the chips fall where they may, but I think that it’s not only politically smarter but truer and more principled to argue that limited government works best with a healthy civil society.”
When did we have a healthy civil society? The programs came in to existence because, senior citizens did not want to rely on their children in their old age, mothers did not want to be stuck in a marriage they didn’t like and most everyone wanted sex without consequences.
We will only get a healthy civil society when we give up sin. The question is, does our government go bankrupt alleviating the consequences of our continued rebellion?
February 25th, 2011 | 2:58 pm
“It was pointed out to him that 25% of women in the 45-55 age range are childless and that this pattern is being repeated across the developed world”
Largely because it is assumed the state will look out for them in their decrepitude. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
February 25th, 2011 | 4:55 pm
Stuart,
I appreciate your response, and the historical precedents you cite. However, I still disagree with the apparent implications of what you’re saying. I also think we may be operating out of different definitions, concerning what, exactly, a sacrament is, and how it fits into human society and the order of the world.
When you say, “Christian marriage is a sacrament, a typos of the relationship between Christ and the Church, and has no worldly purpose,” I get very uneasy. I of course agree that the covenant between husband, wife, and God is to resemble and point to the life of the Trinity.
My unease arises from what appears to me to be a dangerous bifurcation between this life and the next–something Christ was quite adamant we could not do (“The Kingdom of Heaven is here among you…”).
I would also point out that what you seem to say contradicts revelation through Christ. You say marriage has no worldly purpose, but Christ said marriage did not manifest itself in heaven, for “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” [Matt. 22:30]
This would seem to suggest marriage’s purpose is primarily expressed in this world, though Biblically it’s very clear God created it for our good.
The sacraments are gifts of God precisely FOR this life, in order to ensure we get to the next. Their purpose is worldly (to be comfort and presence of Christ in our Fallen world), but also otherworldly. One could say their trajectory is oriented to heaven, though most/all of what they do for us takes place here, in the world. Kind of like a cannon shooting skyward, with the aim of escaping sin’s gravity permanently.
In a very real sense, sacramental life is superior to life that is merely civil/legal. And it does make demands on those things that are merely of this world. If the sacramental does not change how we live in this life, what purpose does it have? Is such an expression of our faith “in vain”?
No. Christians were not mistaken in recognizing that the Sacramental nature of marriage itself meant there were legal consequences. That is why Tertullian said Christian husbands were better than pagan ones–the Christian husband willingly did for love what a Roman was forced to do by social or legal convention (arranged marriages).
Some may rightly say that the Church has allowed marriages that fell into the pattern of arrangement and compulsion, and that marriage has not proven an immunization against infidelity.
This takes nothing away from its sacramental power, it merely highlights the reality of sin and the need for Christ.
As to the Old Covenant, while “concern with obtaining vicarious immortality through progeny” was an element to marriage, I do not agree that it was the principal element. Were that claim true, men would have been allowed to divorce women who did not provide offspring, a la Henry VIII, and polygamy would have remained the norm rather than falling away or being noted as a sin particular to Israel’s kings.
We see no such thing, but rather an emphasis on the fidelity to the wife even amidst barrenness (see the various Wisdom books, Zechariah and Elizabeth, Abraham and Sarah, etc.). Why all the praises of a good wife as “a treasure from God” if it’s only about babies?
Besides, there was a much more pressing, one might say “worldly”, imperative behind having progeny. To hear God tell it through the prophets, it was because of His concern for the “orphan and the widow”. You had children because the children would “honor thy father and mother” in old age (i.e. provide for their material well-being), and because they were gifts from God. Men frequently died before the wife, and the world was patriarchal. A loving husband wanted male offspring to protect his wife from the unscrupulous when he passed.
So do we have “vicarious immortality”, worldly practicality, or a blending of various motivations and truths? I rather think it’s the latter option, and awfully hard and dangerous to disentangle God and marriage from all this other stuff of human community. Far be it that the Church should surrender marriage. That would seem to be a chilling contradiction to Christ’s inauguration of His ministry (with the miracle at the Wedding of Cana, of course).
February 25th, 2011 | 7:50 pm
“When you say, “Christian marriage is a sacrament, a typos of the relationship between Christ and the Church, and has no worldly purpose,” I get very uneasy. I of course agree that the covenant between husband, wife, and God is to resemble and point to the life of the Trinity.”
I think it fair to say that as a person who follows the Orthodox Christian Tradition, I present the Orthodox understanding of marriage, within its proper historical context. That the early Church in the West and the early Church in the East shared a common Tradition is simply an historical fact. I make no judgment about the Western Tradition regarding marriage, merely recount where it differs from that of the East.
If you want the full treatment, I recommend Fr. John Meyendorff’s “Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective” (SVS Books).
February 26th, 2011 | 7:32 am
Artaban & Stuart Koehl
The law and discipline surrounding Christian marriage developed in the context of Roman Law, which treated marriage as a formless, consensual contract, with the public authorities playing no rôle in its formation or dissolution. Some jurists regarded “deductio in domum,” leading the bride to her husband’s house as indispensible evidence of marriage, but that is by the by. There were ceremonies by which the bride passed into her husband’s power, but these were obsolete in the 1st century and free marriage, where she did not, was universal, except between patron and freedwoman. The charming custom, still found in French villages, where the bridegroom escorts the bride from her home to the church (the Lord’s house) on foot, accompanied by the wedding guests, may be a survival of this. In the West, it was only the decree Tametsi, of the Council of Trent in 1563 that made marriage before a priest and two witnesses essential to validity. Civil formalities were unknown.
Marriage could be dissolved by simple repudiation and so strongly was this rooted in Roman legal thought that the legislation of the Christian Emperors, from Constantine to Justinian, while it penalised divorce, in all but a handful of cases, still held that such repudiation terminated the contract.
It is clear that, from very early times, as a glance at Gratian’s Decretals will show, the Church enforced the obligations of marriage by spiritual censures. In the Dark Ages, often enough, the collapse of civic life gave the bishop a virtual monopoly of jurisdiction. By the 11th century, a considerable body of canonical jurisprudence had developed and was being administered by professionally-trained ecclesiastical judges.
Inevitably, conflicts of jurisdiction arose between Church and State, with the Church claiming exclusive jurisdiction over the question of marriage or no marriage and with the state claiming exclusive jurisdiction over the civil incidents of marriage.
Mandatory civil marriage came in with the French Revolution, duly found its way into the Code Civil (the Code Napoléon) of 1804, and, thence, over much of Europe. To conduct a religious marriage for a couple not already legally married is criminal (Code Pénal Art 433-21)
In France, civil divorce was introduced in 1792, abolished in 1816, with the Restoration of the Boubons and reintroduced in 1884. Nevertheless, in countries like Italy and Spain, the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts Christian over the question of marriage was secured by Concordats, until the middle of the 20th century, thus precluding civil divorce.
February 26th, 2011 | 4:49 pm
Thank you, Michael. This is an excellent precis of the evolution of the church-state relationship regarding marriage in the Catholic countries of Western Europe.
Among the Protestant states, the established church became, either de facto or de juris, an arm of the government (e.g., the King or Queen of the United Kingdom is head of the Church of England), which makes the distinction meaningless. Thus, the various state Churches of Scandinavia have been pretty much powerless to resist the push for a whole host of state-sponsored radical innovations, whether it is the ordination of women or the celebration of same sex marriages. Of course, in these countries, the issue is more or less moot, because church attendance is in the mid-single figures at best.
The same situation pertained in Russia from the time of Peter the Great until the Bolshevik Revolution. Peter, great admirer of the German Protestant states, decided to follow their model of church administration by abolishing the Patriarchate and establishing in its place the “Holy Synod”, which was a department of the Russian civil service, often headed by a secular noble (in 1917, the actual head of the Russian Church was a cavalry general). The Bolsheviks, being officially atheistic, abolished Church marriage and required everyone to obtain a civil marriage; those who then went to a Church wedding usually suffered severe social, economic or legal penalties. I do not know if the Russian Federation has reinstated the role of the Church in regulating marriage. I suspect it has not done so.
My experience in several former Soviet states of Eastern and Central Europe show a similar system in place: in Romania, for instance, couples get married before a magistrate, then go to Church for Crowning.
I’m actually quite comfortable with the Church being disentangled from the legal and political aspects of marriage.
February 26th, 2011 | 8:29 pm
Stuart,
“Every problem began as a solution. Remember this, Michael–it is the beginning of wisdom. Whenever you feel the need to rush in to fix something, sit down, put on a cold compress and wait for the urge to pass.”
Nice cliché. Keep whistling.
February 27th, 2011 | 5:11 am
Stuart
Thank you for your kind appreciation and your summary of the historical position in the protestant and orthodox states. I would only add that, in churches of the Calvinist tradition, there was a conscious revival of the strict enforcement of church discipline in the “external forum,” as Catholics call it, by ministers and ruling elders, with excommunications and public penance.
It was precisely because the Roman state did not concern itself with the relations between husband and wife, that the Christian church could develop and enforce its own moral and sacramental discipline unhindered. In the Civil Law, the right of repudium and the rule that any donations between husband and wife were void and recoverable by the parties, their heirs and creditors meant that the State had no reason to involve itself in matters of divorce, separation, child custody (children being in the patria potestas of their father or grandfather) or maintenance (there was no mutual right of support). In that sense, Family Law, as we understand it, is a creation of the Canon Law.
February 27th, 2011 | 12:26 pm
“Nice cliché.”
Cliches get to be cliches for a very good reason, Michael: the reflect a fundamental truth.
February 27th, 2011 | 2:28 pm
Mr. Koehl might consider expanding his thesis into a book length meditation on trite and hackneyed expressions. Here’s some cliches he might start with:
“Turn your frown upside down.”
“dead as a doornail.”
“another day, another dollar”
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
I so eagerly await the “fundamental” truths Mr. Koehl will extract!
February 28th, 2011 | 6:23 am
Mr. Erlich needs to learn the difference between an aphorism and a cliche. As for trite and hackneyed, I leave that to Mr. Ehrlich, who is far more adept than I.
February 28th, 2011 | 6:48 am
“In that sense, Family Law, as we understand it, is a creation of the Canon Law.”
That may be the case in the West, where the decline of centralized secular authority in the 5th century created a vacuum, but in the East, the empire continued to administer the law, and both the Codices Theodosianus and Justinianus governed marriage, drawing upon earlier Roman law, Christianized to some extent through the influence of disciplinary canons which were given force of law within the Eastern Empire. Thus, civil law governed the criteria for valid marriage, including consent, consanguinity and existence of preexisting contracts (which included betrothals), grounds for divorce (strictly limited under the Christian Empire), disposition of property and children, rights of widows and divorcees (e.g., protection of dowries) and so forth.
As recounted by John Meyendorff, in his book “Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective”, until the 9th century the Church did not directly concern itself with any of the social ramifications of marriage and divorce. It taught what it taught, allowing the state to handle the mundane aspects, and focused its effort on dealing with the after effects of a failed marriage or the death of a spouse.
In contrast to how the doctrine of marriage evolved in the West, the Eastern Churches continued to hold to the ancient doctrine of the absolute indissoluability of marriage as a sacrament that perdured beyond the grave. Since there could be just one sacramental marriage in a lifetime, the Church did not perform “second marriages”, either of divorcees or widowers. Instead, as I noted, such persons had to procure a civil divorce, and any person wanting to remarry would have to do so in a civil ceremony.
Only after Emperor Leo VI dumped responsibility for all aspects of marriage onto the Church did the Orthodox Church develop a “Rite of Second Marriage”, which was not sacramental, had a definitely somber and penitential tone, and which required the parties to abstain from communion for a period of three years for a second marriage and five years for a third; fourth marriages were prohibited in accordance with the canons of St. Basil the Great. This is the canonical discipline of the Orthodox Church to this day.
After the Fall of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Constantinople was made leader of the “Rhum Milet” under the Ottoman Sultan. Thus, he was both civil and spiritual leader (in theory) of all Christians under Ottoman rule. Orthodox marriage regulations thus took on the aspect of civil law as well, albeit modified by the Ottoman laws of marriage (derived in part from Sharia), which (a) prohibited the marriage of Muslim women to Christian men; but (b) otherwise required the wife to take the religion of her husband; and (c) required children to be raised in the faith of their father. These laws still govern marriage in the Muslim states of the Middle East (as a member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, this has particular interest to me).
The Kyivan Rus’ received Byzantine culture and Christianity as a turnkey operation after the conversion of St. Vladimir in 895. So, they, too, followed the Byzantine marriage regulations, though ruling princes often interfered in their application when it inconvenienced them. In the Slavic lands, therefore, the Church did control all aspects of marriage until the time of Peter the Great, who, as I indicated, reorganized the Church along the lines of the Protestant national churches of Germany, in which Church and state were essentially indistinguishable, since the former was a part of the latter.
February 28th, 2011 | 12:11 pm
Mr. Koehl,
Please disregard any comments by C. Ehrlich. Your thoughts are eminently more cogent and worthwhile–even as cliches–than his weak “ad hominem” blatherings.
I’ve found the discussion quite fascinating. I do, however defer to what Christ has to say on the matter (hence my quoting of Him) before historical precedent.
February 28th, 2011 | 3:04 pm
“Cliches get to be cliches for a very good reason, Michael: the reflect a fundamental truth”
Or in this case, sloppy thinking. Thus, you see fashioning new economic policies as a “rush to fix something.” Meanwhile, you want to rush in and impose fiscal conservatism, a “solution” that would begin its own “problem.” If you’re going to think in clichés, you might employ them even to your own rash ideas.
In the meantime, the facts are clear that the last thirty years of deregulation and tax cuts have benefited the wealthy and diminished the working and middle classes.
February 28th, 2011 | 3:22 pm
“Mr. Erlich needs to learn the difference between an aphorism and a cliche.”
By the way, aphorisms and clichés belong to two different categories of analysis. An aphorism can be clichéd or fresh, while a cliché can never be fresh and can describe any number of speech-acts, aphoristic or not.
March 1st, 2011 | 10:01 am
“In the meantime, the facts are clear that the last thirty years of deregulation and tax cuts have benefited the wealthy and diminished the working and middle classes.”
Utterly untrue. You need to try actually checking your facts against the political screed of your choosing:
Capitalist reforms and deregulation led to between 500-600 million people being lifted out of poverty in the last 30 years in China alone. Since Chinese growth is so intimately coupled with the American economic system, we bear some credit too. And let’s emphasize again that such a number is nearly twice the population of the United States.
Not to mention that the number of millionaires and billionaires worldwide has expanded dramatically, over the last 30 years (there were around 10 million of them in 2007), though it fell by 2.5 million in the last 2 years (which would also seem to contradict your claim about things benefiting the wealthy).
Finally, even the source below–which is disappointed with the level of poverty alleviation–
admits there has been a 10% decline in it.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-world#WorldBanksPovertyEstimatesRevised
March 1st, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Artaban,
You’re quite right that capitalist reforms have succeeded in China. The numbers in my 2/24 post refer to the United States, which I thought was clear from the context of the conversation.
Certain forms of capitalism are very good at creating enormous wealth for some individuals. Other forms of capitalism are very good at creating wealth for the middle and working classes. In the third quarter of the twentieth century in the US, we had a model that grew the middle and working classes, but we abandoned that model under Reagan and his followers, including Clinton and Obama, and the impoverishment of both classes was the result even as the US produced more millionaires.
So if your standard of success is the production of millionaires, then stick with the policies that have guided the nation these last thirty years. But if your standard of success is a healthy middle and working class, then you’re going to have to look elsewhere.
March 1st, 2011 | 3:58 pm
Michael,
Explain again how one can link the deregulation and tax cuts of Reagan with the Clinton and Obama administrations, and financial decline?
As the son of a business owner, we’ve seen nothing but an increase in regulation and “stealth taxes” (state and government “fees”) since the Clinton years. It’s made my father want to get out of his small business. It’s convinced me never to try and found one. When 52%+ of American GDP comes from small business, and that’s also where most of the growth comes from, such increasing regulation is the economic peril, not “tax cuts and deregulation”.
Finally, as Lou Dobbs pointed out over a year ago on CNN, when the average wage of government workers is nearly double that of private sector, that’s a growth killer. You’ve got all these government regulators making big bucks and contributing very little in the way of innovation or productivity.
March 1st, 2011 | 8:07 pm
Artaban,
“Explain again how one can link the deregulation and tax cuts of Reagan with the Clinton and Obama administrations, and financial decline?”
Clinton’s major deregulation was tossing out the last remaining remnant of the Glass-Steagall Act, which enabled banks to go on the speculative spree without the necessary leverage that was in large part responsible for the Great Recession. Like Clinton, Obama figures that if Wall Street is happy everybody is happy. He’s not very concerned with Main Street, despite his rhetoric.
“As the son of a business owner, we’ve seen nothing but an increase in regulation and “stealth taxes” (state and government “fees”) since the Clinton years. It’s made my father want to get out of his small business… such increasing regulation is the economic peril, not “tax cuts and deregulation”.”
I don’t doubt it. I’ve heard the same from friends who own small businesses. In the last thirty years, both parties pay lip service to small business, but they deregulate big businesses and neglect oversight, then we get disasters like Massey and BP. Meanwhile, the states are even worse about giving breaks to big businesses and raising fees on small ones.
“when the average wage of government workers is nearly double that of private sector, that’s a growth killer. You’ve got all these government regulators making big bucks and contributing very little in the way of innovation or productivity”
I think that number is exaggerated, but government workers do get the perks that come from unions, which have dramatically disappeared in the private sector over the last thirty years. It’s true that the wages that government pays drains the public through taxes that pay for the wages, but firing a bunch of government workers today is only going to slow the recovery. The much, much bigger drain on the government is entitlement and defense spending. Those are the two that need to be focused on.
I remember being scandalized back in 1982 or so when we still feared the Japanese, and I read that the average Japanese CEO made 6 times as much as his average worker while the American CEO made 32 times as much. Then I read a Wall Street Journal article in 2003 or so saying that the American CEO now made 400 times more. I don’t think American CEOs increased their productivity or innovation that much more than they had before, but they were much better at gaming the system.
Timothy Noah ran a nice little series on the subject last year (http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026/).
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