{"id":174,"date":"2009-07-03T13:38:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T13:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2009\/07\/03\/174\/"},"modified":"2010-05-15T14:40:50","modified_gmt":"2010-05-15T19:40:50","slug":"174","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=174","title":{"rendered":"William F Buckley and Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading the article in The Atlantic<\/a> on William F. Buckley, the classy conservative of the 60’s and 70’s. The article was written by Gary Wills, who worked for Buckley at his National Review magazine. Wills shared many of Buckley’s political and philosophical viewpoints until the late 60’s and early 70’s, when Wills could no longer defend Nixon and the Vietnam War. Wills, being a devoted Roman Catholic<\/a>, says quite a bit in his article about Buckley’s strong concern for \u201cThe Church\u201d. Buckley was a life-long Roman Catholic and a true defender of the bishops and popes, who are generally conservative themselves. <\/p>\n

This made me ponder something about how liberals and conservatives relate to the Catholic Church, especially if they are Catholics themselves. I’m no expert, but my general impression is that the liberals usually focus on Jesus. They paint a picture of Jesus as a guy much like themselves, someone who is quite progressive, someone who wants to change things, someone who wants to overcome the existing power structures and replace it with a proletariat revolution. They want to give the world to the downtrodden, to the \u201canawim\u201d(a word that is fashionable amidst the liberal Catholic set). And they figure that Jesus had much the same ideas as they did.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the conservatives don’t talk too much about Jesus. They focus more on \u201cThe Church\u201d, on its strong institutional aspects, on the role that religious tradition has played over the centuries in defending the progress of civilization. They occasionally tip their hats to Jesus (denying that he was a secular revolutionary, focusing more on his role as \u201cSon of God\u201d and personal savior), but in their hearts they look more to the popes and the monks who held Europe together during the Dark ages. What to make of this difference?<\/p>\n

First off, I myself believe that the liberals purposely avoid the whole of what we know about Jesus. The scriptures, as historical documents, make it fairly clear that Jesus was urging a momentous change to everyday life in Jewish Palestine of the First Century. And he was citing this upcoming \u201crevolution\u201d as one that would benefit the poor and disempowered, one that would cast down those who were rich and powerful (unless they heard his word and repented in preparation for the big event). Sounds pretty liberal thus far. But the method by which Jesus envisioned this change being brought about was quite different from what modern liberals would have in mind. Jesus did not arrange mass demonstrations or put forward proposals for land distribution, universal health care, or democratic constitutions. He said that God was going to take care of all of that. <\/p>\n

In that notion, the notion of God’s apocalyptic intervention into history, the liberal balloon loses some of its helium. Jesus did indeed seem to think that the problems of the world, the political injustices and economic inequalities, were too big for humans to fix. There’s no real sense in us overcoming Caesar and the Temple priests, as we will eventually become priests and Caesars ourselves. The only way to get any real change, according to Jesus, is to provoke God to come down and fix things amongst us himself (oh, Himself, sorry). He made us, He knows our nature, He drew the blueprints; so only He can set things up so that we can all live peaceful, just and fruitful lives here on earth. So how do you provoke God to do that? <\/p>\n

Jesus had a good answer: by starting to live as righteously as we know how, right away. I.e., by showing God some good faith effort. Jesus figured that if he could get enough people working on this, God would surely respond. The man from Galilee just knew in his bones that \u201cthe time is drawing near\u201d, that he was the man chosen to make it happen. He obviously figured that his crucifixion would be a really good time for God to make his (His) grand dramatic entrance. And thus Jesus went to the cross with much equanimity, as scripture tells us. But later on in the day, when the skies didn’t open up with bright lights and the angels didn’t come down to save him, Jesus started getting upset. \u201cMy God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d Yea, the plan wasn’t going to work.<\/p>\n

So, Jesus and the liberals both share the same recognition of social, political and economic injustice. However, the response of the Jesus Program to injustice is something that the conservatives do a better job of sympathizing with; i.e., personal virtue and faith in God, as opposed to collective action. In the end, it didn’t work (supporting the liberals notion that personal virtue is not enough); but it did lead through a series of historical accidents to the establishment of a strong tradition and institutional manifestation that arguably did forward the cause of a better, more civilized world (i.e., Christianity and The Church). Certainly Christianity and its Church (or cluster of churches, depending on how you wish to look at things) have harmed and killed people over the centuries; they are far from sinless. Many people (e.g. Christopher Hitchens<\/a>) argue that they have done more harm than good. But the conservatives make arguments, some quite strong in my opinion, that the overall balance does tip toward the positive side. <\/p>\n

So, the political and religious matrix between liberals, conservatives, the Catholic Church, and the legacy of Jesus, is a complicated one. Newt Gingrich’s recent conversion to Roman Catholicism seems good evidence that conservatives still like the Vatican. Interestingly, William F. Buckley’s son Christopher is a lapsed Catholic, and had some amused comments<\/a> about the Gingrich conversion (with his father’s semi-haughtiness). <\/p>\n

Another recent news item<\/a> that may be relevant regards the Vatican’s current investigation of American nuns, i.e. the many women’s religious orders in the USA. Many American nuns and their orders have maintained the social activist tradition of the 1960s (i.e., the time of the Vatican 2 enclave that seemingly brought the Catholic world in line with modernity). However, Pope Benedict seems a bit more sympathetic to the conservative notions of the Church and its worldly role, despite occasional statements about openness and justice. Some suspect that Benedict is going to put pressure on the nuns to get back to the convent, get back to prayer, and get that habit back on the head. It’s not a good time for \u201csensus fidelium\u201d (how the faithful practice their religion and respond to conscience in the modern world). This will be interesting to watch.<\/p>\n

Of course, this makes one think about the recent \u201cgreen revolution\u201d in Iran. For a few days, there seemed new hope amidst the youth in Tehran of changes; perhaps women would soon be free to walk in public without head coverings, and not face the risk of forceful retribution from the Basij or some other semi-governmental agents. For now, the winds within Iran and Rome seem to be blowing towards conservatism, towards NOT changing things (or revoking changes made within recent years).<\/p>\n

Both liberalism and conservatism, when taken too far, lead to injustices in our imperfect world of unintended, ironic consequences. Both fatalism based on leaving all in the hands of God, and activism inspired on doing God’s will, can likewise go too far. Right now, the establishments in the Vatican and in Tehran seem to be going too far towards fatalism and no change (or anti-change). Some day, they will be overcome. Let’s just hope that when the reformers’ days do come, they will themselves have the wisdom not to go too far the other way \u2013 as is always so tempting in the heat of a revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading the article in The Atlantic on William F. Buckley, the classy conservative of the 60’s and 70’s. The article was written by Gary Wills, who worked for Buckley at his National Review magazine. Wills shared many of Buckley’s political and philosophical viewpoints until the late 60’s and early 70’s, when Wills […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}