Is there such a thing as too much freedom?

June 30th, 2008

First, a few links:

“Russian Church Stands against Human Rights”, Komersant (June 23)

“The Russian Orthodox Church refines its human rights conception in the run-up to the Bishops Council”, Russian Orthodox Representation to the European Institutions (June 23)

“Metropolitan Kirill: Caution of many Orthodox Christians speaking of human rights is justified”, Russian Orthodox Representation to the European Insitutions (June 29)

(There must be some apology for the quality of the translation of those last two; French versions are also available on their website.)

In the West, there are those among traditional Christians who long for a return to pre-modern naivete regarding the existence of God. (I’m going to be summoning up Charles Taylor here, to a degree.) They want to return to an order of things were belief in God is an unchallengable default; in a lot of ways, this is appealing when compared to modern and post-modern despair regarding the place of the human being within the world. Liberals influenced by post-modernism’s interior critique have taken this idea in a different angle: Traditional societies have a right to protect themselves from this modern disassociation (this is the intellectual current behind many defenses of Islamic terrorism). In the case of Russia, however, talking about human rights as allowing for behaviors that could undo society is rather like protesting once the cat is out of the bag. While certain aspects of public morality were still tightly controlled under the USSR, in every other way, the Russians have already been down the modern path much farther than most other peoples.

It must be remembered, however, that the “human rights” discussed here include things Americans take for granted. When we discusss, in this country, drawing a line in the sand over individual autonomy, it is usually over societal questions such as homosexual marriage or abortion. While the reaction against the Enlightenment has produced some persons here who wish the whole language of human rights and liberties would disappear altogether, this is still a small minority. While the plural of anecdote is not data, I do find it very interesting that I have seen more Ron Paul bumper stickers in Orthodox parish parking lots than those for all other candidates combined (yes, I do keep running counts), placing them in somewhat the opposite direction. And, in the interest of full-disclosure, while I’m not the bumper-sticker type, I also supported Dr. Paul’s candidacy.

I suppose what I’m asking for here is a discussion: Where should Christianity draw lines over how much freedom we believe that governments should grant persons?

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Linkblog

The Now and Not Yet of American Orthodoxy
“The America of commerce and politics can never become a missionary destination, and cannot be the aim of the Gospel”. A lot of what he says applies to more than just the Orthodox. (0)

Post-postmaterialism
There is to some extent a cultural overlap between hippies, greens and American converts to Orthodoxy that is a very small phenomenon in American society, but I think it is representative of a more general trend within socially conservative Christian churches in the rising cohort of 18-29 year olds. (1)

Ancient Sacramental Winery?
The remains of a facility seemingly used for the production of sacramental wine has been found near the monestary of St. Catherine’s in the Sinai. (0)

"A Deformed Christ"
Perry Robinson on Reformed theology, the natures of Christ & more. (0)

We may regret this later.
The City & The City are now on Facebook. (It’s a “fans” page for the blog, and another way to know when we’ve updated!) (0)

I'm the very model of a modern vicar-general
I am the very model of a modern vicar-general / I’ve information liturgical, ecclesial and clerical / I quote the Popes of Latium and councils ecumenical / From Chalcedon to Vatican, with subjects esoterical. (0)

An interview with John Milbank
expands on the themes of his letter to the Guardian from a few posts back, in his usual audacious way. (0)

Art museums remain didactic extensions of the Enlightenment
“—and the locus of a free-range aestheticism. Careful explanations are not enough to breathe life into the cultural expressions of a belief system. Christian art, a handmaiden to liturgical action, loses its transformative power when it is removed from the acts of worship—prayer or ritual performance—it was made to complement. The leveling process of aesthetic appreciation is inevitable by default.” (0)

"After all, what counts as radical is not the new, but the good."
John Milbank sounds a bit Crunchy Con-ish: “Jackie Ashley … reveals the bizarre bankruptcy of the current British left. By every traditional radical criterion New Labour has failed… But never mind all that, says Jackie Ashley and her ilk: on what crucially matters - the extending of supposed biosexual freedom and the licensing of Faustian excesses of science - it is on the side of “progress”…. Yet it is arguably just this construal of left versus right which is most novel and questionable. Is it really so obvious that permitting children to be born without fathers is progressive, or even liberal and feminist? Behind the media facade, more subtle debates over these sorts of issue do not necessarily follow obvious political or religious versus secular divides. The reality is that, after the sell-out to extreme capitalism, the left seeks ideological alibis in the shape of hostility to religion, to the family, to high culture and to the role of principled elites…. Now many of us are beginning to realise that old socialists should talk with traditionalist Tories” (on a related note, this) (0)

Speaking of cities...
I wish I could be in Rome at the beginning of September… (0)

Happy Birthday G.K. Chesterton!
“Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington…” (0)

The inhumanity of the metric system
“… even when we don’t consciously think about them, units of measurement become for us the kind of “foundational” categories through which we see the world.” (2)

Interview with Fr. Rutler
Speaking of Fr. Rutler, NLM has an interview with him. (0)

"Clip-Art Scholarship"
Paleontologist Bob Bakker continues to dissect the “new atheists” over at Laelaps. (Bakker is one of my childhood heroes, one of the figures that took me from “kid fascinated with dinosaurs” to “future geology student”, so my interest is perhaps a bit personal.) (0)

While we're on the subject...
…of Christianity and culture, Daniel Larison speaks about “Faith and Consequences” in the relation between religion and politics, in the context of a reaction to the so-called religious right. (0)

The City and the City

Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum