Secular liberals tend to be wary of conservative political activism motivated by Christian values. But that's only part of the story of Christian political ethics. In 1985, I joined the Social Justice Committee of Montreal because I admired the work they did for the poor in Central America. The committee members rarely talked about God, though I knew many were motivated by Christian ideals. A Jesuit priest, Father Ernest Shibli, encouraged me to go to Guatemala to help “twin” churches with churches in Montreal so that the Guatamalan churches would have some measure of international protection against human rights abuses. Some of the people I met in Guatemala — including progressive nuns who devote their lives to helping the poor — were among the most admirable people I ever met. Yet they were indifferent, if not hostile, to the Pope's warnings against Christian “Marxist” activism in Central America. Obviously Christianity is a rich and diverse tradition, and this book helps to shed light on the moral and political ideals that animate Christian activists on the political left. I would strongly recommend it for anybody who wants to learn more on the topic.
The book is divided in five sections: “State and Civil Society,” “Boundaries and Justice,” “Pluralism,” “International Society,” and “War and Peace.” Each section has essays that offer different perspectives on social and political controversies, but most contributors are committed to defending the ideals of the political left: a critical perspective regarding authority, tolerance for different views, solidarity among human groups, and this-wordly concern for the poor and the downtrodden. But how can Christians defend leftist ideals within a moral framework that prioritizes attachment to a transcendental God? This book does an admirable job answering this question, though I'm still left with some doubts that might better be answered within moral frameworks more grounded in everyday morality such as early Confucianism.
John Coleman's preface outlines the tension in the founding texts of Christianity between passages that seem to justify blind obedience to political authority and those that favor more critical perspectives. In the book, however, nobody defends the former view. The first section opens with Michael Banner's essay outlining key moments in Christian reflections on civil society. Augustine famously contrasted two cities that “were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self” (p. 5), with society existing in the church. Thomas Aquinas questioned the Augustinian conception of a sharply conflictual and disjunctive social order, thus making it possible to conceive of more structures of association and cooperation in earthly society.
Coleman's chapter shows how Christian churches fought for “free spaces” in society that did not derive their legitimacy from the state, thus paving the way for more broadly conceived freedoms of speech and association in Western countries. In the post-WWII period, similar struggles between church and state took place in countries like Poland and Chile. Coleman goes to show how Christians went on to defend the “no bigger than necessary” ideal of subsidiarity, even though the ideal rests entirely on a secular warrant. The point is that Catholic thought can learn from historical wisdom and social science to enrich its own understandings. Max Stackhouse's response argues for the “federal-convenantal” ideal articulated by the Reformed tradition against the “hierarchical-subsidiarity” ideal of the Roman Catholic tradition, though it's unclear whether these differences matter much in political practice.
The next section opens with Richard Miller's essay, which argues that Christianity asserts the priority of metaphysical boundaries over geographical ones (because God is the highest good and requires our first loyalty). But he adds that human beings have an innate tendency to develop a common life and hence geographical boundaries can be justified on the instrumental grounds that they facilitate the terms of social cooperation. Still, the privileging of local solidarities should be subordinate to Christianity's call to love the neighbor, including enemies and strangers. So when boundaries — either between states or between property holders — harm the needy and the poor, there is a moral case for redistribution. Nigel Biggar questions Miller's prioritization of cosmopolitan love over national loyalty. We do have special obligations to people who cared for us because we should be grateful for the fact they cared for us. As an empirical point, we are usually better placed to serve intimates and co-nationals on account of shared language and culture and citizenship. If Jesus is reported in the Gospel as saying that only those who hate their mothers and fathers can be his disciples, such passages should be read “as hyperboles intending to relativize rather than repudiate natural loyalties” (94–5). As with the last section, it remains unclear how these different interpretations of the tradition would translate into different institutions and policies.
The next section focuses on pluralism. David Little's essay discusses the development of the Christian idea that an individual's conscience can be mistaken, which contributed to the rise of religious liberty and certain versions of ethical pluralism. James Skillen's response is interesting because it's the most socially conservative standpoint in the book. Skillen takes issue with the way Little invokes the ideal of conscientious individualism to justify liberal views on abortion and gay marriage on the grounds that the ideal cannot by itself clarify the criteria for distinguishing the types and limits of different authorities.
The section of international society opens with Max Stackhouse's somewhat polemical essay that blames secular ideologies for war and genocide and calls for theocentric religions to make common cause to promote ecological responsibility, peace, and human rights. John Coleman's response tries to move the debate away from philosophical/theological metaphysics to social policy. He argues that Catholic social thought should more directly address the challenges of globalization such as the strengths and dangers of multinational corporations.
The last section has four essays on war and peace. John Finnis argues that the Golden Rule (to love one's neighbors as oneself) can justify wars of self defense and rectification. But since only public authority can carry out just wars and states are like private persons in a world without world government, the only justifying ground for war is self-defense. Presumably Finnis would be against wars of humanitarian intervention such as the NATO intervention in Kosovo. Joseph Boyle adds that Catholic social teaching does not endorse pacifism — the claim that war is always wrong — but that it can recognize a right of conscientious objection.
Theodore Koontz's essay is more sympathetic to pacifism. He notes that pacifism was the dominant position of Christians for the first three centuries of the Christian movement (before Christianity was appropriated by the state) and that there has been an increasing number of individuals and subgroups within nonpacifist denominations who are pacifists. But Koontz shies away from unconditional pacifism, noting that abolitionists were willing to sanction war if war was seen as necessary to end war. Michael Cartwright responds that Koontz exaggerates the contrast between Christian nonviolence and just war thinking, but it remains unclear whether these different views on war and peace would lead to different judgments in particular cases.
So there's a lot to learn about the diversity of Christian political ethics in this book. Most contributors would be identified as politically progressive, but there is substantial disagreement even within the Christian left. Having said that, there are still some missing voices even from within the “progressive camp.” There are no essays on Christian feminist ethics. And there is nothing about Christianity in an Asian context. Philip Jenkins's new book The Lost History of Christianity argues that quite separate branches of the church developed for the first 1200 years or so of Christian history in India, Central Asia, and China and that “Asian Christians” were often willing to learn from other traditions like Buddhism because they did not insist on the unique role of Christ (in contrast to Christianity in Europe). Today, the most Christianized country in East Asia is South Korea, but it also happens to be the most Confucianized. Many households in Korea practice ancestor worship at home and worship God on Sundays.
But does the amalgamation of traditions like Christianity and Confucianism really stand the test of intellectual scrutiny? Both traditions are diverse and allow for different interpretations, but some key values are hard to reconcile. The value that Confucianism places upon the family as the main source of our morality would seem to conflict with the Christian view that we owe unconditional loyalty to God. For Confucians, the family is the highest loyalty not just because we need to repay our parents for their care, but also because morality is learned mainly within the family, from where it's extended to others in diminishing degrees. Confucians would also have doubts about the Christian idea that every conscience is equal. Confucians and Christians could find common ground in the idea that every individual deserves to be treated with respect and love, but the Confucian will add that not everybody has the same capacity to make informed moral and political judgments and hence there might be a justification for more meritocratic and less democratic forms of government. In thinking about just war, Confucians and Christians might agree about the importance of self-defense, but Confucians would be more likely to endorse wars of humanitarian intervention to prevent suffering abroad. The Christian idea that human life is marked by sin would seem strange to Confucian thinkers, with the possible exception of Xunzi. Most fundamentally, perhaps, the Confucian will question the need for God. As I was reading Christian Political Ethics I found myself agreeing with most political judgments but I could not shake off Pierre-Simon Laplace's reply to Napoleon when he was asked why there isn't a single mention of God in his scientific works: “I have no need for that hypothesis.” If Christians are ultimately motivated by love of God, that's fine, but perhaps we shouldn't lose too much sleep over those who come to similar political conclusions via different philosophical or religious foundations.
Let me end by noting what Confucians can learn from Christianity. Nigel Biggar defends a Christian vision of diversity on the grounds that the diversity of communities enables human beings to learn from each other better ways of serving and promoting the human good. That goes beyond most Confucian views. The great Confucian thinker Jiang Qing argues that the Chinese government should take a hands-off approach to minority groups because force is counterproductive and only moral example works. But it's more a question of tolerating minority cultures (as one would tolerate unruly children) rather than learning from them. The idea of diversity in harmony has been taken as a positive good in Confucian discourse, but mainly for the reason that harmonious combinations of different parts are aesthetically pleasing (as a soup composed of different ingredients is more tasty than each ingredient taken alone). The challenge for Confucians, however, is to justify cultural diversity on moral grounds.
