The New Pantagruel Hymns in the Whorehouse 1.3 Summer 2004 Swarming the Pub(l)ic Square: A continuing survey of the farce; or, where the folks are given the last word; or, a pointed laugh by Fr. Gassalasca Jape S. J. Dialogue A Dialogue on the Presidential Election by The Editors of The New Pantagruel Features Reason, McDonald’s, and Being, from Equality by Default: An Essay on Modernity as Confinement by Philippe Bénéton The God Who is Where? from My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion by Patton Dodd Articles Christianity and Liberalism: Two Alternative Religious Approaches by David T. Koyzis Christian College Professor Flunks Christian Worldview Tests by Jack Heller Realism Against Reality by Eric Miller A Revolutionary Community: Repositioning Justification by Faith by Geoff Holsclaw Personal Essays I Don’t Want to Talk About It by Barton Fink Poetry Four Poems by Betsy Childs Fiction SRK # 200 by Sumanth Prabhaker The Department of Interpretation by Owen Jones The Accidental Ecumenist by Peter J. Leithart Contributors The NEW PANTAGRUEL, published by Pantagruel Press, a 501(c)(3) non-profit company, is a quarterly journal run by a cadre of intemperate but friendly Catholics and Protestants who have seen other journals run by Christians, and thought that while they might not be able to do better, they could certainly do no worse. EDITORIAL BOARD Caleb Stegall, Editor Dan Knauss, Associate Editor J. Clayton Johnson, Managing Editor John Paul Davis, Design and Arts Editor Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S. J., Inquisitor, Expectorator & Director of Polemics CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Jeremy Beer, Bruce R. Berglund, Randy Boyagoda, Patton Dodd, Christi A. Foist, Annie Young Frisbie, Thomas Heilke, Jack Heller, Joshua P. Hochschild, Zachry O. Kincaid, Eugene McCarraher, Eric Miller, Scott H. Moore, E. J. Park, Read Mercer Schuchardt, Christopher Shannon, Gideon Strauss, David Wright © 2004 Pantagruel Press, Inc. * cum priuilegio Regis * Website: www.newpantagruel.com * Email: editors@newpantagruel.com * SnailMail: 11448 39th Street, Perry, Kansas, 66073 Swarming the Pub(l)ic Square: A continuing survey of the farce; or, where the folks are given the last word; or, a pointed laugh by Gassalasca Jape S. J. "The people swarmed on the public squareAnd pointed laughingly at me,And I was filled with shame and fear."-- Alexander Pushkin, Boris Godunov An Exceptionally Authentic Narrative of Many Remarkable and Interesting Particulars Contents Bonfire of the Extremities A Billy Graham Center Gunpowder Plot? Allen Guelzo's Anti-Anti-Americanism NAE Political Statement "Basement Draft" Charles in Charge of the English Orthodox Church Bonfire of the Extremities: How Fr. Jape contracted a venereal disease of the soul, made pilgrimage to Crim Tartary, and was healed "All works are good which are done within the law of God, in faith, and with thanksgiving to God; and understand that thou in doing them pleasest God, whatsoever thou doest within the law of God, as when thou makest water." -- William Tyndale, The Parable of the Wicked Mammon It has been a time of trial since my last essay in these pages, and I have been called to account by many, both high and low. Two months past, the Almighty determined to visit me with a reminder of his inscrutable and mysterious ways. For I dreamed that I was back Crim Tartary attending class as a young Seminarian only to discover that my rather oversized codpiece had been left off my garb to my great humiliation. And to add both insult and injury, my fellow classmates were flinging hot balls of wax from the vestry candles towards my exposed sub-regions. Father Jape's Codpiece I awoke clutching myself in agony realizing that though the wax was as inchoate as the doctrines of Mother Church, the searing pain in my member was quite real. I was at first struck with the certainty that I was suffering from the clap, the result of some depredarious sin of the flesh—may God assoil me—and I resolved at once to seek out a sentence of penance and absolution, until it was recalled to me that I am celibate, a Prince of the Church dedicated to spiritual rather than earthly pleasures. Yet somehow it was my misfortune to learn the truth of William Tyndale's argument that the proper operation of one's waterworks is a good work. "Trust me," says master Tyndale, "if either wind or water stopped, thou shouldest feel what a precious thing it were to do either of both and what thanks ought to be given God therefore." Father Jape's codpiece worn during the Sack of Rome.Seeing her husband wearing his armor / But not his codpiece, and ready for war, / She said, 'My love, it might be harmed: / Protect it: I love it the best by far!' --the last lament of the Knight's wife, Gargantua and Pantagruel Though medical men deemed it only an infection of the flesh, my physician could not heal me, and it occurred to me then that this fire burning in my urethra must surely be diagnosed as a kind of spiritual clap; the righteous revenge of a jealous God for my philosophical whoring. And the certainty of this judgment came upon me then with such force that I resolved perforce to return immediately to the Cathedral of the Day Before Yesterday on pilgrimage to seek once again the true path. On my arrival I was, I admit, in a state of mind not given over to clear thinking, wretched and wracked as I was with the pain of the spirit-clap. In one of my fits of delirium, I went so far as to inquire of the Theologian of Yesterday, Father Hippothadeus, "Father, in your vast learning, have you seen any evidence that a man's soul might have a penis?" "Good God, no, man!" answered Hippothadeus. "But if such a soul-penis did exist," I persisted, "might it be wise to undergo a castration of some kind, an excision? Anything to cool the unholy urging and concomitant fire of hell!" "Certainly not! You have lost your mind Jape, I suggest you devote yourself to fasting and prayer." "Will I be healed?" I cried. "If God wills it." Hippothadeus brushed past me muttering Latin oaths against the insane under his breath and I was left in great distress. "Damnable theologians!" I shouted after him, my voice cracking, "O I am beset by these possible maybes and maybe-nots that add up to an inviolable confidence. The quagmire of your arts are such that the peace of God is usurped by man's hypotheticals! All contradictions are subsumed within the certainty of God's will which serves only to hide your ignorance! If God willed that I should fly, I should grow wings I suppose! These circumlocutions of false certainty greatly vex the common man!" But he had not heard. In such a desperate and mentally shaken state one might be able to understand how I developed the notion, seemingly reasonable in my confused and pain-ridden mind, that my only hope for cure was to somehow baptize the offending member in the Cathedral's cistern of blessed holy water. In this grip of madness and folly I was discovered by the Abbess, codpiece askew, standing astride two pews and leaning precariously over in the attempt to administer my theologically addled cure. Needless to say, I'm sure, the ensuing scandal that rocked Crim Tartary will likely be told in lore for centuries to come. I was promptly charged with desecration and perfidy and many other nefarious outrages, all, I cringe to say, true. And I despaired, for after my Doctors had failed my body, and the Theologians abandoned my soul, I found all that I had left, my property and my name, was now entrusted to the blackest villains of them all—the Lawyers. Surely Job could not have suffered so! I expected the worst from the Ecclesial courts, for Crim Tartary is not known for a maternal sense of justice. But Mother Mary would yet smile on me, for my case had gone so far as to attract the attention of the Holy See; Papal Legatees were sent o n my behalf, and among them, a legal physiachologist of some note. On the appointed day, this Legal Doctor of the Soul, as his official letter of introduction bespoke him, rose with a flourished oratory and defended my actions to the court as excused on the grounds of insanity. Though he certainly convinced me, those who were masters of my fate remained impassive. As the questioning descended into the vagaries of a certain Council's teaching on the legal permissibility of the torture of the insane, I felt it--the cool touch of an angel, and the fire was gone. Immediately a torrent of relief poured forth from my offending self, and I was lost to ecstasy as a deep wet stain spread its soft warmth across my thighs and down my robes. The prelates watched in horror, no longer intent on the doctrinal sparring with my defenders, and as I reflect back, I can see that they no doubt mistook this divine grant of salvific grace as instead, a sure sign of my mortal fear. And so by this happy error, they took pity upon me and passed light sentence. I, never heedless of the ways of the Almighty, learned that to pass water on oneself is oft times a surer token of grace demanding that praises be rendered to our Father than all the pronouncements of wisdom that pass as gas from the mouths (or otherwise) of the learned men of many orders. After this ordeal, and with a newfound zeal for the true experiences of the transcendent ground of my existence, I returned only to find my mailbag overflowing with calls to account of a wholly different nature. Signs & Portents: A Billy Graham Center Gunpowder Plot? A Jesuit caught trying to infiltrate a Protestant institution before ecumenism was fashionable. For example, inexplicably, several readers have written to inquire as to whether I know anything about the recent fire in the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. One suggested a Jesuit plot; another cited recusant faculty members; and another suspected that papists had once again infiltrated the janitorial staff due to insufficient doctrinal and worldview screening. Anything is possible, but why people think I might know is beyond me. There are three things even God does not know: how many congregations of religious women there are, how much money the Franciscans have stashed away, and what the Jesuits are going to do next. Besides, I wasn't in the country. Now here is the most common complaint: a perception that this column is "sneering" and characterized by an "unremitting and self-satisfied moral smugness." Who would have guessed? I do find it hard to believe, however, that the same readers are not entertained and even enlightened. It's not as if Martin Luther, or, say, a Lutheran convert to neoconservative Catholicism, ever recoiled from the occasional sneer. It seems to me that objections regarding "tone," especially in Evangelical circles, have become a standard excuse to dismiss any strong criticism that one does not "appreciate," regardless of its accuracy. There is something alarming about a person—particularly a person who is neither ignorant nor a relativist—who asks "is it nice?" ahead of "is it true?" What can explain this phenomenon other than the encroaching liberal order as it tightens its grip on the Evangelical soul thus transforming what are supposed to be hardy Christians into nancy-boys or "men without chests?" This brings to mind an old story: An Evangelical pastor and a Jesuit were out playing golf one day. They were moving along the course quite well, until they got stuck behind a group of golfers who were taking quite a long time and weren't letting anyone else play through. Feeling a little frustrated, the two went up to the head of the group and asked him what was going on. He told the Jesuit and the Evangelical that his party was part of a special program that allowed the blind to play golf. Each blind person was paired off with a sighted player who would help him line up the shot and give him advice on what else to do. Fr. Jape, former Lutheran Philosophe and Jacobin. The Evangelical was deeply edified by this display of generosity. He apologized for being so pushy, and announced that he was so impressed by this example that he intended to use this display of service in his preaching, and help others to work with those in need around them. The Jesuit, too, felt a deep moving in his gut. He took the fellow aside and encouraged him with this friendly word of advice: "It's wonderful what you are doing, but don't you think that if you must play golf blind, it would be a whole lot easier for everyone if you played at night?" Allen Guelzo's Anti-Anti-Americanism Just to show that I don't believe all Evangelicals are nancy-boys, I dug around and found this example of one not being nice. In Allen C. Guelzo's "Durable Contempt: Why Anti-Americanism Thrives" in Books & Culture (July/August 2004), Guelzo is decidedly not-nice, though he is decidedly inaccurate as well. To make his equation of anti-Americanism with anti-George Bushism clear (though this may have been an editorial decision), the leading photos show an Asian man posting a sign that reads "AMERICANS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE" above another image of a child carrying a "Down Bush" placard. For his own part, Guelzo is really quite beside himself that "Europeans" and "intellectuals" are "anti-American." He makes no effort to separate criticism of particular American policies and practices, and he derides "the infantile Left and the Calhounite Right who belabor themselves with self-torture over whether commercial culture and popular democracy have sucked the juice out of our lives." Apparently this is just a dumb question, perhaps because it is simply "old." To ask it is to be an "enemy of reason" and freedom. Father Jape's Monastic Kvass. Click here to see how even his refrigerator is bracingly stocked with convivial spirit. Surely I get some credit for nicely mustering at least one cheer for a not-nice Evangelical. Whenever Guelzo feels like it, he can come over and we can be not-nice together over bracing shots of Serbian liqueur, or, if the man is a teetotaller, monastic kvass. This may answer my prayer: grant that my kingdom not be lost for want of a worthy nemesis! Further Signs & Portents: NAE Political Statement "Basement Draft" But here is the most fascinating item from the mail bag. You have heard, no doubt, about the draft statement from the National Association of Evangelicals on Christian civic action called: "For the Health of the Nation." The NAE went so far as to invite scrutiny and comment from "one-hundred denominational executives, seminary presidents, and other parachurch officials." Now I have received this: "an underground draft--being called the 'basement draft'--being circulated by a small but growing group of evangelical leaders dissatisfied with the business-as-usual version already in existence which sounds high principle and lets everyone off of the hook." The author of these hushed conspiratorial tones attached the Basement Draft of the NAE statement for my review. I can say first off that I was a bit disappointed. From the tone of my correspondent I had expected something more wildly controversial. But, some parts were indeed stirring, offering a glimpse of health in an otherwise sick "church," if I may use that term. The most riveting changes, and in fact the only ones worth mentioning, came in the section titled "The Method of Civic Christian Engagement." The section was originally an insipid plea from Evangelical leaders to their laity to "do detailed social, economic, historical, jurisprudential, and political analysis" based on the objective data available. More "discernment" clap-trap, and readers are by now familiar with my not-nice feelings on that subject. But lo, the Basement Draft offers a radical improvement: Every political judgment requires both a normative vision and factual analysis, but the analysis of facts and what one includes or excludes as a usable "fact" is based on the prior assumption of certain norms. Therefore, however carefully and precisely Christians think about the complex facts and details of a political issue, their thinking will be marked by distinctive norms and values that can be explained but seldom accepted by others who do not share them. Disagreements of this nature are unlikely to be overcome and may in fact become harmful when carried out primarily in the arenas of civic and academic discourse apart from Christian communities that bear practical witness to truth and justice through their actions. However, neither a publicly engaged Christian discourse nor a practically engaged community of practice is a substitute for the much less idealistic but equally important affairs of political power-broking and deal-making. While it must stand as a political ideal, unfortunately, it is seldom possible to be perfectly innocent as a dove and as wise as a serpent (Matt. 10:16). These activities often require a less than intimate and transparent relationship with the public and political leaders. Political pressuring and compromises undertaken for the realization of mere power and influence without any reference to higher ends and values are wholly immoral, yet we are keenly aware that political ends may justify the means by which they are achieved. As in the case, for example, of the United States' invasion of Iraq, the values and goals motivating a political decision may be vindicated only by actions that in themselves are dishonorable and to some extent immoral. These actions therefore require justification through the values they serve to realize, but these values will never be realized without taking the risks and bearing the burdens of the inevitably less than pure means by which they must often be pursued. David was unfit to build God's temple, but before the temple could be built, David had to clear the land of Philistines (1 Kings 5:3). Now this is bracing stuff! Unfortunately, much of the rot to follow is left in the Basement Draft, and we find paragraphs like this that stick in the craw of the document, threatening to choke it: "We know that society is altered as a result of both personal decisions and structural changes. Thus Christian civic engagement must seek to transform both individuals and institutions. While individuals transformed by the gospel change surrounding society, social institutions also shape individuals. While good laws encourage good behavior, bad laws and systems foster destructive action." The NAE statement goes on to list the "wellbeing of marriage" as the first thing likely to be destroyed. The basement conspirators should have stricken this sickly paragraph of wishy-washy mush out and added something along these lines instead: History repeatedly shows that societies are only radically altered by structural changes effected by a minority of people who are well-placed to promote (and to an extent impose) their vision on a generally ambivalent, if not hostile majority. Here I think of the Reformation as well as a biting Domincan joke that explains the "difference" between Dominicans and Jesuits. The Dominicans were given the task of eliminating the Albigenses and Jesuits the Protestants. The punchline, of course, is "How many Albigenses do you see today?" A common (and inaccurate) Jesuit retort nowadays is "Well we didn't use swords!" I believe that is the point precisely. The ideal Basement Draft would continue thusly: While individuals transformed by the gospel change the surrounding society, social institutions also shape individuals. Good laws encourage good behavior; bad laws and systems foster destructive action. Lasting social change does require personal conversion, but our emphasis ought to be on institutional renewal and reform since most individuals derive their personal beliefs and practices from dominant social institutions. Therefore, Christian civic engagement should take a root and branch approach to extirpating the prevailing anti-religious materialisms and autonomy-worshipping, rights-fetishizing individualisms that presently dominate the leading national political parties, much of the government and political discourse in general. Of course even this does not go far enough. We might extend the purge to Evangelical churches as well, where materialism flourishes quite well, and not just in the purpose-driven (or is it "circus-driven?") Mega-Lo-Mart Christianity that takes shopping malls for cathedrals. There ought to be a recognition, if not in public statements like this one, at least in the minds of the drafters, that the laws and customs surrounding any social institution--marriage, war, schooling, growing food, &c.--as those institutions have been traditionally understood, are part of a widely-cast net which forms a public mythos, a symbolic representation of how we understand reality in terms of the ebb and flow of life; the cycle of birth, decay, and death; and the transcendent. Because the given reality of Nature as it is in bare human experience is amoral and disordering--the evil flourish while good men suffer, as the Psalmist laments--our public myths exist to restrain the disordering violence and apparent randomness of Nature without denigrating it. For in the Abrahamic traditions, we do not represent Nature as evil and wholly without order. Nationhood and its borders (war), men and women working the land (toil), the marital bond and its natural procreative, child- and community-nourishing role (sex and learning): around these experiences accrue the fundamental structural myths of a civilized society, thereby constructing a true, but mediated and therefore protected, second reality. This is the "spiritual" or "ideational" basis for all that we name as and associate with "culture" and "civilization." Marriage and the family in particular have formed a basic unit and enshrine particular "mystical" truths about God, man, and nature. The laws that lawyers and judges concern themselves with are derived from and take their original form out of these myths, and so laws too are potent expressions of our experience of reality. To the extent that this articulation or "social construction" of reality is faithful to the reality of more direct and immediate human experience, we can say that the second reality of law and convention illuminates and preserves the truth of reality itself while also insulating us from the terrifyingly massive depth, width, openness, and darkness of the universe. To try to deconstruct and rearticulate the symbols of our civilization--which represent the fundamental experiences of man and existence--in terms of a philosophy of rights (i.e., liberalism) will destroy the ordering truths that tradition has protected. If a society united in name and by law fails to maintain a general consensus on the order of its most basic structures--but rival factions keep pushing for a forced consensus on their terms--woe to those unprepared for the calamitous fighting to come! Unfortunately, this recognition will likely never come to a group as large and influential as the NAE because many if not most of its members have already accepted the premises of liberalism and indulge the pursuit and exercise of "individual rights" in an effort to maximize one's "personal choice." The phrase, "the right to choose," expresses what almost everyone wants and how we have come to think of all relationships. The "nuclear" family of the mid-twentieth century is itself a piece of deranged pathology rather than a repository of "traditional values," as is the idea that it is responsible to organize one's life and "family planning" around one's ability to "afford" children. Likewise, the modern pathologies of "work" (a 20 minute morning commute to a nowhere place miles from home where nothing of substance is done) and "war" (a precision strike seen from one's living room executed by volunteer soldiers who are not supposed to die) and "education" (a necessary sacrifice to the Moloch of institutional schooling and higher education which is intended to put the next generation on track to be equally sybaritic and automated members of the wasteful middle class) have taken a stranglehold on most everyone's imaginations and have eliminated the ability to see the deep truths which are at stake as Evangelicals nicely tip-toe into the Public Square to dutifully perform their duties of Christian Civic Responsibility! Charles in Charge of the English Orthodox Church Finally, an astute member of the New Pantagruel discussion forum has alerted us to a shocking situation in Britain. Apparently Prince Charles is close to converting to Greek Orthodoxy. In the event that he is crowned king one day, what will he do about the Protestants-only Succession Rule that was established in large part because of an earlier, papistical Charles? Here are some insightful possibilities that the folk have come up with: Prince Charles becomes Greek Orthodox, and... ...Greek Orthodoxy becomes the new darling of Hollywood. Dan Brown writes a novel which reveals that the Greek Orthodox church holds the secret of the lost templar treasure, Aristotle's treatise on comedy, and the seven sages of the ancient world. Oliver Stone makes a movie about the Greek Orthodox church. Curiously, none of the characters have beards. ...he follows the New Calendar. This pleases the current secular Greek government and the Vatican, since New Calendarists are liberals and ecumenical. The conservatives are upset and naturally doubt Charles' true conversion. The Vatican, wanting to stay in the game, quickly joins Patriarch Bartholomew in concelebration to coronate King Charles as the new Holy Roman Emperor. ...he follows the Old Calendar. This displeases the current secular Greek government very, very much. It pleases the conservatives very, very much and ruins all hopes the Vatican might have toward an East/West reunion. Greek conservative monastics are inspired to lead a revolt against the Greek government to take over all the monasteries in Greece, counting on the support of Prince Charles, who by this time, vacations regularly at Mt. Athos. Both the Church of England, the government of Greece, and a token force of octogenarian Ulstermen led by Ian Paisley will combine forces to depose him. Prince Charles parries the threat of a palace coup by dissolving the Anglican Church, which won't be missed by anyone, since church attendance has been abysmal for decades. ...the Protestant succession rule comes undone. If Charles could pull it off, he'd do it because he thinks the Anglican clergy are weenies. Britain will still remember Lady Di and follow in the celebrity magazines everything Prince William does. After Prince William sows his wild oats, then he'll get religion, making it fashionable to grow a beard and join a monastery—but not before he sires his successor. If either of the above happens, the Anglicans might kidnap Bishop Kallistos Ware and hold him for ransom until the Protestant Succession is re-established. ...London becomes the "4th Rome." The Russians get upset because London, Rome, and Athens have stolen a march on them, crowning King Charles the Holy Roman Emperor. They resurrect the third Rome prophecy which says that there can only be three Christian Romes in history. According to the Russians' reading of the Book of Daniel, these are Rome, Constantinople, and Moscow. A fourth Rome is the kingdom of the anti-Christ, which would especially fit King Charles who is a Westerner. All good Slavs take notice. No one in the West pays any attention to this bizarre Russian prophecy, so the Russians find themselves in a political quandary--what to do to stave off the kingdom of the Anti-Christ? Patriarch Alexy finds a surviving Romanov (royal blood from the more legitimate 3rd Rome) and tries to resurrect the Russian monarchy. Putin balks at this, but Alexy makes a deal saying, "We'll change our current demand for the government to return all the Church lands, if you'll crown our boy." Putin concedes. The Great Game between England and Russia re-commences. The US, which has no king to compete, holds a new Constitutional Convention which will redesign the executive branch and name Bill Clinton King, a job he'd been angling for all along. Something to ponder while you wait for my next authentic narrative of immense perplexion. A Dialogue on the Presidential Election by The Editors of The New Pantagruel On election eve, “discerning” Christians are awash with unsolicited advice and testimonies on the subject of voting. A growing chorus of Christian notables, now including Mark Noll, Alisdair MacIntyre, and Paul Griffiths, find things so decidedly unsatisfactory that they aren't voting at all. Meanwhile, veterans of the culture wars such as Charles Colson and Jim Wallis continue to invoke the moral duties of the Church in favor of one side or the other, while the sophisticated folks at Christianity Today don’t endorse any particular candidate but do encourage the faithful not to succumb to the temptation of being a “one issue” voter. Our own Fr. Jape has opined on these subjects at length, arguing in less than kind terms against the foolishness of pining for an ideologically acceptable politics in which a Christian can comfortably rest, knowing that no evil is being done on his behalf. To the contrary, history is replete with the tragic lesson that political power is inherently corrupting of principle, yet the truth of principles cannot get any traction in the world without being in and of it. A moral man may choose sectarian withdrawal, itself a kind of politics by other means, or the tragedy of engagement on the edge of risk and ever-compromised necessities. But it is the immaturity of double-mindedness to choose one and pine for the other, and such a divided mind produces only instability where order is required. The double-mindedness which produces electoral withdrawal as a kind of fortification against compromised engagement in the rest of one’s life is a symptom of the troubling trend among Christians to cocoon themselves in the “misunderstood minority” identity and abdicate any responsibility for power while simultaneously refusing to give up what power they have. We have become exemplars of the tendency to develop a mind so principled that it succumbs to either ideologism or an idealistic paralysis that comes from seeing through all the false choices. Institutional power is what it is—always. If a system passes through revolution to the establishment of a new regime, it will merely play its own variation on the same old problems. Or as Pete Townsend put it, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The best of our Christian political tradition teaches us, therefore, to align ourselves radically with the particular and the individual without actually believing that the institutional regime must be overthrown. One can thus work to mitigate and contain institutional power; living in love with the frail limits of existence—family, friends, community, and place—in service of truth, goodness, and beauty, yet knowing that even if good can be done, evil will be done too. That said, the pathological death-wish of our current social and political order can hardly be understated. Our society—its businesses, schools, governments, families, communities, and even churches—has staked its economic and spiritual stability on the shifting sand of grand consumption and its exemplars: a young, single adulthood to and beyond the age of 30; childless or near-childless, “dual income,” “professional” couples; the managerial home in which children are shuttled from one structured consumption to the next, until they are finally released to “freedom” in an institution of higher learning; and retired or pining-to-be-retired “empty-nesters.” Our economy, media, and pop-culture worship these “lifestyle” demographics and encourage and reward their aimlessly selfish carousing. This means the propagation of a culture that at every level is oriented toward the most nihilistic individualism possible; the fetishization of self and one’s “personal freedom” that led Sartre to define hell as “other people”—i.e., people who coerce and constrain us with needs and desires that can be legally circumvented. Abortion is the jewel of this culture, and is the “single issue” in which all other issues are subsumed. It remains the worst manifestation and keystone of our gospel of self-service; a gospel which is preached and propounded by exploiters across the political spectrum, everywhere from leftist campuses to comfortably “conservative” suburbia. The metaphor is apt: the false, exploitative freedom of the self-serve soda machine in fast food restaurants is the mechanism of choice in our poisonous soup of late liberalism and consumptive capitalism. The libido seeking freedom and pleasure “chooses,” pays for, and feeds itself at a trough filled with waste and ruin. In light of these complexities, and the vexingly inadequate political leaders we are given to choose from, The New Pantagruel asked four of its Contributing Editors to discuss the upcoming election, their participation in it, and their thoughts on the general substance of Christian writing on the subject. As you can see from the ensuing dialogue, there is by no means a consensus of opinion beyond a deep antiliberalism. Our broader hope for this conversation, as for tNP, remains that it would foster a discourse that does not minimize differences to “spare feelings” because ultimately we believe life is tragicomic and eucatastrophic. While we are engaged with the crises and catastrophes, a serious, taxing and often debilitating business, we can always look at ourselves and our situation from an imagined eternity where it is, if not farcical, a tragic agon tempered by the comic finish of the marriage feast. In less elevated language, we think the matter debated here is very important stuff, so we refuse to trivialize it by treating it with an ultimacy of meaning or our associates with an unbreakable earnestness. --Caleb Stegall and Dan Knauss The following dialogue took place by email in October 2004 among four of The New Pantagruel's contributing editors: Eugene McCarraher, Assistant Professor of Humanities and History at Villanova University; Bruce Berglund, Assistant Professor of History at Calvin College; Scott Moore, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and director of the Great Texts Program at Baylor University; and Eric Miller, Assistant Professor of History and director of the Humanities program at Geneva College. Eugene McCarraher: Well, I'll be the first out of the gate. I'm not going to vote in this election, even though I'd like to repeat my support for Nader in 2000. For me, my vote not to vote is based on two considerations, one specific and one general. If one opposed the invasion of Iraq and wants a clear idea of how and when we're getting out, one does not have a candidate in this race. If one wants a genuinely pro-life agenda -- in other words, one which opposes, not just abortion, but the whole culture and economy of death which is corporate capitalism -- one does not have a candidate in this race. The choice, as I see it, is between Imperialism, Plutocracy, and Capital Punishment vs. Imperialism, Plutocracy, and Abortion. Nader, as usual, is the supreme diagnostician of our corrupt and comatose political culture, and many of his proposals are meritorious and visionary. But his one-man band of a candidacy marks a triumph of egotism over good sense, and his support for abortion rights, while not, I think, a completely debilitating stance (that's a prudential judgment), gives me pause. Drawing by a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner And yet, strangely, I feel hopeful. Things, I think, just can't go on like this, and a lot of people, not just Christians, feel this in the marrow of their bones. To quote the old 60s canard, perhaps it's darkest just before the dawn. Bruce Berglund: I also recognize the dilemma that [Mark] Noll faces: I did not push a lever for president in 1996, although not for the reasons he offers. I was distressed in that campaign by (in addition to the failings of the major candidates) the absence of any substance in the candidates’ exchange, in the way they skirted fundamental problems in society. I did not see any serious or creative thinking from either side; instead, they were trapped in phraseology, trading poll-tested but timid proposals. I also voted for Nader in 2000. Leading up to that election, I was frustrated by a primary process that sidelined two people (Bradley and McCain) who recognized and addressed deeper issues in the country and presented instead to the electorate two demagogues. I saw Nader as a candidate who offered a serious critique to the standard practices of American politics and advocated policies outside the limited realm of options in which the major parties constrain themselves. After listening to Nader recently, though, I’ve judged, like Gene, that the valid points he can make have become drowned out by his ego. It appears that, in the current campaign, the superficiality of American politics has only increased. The deep problems in society and in the conduct of politics are avoided, as the candidates exchange band-aid proposals on tax cuts and new programs. This lack of creativity in addressing serious issues and formulating responses is what I find disappointing in contemporary politics. That said, I will be voting in November--for a candidate from one of the major party candidates. I judge the current administration a failure in many ways, and I will not stand aside to allow that administration another four years. Scott Moore: This is the first presidential election in a number of years in which I haven't felt some deep anxiety (or guilt) about how I'll cast my vote. That's not because I'm pleased with the options before me. In 2000, I too voted for Nader, but not because I had any affection for him or because I believed he would make a good president. I was exercising my constitutional right to self-deception by convincing myself that I was helping make third parties more viable in Texas. But who was I kidding? We live ten minutes from Crawford. It wasn't even close. I should have saved the gas. I'm approaching this election year with less anxiety because I'm finally coming to terms with the end of my Constantinian Christianity. Though I've known for years that this epoch was over, I haven't been able to shake a deep desire to find a candidate who approximated my beliefs, and who would, finally, "turn this country around and cure its ills." Yes, I still believe that a pro-life, anti-war, universal health care democrat could win a national election, but it's finally coming home to me that the problem isn't just that these sorts of people don't exist (or won't run). The problem is that our country really does want the kinds of candidates that we get because these are the sorts of guys who will attempt what we have deemed "realistic" solutions to the problems we really want solved. This is a mindset which assumes that security--be it national, financial, or emotional--is not only the highest good but also to be achieved through a (kinder, gentler?) will to power. We Christians must never think that "security" is the highest good, and we must not give in to a culture of death which celebrates the ubiquity of war: the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illiteracy, etc. At some point I've come to realize that I'm not just "disenchanted" by the political process; I'm really a citizen of another city. Hauerwas and Willimon popularized the theme of "resident aliens" almost ten years ago, but it is really the oldest of concepts. Its most beautiful expression is found in Philippians 3. This doesn't mean that we have to withdraw from the political process altogether. St. Augustine, after all, encouraged us to make good use of the peace and resources of the earthly city; we just should not place our hope on that city bringing about a lasting peace because it is essentially predicated on the "inevitability" and centrality of war. Thus, I'll probably vote, but not for Kerry or Bush. There are some local races that I'm interested in, but even here I must always be reminded of the delusion of the Constantinian and Utopian impulse. The Church's political goal in a post-christian age is the development of a faithful, subversive counterculture. Eric Miller: What I'm seeing this fall is the American story playing out in diabolical farce. If it were just a farce, it would be good at least for an occasional chuckle. But since this particular story involves a cultural behemoth with imperial might, too much is at stake to make laughter easy. How’s this for farce: of the two parties, the GOP is the one that retains at least some willful connection to the language that could expose most fully our own folly and evil: orthodox, Christian theology. Yet who has any confidence that this sorry “party” would ever allow the fluent speakers of that language to have significant authority—the sort of authority that could, say, provoke a re-thinking of its historic stances on health care, consumerism, or war? On the other side, the Democrats are the legatees of a tradition that makes possible keen vision in many crucial areas of our common life—including matters ecological, public health concerns, and wariness of the corporation. Yet over the past half-century it has energetically excluded (or, shall we say, aborted) any significant recourse to the language that had much to do with calling the party into being—again, Christian theology—and has in turn led us on a death march on “issue” after “issue.” Is this not farcical? And given the dimensions of the nation these parties lead, is it not diabolical? I too went the Nader route in 2000, in the hope that a strengthened Green party might at least force the other two parties to take some turns, however minor, in their direction. But this time that possibility is gone. I don’t believe Bush deserves re-election. I don’t believe Kerry deserves election. I can’t see myself pulling a lever (or poking out a chad) for either. Bruce Berglund: I appreciated the connection that Scott draws between our shared sense of political homelessness and our citizenship in another city. Presumably then, we should take joy in our inability to find a party with which to place our allegiance. But I am reluctant to choose the option of not voting, while congratulating myself that my political frustration verifies my status as a citizen of the heavenly city. Moreover, I am reluctant to cast a ballot that will be ineffectual. In 2000, I voted for Nader with the thought that he would gain a substantial share of the vote, enough to give pause to the major parties and, perhaps, to build a foundation for a viable third party. Well, it appears that he succeeded in capturing the vote of disaffected Christian academics who serve as contributing editors for this online journal (a journal which, oddly enough, was spotlighted by The New York Times in a survey of new trends in “conservative” thought). But I was sincerely disappointed by Nader’s overall showing in the last election. In this election, the pressing question is: should the sitting president be entrusted with another four years? Absolutely not, I say. Although the stances of Kerry (whatever they may be) and the Democratic Party do not correspond to my own thinking on issues, I know that, by not voting for him, I concede to four more years of Bush. Drawing by a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner I make this choice not simply due to my opposition to the current administration’s policies and my judgment that it has failed in the task of leading the country (I do agree wholly with Kerry that this is the “excuse presidency”). I am voting against the revival of Constantinianism that the Bush administration and the Republican Party represents, and too many Christians endorse: the stew of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld bowing their heads in prayer at the start of cabinet meetings, TV preachers telling me that a vote for Bush will save Christians in Uzbekistan from the oppression of their government, and political/religious organizations putting leaflets on my car, in the parking lot at church on Sunday morning, that rate candidates based on their “proper Christian” views on the Second Amendment and tax cuts. There’s a letter to the editor in this month’s edition of Harper’s in which the writer laments about the progressives’ “ceding of God” to the Republican Party. By voting to defeat Bush, I wish to send the message that I will not allow the Republican Party or the administration to claim God’s side as their own (or, as it most often seems, the other way around). To do that, I recognize, I have to vote for Kerry. Eric Miller: I find myself agreeing with every particular point Bruce has made. Was it Kristof, Dionne, or some other columnist who wrote about the Cheneys' Christmas card of last year? According to the column, it featured a Benjamin Franklin quotation to the effect that the course of this great nation was obviously being blessed and guided by providence, etc etc etc. This is enough to make one flee into the arms of any alternative, which is (almost) what I hear in Bruce's decision. It brings to mind Christopher Lasch as a socialist in the fall of 1968 urging the readers of the New York Review to vote for Nixon--anything to repudiate and castigate the follies and evils of the Johnson/Humphrey-guided Democratic Party. For all of the resonance I feel with Bruce's points, I still come back to the basic fact that when electing a President, we cast votes for a political tradition as much as we choose a particular constellation of political figures. And to vote for Kerry is to side with a political tradition that has given itself over to enshrining a way of thinking about life that imperils life (daily), all in the name of "choice." For me, this would make a vote for Kerry a very difficult one to cast, to say the least. To be sure, the very starkness of the practice of abortion (and the nexus of related and unfolding bioethical issues) has had the unfortunate effect of dimming the ability of many Christians to see the critical importance of other social, moral, and ecological concerns (many represented far better by the Democratic party than by the GOP). Still, which party (and tradition) has the best chance in the long run of helping the country turn toward a more life-engendering way of seeing? Put this way, I would have to place more hope in the party that grants some epistemic authority to Christian perspectives. And that, it seems to me, is the GOP--despite the fact that I, as I said before, have no real confidence that it will in the coming years become more Christian rather than less Christian. Given the unpredictable nature of history, it might well be that in another fifty years the Democrats will have become reacquainted in some significant measure with their Christian heritage. At any rate, neither party today is interested in provoking a national discussion on the nature of freedom. I can't think of a more damning thing to say about our present political moment. But back to Bruce: it may truly be best, at this particular moment, to, for the sake of the Kingdom of Christ, be rid of Bush, precisely because of the "Constantinianism" that he represents. We need (and the world needs), it seems clear to me, a far more effective and sophisticated form of Christian politics than what we've seen from Bush and company. When I ended my last remarks, I wrote that I couldn't see myself voting for either ticket. I meant that literally. I very well could end up voting for one or the other. I just can't see which one (if either), as of today. If nothing else, the equivocating nature of these comments gives further evidence why. For obvious reasons, I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of you out on all of this. Eugene McCarraher: I urge Eric, with a twist on the Bard, to screw his courage to the sticking place, and not vote. My only difference with him regards his assertion that the GOP affords Christian perspectives "epistemic authority." Rhetorical status, yes -- epistemic authority, no way. I was listening to Tom DeLay the other day using the phrase "culture of life," and I almost put my foot through the set. That little snivel, and the mean-spirited forces he represents, are the very embodiments of a culture of death, in my view. I speak from some experience when I say that Christians with our concerns are better off trying to establish connections with the secular left -- I mean the real left of socialists, anarchists, etc., not the suburban liberals who want Anybody But Bush. Their opposition to Bush amounts, I think, to a narcissism of small differences, and I don't think they're at all sympathetic to anything that's going to undermine their conception of life as a menu of "choices" and "options." There's at least a modicum of interest in Christian theology among people like Terry Eagleton or Slavoj Zizek, and I think we should cultivate this interest as much as we can. We should also be making connections with the labor movement -- Christians, or at least Catholics, did in the 1930's, and it's one of the most remarkable derelictions of political duty that the churches have let these ties go attenuated. Bruce Berglund: Yes, I agree completely that Christians need to rethink their alliances. For the last two decades, too many Christian voters have chosen the same side as the gun lobby, Enron execs, and the raving acolytes of Michael Savage and his ilk. I was there myself at one time. But the need for new alliances is why I will choose to vote for Kerry. Call it Anybody-but-Bushism (just don’t lump me with the suburban liberals), but I don’t see how Christians and Republicans will be shaken out of their current alliance, or at least compelled to rethink the foundations of that alliance, unless the sitting president loses the election. In watching the debates, I was struck by Bush’s smugness (clearly, his scowls on night one reflected a sense that he, as President, should not be questioned) and by the thinly veiled motivation of his whole campaign: let’s send up some balloons to keep people happy and then we’ll coast for the next four years. Drawing by a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner I am compelled to go back to Eric’s explanation for his hesitation about voting for Kerry, which presumably hinges on the parties’ stances on abortion. I must challenge the suggestion that the Republican Party “has the best chance in the long run of helping the country turn toward a more life-engendering way of seeing.” As Gene indicated at the very start, can we call the party that stands resolutely for capital punishment as the life-affirming party? Beyond the issue of capital punishment (which many Democrats support), I look to the Republicans as the party that allows the assault-weapons ban to expire and obstructs any attempt at gun control, the party that obstructs a rise in the minimum wage (at its current point, a full-time, minimum-wage worker makes $10,712/yr), the party that has done nothing (and likely will do nothing in the next four years) to address the health-care crisis in this country. That last issue is, to me a life-and-death issue. But I challenge Eric not only on the suggestion that one party’s stance on a single issue makes it the party that promotes a “life-engendering way of seeing.” I reject the reduction of politics to that single issue and the suggestion that one party is “life-affirming,” which implies that the other is not. One of our colleagues on the editorial board offered a post in one of the online forums, suggesting that “that certain Republicans have a vested interest in NOT overturning Roe v. Wade.” I think there is some truth to that. As long as Republicans can galvanize Christians on the abortion issue, they can count on their votes. The Republican Party has been tarring its opponents on the abortion issue since when? We can go back at least to the 1984 contest between Reagan and Mondale. So, it has now been 20 years. For 12 of those years Republicans have controlled the White House. In how many more elections will Republicans play this trump card to gain the votes of Christians? And if the upper level of the Republican leadership truly does wish to overturn Roe v. Wade, is it possible? Judges openly opposed to the 1972 decision can be Borked in the Senate. And the politics of court appointments means that considerations other than abortion often come to the fore. In 1981, the Reagan Administration clouded Sandra Day O’Connor’s pro-choice stance in order to get her past the conservatives. Twelve years later, O’Connor was an author of the opinion on Planned Parenthood v. Casey that affirmed the Roe decision. Eric Miller: Bruce makes several strong points against a position that I (allegedly) hold. Without devolving to a blow-by-blow reply, suffice it to say that I did not intend to imply that it is the GOP's position on abortion that caused me to suggest that it promotes a more "life-engendering way of seeing." What I did say (which Gene properly responded to) was that what hope I have for the GOP lies in the fact that it "grants some epistemic authority to Christian perspectives"--unlike the Democratic party, which is committed fundamentally to a liberalism that makes no place for religious authority (think Bob Casey). Put differently, the GOP holds open the door to a way of seeing (and to the people who promote and practice it) that might actually enable it at some point to correct the sorts of troubling inconsistencies that Bruce has underscored, and that I in the main affirm. Is this sort of self-correction likely? As I said before, no. But to the extent that the battle is pitched on the field of language, I believe Christians have an obligation to seek to strengthen those groups and communities that continue speak their native tongue. This is why, I take it, people like Hauwerwas, and earlier, Christopher Lasch, were willing to associate with First Things, despite Neuhaus's neo-conservatism, which to them is repugnant. Differences on political economy, and other policy issues, at some point must give way to the even more basic imperative of keeping the language alive and relevant for the day. Drawing by a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner As to the matter of rethinking alliances: I couldn't agree more. The great promise of the New Pantagruel, I think, is that it is actually creating space where Christians and others can freely draw from diverging political traditions in order to construct a way to meet the challenge of our day. And I don't think we need to all agree on which traditions (liberal, conservative, radical, anarchist, agrarian, et al) are most salient for the moment; in fact, it is precisely this sort of discussing and disagreeing about these traditions that I see as most capable of animating an endeavor such as this. With this in view, I'll throw the question out there to Gene (or anyone else) -- what is the reason for your hope in the secular left? I would also like to hear a rebuttal to Bruce's earlier argument (as well as the argument of one "Jape") that sitting-out the election is itself an immoral choice. You who are choosing not to vote: how do you respond to those who say that we have a moral obligation to support the lesser of the two evils? Eugene McCarraher: Let me respond to two points. I don't have any "hope" in the secular left. My remarks about making alliances with unbelieving socialists, anarchists, etc. amount to a tactical suggestion. Unlike the GOP, these groups keep alive that part of the Christian language which affirms social justice and solidarity. In Augustinian terms, the secular left affirms a perversion of the heavenly city -- and if a perversion is a predatory, inadequate, but nonetheless dimly perceived version of a real good, then we should work with, converse with, and even seek to convert those forces. Besides, the secular left still has claim to a treasure trove of social and economic analysis which is indispensable in understanding capitalist modernity. We're all indebted to this treasure ourselves, so an honest accounting of our own intellectual debts would be salutary. Second, as to the morality of not voting. Voting for the "lesser of two evils" always leaves you with the evil of two lessers. It doesn't even necessarily give you the lesser of the evils: voting against Hitler in 1933 didn't prevent the triumph of fascism, mainly, one could argue, because the anti-fascist left didn't get its act together to pose a real alternative to reaction. In the absence of such a clear and compelling alternative in this much less dire moment, not voting is itself a political act: it's a way of saying that I refuse to countenance the current political culture. In effect, I'm voting -- with my feet -- against the system. Only if you accept the fundamental legitimacy of the system can you see that position as immoral or irresponsible. Again, I take an Augustinian position: I participate in the politics of the earthly city, but only in such a way as is consonant, in my judgment, with faith and morals. I'm cheerfully and unapologetically parasitic on the empire's laws: I abide by them, but only because and to the extent that they further the work of the gospel. When and if they don't, so much the worse for them. So my not-voting is tactical, not principled: I'm not Mike Baxter or Mike Budde, both of whom refuse to vote on principle. (Even Hauerwas votes.) Bruce Berglund: My apologies to Eric for misrepresenting his stance. I had been chewing on your corrective to my remarks–and your point about the GOP holding the door open to a way of seeing that might lead to a resolution of the party’s inconsistencies. Then I turned through the channels on the way to the ballgame and came across the TV-preacher network’s news program. Here was all the vitriol and insolence of Fox News, wrapped in the cloak of religious certitude. I have to spit out any notion of “life-engendering ways of seeing” or granting “epistemic authority to Christian sources,” and turn back to my first position: this is a bad version of the Constantinian alliance. What is worse for the church, siding with the secular Left or the Constantinian Right? The latter, I say. And that is why I vote to defeat that alliance. Scott Moore: I have found this exchange to be quite helpful and I hope we've given our readers some new perspectives on which to reflect as we head toward next week's vote. I too have learned a lot. I must admit however that, despite deep sympathy for the issues and questions Bruce raises, I am not persuaded by his eloquent arguments for Kerry and against Bush. However frustrated I am by the Constantinian Right (and I am very frustrated indeed), I do not believe that I can legitimize Kerry's secular Left by supporting it. Yes, abortion is the principal obstacle there for me, but it's also the case that for Christians, abortion is much more than simply "single issue politics." It is about the nature of moral justification. Though I remain a registered Democrat, Kerry and the Democratic party have continued to offer not only moral justification but "normalization" for a culture of convenience and consumption versus a culture of hospitality and life. A world in which the private use of lethal force is not just morally justified but becomes the normal state of affairs is a world which Christians can never legitimize and a world in which our alienation comes to be written in ever larger and ever bolder script. I will vote on Tuesday for some local candidates but I have decided not to vote for president. Neither one of these men and neither one of these parties does sufficient justice to the basic Christian commitment to the culture of life. I am deeply grateful that TNP exists and I hope it will continue to provide a forum where thoughtful Christians can reflect and argue about those matters that matter most. Eric Miller: Looking back on this exchange, and on many other similar conversations and debates, I realize that I've never seen such a broad, quietly bitter hopelessness during an election season. It's no surprise that anxiety, anger, and confusion are the dominant states of mind among people I know, of whatever party. Drawing by a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner 1968 must have felt like this to many. Then, some on the left thought that the Democrats had so botched things up and compromised the nation's soul that they must go at any cost. That cost, needless to say, was high. How might a Humphrey administration have altered the past three decades? Four days from election day, I'm still not convinced not-voting is not irresponsible. Neither am I convinced that if I vote for either party I won't leave a portion of my soul in the ballot box, for reasons I've already stated. The question that lingers with me is this: Is there one single issue that is so pliable and so consequential that at this moment it requires one particular party over the other? For many, this single issue is Iraq, and foreign affairs in general. For others, it is Bush's Constantinian mode of governance. I find myself compelled by varying degrees by each. But what I'm wondering is this: might that single, hugely decisive issue of this moment be what Bill McClay, in the current issue of First Things, calls the "manufacturing of human being strictly for medical and quasi-medical uses," as we continue on the futile, diabolical quest of, in his troubling phrase, "comprehensively remaking ourselves?" This is the question that haunts me as we move toward election day, and that may lead me to cast a vote for Bush. Eugene McCarraher: I'm anxious, angry, and confused, but I'm not bitter or hopeless. I like Gramsci's advice: "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." The only way to really hold those two things together, however, is not through faith in dialectical historical development, but through faith in Christ. My analogy wouldn't be to 1968 and Humphrey, but to 1960. Then, we had two candidates whom Dwight Macdonald dubbed "Burroughs vs. IBM." In the same year, C. Wright Mills wrote "A Letter to the New Left." What happened within five years? A new left, a new sense of possibility, both of which drew on thinking from the previous two decades. Could we be at the precipice of, or spark, yet another such moment? I'm enough of a believer in the cunning of the Spirit to think that we haven't seen the last episode yet. Reason, McDonald's, and Being, from Equality by Default: An Essay on Modernity as Confinement by Philippe Bénéton Translated by Ralph HancockHardcoverISBN/SKU 1932236325ISI Books, 2004 This excerpt is the eighth chapter of Philippe Bénéton's Equality by Default: An Essay on Modernity as Confinement, which has been translated by Ralph Hancock and is newly available this year from ISI Books in their Crosscurrents series. Crosscurrents "makes available in English, usually for the first time, new translations of both classic and contemporary works by authors working within, or with crucial importance for, the conservative, religious, and humanist intellectual traditions." Other books in the series include Icarus Fallen, by Chantal Delsol, translated by Robin Dick (from which a selection appeared in the last issue of The New Pantagruel), and Critics of the Enlightenment, edited and translated by Christopher O. Blum. Forthcoming titles include Russia in Collapse, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Olga Cooke, The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, by Chantal Delsol, translated by Robin Dick, and Tradition, by Josef Pieper, translated by E. Christian Kopff. Bénéton, a prominent French religious conservative and Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Rennes, has long meditated on Tocqueville, and Equality by Default is Tocquevillian in that it does not offer a partisan polemic, but rather paints a picture of contemporary life--a picture that is also a guide for discernment for those who have a difficult time "seeing" contemporary liberalism for what it is. Equality by default, Bénéton writes, "is founded on an idea of man which breaks with all the humanism of the West. Man is pure indetermination, autonomy without a compass, liberty without a vocation, he is what he makes of himself." "This is an essay on the modern world, a world that has now reached the condition of late modernity. My purpose is less to describe this world than to attempt, by climbing on the shoulders of giants of thought, to make visible what is going on in this world and what the results have been." --from the author's preface "Bénéton's vision is sobering, to say the least, darker on balance than Tocqueville's (which was already darker, more foreboding than is commonly appreciated), but somehow not a vision of despair. Tocqueville averted fruitless reaction before the leveling advance of democracy by straining to judge the new world from the standpoint of a God beyond all aristocratic prejudices, thus finding a way to accept and thereby to channel the democratic transformation of politics and society. Bénéton's situation is of course different: he addresses a world in which this democratic and individualistic transformation of life has already proceeded far beyond the point Tocqueville provided for (if not beyond what he had the power to foresee). In our time, the option of sanctioning or sanctifying this transformation in order to moderate it is no longer viable. There is no longer any alternative to exhibiting in broad daylight the hollowness of pure, formal democracy, to plainly stating the dependence of democracy on understandings of human dignity that cannot be extracted from the pure form of democracy." --from the translator's preface 1 Throughout the history of modern reason its status has undergone important changes. Once it was master, now it is only the servant or the master-servant. At its birth modern reason trumpeted the empire of reason, the reign of "Enlightenment," while discrediting its opponent by presenting it as the camp of prejudice, convention, and the principle of authority. If these formulations were polemical and overstated, they nevertheless expressed a real break. Of course modern thought did not discover or rediscover reason, but it emancipated it (in a subjectivist sense), and it conferred upon it a dominant and exclusive authority (to the detriment of revelation and tradition), and, finally, it turned it in a new direction. Classical Christian reason was essentially concerned with personal life: reason was supposed to allow each person to master his or her passions and to lead a life in accordance with the nature of a rational animal. Modernity sought to transform reason's perspective; modern reason would focus first on the exterior world; it proposed to change the fate of mankind through the conquest of nature and the mastery of society. The work undertaken by Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes issued in this revolutionary proposition: to transform the world we must rethink it. Reason was opening up a new era of the human condition. The modern world thus embarked on a number of great undertakings (scientific, technological, and political), the repercussions of which reason has had to absorb. On the one hand, scientific rationalism (as originally understood) has disqualified itself, giving way to a new version of scientism that considers itself neutral on the subject of "values" and that, as a consequence, emancipates technoscience from all subordination in relation to reason in a higher sense--henceforth reason, committed to transforming things, concerns itself only with means and their efficiency; it is purely instrumental. On the other hand, in the realm of politics, rationalism as an ideology has collapsed, in spite of all the human sacrifices offered to the "Goddess Reason." By contrast, liberal reason has come out the winner and at the same time has been radicalized, cutting its ties, under the influence of equality by default, with nature and with natural ends--henceforth reason as applied to the organization of society is at the service of the diverse and particular objectives that human beings pursue; it is purely procedural. The result of all these experiences is what we see going on before our eyes: the growing power of a practical reason cut off from being, a reason reduced to a procedural or instrumental function. Reason no longer governs in view of ends; it limits itself to determining rules of the game and technical means, all in the service of formal rights and arbitrary goals. In the kingdom of equality by default, reason is ancillary, the reason of specialists; it officially abdicates all civilizing functions. But this is not to say that it abandons the leading role. The techniques forged by the "exact" sciences and the human sciences tend to rule over the whole of human activities. When substantive reason withdraws, technoscientific reason is free to display its whole force. The world, as we have seen, is now considered to be at our disposal; it has no vital distinctions to oppose to the grip of instrumental rationality. Human activities fall back on themselves without any reference points except uncertain and proliferating "human rights." A narrow, specialized, professionalized, technical understanding of reason shapes our world, but without knowing the world it shapes. To recapitulate: Modern reason (in its contemporary version) has nothing to do with the substantive reason of the Greeks and Christians--it is now taken for granted that there is no "life according to reason." And it is no longer the triumphant modern reason of yesteryear--there is no question of its guiding great material projects associated with the progress of humanity. Rather, reason is now the servant or the master-servant in various external projects, diverse and without compass. It is a servant because it is instrumental to ends it does not govern, and a master-servant in that the economy and technology reign and develop according to their own logic within a world given over to them. What is called the rationalization of the world, following Max Weber, is a procedural and instrumental rationalization in which reason puts itself in the service of the irrational. 2 What can be more rational than a McDonald's restaurant, at least if one reasons in economic and technical terms? There everything is thought through, weighed, calculated, recorded, analyzed; nothing is left to chance or to improvisation. The McDonald's system is the fruit of a "doctrine" developed by a person, Ray Kroc, whose entrepreneurial talent is beyond question.1 Ray Kroc invented nothing; he borrowed the idea and the principles of fast food from the McDonald brothers from whom he bought the business, and he borrowed from others the principle of franchising. But it was he who knew how to organize, how to extend the principles of organization to the last detail in order to achieve maximum efficiency. With this talent he transformed the art of eating into a very successful technique. The great adventure began in 1955, when Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's (which today has been raised to the status of a museum). McDonald's proliferated in the United States--in 1961 a Hamburger University was established near Chicago--and then began to appear on other continents. In January 1990, a McDonald's was opened in Moscow a stone's throw from famous Pushkin Square; in April 1992, the largest McDonald's in the world opened its doors in Beijing. The hamburger had set out to conquer the world. The McDonald's system is a triumph of instrumental rationality. Nothing escapes calculations of profit, always subject to refinement: the size of hamburgers, the restaurant's architecture, the number of fries, the speed of service, the arrangement of parking lots, the affability of the personnel, the interior design, the dimensions of the trays. The system offers standardized products, trains standardized employees, and tends to forge standardized consumers (by the rationalization of margins of choice, the uncomfortable seating, the interior colors). This would be the ideal: robots for employees, a Big Mac for everyone, and consumers in uniform. The McDonald's system is also a triumph of procedural rationality, a rationality appropriate to a market economy. There, as in the supermarket, the pure spirit of the market reigns. Nothing troubles the purely functional, abstract, impersonal relationship between the seller and the buyer. Here every person, whoever he or she may be, is exactly like all the others; he or she is a consumer, nothing but a consumer, entirely a consumer, a consumer from head to toe. McDonald's is universalist; its calling is to embrace the whole world without regard to divisions. Once one passes through its doors, an alchemy takes over and erases whatever distinguishes and separates: the person becomes a consumer and every consumer's money is as good as any other's. This is the wonder of the system: it neutralizes differences and divisions among people, differences in traits of character, as well as social, national, political, religious, or other differences. It makes coexistence and cooperation possible among people who have nothing in common except respect for the same rules of the game. All over the world, in New York, Paris, Istanbul, or Beijing, McDonald's restaurants welcome you in the same way (automatic smile, guaranteed hygiene, industrial food), whether you are of the left or of the right, Turk or Kurd, Chinese apparatchik or dissident, a child or his grandfather, a policeman or a criminal, a racist or an antiracist. McDonald's is the missionary of a new humanity, the builder of a new world, in collaboration with all the other businesses set to conquer the world market and sharing this great cause with a view to the greatest profit. This new world is undifferentiated, destined to unify itself on the basis of uniform consumption--an egalitarian world, except of course for the only distinction that matters (money), a world called to achieve unity by the grace of the market. The political problem par excellence, the problem that arises from differences among human beings, is finally about to be resolved: consumers of all lands, unite over a Big Mac! 3 For the workers, craftsmen, and peasants whom Péguy fervently evokes at the beginning of L'Argent, "all was a rhythm and a rite and a ceremony." At McDonald's, everything is just the opposite of a rite and a ceremony. A ceremony is an intense moment that involves our being, a moment that breaks through the uniform flow of time and sets itself apart in a thousand ways (forms, objects, context), a moment in which human beings share strong feelings. A meal at McDonald's, on the other hand, is a weak moment, a featureless act, a purely functional activity. McDonald's is the functional place par excellence. It reduces everything to a function: things, actions, and people. Let us take a closer look at things. Here is the final outcome (as seen, I remind the American reader, from the French perspective of the author) of this techno-economic rationality taken to perfection, or almost: 1. The act of eating does not constitute any rhythm in the flow of time. The first principle of the enterprise is to break with time as it is ordered by traditional customs, and more fundamentally to break with all ordering of time. The McDonald's formula is made up first of all by these two golden rules: long hours, brief meals. At McDonald's one eats at any hour and on Sunday just as on any other day. Time there is not regulated--a time for each thing, a time for lunch and a time for dinner--but rather is uniform and uniformly at our disposal. It is also rationally divisible; thus, the meal must be shortened as much as possible. The time spent "around the table" is not a separate time, a privileged time in social life. It is subjected like all times to the profit motive. McDonald's time is the time of economic rationality, a time unrelated to the rhythms of life. 2. Formalities, or at least certain formalities, are deliberately absent. Norbert Elias saw the fact of eating with utensils as an important step in "the civilizing of mores." At McDonald's we take a step backwards. There one employs neither plate, nor knife, nor fork; one eats with one's fingers, even the fries that leave one's hands greasy. Why complicate what is rationally so effective and what does not burden the consumer with respect for manners? Respect for procedures is sufficient; formalities are costly and irrational. 3. Things are purely functional; they have nothing to do with human sensibilities. Paper cups, plastic boxes, straws--just a lot of objects so meaningless and worthless that one throws them away after utilization. The whole McDonald's universe is made of plastic, cardboard, synthetic materials--and one has the impression that the food is no exception--materials without nobility or warmth, suited to functional man. The view is of the parking lot, the air is conditioned, cleanliness and ugliness rule--everything is in order. A rose or a tulip would be a cause for surprise in this universe. 4. The food, finally, is the product of an industrial technique that abolishes all nuances of taste. Taste must either be educated or degenerate. It is doubtful that taste becomes more refined by consuming cardboard bread, meat that doesn't taste like meat, sauces that smother all they touch, and desserts crammed with sugar. This rational universe is in perfect harmony with late modernity. At McDonald's, everyone is equal--but by default. The system reduces human beings to very little: an elementary function. Here, people are gathered, they cross paths, but they share nothing, not a feeling, not a way of being valued even in the least for themselves; they stand side by side in mutual indifference. Here, the other is like me--but he is also a stranger. McDonald's is a true "nowhere," where a life without rules, order, hierarchy, holidays, symbols, or ceremonies is carried out, a life in which one insignificant moment follows another. Here one speaks only of unimportant things, and one maintains only superficial relations. How could one speak--of heartfelt things while chewing on a hamburger? How could one recite a poem between two gulps of a Coke? Who would declare his love over a cheeseburger? McDonald's is not made for such things; it is made for the convenience of the pure consumer, for whom eating means nothing but eating.2 By "McDonald's" I of course mean more than McDonald's. If it deserves this excessive honor and reproach, this is because it illustrates and foreshadows the world toward which we are heading, a world shaped by procedural and instrumental reason, a world at once perfected and decivilized. Notes: All information on the history and system of McDonald's is borrowed from George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society (Newbury Park, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, 1993). As a counterexample, let us cite the beautiful film by Gabriel Axel, Babette's Feast, based on a novel by Karen Blixen. In this film, a political exile from France (a communarde [a participant in the uprising that formed the Paris Commune of 1871]), who had been a great chef under the Second Empire, offers his Danish hosts a refined dinner in the French style. And what happens? The French arts of the table and gastronomy in effect liberate the Danes from their Puritan reserve; little by little the conversation becomes freer, old attitudes give way, human beings become warmer, and the guests discover something unknown to them, a moment of shared joy in which the pleasures of the creation bring creatures together. The God Who is Where? from My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion by Patton Dodd This is an excerpt from "The God Who is Where?" in Patton Dodd's forthcoming book, My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion. Scheduled for publication by Jossey-Bass in November, 2004, another excerpt from Dodd's book has appeared online at Killing the Buddha. My favorite course in my first semester at Oral Roberts University is Humanities I. It is exhaustive--a "bird's eye view," the professor reminds us regularly, of Western Civilization. Said professor is the female component of a husband-and-wife team who have been teaching the course since the beginning of said civilization. Their lectures are, if sluggish, consistently interesting and challenging. Their primary pedagogical method, however, is not to lecture but to show a series of films starring Francis Schaeffer, the quasi-godfather of modern evangelical apologetics. ISBN: 0-7879-6859-5 Hardcover 208 pages Jossey-Bass November 2004 A Presbyterian convert as a teenager, Schaeffer was a Christian public intellectual in the 1970s, and he was largely responsible for whatever popular intellectual engagement was happening in American evangelicalism at the time. Schaeffer was a highly regarded lecturer and author who argued (persuasively for many) for the reasonableness of Christianity via historical/cultural analysis--scanning Western cultural artifacts from Rome forward to suggest the progression toward the problem of modernity and to explain how Christianity (specifically Reformation Christianity) can provide the answer. He was, at bottom, an evangelist, as he would have been the first to tell you. He authored books such as How Should We Then Live? (a reading of Western cultural history that essentially blames the disorientations of existentialism on a philosophical misstep by Thomas Aquinas) and Escape From Reason (a tract on worldviews that summarizes the presuppositions of a Who's Who list of important thinkers and daringly dissects them to reveal their inherent illogic). By the time I arrive at ORU in 1994, Schaeffer is long dead, but his teaching lives on not only in his books but also in a series of documentary-pedagogical films directed by his son, Franky, who put his father's oeuvre of research on celluloid in the mid-1970s. The films, which are meant to be a cinematic companion to How Should We Then Live? (with which they share a title), document not only the World According to Schaeffer but also the sensibilities of the 1970s and Schaeffer's idiosyncratic chic, complete with a fantastic Dress Code-breaking goatee and even more fantastic knickers. Much of the class sleeps through How Should We Then Live?, but those of us who remain awake are overjoyed. We love the Schaeffer films, applauding them for both their cultural enrichment and their fashion anachronisms. Schaeffer is infectious. He pays attention to everything, seeing the artifacts of human civilization--paintings, statues, literature, film--as always containing eternal repercussions. The whole of Western artistic and philosophical production is assessed in light of a Christian worldview. It's fascinating. Two thumbs up. For me, the films are an introduction to a thinker who will loom large in my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Like much else in my faith experience, Schaeffer's ideas are something I will first embrace fully, then reject absolutely, then recover piecemeal. I dig Schaeffer initially because he immerses me into a study of social customs and philosophy that I might have avoided otherwise. So concerned about secularism and its rampant deceptions, I need a Christian doorway to walk through into an exploration of the World of Ideas. Schaeffer gives me license to achieve a kind awakening to film, literature, and art because he offers a Christian posture, a way of study that says it is okay to investigate the world around me and see how it fits and does not fit with what I believe. I do not realize that I need this license, but I do. The secular/Christian music dichotomy has implicated non-musical mediums, too, and the limiting paradigm, though unarticulated, works the same way. With this license in my pocket, I begin to turn my attention to the non-Christian world more and more, watching movies and listening to music and reading literature always with an eye toward what the appropriate Christian response might be. I am not very good at it. Mostly, I cower in the face of secular wisdom. Brandon and I go to see Pulp Fiction and scurry to find the Christian angle but come up with nothing. All we can produce is guilt for having watched something that must displease God. Rather than discussing it on the drive back to campus, we pray together for forgiveness. I pick up The Grapes of Wrath, which I read adoringly in a high school English class, but now it gnaws at me as it references the Bible over and over again but rejects Christian theological possibilities and pokes at the Pentecostal preacher, Casey. In my interaction with these and other media, I cannot get much past overtly moral concerns--should a Christian let his mind reflect on sinful subject matter? Should a Christian be exposed to anything that does not affirm the lordship of Jesus and promote biblical values? I see from Francis Schaeffer's work that he was reading Michel Foucault and watching Woody Allen and Federico Fellini movies and putting them to work for his overall Christian project. While I can't get beyond simple guilt, Schaeffer sits atop the Fortress of Reason like a Christian sniper, his scope trained on everything in sight, taking down enemies with precision. Hegel, Picasso, Bergman, and infinite others receive the Schaefferian rapid-fire hit and, at least within the airtight pages of his books as I understand them, don't get back up. But I can't climb the fortress, and I'm no sharpshooter. My instinctual intellectual reflex is not to offer a rejoinder, but to give the benefit of the doubt. I feel convinced by whatever I am reading or watching. Against my spiritual inclinations, I entertain the sinking suspicion that these secular stories and philosophies might be more accurate portrayals of the world than my own. At times, every other point of view--even Steinbeck's, even Tarantino's--seems more viable to me, like they know something I don't know, like my Christian experience of the world has been too limited and maybe I should take their way of thinking into consideration. I think these thoughts, then pray against them. I pray without ceasing as I read books and watch movies because I feel I cannot resist the onslaught of their influence. I ask for God's guidance as the lights go down in a movie theater. I beg for insight, for some kernel of truth, for the key to unlock these misleading mysteries and expose them for what they are. I hope to one day be able to think through secular culture the way Schaeffer does, but for now I fear that secular culture is thinking through me. The more I read Schaeffer and try to let him teach me how to locate and debunk secular presuppositions, the more I find that there is something inherently unsettling in one of Schaeffer's own presuppositions. His square Reformation Christianity peg does not quite fit into my round charismatic Christianity hole. Francis Schaeffer's working premise, which is reinforced for me and Brandon as we read and discuss Escape From Reason, The God Who Is There, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, and other Schaeffer books on our own, is that Christianity is imminently reasonable because God is the Author of all Reason. Schaeffer explains that there is a step-by-step logical progression that should lead one straight to Jesus, with the inherently true, verifiable, inerrant Scriptures paving the way. Any other way of arriving at belief in God, he says, is an irrational leap of faith, which equals existentialism, which equals despair. According to this way of explaining things, me and my charismatic friends are all existentialist Christians, and therefore, if I understand Schaeffer, not really Christians at all. Christianity and Liberalism: Two Alternative Religious Approaches by David T. Koyzis At the very end of the twentieth century, Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball published a collection of essays titled, The Betrayal of Liberalism : How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control.1 This title is characteristic of one school of analysis of contemporary liberalism, represented by what Alasdair MacIntyre has labelled "conservative liberals." The gist of the argument is as follows: liberalism is a philosophy of freedom which had made huge strides in liberating humanity from a variety of oppressive institutions, including chattel slavery, feudalism, hereditary monarchy and other forms of ascriptive social patterns. Liberalism's beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were on solid foundations, as articulated by the likes of John Locke, Adam Smith, the American founders and (perhaps) John Stuart Mill. Modern constitutional democracy, including that of Canada and the United States, would be all but impossible without the groundwork laid by this early liberalism. However, the story continues, over slightly less than the last hundred years, the original liberal impulse has been betrayed by those falsely claiming the liberal label. These include the likes of US Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and, especially, a series of Supreme Court justices (in both countries) whose decisions have imposed an undemocratic rights-oriented regime on a recalcitrant public deemed to have retained "unconstitutionally" atavistic attitudes towards abortion, homosexuality, marriage and a number of similar issues. Furthermore, the very institution of the welfare state is leading us down what the classical liberal economic philosopher, Friedrich von Hayek, was calling as early as 1944, "the road to serfdom." This more recent liberalism is thus eroding representative government, personal freedom and even equality, insofar as it champions race- and gender-based affirmative action. The net result is a society which is anything but liberal in the traditional sense. When a human rights tribunal is able to force a private printer to accept business effectively advancing a cause with which he disagrees, then liberalism has become most illiberal indeed. This "betrayal of liberalism" thesis is advanced primarily by those who would call themselves liberal in the older sense. They retain a commitment to the principles championed by Locke, Smith and Mill. They are very often citizens of the United States who attach more than ordinary significance to the American founding, including such foundational documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights. They take great interest in the thoughts and writings of such figures as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries, assuming that in them they will discover the collective mind of the founders and it will enable them to unlock the riches of the liberal tradition bequeathed to later generations. They will then be able to hold up this tradition as a standard by which to measure the apparently misguided activities of the pseudo-liberal upstarts. Proponents of the "betrayal of liberalism" thesis include, most prominently, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, George Weigel, Robert George, and other so-called "Catholic Whigs" associated with the journal First Things. For these figures the Christian tradition itself calls for a classical liberal and democratic approach to politics, at least at the present historical moment. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Catholic Whigs ascribe their own position to Pope John Paul II himself. On the protestant side one can find Charles Colson, the Reformed theologian John Bolt, and a number of others associated with the several Reformation traditions. Catholics, Protestants and Jews of this persuasion have come together in the Acton Institute of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which pursues market-oriented economic, political and social reforms. Of course, there are also people who do not identify overtly with any of the traditional religions and adhere to some form of the "conservative liberal" thesis, such as Milton Freedman and Hayek himself. But among Christians adhering to this interpretation, there is at least an implicit tendency to assume that the American founding is somehow uniquely revelatory of God's purposes in history. Their common assumption is that it is possible to follow the principles of the earlier liberalism championed by the founders without necessarily embracing the latest manifestation of the liberal worldview. There is, of course, another account of the relationship between the earlier classical liberalism and seemingly illiberal contemporary liberalism. This account emphasizes the continuities between the two, and it includes both adherents and opponents of liberalism. Here the story goes as follows: the liberalism of the welfare state, activist courts, human rights tribunals, affirmative action and the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League is rooted in the logic of the earlier liberalism of Locke, Smith and Mill. For its proponents, the contemporary liberal enterprise aims simply to complete the pioneering work of Locke, Smith, Mill and the American founders. Thus the voting record of a Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) stands squarely in the tradition of the American founders. On a theoretical level, the ruminations of a John Rawls or (increasingly) Canada's Michael Ignatieff are simply the continuation of the project begun some three centuries earlier in England and Scotland that spread to North America. Partisans of the latest form of liberalism include a large number of intellectuals who would accept both Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government and Rawls' Political Liberalism, seeing the latter as the worthy heir of the former. Of course nonliberals too are fully capable of seeing the continuities between early and later forms of liberalism, and some would agree in seeing Rawls and Kennedy as legitimate successors to Locke and Jefferson. Yet for them this is by no means to be applauded. As they see it, liberalism as a whole has had a fragmenting impact on the larger society. A lopsided emphasis on individual rights minus the counter-emphasis on responsibilities to the larger society can only have a deleterious effect on marriage and family, on secure neighbourhoods with safe streets, on the maintenance of social mores, and so forth. Where these nonliberals differ from their classical liberal opponents is in recognizing a connection between the early social contractarian theories of community and the fissiparous tendencies of contemporary liberalism, with its excessive emphasis on freedom of choice at the expense of a common good. Opponents of liberalism seeing the connections between the different stages of liberalism include the Augustinian Catholic David L. Schindler, traditionalist Catholic Robert P. Kraynak, Protestant ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, University of Notre Dame's Michael Baxter, Jacques Ellul, Canada's George Parkin Grant, and, I would argue, those standing within the reformational tradition extending from Calvin, through Johannes Althusius, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd and Bob Goudzwaard. One might also include in this growing community of scholars and observers Nicholas Wolterstorff, Alasdair MacIntyre and (possibly) Jean Bethke Elshtain. For all their considerable differences, all are united in viewing the liberal tradition as a single spiritual strand, moving inexorably through the centuries and working out its foundational presuppositions in the various societies it has touched. Only gradually has its full implications become clear, until the affected society comes to taste its bitter fruit, in addition to reaping its undoubted benefits, the latter of which have come primarily through the spectacular technological innovations it has unleashed. I would count myself as part of the latter group. In contrast to the Catholic whigs and the Acton Institute, which tend to view the various liberal strands as separable and capable of being assessed differently, I concur with those seeing contemporary liberalism rooted in the logic of the earlier liberalism. Rather than lionizing Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, I believe we must subject it to the same critical framework that we would bring to the later forms of liberalism for which it served to pave the way. If the various stages of liberalism have anything in common, it is the tendency to view all forms of human community as mere voluntary associations, in principle mutable and even revocable at the whims of constituent individuals. The political implication of this is that, by conflating the state with a voluntary association, liberalism has eviscerated the state's jural character, i.e., the understanding, rooted in both universal human experience and biblical revelation, that government is obligated to do justice and that this obligation is its defining feature. Of course, those Christians who would still adhere to the betrayal-of-liberalism thesis have a response to the logic-of-liberalism argument. Liberalism, they would say, is not at fault. As Richard John Neuhaus has put it, "When we survey the depredations and ravages of our social, political, and religious circumstance, it is tempting to look for someone or something to blame. It is easy to say, 'Liberalism made us do it.' But liberalism is freedom, and what we do with freedom is charged to our account."2 Yet what if it turns out that liberalism is not merely equivalent to limited constitutional government and the protection of freedom, but instead is itself an idolatrous overestimation of these undoubted goods? To be sure, some people accept the liberal label simply as a way of claiming support for a wide measure of personal freedom within a given political community. It is difficult to find fault with this. In this sense to be liberal means to be attached to liberty, but in a balanced and proportionate manner. This is undoubtedly the meaning the Acton Institute ascribes to the word when it includes "in the liberal tradition" everyone from John Locke, Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, to Thomas Aquinas, Althusius, Edmund Burke, Tocqueville, Kuyper and C. S. Lewis. As Paul Marshall puts it, "If it simply means a great concern for individual freedom and rights in a constitutional, democratic order, then this author is happy to be called a political liberal."3 Agreed. Yet there is more to liberalism than this. Much more. I would argue that liberalism, as an ideology, has a creedal character and is rooted in a fundamentally secular worldview. To begin with, liberalism starts with a basic faith in human autonomy extending well beyond a mere attachment to personal freedom. Autonomy means to be self-directed, to govern oneself in accordance with a law which one has chosen for oneself. Each of the ideologies attaches this autonomy to some manifestation of humanity, be it the individual or some community such as the state or nation. Liberalism assigns this autonomy to the individual, who is deemed to be the centre of the cosmos. Liberalism proper arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that is, in the intellectual milieu of the scientific revolution and of René Descartes' attempt to construct a unified science on mathematical models. Accordingly, liberalism, in typical Cartesian fashion, reduces society to its component parts and attempts to rebuild it on a more rational basis. Human community is deemed very nearly a fictitious construction reducible to its component parts, namely, the individuals. The only way to understand a community is to subject these parts to rigorous examination. Individuals are sovereign, and thus it is they who determine the shape of their communities. The implications of this liberal creed are huge, insofar as it effectively levels out the diversity of human communities, recasting them all as voluntary associations, subject to the whims of their members. That this conflicts with ordinary experience would seem evident. If, for example, someone were to walk into room 212 at Redeemer University College and see me standing in front of a group of some fifty young people and lecturing to them, she would know immediately what she was seeing: a classroom community united by the shared desire to study political institutions and processes. She would know, without having to engage in elaborate theorizing, that we were not a family. A combination of cues would provide the evidence, including body language, lack of physical resemblance among those present, the larger numbers, the formal nature of the conversation, the note-taking, the overhead projector (or something more technologically sophisticated), the 50- or 75-minute length of time, and so forth. A liberal emphasis on the community's voluntary character would tend, if taken seriously, to suppress this experientially-based knowledge. Even if we admit that the students in attendance are there of their own free will, there are limits to the voluntary character of a classroom community. They could not, for example, announce to me one morning that they had taken a vote and decided to disband the classroom community and reform it as a bird-watching club. The most that could occur would be for students, on an individual basis, to drop the course and enroll in an ornithology course in its place. But it is not up to them to decide on the structural form of the classroom community which they have elected to enter. The early liberal political theorists are known as social contract thinkers. The social contract makes its first startling appearance in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, especially his Leviathan. It reappears half a century later in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government and later still in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's On the Social Contract. The social contract theory takes a narrative form, beginning with atomized individuals in a pre-political state of nature, characterized by economic scarcity and at least a potential condition of warfare. At some point these individuals tire of conditions in the state of nature and elect to band together to escape its dangers and uncertainties. They do so by means of a social contract. Although the various liberal theorists differ among themselves on the precise nature of the contract, all are in fundamental agreement that it is entirely voluntary, and thus subject to the aggregate of wills party to the contract. As these sovereign wills need not answer to anything outside themselves, it is not surprising that they should be changeable in the expectations they attach to this contract. The early liberals clearly favoured a "lean and mean" state apparatus, capable of defending the citizens and their property but incapable of interfering further in their lives and livelihoods. Yet as this night watchman state proved inadequate to the doing of public justice, later liberals expanded the role of government, initially to regulate the large monopolistic enterprises established during the early industrial revolution, later to secure equal economic opportunities for all citizens whatever their respective social stations, and later still to subsidize a wide variety of personal choices and to cushion the potentially detrimental effects flowing therefrom. Although the followers of the earlier form of liberalism, including Friedman and Hayek, dislike the expansive state of late liberalism, there is little if anything in their ideological commitments to prevent it. After all, if the state is a mere voluntary association, then its members are well within their rights to alter the terms of the social contract, effectively abandoning the strictly limited state in favour of what has come to be known as the welfare state--one undertaking to provide a wide variety of services to the public. Moreover, if Hobbes, Locke and Jefferson are to be believed, the parties to the contract even have the right to abolish it altogether in a revolutionary act, if it fails to do their bidding. So what's wrong with all this? Isn't all this as American as apple pie? Yes, it is. But its influence is much more widespread than the boundaries of the United States. The lure of voluntarism--of not having to submit to anything or anyone outside of our own wills--is a powerful one throughout the western world and beyond. We dislike the thought that we may be under obligations to which we have not freely assented. We did not choose our parents, yet we are still responsible to obey them when we are children and later, as adults, to continue to honour them. Nor have we literally entered into political community or overtly assented to its laws. Most of us are born to citizenship in a particular state, with all the rights and responsibilities attached to it. Those who are not acknowledged as citizens in the land of their birth, for example, Palestinian refugees or non-Israeli middle-eastern Jews, find their claim on public justice precarious at best. Citizenship is not a voluntary status, yet those without it or whose status is unclear are anxious to claim it for themselves. They are as worthy of pity as orphans who have lost their parents at too young an age. It may be a cliché to affirm that we are embedded in a plethora of overlapping communities from day one, but liberalism in all its stages has difficulty accounting for this. What then shall we make of the larger liberal project? I would argue (contrary, it seems, to "Fr. Jape" in the last issue of The New Pantagruel) that obedience to the will of God as expressed in his Word--far from being opposed to discernment--requires discernment (see I Corinthians 12:10; Colossians 2:6-8). Like it or not, we human beings are confronted by a plethora of worldviews vying for our allegiance, and some of these take the form of political ideologies, such as liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democratism and socialism. To know what obedience requires of us in the political arena, we must first discern what in these ideologies is worthwhile, even as we recognize their apostate spiritual underpinnings and seek an alternative better able to account for the rich social complexity in God's world. Notes: Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 1999. Neuhaus, "The Liberalism of John Paul II," First Things 73 (May 1997): 21. Paul Marshall, God and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), p. 124. Christian College Professor Flunks Christian Worldview Tests by Jack Heller I take online tests. If I were a Led Zeppelin song, which song would I be? ("Kashmir") Which character from "The Simpsons" would I be? (Marge Simpson) Which character from Shakespeare's tragedies do I most resemble? (Coriolanus, but that result may be skewed by the fact that I've studied him extensively.) What's my IQ? (I'm not telling.) I also do not have a Christian worldview. I have taken both of the free online Christian worldview tests, one from the Nehemiah Institute and one offered by WorldviewWeekend.com.1 According to WorldviewWeekend.com, there are five possible ratings: Strong Biblical Worldview, Moderate Biblical Worldview, Secular Humanist Worldview, Socialist Worldview, and Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Secular Humanist Worldview. (I kid you not.) From WorldviewWeekend.com, my score was a 37 out of a possible 170 points, 21%, Socialist. As pitiful as that is, my score from the Nehemiah Institute was even worse, -43. The Nehemiah Institute has only four worldview categories--Biblical Theism, Moderate Christian, Secular Humanism, and Socialism--so I am in its bottom group. The Nehemiah Institute concludes that "help is needed in developing a Biblical understanding," and WorldviewWeekend.com offers a seven-point plan of action "to improve [my] biblical worldview," including reading a book with its title misspelled No Retreasts, No Reserves, No Regreats. I am currently an assistant professor of English at a Midwestern Christian college, a member institution in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). I do not dismiss my score on a Christian worldview test--as I would being identified with Marge rather than Maggie Simpson--because CCCU publications often identify the development of a Christian worldview as one of the missions of its member institutions. Furthermore, each of these tests is used by Christian high schools and homeschoolers as a bona fide assessment of the students' faith understanding, so there is a strong likelihood that a number of incoming evangelical freshmen will have had their views influenced by those who have created these tests. And if these students evaluate their professors--even at Christian colleges--on the basis of the content of these tests, as they are encouraged to do by some apologetics ministries, then they begin college predisposed to reject rather than to think about ideas which other Christians may hold consistently with their faiths. On course evaluations, good professors have paid for their digressions from the students' beliefs.2 These tests have gained in significance in the mainstream of the American evangelical subculture. The resolution presented to the Southern Baptist Convention this summer calling on its members to remove their children from "government schools" argued that "the Nehemiah Institute has discovered through its extensive surveys of student attitudes and beliefs that acceptance of a secular humanist worldview by Christian children attending government schools has increased dramatically over the last fifteen years." (The resolution was defeated in committee before it reached a floor vote.) The Nehemiah Institute's materials have received endorsements from Paige Patterson, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television Commission. WorldviewWeekend.com has done even better for itself in getting endorsements and co-workers from Josh and Sean McDowell, Norm Geisler, David Limbaugh, Erwin Lutzer, Kirk Cameron, Tim Wildmon, Probe Ministries, and Summit Ministries.3 The president of WorldviewWeekend.com, Brannon Howse, is the "education reporter for the Michael Reagan Show"; as Reagan's guest host during the week of his father's funeral, Howse has interviewed Jerry Falwell and former attorney general Ed Meese. The Worldview Weekend conferences are held at Christian high schools and churches around the country. It is not my intention to justify all of the answers I chose on both of these tests. Nor is it my intention to prove that I have a Christian worldview. The paradoxical premise of the Southern Baptist resolution suggests that it is possible to be both Christian and secular humanist, so, while I do not believe that I am a socialist, let others interpret my answers as they would like. What concerns me is my sneaking suspicion that these tests are becoming a measure for assessing whether individuals are indeed Christians who are growing in their understanding of the faith. I would suggest that neither test offers an accurate of assessment of a person's Christian worldview and that they may mislead a person as to what a Christian worldview is. Both the Nehemiah Institute and WorldviewWeekend.com categorize their questions into areas of thinking. The Nehemiah Institute's categories are Politics, Economics, Education, Religion, and Social Issues. WorldviewWeekend.com has more categories--Civil Government, Economics, Education, Family, Law, Religion, Science, and Social Issues. But while WorldviewWeekend.com has more categories than the Nehemiah Institute, neither test is comprehensive enough to cover all the important areas of one's thinking. Neither test, for example, considers what a person might think about ecology. Neither test broaches the subject of aesthetics. Neither test asks anything about how a person chooses entertainment. Neither has anything about labor, leisure, sexuality (other than the sinfulness of homosexuality), health, poverty, race and ethnicity, natural resources, urban life, rural life, and the human body. Yet these subjects have significant influences on people's lives, perhaps for many people even more influence than the subjects included in the tests. Furthermore, Christian thinking about these subjects often contrasts with the thinking of those from Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic faiths. What is especially curious about the narrow categories of these tests is that the writers who most popularized worldview thinking within modern evangelicalism--such as Francis Schaeffer, James Sire, and Arthur Holmes--did write about ecology (Pollution and the Death of Man), aesthetics (Art and the Bible, How to Read Slowly), poverty, and race. My contrast of the Christian faith to some of the world's other major faiths reveals another shortcoming of these tests: They represent all worldviews as a contrast between theism and secularism. For the authors of the WorldviewWeekend.com test, what is a Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Secular Humanist Worldview if not simply an exponential intensification of the test's Secular Humanist Worldview? Where would there be an accurate assessment of the worldview of a Hindu, an Orthodox Jew, a Sikh, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an animist? Nor do these tests distinguish between Christian faiths (Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox) and between those faiths commonly regarded as Christian sects (Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, for example). Consider the following four statements from the Nehemiah Institute's online version of its worldview test. Each statement is to be responded to with Strongly Agree, Tend to Agree, No Opinion, Tend to Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. In parentheses, I add the answers the test makers regard as correct for a Christian worldview: Individuals should be allowed to conduct life as they choose as long as it does not interfere with the lives of others. (Strongly Disagree) All people are conceived with a sinful nature which, from birth on, creates desires in them to commit evil deeds. (Strongly Agree) Because human nature is constantly changing, values and ethics will also change. Therefore, each generation should be free to adopt moral standards appropriate to their preferences. (Strongly Disagree) Each person has an eternal spirit which will live forever after the body dies. This spirit will either live in happiness with God in heaven or in torment with the devil in hell. (Strongly Agree) These statements are classified as the Religion section of the test. In relation to the second statement, I do not know all the nuances on the origins of human sinfulness from the Mormon, the Jewish, and the Muslim faiths; however, it may be possible for the most conservative persons from those faiths to appear from their responses to these statements as having a Biblical Theism worldview. Yet I cannot strongly agree with the fourth statement because it misses one of the truly distinctive Christian beliefs, the resurrection of the body. Some may argue whether belief in the resurrection of the body is essential for a person's salvation, but in the Christian tradition it is significant enough to be in the Apostle's Creed. I can either wholeheartedly agree to have the Nehemiah Institute's version of a Christian worldview, or I can remain true to what I understand of the Christian faith on the resurrection. I hedged on the fourth statement, answering "Tend to Agree," but I find it theologically inaccurate by its incompleteness. Isn't there a problem with a Christian worldview test when it can show a non-Christian to be more Christian than an actual Christian?4 The statements on the WorldviewWeekend.com test more frequently refer to the Bible. However, they still fail to reflect the ways in which Christian thinking can lead to conclusions other than those held by the test makers. Both tests have statements on capital punishment for which the "Christian" response is supposed to be Strongly Agree: WorldviewWeekend.com: The Bible states that the government does not bear the sword in vain. Numerous verses throughout the Bible make it clear that capital punishment administered by the government, for those that have committed capital crimes, is biblically acceptable. Nehemiah Institute: Capital punishment for certain crimes is a Biblical mandate and should be enforced in our society. There are problems of biblical interpretation here. The WorldviewWeekend.com statement alludes to Romans 13:4, but without considering that in the Roman Empire, the sword was a military and law enforcement weapon rather than the weapon of choice for executions. The Nehemiah Institute identifies a biblical mandate for capital punishment, but without pointing out that all such mandates are presented in the Old Testament. The New Testament assumes the continuing practice of capital punishment, but it is not necessarily mandated beyond the existence of the Hebrew theocracy. Furthermore, every person executed in the New Testament is either a martyr or a thief. I cannot argue that capital punishment is contrary to the Bible, but given the recent and numerous reports of death penalties being overturned because of the mistakes or malfeasance of over-zealous prosecutors and because it has long been applied inconsistently on the basis of race and class, I can no longer support capital punishment. I used to be in favor of the death penalty. Now, I am against it. I have been a Christian while holding both viewpoints. At what point have I not had a Christian worldview?5 Another problem with both worldview tests is that their makers confuse having a Christian worldview with their own ideologically biased interpretations of American history or political science. WorldviewWeekend.com presents this statement: "The founding fathers had no biblical reason in mind when they made America a Constitutional Republic instead of a pure democracy." One may fairly ask what any response could have to do with whether or not a person has a Christian worldview. The "Correct answer" is to "Strongly Disagree," but a good historian would have to ask which founding fathers are being considered here. Would Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, John Adams have considered biblical reasons for anything they did?6 None of them were Christians, and indeed, all of them opposed Christian belief in their writings. If one considers these men as founding fathers, then the "Correct answer" is factually wrong. The Nehemiah Institute runs into historical and hermeneutical problems as well. While I "tend to disagree" with the statement, "The Bible provides the foundation of civil law and should be the primary source of instruction for establishing civil government in all nations," for a Christian worldview, one is supposed to "Strongly Agree." But for what countries' civil laws does the Bible provide the foundation? Brazil's? China's? And where does the Bible claim for itself the authority to be the source for civil government in all nations? To the extent that one may submit without a direct violation of divine command, Christ in the gospels and the epistle writers argue for submission to civil authorities regardless of the philosophical assumptions of their laws. And if a person must act in conflict with the civil authority, she must expect the penalty meted by that authority regardless of the rightness of her cause. The Roman government preceded the appearance of Christ and the writing of the epistles, and nothing in the New Testament suggests that its writers expected the gospels and epistles to serve as a new foundation for Roman law. It should be obvious by now that both tests reflect their makers' conservative politics. The Nehemiah Institute abstracts these ideas to make them appear more objective. Thus it offers statements such as "The accumulation of wealth by individuals is necessary for a nation to be financially strong" and "Nationalism (the sovereignty of nation's [sic]) is a hindrance to nations working for peace."7 (For a Christian worldview, one is supposed to Strongly Agree and Strongly Disagree respectively. I failed on both statements.) WorldviewWeekend.com is more straightforward about baptizing its conservative American patriotism: American founding fathers violated New Testament principles when they founded America. (Strongly Disagree) The Ten Commandments originally provided a basis for our legal and political system creating justice and peace. (Strongly Agree) George W. Bush is the President of the United States of America. (Strongly Agree) Let's contrast these statements to what earlier, but recent, evangelical theorists of worldview would say. Arthur F. Holmes, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Wheaton College and author of Contours of a World View and All Truth Is God's Truth, described in the late 1980s what he hoped a student well-educated in a Christian worldview would be: Pat is alert to the issues of the day: she feels the injustices of apartheid and admits there are ambiguities in Nicaragua. She listens to the other side, rather than reacting with an outburst of ridicule or anger. She measures her judgments before she acts, and before she votes. Her vote, in the end, is the kind of vote a democracy needs--informed, principled, and caring--not just blindly partisan.8 Anyone who remembers the politics of American foreign policy in Central America in the 1980s knows that Holmes is not describing a member of the religious right of that time. Yet, while Holmes never had the popularity of Francis Schaeffer in evangelical culture, he still has influence in Christian higher education. If despite his significance to Christian worldview theory, Arthur Holmes seems too far to the left politically, then how about these comments from Francis Schaeffer, generally regarded as the most influential evangelical writer on worldview? In the United States many churches display the American flag. The Christian flag is usually put on one side and the American flag on the other. Does having the two flags in your church mean that Christianity and the American establishment are equal? If it does, you are really in trouble. These are not two equal loyalties. ... It must be taught that patriotic loyalty must not be identified with Christianity. ... Equating any other loyalty with our loyalty to God is sin.9 Francis Schaeffer would have never considered "George W. Bush is the President of the United States of America" to be pertinent to whether or not a person has a Christian worldview. So far, I have critiqued these worldview tests based on the myopia of their contents--limited subject matter, limited test result possibilities, problematic historical statements, and questionable theology and biblical interpretation. Since these tests are on the world-wide web, consider the possibility of a Christian in India finding and taking one of them online. Given the regional conflicts in South Central Asia, is an Indian Christian truly expected to agree that nationalism is not an impediment to peace? Must an Indian Christian know anything about the American founding fathers to have a Christian worldview? Given the horrific treatment of widows in parts of Indian society, must an Indian Christian agree that traditional gender roles are innate from birth? In an area of the world in which religious education may focus more on terrorism training than on literacy, must a more secular public education be opposed? If the Nehemiah Institute's and WorldviewWeekend.com's tests are specifically intended for American audiences, then what we have are not tests of the Christian worldview, but tests of a Christian worldview as determined by the specifically conservative American politics of their creators. This is affirmed by the follow-up emails I have had from both organizations, recommending the removal of children from public education, offering opposition to hate crime legislation which--some fear--would criminalize speaking against homosexuality, and promoting the website www.votechristianworldview.org. To improve my worldview, WorldviewWeekend.com recommends that I read books with such titles as Mind Seige (sic), God and Government I, II, and III, Original Intent, and The Battle for Truth. None of these titles suggest to me a desire that I actually become a Christian; they want to convert my politics rather than my faith. So, what does WorldviewWeekend.com recommend to the 22% of the non-Christians who test as having a biblical worldview? Do they get a "Get out of Hell free" card for having agreeable political viewpoints? I decided to find out the answer: I registered with a different email address and took the WorldviewWeekend.com test again, this time considering how I would answer as if my politics were completely conservative but as a non-Christian who views the Bible as a good book of moral instruction and Christ as a good man. (My mental model was to think about how Ben Franklin would have answered the questions.) With that persona, I tested as being a moderate biblical worldview thinker, even though I claimed that I never attend church, that I am not a born again Christian, that I deny the resurrection of Christ, that I have no opinion on the existence of the Holy Spirit, that I "tend to agree" that all religions are equally true, that there is more than one way to God, and that a person can get to heaven if his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. So far, despite these answers, there has been no effort to evangelize me, though I anticipate continuing to receive emails recruiting my opposition to hate crime legislation and announcing Brannon Howse's guest host appearances on the Michael Reagan Show. If a person can deny the resurrection of Christ and still appear to have a Christian worldview, if a Christian in Asia could not take a Christian worldview test and pass it, then these tests are not a valid assessment of whether a person has a Christian worldview. The tests may assess how well an American agrees with the religious right, but if that is their purpose, then it is deceptive to call them Christian worldview tests. I cannot imagine the previous generation of thinkers about worldview--people such as Carl Henry, James Sire, Arthur Holmes, Francis Schaeffer--approving of these tests. As the tests idolize politics, what is cause for concern is how many significant evangelical leaders, people who really should know better, are associated with them. The point of my criticisms is not to help refine the tests. I am not offering constructive criticism; I want these tests given no more regard than a test showing whether one is "Kashmir" or "Misty Mountain Hop." To suggest that all that would be needed is a statement rewritten to include the resurrection of the body would not address the assumptions underlying the structural flaw of these tests. It is quite impossible to create a test for the Christian worldview. In an upcoming essay, Heller will continue this argument by proposing that the impossibility of a worldview test stems from the problems with the concept of "worldview" itself. While some worldview theorists argue for some diversity within a Christian worldview, as a practical matter, such diversity always conflicts with worldview. Heller will argue for jettisoning the concept altogether and for refocusing apologetics. Notes: The Nehemiah Institute test may be accessed at http://www.christian-internet.com/creation/peers_test.htm. The WorldviewWeekend.com test is at http://www.worldviewweekend.com/test/register.php. While free, both of these tests require an online registration which will give the sites one's email address. One may request not to receive their emails. The results for the WorldviewWeekend.com are calculated immediately; the results of the Nehemiah Institute are sent by postal mail. My comments on the Nehemiah Institute test refer only to its online version, which has only twenty questions. The institute sells a longer version which I am unwilling to pay for. However, because the Nehemiah Institute purports to rate one's worldview from those twenty questions, I conclude that the test is open to criticism. How strong is the influence of these tests? It is hard to tell. The Nehemiah Institute has expressed alarm that graduates of Christian high schools increasingly do not have a Christian worldview. On the other hand, at Louisiana College (the state's Southern Baptist institution), one student's complaint to the college's trustees about the content of Ernest Gaines's novel A Lesson before Dying led to new rules restricting course materials and to the resignation of top administrators. I have taught A Lesson before Dying; while the narrator is not a Christian, he sees his lack of faith as making him less heroic than the preacher. This is not an anti-Christian novel. Josh McDowell, author of Evidence that Demands a Verdict and other apologetics books, has spoken at Worldview Weekend events in Branson, MO. His son Sean is a regular speaker at these events, scheduled to appear in Fort Wayne, IN, Sioux City, IA, Lincoln, NE, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, and Dallas, TX. Norm Geisler is the author of over thirty books and the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC; he will be speaking at the Worldview Weekend in Springfield, VA. David Limbaugh is the brother of Rush Limbaugh, a newspaper columnist, and the author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War against Christianity; he is scheduled to speak at the Worldview Weekend in Sioux City, IA. Erwin Lutzer is the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago and the author of a number of books; he is scheduled for Spring Hill, FL and Memphis, TN. The actor Kirk Cameron ("Growing Pains", Left Behind) will appear in Springfield, VA and Branson, MO. Tim Wildmon is the vice president of the American Family Association and the host of upcoming Worldview Weekend in Hattiesburg, MS. Probe Ministries in the Dallas area has been an apologetics ministry for over twenty years; its president, Kerby Anderson, is scheduled for Worldview Weekends in Sioux City, Lincoln, Fort Lauderdale, Kansas City, and Rockford, IL. Summit Ministries is another worldview-oriented apologetics ministry based in Colorado; its president, David Noebel, is the author of a number of books and is scheduled for Worldview Weekends in Spring Hill, FL, Lincoln, and Hattiesburg, MS. This list is not exhaustive of either speakers or events; Worldview Weekend.com claims an annual attendance rate of over 30,000. When registering for the WorldviewWeekend.com test, a person is supposed to respond to whether or not he is a self professing born again Christian. On the survey breakdown, of those who claimed not to be born again Christians, 22% still test as having a strong or moderate biblical worldview. 44% of those claiming not to attend church also test as having strong or moderate biblical worldviews. The Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Herrera v. Collins permits the possibility of an execution of a defendant who can offer an affirmative argument for innocence as long as proper procedure was followed in the trial. Why this case does not raise more opposition among pro-life evangelicals is a puzzle to me. While I have assessed a number of these men's writings from my own reading, I am indebted to Michael S. Horton's Beyond Culture Wars (Moody, 1994, pages 46-49) for alerting me to the statements of John Adams and Ethan Allen in opposition to the Christian faith. A reader may note various mistakes in spelling and grammar in the quotations from these worldview tests. Both tests purport to examine a person's worldview as it pertains to education, and yet their sloppy writing suggests that their creators have little regard for meeting the minimum standards for public, written communication between educated people. The Idea of a Christian College, 2nd edition; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, page 104. The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview. Volume 4. Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1982, pages 71-72. I was again alerted to this passage from a citation in Michael Horton's Beyond Culture Wars, pages 34 and 40. Realism Against Reality by Eric Miller "looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess" --Leonard Cohen, "Closing Time" In a 1967 book review fraught with Cold War anger and anxieties, the historian and social critic Christopher Lasch denounced a political stance he dubbed "vulgar realism," a way of seeing that, by his lights, had locked up the American political imagination and paralyzed the body politic. By smugly resisting any thrusts for structural change in American political life, self-proclaimed "realists" were pronouncing a covering blessing on all that the nation had by the 1960s become. This so-called realism, Lasch warned, actually amounted to "the abdication of moral judgment, the appeal to some abstract and impersonal necessity which is supposed to make questions of right and wrong irrelevant." "What we need," he concluded, "are books critical of political messianism but equally critical of 'consensus.'" Four decades later, that need persists. The American "consensus," and the "realism" that underpins it, have changed shape in the post-Cold War world, to be sure, but the broad political and ideological trajectory that so troubled Lasch rumbles on, and with it the great monotonous modern mantra: The system is sufficient, devotion to it is necessary. We will follow it to the end. The hope, of course, is that our system will lead us to an "end" in the Aristotelian sense, with progress, prosperity, and happiness rewarding those who give themselves over to our way of pursuing life. But the forms of progress, prosperity, and happiness that our civilization has in the past century delivered suggest that it's just The End that we've been moving toward--"end" in the sense of finality, cessation, death. Estimates of our mortal sins differ, of course. Some point to the unprecedented forms of human bondage developed by the West as most profoundly reflective of the condition of our collective soul, while others seem more unsettled by the peace we've made with destroying human fetuses as (remarkably) a way of life. Christians of varying sorts have affirmed both judgments while also citing other civilizational pathologies, among them: deepening and bewildering forms of sexual promiscuity, a mass idolatry of technology, the erosion of neighborhoods and other forms of local community, and the degradation of the earth itself. On the American watch, the "home" has morphed into a self-contained entertainment-center, aging has become a source of shame, and humans have been reduced to individual wills, creatures who don't mature so much as simply exist, doing (as it were) what they will. "Ah," sighs the Christian realist, "there you go again--failing to affirm the good that we've achieved, and expecting too much from a race that is, after all, corrupt. The evil that you see now isn't such a departure from what we have always been. And the good that you refuse to see is worth more than you know. Behold the wheat; behold the tares: they go together. Besides, would you really choose to live at any other time?" Knock-out blow delivered. Head back in book. Peace restored. Except for that alarm that must be sounding somewhere, vibrating down a darkened hall toward the realist's sleepy sound-proof den. It's the alarm that goes off whenever we mistake the counterfeit for the real, whenever we grant substance to shadows, whenever we laud the compromise as the ideal. As the deception worms its way in, despair, with a quiet air of righteousness, begins to justify its presence. How? With an arsenal of "realistic" arguments. What is wrong with this "realism"? It is, most fundamentally, an offense against reality: the reality of our true creaturely ends. In its Christian guise, it denies not that we are made to live in distinct, particular ways, but rather it denies the belief that we can, and should, seek to inhabit them. Its way of honoring the ideal--by placing it far into our past or far into our future--actually removes the ideal from our grasp. If the true task of "civilization" is to guide our corporate life toward the ways in which we as a race were meant to live, "realism" blinds us to those ends by constantly reminding us of what we are not; the effect is to make us aim lower, and lower, and lower, until transcending our current circumstance becomes a mere act of fantasy--if it remains an activity at all. In its secular guise, "realism" takes on an even more perverse quality: it erases the hope of any end that is fundamentally different from whatever vision of life currently lies in our sights. What is, is--a condition some may celebrate and some deplore; either way, an enlarged sphere for diabolical mischief emerges. In the absence of a transcendent purpose, the very meaning of human existence becomes the plaything of the great mind-shapers of the age. "The abdication of Belief / Makes the Behavior small," noted Emily Dickinson--small, and so easily manipulated by anyone with an ounce of power. Of course, we aren't consciously extending invitations to the demonic when we succumb to "realism." We, weary of pressing toward Belief, settle into a state that seems simply more sane, and less exhausting. Or, we conclude that we're maturing, and ease into our new digs with something like gratitude but more like relief, taking comfort in the "ambiguities" and "complexities" of life in these times. Possibly we just follow the traces of those elders who have instructed us in the ways of the world, and as a matter of habit peer suspiciously at those who doubt the wisdom of that which has brought us to this point. Whatever pathway taken, calling this stopping place "home" signals the deadening of fundamentally healthy, and necessary, human impulses: the longing to be that which we are not but could (and should) become. In this particular moment, we Americans boast a triumphal form of realism, as what we're sure will become the American Millennium glides onward. We glory in our power, we delight in our pleasures, we marvel at our conveniences. Cheering the flag, we pity those who lack our attainments and hide our doubts somewhere in the rushing caravan of career, school, and the dozens of other assorted activities we call our "life." But every now and then one question (asked in many forms) manages to sound loudly enough to slow us down: Is this really life? If "civilization" is meant to help us to choose life, why does it smell so much like death around here? The simple posing of these questions makes one thing clear: maintaining a civilization is far easier than pursuing our truest ends. Any civilization tends as a matter of course to turn its members toward an elemental dependency of body and soul on the grand, overarching political and economic system it has developed to sustain and organize human life. This dependency is crucially and fundamentally religious: an offering of the self to that which it believes will deliver what it needs. Civilization, rather than being a means to an end, becomes an end in its own right, and so a god. A false god. And in the name of this cult(ure), we end up justifying massive moral, political, and intellectual compromise for the sake of the lower-order pursuits--pleasure, painlessness, power, tranquility, identity, or simply survival--that "civilization" affords. Take the omnipresent corporations that, with their thundering promise of provision, rule over our nation, and, increasingly, our world. Despite their vaunted version of prosperity, the mavens of corporate capitalism have done little in the past two centuries to inspire confidence in their ability to understand what the earth and its people truly require, much less demonstrate that the corporations they direct will someday operate in a decent fashion, honoring our Maker and prospering our progeny. Rather than embracing nurture and thrift, global capitalists, with legions of the best and the brightest in their employ, have operated at best solipsistically and at worst rapaciously, willing to exploit all that we hold dear--from children to mountains to language to health itself--for their self-absorbed ends. This is the pathway to life? This is provision? We know that it's not. But this knowledge we, understandably, would rather repress. So here we are, one hundred and some years into a life-scheme whose promises are as hollow as the TV networks that deliver them. Our religion is failing us--badly. What to do? "It is no principle with sensible men, of whatever cast of opinion, to do always what is abstractedly best," advised John Henry Newman as he was attempting to launch a Catholic university in Dublin in the 1850s. "Where no direct duty forbids, we may be obliged to do, as being best under circumstances, what we murmur and rise against, while we do it. We see that to attempt more is to effect less; that we must accept so much, or gain nothing; and so perforce we reconcile ourselves to what we would have far otherwise, if we could." What may seem at first glance to be just one wordy Victorian's restatement of the realist's credo--Be satisfied with compromise--on second glance looks less "realistic" and more useful. Note especially that hopeful phrase, "what we murmur and rise against." Even as Newman chafes against the deficiencies he knows will force him to accept less than he desires, his longing for the good, for the ideal, pulses strongly within. Even as he warns implicitly against what Lasch in 1967 termed "political messianism," he guards against giving the "consensus" undue honor and so capitulating to that which will weaken his own commitment to see vitality and grace embodied in everyday life. Compromise, in this vision, is driven solely by a hope for real (if incremental) progress toward the ideal. Communal health, Newman knew, is measured not simply by the achievement of the ideal, but, even more crucially, by the image of the ideal the community erects. So what kind of civilization-constructing should we give ourselves to? Which compromises will nurture life, and which will endanger it? Such decisions, if they are to be morally sound as well as politically effective, require (almost by definition) the consent of the communities affected and involved. Only those who have achieved intimacy with a given community can discern well the nature of the threats to it and envision its most hopeful prospects for change. Towns, churches, schools, businesses, counties, neighborhoods, colleges, families: each must be led by elders with a wisdom both broad and deep, men and women guided by an abiding affection for the health of the particular place and its people--and by an adequate understanding of health itself. The critical question for all of us who in this moment of our civilization's history seek such health must be: How can we extricate ourselves from degrading dependencies and attachments and replace them with more human, life-giving forms of support and connection? This question forces us to see that our dependencies and attachments both reflect and dictate our true religion--that upon which we most fundamentally as creatures rely. Given the religious quality of our dependencies, it follows that any shifts in them will ramify in an array of cultural directions: into the realms of art, ideas, education, economics, agriculture, manufacturing, research, and more. Understanding that the nature of our cultural crisis is at heart religious prepares us to see, too, that the work of extrication and incarnation will be intense, demanding far more than "rational" decision-making and good "strategy." The roots of our contemporary assumptions about "reality" run deep--way deep--and up-rooting them will require a form of earthy spirituality inimical to the gnostic materialism of our day. Such spirituality finds its ground in the abiding reality of goodness, a goodness sourced in a Creator who is present, and who sacramentally draws those who drink of his goodness into a manner of living that more faithfully and wonder-fully reflects our creaturely estate. Because goodness presides and prevails, we gain the courage to pursue another way, defying the common sense of the day with acts that testify to another wisdom, a different vision, a deeper justice: acts as simple as planting a garden, writing a poem, or walking to a church; acts as grand as running for office, starting a grocery store, or having another child. In living our faith in such ways, we place always before us the reminder that the miracle that deserves our deepest respect and allegiance is not what we as a civilization have done with the gift of life, but rather the enormous, mysterious fact of life itself. A certain variety of realist will scoff at the political drift of this vision, even while agreeing with the contours of the cultural critique. As they tell the story of our civilization, these realists tend to give history ontic status: their overwhelmingly bitter and bleak narrative of our decline and corruption makes any turn-around seem impossible; potential political thrusts, however fledgling and tentative, are straitjacketed into paralysis--our woeful story is, after all, the sum of who we have become, and no movement forward is conceivable. "Turn Left at the Renaissance," runs the headline of one self-consciously "conservative" magazine, implying a demise so ancient and deep that misery and despair can only follow. This view is a fallacy. The past does not exist. What exists is the present, shaped profoundly by the past, to be sure, but made possible, moment by moment, by a goodness sourced in a Maker who bids us to reflect his glory, to embody his righteousness, to love his justice, now. This reality must be the starting point for our politics. Sometimes it may require us to do the culturally un-conservative thing of bringing not peace, but a sword. Always it will require a gritty faithfulness to the beauty and justice of a God whose presence alone ensures our hope. In an important sense, most overarching historical narratives of our life on this plane are going to be bleak--or should be. But the same narratives should also feature stories of those whose love of goodness and justice drove them to embody another way. Occasionally, they triumph. When they do, something called shalom happens: a peace social and personal at once takes root, fostering the possibility of freedom for those within their reach. They become a foretaste of a fuller shalom yet to come, a promise of a way of life pure, rich, and satisfying. Until that day, they live as Dwight Macdonald once quipped of the radical: "pleased if history is also going his way," but "stubborn about following his own road." The road, in this case, is the pathway to our final reality: true realism. It's the journey that begins when someone dares to believe Christ knew what he was doing when he issued that troubling, yet hopeful command: Be ye perfect. A Revolutionary Community: Repositioning Justification by Faith by Geoff Holsclaw Amid the onslaught of New Age spirituality and a surfacing religious awareness in the 21st Century, what is a poor 'dialectical materialist' to do? When Capitalism is taken for granted as a force of nature, where might an ailing Marxist find support? For Slavoj Žižek, shelter is found under the wings of an unlikely source. In his latest book, The Fragile Absolute, Žižek contends that the most important repositioning in these 'postmodern times' should and will be a reconciliation between Christianity and Marxism. The Fragile Absolute is remarkable for its unbridled attempt to appropriate the subversive core of the Christian legacy as a means of breaking out of the logic of Capitalism: the desire of "unbridled productivity" and "unbridled consumption." Though Žižek succeeds in surprising ways, his work ultimately fails because he is unable to fully appropriate the Christ of Christianity. A Revolutionary Community Žižek argues that Marx was not radical enough in his break from Capitalism because he shared with Capitalism the goal of unbridled productivity. "Socialism failed because it was ultimately a subspecies of capitalism, an ideological attempt to 'have one's cake and eat it,' to break out of capitalism while retaining its key ingredient." Žižek explains that Communism/Socialism is the utopian dream, or fantasy of Capitalism; the desire of limitless productivity which is consumed by limitless desire. According to Žižek, Marx's mistake was to think that the object of desire (unbridled productivity) would remain even when its cause/obstacle (oppressive capitalist social relations) was abolished. However, as the history of Socialism reveals, this was never to be the case. Rather than escaping the logic of Capitalism, Marx extended it into an unrealizable ideal. The Fragile Absolute takes many twists and turns as Žižek skillfully weaves together Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis to the conclusion that only the Christian legacy "breaks out" of the vicious cycle of Law and Desire. As he notes, "[t]here is always a gap between the object of desire and its cause, the mediating feature or element that makes this object desirable." This cause/obstacle makes the object desirable; the object is not desirable in or of itself. If you take away the obstacle then the desire dissipates. Capitalism thrives within the production and maintenance of this cause/obstacle. Christianity escapes this logic not by fulfilling the Desire, or by removing the Law, but by means of Love, which unites the object of Desire and its Cause. "In love, the object is not deprived of its cause; it is, rather, that the very distance between object and cause collapses." Love is directed toward the object of desire in and for itself, even in spite of itself. Love desires the object, in a sense, in spite of its lack of desirability; Love loves in spite of what it loves, not because of it. This breaking out of the cycle of Law and Desire begets an alternative community, "uncoupled" from social hierarchy and oppressive relationships. The community so created is revolutionary, escaping regulation by the Capitalist production of desire and difference, and instead offering universal humanity to all. This "authentic psychoanalytic and revolutionary political collective" is Žižek's distillation of Christianity indentured to the rehabilitation of a 20th Century political dream gone bad. What is to be done with this suggestion? Do we affirm this appropriation of Christianity as a politics of love beyond desire, or reject it as the hopeless task of joining religion and politics? By means of a detour through "justification by faith" I hope to evaluate and critique Žižek's proposal thereby repositioning and rearticulating the real "break out" of Christianity. Luther's Desire and Justification's Degeneration In his short book, The Justice of God, James Dunn briefly outlines how part of our understanding of "justification by faith" was obscured during the Reformation. Becoming overly individualistic, exceedingly introspective, and excessively judicial in imagery, Dunn argues, the doctrine lost its communal and relational focus. Dunn goes on to point out that for Martin Luther, God was to be feared, not loved. While Luther was an Augustinian monk, situated within a Roman Catholicism of indulgences and purgatory, his conscience ached with guilt over his sin before "the justice of God," i.e., that God punishes all unrighteousness. But under a prolonged reading of Romans, grappling with the strange manner in which Paul refers to "the justice of God" as a means of salvation, Luther made his critical "discovery." He realized that the decisive (f)act of God is not that He is "Just" (condemning the wicked), but that He is also "Justifying" (acquitting the wicked). From this emerged his doctrine of "justification by faith" not by works, buttressed by the attendant theories of substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness. However, Dunn has argued that Luther read much of his own medieval Roman Catholicism into Paul's letters and distorted what the Apostle was really saying. Luther assumed Paul had gone through the same agonies of conscience and guilt over sin before a blameless and just God. Luther further assumed that Judaism, like his own Catholic Church, was a legalistic religion of human striving, or works righteousness. From these Luther reasoned that the doctrine of "justification by faith," by which he received God's Righteousness, set him free from the system of earning God's favor. The problem with Luther's likely assumptions, as Dunn and others have recently contended, is that Paul does not read as if he is plagued by a guilty conscience, and Judaism does not read much like a works-based religion. Paul nowhere sounds like he has a guilty conscience before God because of his sins. Instead he says he was blameless in regards to righteousness within the law. Also, the Judaism of Paul's day, and the one we read about in the Old Testament, was based in God's gracious election of Israel, His giving of the Law as a means of a covenant relationship, and His continued dwelling with His people Israel even in the midst of their sin. The frequent prophetic recollection of God's continuing righteous actions toward an unworthy nation bear witness to this. Thus, in significant ways, Luther retrojected his context back into Paul's situation, and distorted "justification by faith" by turning it into a doctrine focused on personal salvation. This distinction facilitated an Enlightenment and modernity conceived and experienced as a radically individualistic revolt. Israel's Desire and Law's Degeneration Luther, however, was not the only one who misunderstood God's purposes concerning salvation. Within Paul's context, the doctrine of "justification by faith" is not meant simply to answer the question "How is one saved?" but rather "Who is in the covenant community of God?" As N.T. Wright notes, "The purpose of the covenant was never simply that the creator wanted to have Israel as a special people, irrespective of the rest of the world. The covenant was there to deal with the sin, and bring about the salvation, of the world." The point of the covenant was the restoration of God's righteousness in the world and the reconstitution of humanity to its radical potential. However, Wright explains that during Paul's time, ...while Gentiles are discovering covenant membership, characterized by faith, Israel, clinging to the Torah which defined covenant membership, did not attain to the Torah. She was determined to have her covenant membership demarcated by works of Torah, that is, by the things that kept that membership confined to Jews and Jews only, and, as a result, she did not submit to God's covenant purposes, his righteousness. This brings us full circle, back to Žižek: Israel's vicious cycle of Law and Desire did not deal with sin and guilt as Luther believed (and as many Protestants still do). The Law was certainly the cause/obstacle which sustained their Desire, but the object of this Desire was not what the Law forbade. Rather, their object of Desire was initially God, who gave them the Law. But covenant Law degenerated into the symbolic Law when Israel allowed her Desire for God to collapse into the maintenance of a boundary distinguishing Israel from the Gentiles, becoming a justification of Jewish nationalism. The maintenance of Law became their object of desire, which led to their failure to attain the universal purposes of God. The logic of the Law was inverted from its universal intention, degenerating into a boundary delineating Jewish particularity. Paul's Doctrine of Justification For Paul the issue at stake in the doctrine of "justification by faith" is not primarily one of soteriology (how one might be saved), but of ecclesiology (how we define the church or covenant community). As Dunn writes, "the Christian doctrine of justification by faith begins as Paul's protest not as an individual sinner against Jewish legalism, but as a protest on behalf of Gentiles against Jewish exclusivism." Paul's Damascus road experience was a conversion from a 'zealous' attachment to Israel's distinctiveness preserved by Law, particularly as expressed through circumcision and dietary rules. Paul was a rigid nationalist who had forgotten that Israel's election was meant for the benefit of the Gentiles also, not for their exclusion. But through his dramatic encounter with Jesus, Paul was converted from the particularity of the nation of Israel, to the particularity of Jesus, the God-man through whom the universality of God's intention was restored. Justification by faith for Paul was therefore not merely the conviction that sinners cannot rely on their own merit to earn God's favor, although Paul would certainly agree with this. Rather, it is the conviction that God's grace is no longer limited to a particular people (i.e., those who follow the Law), but that through faith God's goodness and mercy are made universal to all peoples, regardless of social and ethnic hierarchy. Through Christ, all are justified, because God's grace is not locked into a certain people, but mediated through a certain person, our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Messiah, Savior. Christ's Universal Community This, then, is the "break out" of Christianity--the formation of an alternative community. Beyond the structural antagonisms, differences, and desires of consumer Capitalism which splinters race, class, and gender, the universality of humankind is realized and revealed in the community gathered around the particular man, Jesus. It is through faith in this work of the particular Jesus that we are un-coupled from social hierarchies, not merely through Žižek's Love beyond Desire. Israel affirmed the universality of God through the particularity of their human community according to Law. Žižek, denying God, affirms the universality of mankind beyond the Law through Love. But Christians affirm the universality of mankind through faith in the particularity of God, i.e., the particular identification of Jesus as divine. This community is based in Christ, through whom the law of sin and death, desire and difference, has been destroyed. In Him community is uncoupled from antagonistic relationships, and humanity is freed from oppressive social hierarchies to the universality of God's design. Or, put another way, only through an individual can individualism--that menace of modernity--be subverted. Only through the particular man can we enter a community beyond the particular differences of mankind. If Luther is a type of consumer individualist, and the Judaism of Paul's day is a type of global, tribal sectarianism, then the community of Christ breaks out of both, fusing the particularity of the man Jesus with the universality of God's grace to all humanity. Christ is the only basis for a revolutionary politics beyond the Capitalist production of desire. He is the only basis of an alternative politic which can "ease the grip of the liberal-capitalist hegemony." I Don't Want to Talk About It by Barton Fink There's a part of me that doesn't want to tell you this, even as just words on a page, even though I'm in control right now. That's how I like it--order, structure, clear boundaries. Not the chaos and immediacy of face to face conversation. Even though you don't know who I am. You see, I work in the film industry. Your face just lit up! You want to know more, not just out of a need to make polite conversation--because you can tell at a glance that I'm not one for polite conversation--but because you want to know more. You need to know more. You need me to stand as your proxy and sanctify your desire to consume and be entertained. I hear that there are some people out there who hate what I do and want to give me the shovel to dig my own grave, but I've never met one of them. I'd like to. It'd be fun. But you, you like the movies. You just wish they weren't so, so, so like they are right now. Even the ones you take your family to. With the casual profanity, and the partial nudity, and the upsetting violence. But I see it behind your eyes. You like it. And you want me to tell you that it's okay to slip your bonds of morality, for just a moment in the dark, because it's not your fault movies are like this. It's mine. But you don't say that, do you? First you are filled with endless questions about the minutia of my working life. I copy scripts; you want to know what kind of fasteners I use. I answer the phone; no, I don't just say "hello." Here are my hours; here is how I take my lunch break; this is how I arrange my face when I meet someone famous. Yes, I'm very lucky. I have met famous people. I've been in a van with an Oscar winner; I picked another one up from the airport--sitting in traffic, he rolled down his window to get a light from someone in the next car. Maybe it was you--if it was, I know for that minute you wanted to be me. Don't lie. I once turned down a job assisting one director whose movie you can recite from memory and his star, who you think is hot. If I had taken the job, I would have had to wake up early to work out with them, and stay up late to do blow with them. That's what their assistant had to do. Which leads me to the next question you are dying to ask (and I've given you the perfect intro, have I not?): Is it hard to be a Christian in the film industry? What with the drugs, and the f-bombs, and the homosexuals? And there must be lying, and blasphemy, and moral decay. Oh, so you don't want to hear any of my fun stories from set, do you? I've had some fucking good times with the drugs and the homosexuals and the atheists. Let's say, too, that I'm just like you--you'll go along with that fiction, right? You respect whoever introduced us enough to want to believe that I am a good Christian, with integrity and moral rectitude. Now hold me in your mind schizophrenically: a good Christian, and a hedonist. Got it? Now ask me again if it's hard to be a Christian in the movie industry. What you really want is for me to draw a line that you can stand behind so that you can know for very certain that if you were in my place, in the presence of movie stars, you would use your powers for good and be a light to the world. You need to believe that people like me are all bad, weak people and that if we were out of the picture, the moving pictures would be just as you know they could be: clean, pure, shining. You're shaking your head. I've got you all wrong--you're not one of them--your mother is, but not you. You don't care about ratings; you can handle adult content. Not porn, you understand, but God created the body and sometimes nudity is necessary to tell a story. You're totally fine with all of this, and now you list for me your credentials, your favorite films, the number of Tarantino movies in your DVD collection. You stare up at me, face eager, waiting for me to bless you so you can keep spending money on entertainment, fettered by just a few restrictions. You want to know the names of movies I've worked on, so you can decode their secret Christian meaning. You're going to make me feel good about what I do, about the choice that I've made, so that I don't regret structuring my life around an industry known for pleasure and not sacrifice. You couldn't make that choice. You tell me you're not that strong. What you mean is that you're not that foolish. It'll all be worth it someday, you say, and you touch me on the shoulder. It must be so very, very hard, and you must feel like it isn't worth it. I just need to hold on to my ideals, and remember who I am, and above all not to squander any chance I have to get the Christian message out through film. That has to be what drives me, what moves me, and what inspires me. Otherwise, it can't have been the right choice. (And you'd believe that even more if I told you that I once wanted to teach second grade in the inner city.) At this point, I will just smile and say, oh yes, won't that be wonderful. You are so very happy, because you have said your piece and I have listened. You have done your part to reaffirm that it's not your fault that movies are the way that they are, because you want them to be better, straighter, holier. And if I fail to uplift you with my art, it's because I didn't listen, and I chose the crooked path. And then I walk away and wish that we'd never met, because you don't understand me, and I don't think you ever will. In my darker moments I fear that you are right, and I wonder if I am on the wrong side. And in the clear light of day, I'm torn apart by producers with mandates and studios with requirements, and it's hard to make art in the marketplace. But when I turn out the light and close my eyes, the stories come. They always have. Under their strange, exhilarating burden, I am helpless. You think that I can choose the stories I tell, but don't you see that they choose me? The only thing that sets me apart from my non-Christian colleagues is that I believe I know who the stories come from. And they don't come from you. Four Poems by Betsy Childs ContentsMonday Night In Medias Res Temptation Procession Monday Night Well, Nora made this chili and I ate it, because she's awful insecure about her cooking, but it wasn't worth eating, except to spare her feelings, but her brother Bob says don't encourage her because why make the rest of us suffer? I washed the bowls and scraped the burnt chili pot and Nora teared up and said I'd probably die of heartburn before I turned forty-five and we turned on the news and the weather girl told us in a cheery way to look for rain until Wednesday. Nora said by the way how long did we have to wait to start a family and I said what did that have to do with rain? She said it had to do with everything while her clock was ticking so I said it had to do with my dead-end job and flipped to this game show and answered every question right but the dope on the show lost. And Nora looked out the window and said Lord, here comes Jesus and she was right.Back to top. In Medias Res I missed the beginning of the story, born too late to watch the light come on and the characters climb out of the dust. Besides that, both scholars and carpenters agree we're an end-determined fiction, senseless without the last chapter. When we finish the story we'll have to read it again to see the shape of it. Only a few star-eyed seers admit they have flipped to the end to settle their minds, and I'd rather listen to them than not know. But one thing about this great, collapsing allegory offends my literary sensibility: at times I actually see the face of God, the great author intruding. Back to top. Temptation I want to be the great, wide, mother of the world, of you beautiful brown ballerinas draping your grace-glazed awkward arms around the brown, upright piano. You pasty, pink, wet-cheeked, whimpering babies in cribs watching shadows set on the wall-- call to me, need me, miss me. How can I glory in you unless I possess you and birth you, you scruffy-faced, unedited men with your innocent question? You armies who clear your throats in a stare-down with death, I invite you to gather your courage from me. (You simple and brilliant who weep over birthdays and laugh over birthday suits). All of your differences whisper, "Only increase and we will make you mother of all these," the First Lie of the world. Back to top. Procession On this day, by suspending our Usual traffic flow, we will make An apology for the blue sky. The planets have not yielded To your grief by altering their Course to some eclipsing Pathetic fallacy, but we will pause And wait for the beaded chain Of mourners and associates, Winding their way to Gilead. On this day, you have permission To ignore the order we have made With lights and whistles and words, And we will not blame you, For tomorrow, all will be As it was. Back to top. SRK # 200 by Sumanth Prabhaker Thank you for purchasing an official Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Kit. We here at Sartano Sartano appreciate your support. Included in your Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Kit (SRK) is the following: The Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation DVD An official Sartano Sartano notepad with pencil This pamphlet A pair of glasses, sans lenses (significance TBA) If you are missing any of the items mentioned above, please contact our Customer Service Representative stationed at the nearest Sartano Sartano Caring Center, which will probably be the one in Batavia, because that is the location of what is so far the only existing Sartano Sartano Caring Center (CC). We will be more than happy to provide you with your choice of either a replacement Sartano Sartano SRK, a full refund, or a profuse apology from Sartano Sartano brainchild Jordan Sartano himself. *** Now, you've probably got all sorts of questions you'd like to ask about the Sartano Sartano SRK, so we thought, we at Sartano Sartano are a customer-pleasing organization, we are into pleasing the customer, so why not save your precious time and breath and right now answer some of your questions before you even ask them? Would that please you? We imagine it would. So here are some questions we imagine you'd like to ask, that we will answer preemptively. Questions such as: Why am I in possession of a Sartano Sartano SRK? You are holding this pamphlet for one of three possible reasons. Most likely, you are a person who is somehow dissatisfied with life in general, someone who is walking around constantly muttering, "I hate myself and I want to die." Most likely you saw our TV spot right before Survivor: Moon and did a double take when you saw a very average looking man confess to being somehow dissatisfied with life in general, on TV no less. He slapped his forehead and said, "I hate myself and I want to change," which was so similar to the way you felt, but it was also one crucial word different, and you wanted to know why. So you called us and ordered the internationally best-selling SRK, and it was shipped to you via UPS in 3-5 business days, and now look at you, on your way to who knows what. The second possible reason is that a dear friend of yours ordered the Sartano Sartano SRK for you. We offer a discount gift-giving option to our alumni, where spiritually recuperated members can compile list of depressed contacts and send them the Sartano Sartano SRK at 27% off retail price. If you know anyone who has completed our program, and if you are depressed, dissatisfied, or in any way not perfect, you may have just been given the missing piece of the puzzle. The third possible reason is that you found this Sartano Sartano SRK in an unnoticed dumpster, in which case we urge you to put it down immediately and exit the premises in a calm fashion. Such as: What am I supposed to do with the Sartano Sartano SRK? As explained before, the SRK comes equipped with a DVD, a notepad and pencil, this helpful introductory pamphlet, and a pair of glasses (significance TBA). The customary procedure is to read through this pamphlet until you get to the point where in large letters it says STOP READING THIS AND WATCH THE DVD NOW. When you get to that point, you are to stop reading this pamphlet and start watching the DVD, if you have a DVD player. If not, then for a minor fee you may exchange for a VHS tape. If you don't have a VCR either, then for a less minor fee you may call our Customer Service Representative stationed at the nearest Sartano Sartano CC and arrange for the Sartano Sartano Covenant Players to show up at your home and act out the contents of the DVD in a slightly improvised fashion. While watching, you may use the notepad and pencil to take notes and fully maximize the amount of spiritual recuperation you undergo. The glasses will be explained in due time. Such as: Is it true that there are small tracking devices installed in the Sartano Sartano SRK, so that if I try to throw it away before completing the curriculum, I will be followed and shot with tranquilizers and brought to a strange room filled with strange people? No. Such as: I don't need this. This is not a question, but it is something we will address nonetheless. This may sound rather ambitious, but when Jordan Sartano first conceived the idea for the Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Seminars, he wanted to create something that the whole world would benefit from. And if you look at the results we've seen in the 4 months since its inception, which we are more than happy to publish on our website at http://www.sartanosartano.org, we feel he accomplished just that. As you will see, the Sartano Sartano SRK has the ability to recuperate people of all race, creed, and color. Also it is universal enough to apply to both people who think they are happy but are actually not and also people who know they are not happy and hate themselves and want to die. We feel that those who believe they are perfect are in denial, and the others will seek us out. Such as: Where did this whole Sartano Sartano movement begin? Jordan Sartano was once a nothing. You might be thinking, a nothing, just like me, but the truth is, he was worse than you, and he will be the first to admit this. That is why he will only be photographed in public when he is wearing his I was once worse than you t-shirt. He was as they say speeding down the road to nowhere. He was hating himself and wanting to die. But one day a voice spoke to him. It said, "Jordan, you were given this life for a reason. That reason is to help other people. That reason is to help other people." And that's when Jordan came up with the idea for Sartano Sartano, because if something's good, why not repeat it. Slowly but surely, Jordan found the path to success and happiness, which is: if you give to others, you will be given to. Such as: How can I donate to the cause of Sartano Sartano? Personal checks, travelers checks, credit, cash, or any kinds of valuable possessions can be sent to: Sartano Sartano Caring Center 412 Scarborough Ave. Batavia, IL 60510 *** This next section of the Sartano Sartano SRK is one in which you will answer questions that we ask. You will see a question on the left edge of the page, and three empty boxes lined up on the right. Use the complimentary pencil to check the appropriate box, the left box being a definitive Yes, the middle being a definitive Maybe, and the right being a definitive No. For optimal results, it would be best if you refrain from checking more than one box, but it would also be best if you answer each question. Sample question: Is the Sartano Sartano SRK an international phenomenon? Have you ever killed anyone and gotten away with it? Have you ever killed anyone? Have you ever thought about killing anyone? Do you see any of the previous three as equal? Do you feel you eat more than you need to? Are you able to cope with life very well? Do you fantasize about your funeral? Are you sad? Do you often feel like you're just waiting for your nervous breakdown to happen? Have you ever felt that way? Do you often wake up not knowing that you're not going to kill yourself today? Do you long for the excitement of a spiritual crisis? Do you say you write because you don't know how to talk to girls? Are your parents going to die? Do you love them despite this? Do you love them because of this? Do you hate yourself? Do you want to die? Do you want to change? STOP READING THIS AND WATCH THE DVD NOW. *** (turn page) Now that you've finished watching the DVD, we hope you have a better sense of what Sartano Sartano means. We hope we have dispelled the rumors that we are nothing more than a sex club. We hope instead of a sex club, you see us as what we truly are, which is a group of givers giving each other enough to keep giving. If you continue to have questions regarding Sartano Sartano that don't involve the proper use of the glasses packaged into your SRK, we encourage you to watch the DVD again, pausing to take notes when ideas seem difficult to grasp. You have now completed Step 1 in the Sartano Sartano Regimen of Spiritual Recuperation. The rest of the pamphlet is meant to solidify those who insist on feeling unsure of the SRK's value to them. If you wish, you may skip ahead to Step 2 of the regimen, which is to log onto our website (www.sartanosartano.org) and upload the results of the survey you just finished. A graphed out analysis will be emailed back to you within the hour, and from there you can engage in a number of Recuperation Activities. We believe in offering people the freedom to shape how they learn to not hate themselves and not want to die. *** I was a stripper and a cocaine junky for twelve years, and then I found out about the Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Seminars and Hang Out Sessions. I showed up, because, what's the harm in a little entertainment, right? Wrong. The harm was, it showed me how my entire life was devoted to an empty cause. Because I was giving and being given to, but it was a fake giving for both sides, because I never wondered if these guys actually want sex all the time, or if that's just what they think they want. Now I am seeing that part of what it means to give is to decide what's good for the person too. —Trixie Toppleton I was so depressed before going through the Sartano Sartano SRK. I was tired all the time, and when I actually had energy, I would spend it all thinking of ways to get rid of it. I hated myself and I wanted to die. But the teachings of Jordan Sartano are so true. —Herb Croucher No longer do I hate myself and want to die. Now I merely hate myself and want to change, and I believe Sartano Sartano will help me through this. —Charles Wurdlin I was raped one night. It was dark out, and I was walking to the library. After the man left, I found a Sartano Sartano SRK in a nearby dumpster. Next thing I knew, I was in a strange room filled with strange people. And I can thank my lucky stars for that. —Leslie M. Life before the Sartano Sartano Regimen of Spiritual Recuperation was just…gray. It was numb. I just couldn't feel anything. I tried drugs, which, surprise, accomplished slim to nill. Drugs are so empty, let me tell you. They are not Cool. I tried beating people up, not Cool. My girl left me. Not Cool. Life was one giant humdinger. I was brought to a rock bottom far lower and rockier than any rock bottom I'd ever imagined. And when you're that far down, it's like you can't just climb your way back out, if you understand my analogy. The Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Kit was the rope ladder I needed. —Jamima Tochenfield Sartano Sartano yanked these folks out of their depression. Could it work for you??? *** Here is a list of Sartano Sartano beginner Hang Out Sessions: "Take me away, mister": Escape and the desire to start over "Give me that cherry, now": The desire to have sex with people you're scared to talk to "Just one more drink": For those who want to become alcoholics to up their creativity "Gray gray gray": Numbness and the fleeting nature of friendship "Oedipus = me": Why children have to leave their parents "We = sticky emotional webbing:" Why parents have to leave their children "I hate myself and I want to change/die": A seminar in psycho-spiritual boredom "Why we are better than Scientology": Why we are better than Scientology *** You have now completed your Sartano Sartano SRK. Good for you! Pat yourself on the back. Give yourself a hug. Eat some ice cream if you're not currently struggling with gluttony. Thank you for taking the time to listen to what Sartano Sartano can do for you. We know you are depressed, and we know you are currently so far from God you feel like nothing in the world can help you. Pardon us if we disagree. We hope you will continue with the Sartano Sartano Spiritual Recuperation Regimen. There is quite a handful of seminars we feel will help you! We like to think Jordan Sartano had you specifically in mind when he was crafting this organization together. We like to think this even if you are convinced that no one ever has you in mind, because if you met him, you would see, he is so good at having people in mind. We have you in mind and we want for you to feel excited again. We want it so badly it keeps us up at nights. We toss and turn in bed, thinking, how can we get this one person to stop feeling in such a rut? And if we may say so ourselves, we think we've figured it out. Let us tell you how. Sincerely, Your friends at Sartano Sartano The Department of Interpretation by Owen Jones The classroom was marvelously sterile, a perfect laboratory for experimentation. The faux marble floor tiles were scrubbed and polished to a glistening sheen. Gone were the wooden, engraved desks of the reactionary era of my youth. You could not etch puerile love letters into these Formica and steel sculptures if you tried. I was enthralled with the possibilities on my first day on the job. The students were casual, detached, bored, semi-hostile in tone as they filed into my first-period class. I was prepared for anything. Except, perhaps, for the confident woman who detached a desk from the front row and reversed direction to face the class head on. A guardian perhaps? Dispatched by the Principal to protect his prized possessions on my first day? To prevent a serious intellectual or social faux pas? Some politically incorrect comment? Some lasting trauma on the future of our nation? She sensed my alarm. "I am an interpreter for the deaf," she revealed with satisfaction. "I accompany Charlotte to all of her classes. I'm Mrs. Gracious." I was very satisfied myself. Mrs. Gracious was voluminously attractive, but in a controlled sort of way, and I did not mind the prospect of backup in case of trouble. As she performed her prodigious interpretive skills, I detected the evidence of deep feeling. This observation drew something out of me that I could not exactly pinpoint. A feeling of jealousy perhaps. I could not help but ask her at the bell how she had come by such a special arrangement--to be with a student every moment of her day to filter the chatter of a noisy world through lifeless membranes. "Why, the Department of Interpretation, of course." "Yes, of course." I responded, not knowing in the least what she was referring to. Had I been out of action that long? The course of my eyebrow must surely have registered my continuing, sincere curiosity. "A Federal Department, committed to insuring that every person with a disability is able to function normally in a complex world," she volunteered in order to put me at ease. I was impressed with her rapid response, clearly designed to provide the maximum amount of expert information in the least amount of time. Charlotte was on her way, scooting down the hall with all of the confidence of a Latin scholar, and so was Mrs. Gracious, but not before lending me her card. Just as she had said: "The Federal Department of Interpretation. Committed to insuring that every person with a disability is able to function normally in a complex world. Call 1-800-579-4200 for immediate assistance. Know your rights and exercise them. Operators available 24 hours." II. "How did your first day go, dear?" My wife asked in one of her calming tones as we converged over the preparation of the evening meal. I was pacing the kitchen floor, clutching the card in my right trouser pocket. "I almost hit a kid on the way home." "Perhaps they can provide a chauffeur as part of the package. Do they know how terrible a driver you are?" she inquired teasingly while testing the cous cous. Shirley believed humor was the answer to 99 percent of life's problems. "Not a bad idea," I said, playing along, while thinking mostly about the card, although certainly cognizant of my dear wife's lack of appreciation for my near tragedy. "But doubtful, on forty-five dollars a day." "Well, it's only temporary, dear, 'till you get back on your feet. After a year in the Rip Van Winkle Institute for the Marginally Mentally Ill, you have to be patient, dear. Take it one day at a time. One step at a time." But what if there is no second step? I said this to myself, patently ill-equipped to combat Shirley's daunting optimism and not wishing in the least to disturb the cous cous. I removed the card from my pocket and re-read it. The thought was at once disturbing and relieving. It seemed to excite my feelings of unease while at the same time offering a glimmer of something beyond. What if? Then I realized the absurdity of my expectation. Unlike Charlotte's disability, which was obviously of the more manageable, mundane variety, mine was decidedly other-worldly, hard to pinpoint, impossible to isolate. Therefore, impossible to provide interpretational assistance for. Long after the cous cous, which, by the way, was a deliberate tactic to make me forget institutional food, I paced the bathroom floor, shuddering at the thought of killing a wayward pedestrian student on my first day. An incipient panic began to well up inside me. Shirley was snoring contentedly and I feared my panic would alert her. She was sensitive to my attacks and sometimes she would awake with a start, intuiting my solitudinous nightmares. But she needed the sleep and I wanted to believe that the last year of my life had not been spent in vain. I remembered Dr. Kindly's advice. I turned on the faucet and began to poor cold water on the veins of my wrists. Search your memory for a cause. Panic has a cause and knowing the cause resolves the panic, he had said repeatedly. But what if my case was different, unique? What if the cause was so complex that it would take...? Then I remembered. I had left the card in my trousers which were ... where? In the hamper? Had Shirley ducked out to the all-night cleaners? Was I now completely alone? Something about the card had given me a feeling, absurd as it may sound, of, well, for lack of a better term, hope. Clutching the card in my trouser pocket, I was clutching hope, feeling it, being a part of it. A new feeling. Rewarding. Calming. And now I had lost it. I tore through the hamper, trying to avoid any feelings of anger toward my dear wife who was only trying to help by keeping me well-pressed. There it was! Bent, fragile, but still there. Hope. "24 hours," it said, proudly. "Hello?" I whispered into the hall phone. "Yes, go ahead please." "My name is, well, that's not really important. It's just that a friend gave me your card, and..." "What is the nature of your disability?" "The nature of...?" "Yes, we have 479 categories to choose from, all conveniently located on our website at interp.com." "But I'm not online." "You are not online? Dear me. That's category 367. People who are computer disabled. We can provide you with a full-time interpreter to resolve all of your computer disabilities with complete, up-to-the-minute interpretation of all technical jargon. Our interpreters are all intelligent, attractive, well-educated, compatible and, most important of all, free for the lifetime of the disability. But there is a limited supply in this category so you must act soon in order to avoid the waiting list." "But um ah I..." "Dyslexia? That would be category 29. You are lucky. We have a surplus of interpreters going into this field. Simply go to interp.com and..." "I was really thinking about something more relevant to..." "You want something more relevant? Trendy? How about Fear of Success? That's very popular these days. Eating disorders have become a bit déclassé." "No, not eating disorders. At least not yet." After my initial misgivings I was beginning to get the hang of the procedure and felt like I was entitled to get the whole list before making a decision. And she seemed so accommodating. "Could you just go down the entire list for me ... please?" "I don't have all night you know." She said this plausibly with only a hint of impatience. But I was desperate not to lose her and had to think fast. "Perhaps I will find the one I'm looking for before you have to go through the whole thing." I was quite amazed, if not shocked, at my ability to come up with the right words. Hope works, I thought, as I listened with anticipation of my interlocutor's response. "We do have general categories. That should save some time." Why didn't she say that in the first place? "That sounds good," I said, compliantly. Anything to keep her on the line. "Sexual dysfunction. Compulsive, obsessive disorders. Amnesia. Insomnia. Tardiness. These are not in alphabetical order, of course." "Of course," I responded eagerly. "Nor necessarily in order of importance. We, at the Federal Department of Interpretation, do not discriminate." "Oh, no, of course not," I said sympathetically. "That's the last thing." "The last thing on the list is..." "No, I was just saying..." "Philosophical disorientation in the post-modern milieu." "Perhaps we ought to go back to the first on the list, although I'm not really..." "Sexually dysfunctional?" I was quite shocked at my transparency. But it was only a disembodied voice over the phone. What would she know? Or care? "It's more like me and my wife just don't..." "How about sexual communication?" "That's perfect," I said with relief. "We can have the interpreter at your doorstep by 9 a.m." "Well, I don't know..." "Indecisiveness is category seven." "No, that would be fine. Nine a.m. would be just fine." After providing my name, address, phone number, social security number, and mother's maiden name to my anonymous benefactor, I entertained some doubts. With all of those choices, what if I had made the wrong decision? Not to worry, she had said. You can always trade for another interpreter in a category of your choice with twelve hours' notice. I slept soundly that night for the first time in years. Morning came knocking by the name of Petula. She was humming. I introduced her to Shirley who busied herself with the eggs Benedict. "This is Petula, dear. She has come to interpret for me." "Nathan Sump! Are you planning a trip abroad?" Shirley queried without missing a stroke of the whisker. The hollandaise was beginning to froth quite nicely. I didn't know what to say. She was a master at the comeback. I often misinterpreted this gift as a manifestation of condescension toward me, an unwillingness to take me seriously. I wanted to be taken seriously. Normally I would counterattack with an ingenious question, such as, "What do you mean by that?" But this time I had Petula, to whom I looked for support. She rightly interpreted my raised brow as a lead-in. "What your wife just said was, "are you stark raving mad?" I knew it! "And that she loves you a lot." "OK," I said, somewhat befuddled. "Let's get to the first thing first. We need to talk about what she means by mad. Because Dr. Kindly always says that I..." Petula gently stroked my hand while holding her index finger over her mouth. Then she proceeded to hum a bit more. Something familiar. Shirley gently positioned each poached egg on an English muffin, graced with Canadian bacon. She then proceeded to coif each mound of lovingly poured hollandaise with a pair of sliced, dark olives. "Please join us," Shirley said to Petula. "Coffee?" "I'm over my limit for the day, but the eggs look yummy." We sat silently while Shirley said the blessing. Most families don't pray over breakfast, but Shirley always said that it was a bad day that started without a prayer. "You look familiar somehow," said Shirley, palpably ignoring the crisis that faced us. "The hollandaise has just the right touch of lemon," responded Petula, nonsequitoriously. Petula was clearly avoiding the issue just as much as Shirley, and, frankly, I was wondering what use she was going to be, regardless of the financial advantage to my side of the ledger. Like many government programs, the rule of unintended consequences was reigning supreme, not just in the macroeconomic sense, but right here in the Sump household. About as micro as you could get. "I know!" yipped Shirley, as she practically choked on a mouth full of Kenyan coffee. "You are the spitting image of Petula Clark. My all-time favorite singer," she said dreamily. "Always so happy. Positive." "My agent always used to say the same thing," Petula chortled just before digging into her second poached egg. Shirley was always prepared for unexpected guests and we never lacked for seconds. I guess it was just her nature to always expect the unexpected. I, on the other hand, was a bit peeved. I reckoned another call to the Department was in order, just as soon as it was polite to leave the table. Philosophical disorientation wasn't looking bad by comparison to a celebrity in the house. Especially of the has-been variety. As one might expect, Shirley went with the flow. "I always wondered why you stopped performing," Shirley asked as if Petula were now a long-lost member of the family. But I suspected a double entendre, since our intended topic was supposed to have been sexual ... well ... communication. Then the thought occurred to me that this whole thing was some sort of complex plot to humiliate me further. The Federal Department of Interpretation did not exist. A complex ruse designed by Dr. Kindly and Shirley, co-conspirators. "Yes, Petula. Go right ahead and tell us. Why did you stop performing?" I asked aggressively. I knew as soon as I had said it that I was going overboard. It was as if Dr. Kindly was standing over me, reminding me to watch my tongue. So I filled my mouth with coffee to dutifully await my denouement. "Oh, I just decided that it was more fulfilling to commit my life to my husband and children than to millions of screaming fans. Raising children made me feel, well, I don't know if I should say it really. It's a bit personal." "No, please do!" I found myself saying. But Petula waited for a positive signal from Shirley, while ignoring my own interrogatories. Then I guess she must have seen something in Shirley's eyes that voiced her consent, which is obviously what an interpreter does best. "It made me feel immortal." "Immortal," said Shirley with a nod. "Immortal," she repeated, caressing the word like it was the little baby we had postponed. I heard the words, but only the sound of death. The Death of Nathan Sump. There was an awkward moment of silence, punctuated by the sound of Petula's enthusiastic slicing of Canadian bacon. "Your wife is a good person and she loves you a lot, Mr. Sump," said Petula, as she used a napkin to dab a bit of yoke from the corner of her mouth. "But you must stop acting like a two-year-old child. Now what else would you like me to interpret for you?" "Could you please interpret my philosophical disorientation in the post-modern milieu?" I asked without skipping a beat. "Aha! See there! You do have a sense of humor, Mr. Sump. You'll be just fine." As I was attempting to interpret what she meant by this, Shirley ushered her to the door. I strained to overhear their brief, parting conversation, which seemed to have a musical lilt to it. Shirley returned to the kitchen. I was still sitting at the breakfast table, ruminating over Monday's prospective substitute assignment. More math? An AP history class perhaps. "You'll never guess where she's headed from here, Nathan." "You're probably right, dear," I said, wondering if I might not need help with the interpreting. "Downtown, of course!" Shirley giggled as she sat next to me and cradled my hand in hers. For a moment, I felt like cuddling back and not saying a thing. Or interpreting. While I gazed into Shirley's sparkling eyes I sensed something that aroused me ever so slightly. Perhaps a home with children and a mom and a dad wasn't such an alien concept. As I gently squeezed her hand, I realized that I would have to call Mrs. Gracious and thank her. And maybe ask her how I could get a job application from the Department. The Accidental Ecumenist by Peter J. Leithart Sir Reginald Piddleby-Squeak was in a pickle. The pickle he was in was no ordinary pickle, but a pickle of the most unusual size and sourness, a pickle from which he had no prospects of being rapidly extracted. He expected at any moment that he would begin turning green and breaking out in small garlicky lumps. It all started a week ago Monday, Monday of course being the day when Sir Reginald met at the golf club with his schoolfellows, Sir Allan Pennymain and the Right Rev. Harold Puffmelon. Harold was wearing his clerical collar under a worn wool sweater, and Sir Allan was questioning him closely about his attire. "Why must you wear that holy shirt when we're on the golf course? Does the Archbishop forbid you to remove it?" "Not at all." "Well, why must you wear it then?" The Right Rev. Harold Puffmelon looked Sir Allan in the eye and replied, not without pride, "I have important pastoral duties after our morning round." "Do you?" Sir Reginald asked incredulously. He didn't like to butt into a conversation that was not his own, but this was too much. It was well-known throughout the diocese that Harold was rarely seen doing anything that could be classified as pastoral. He liked to spend his days puttering in his flower garden, checking the progress of his peas and lettuce, taking long afternoon naps in what he called his study. "Of course I do," he replied. "I have been charged, you know, with the cure of souls." Sir Reginald proved to be more disciplined than Sir Allan, for the latter snorted out the very guffaw that Sir Reginald had successfully pushed back into my gut. "Since when have you cared a wit for souls? You're far more interested in bodies, and indeed in only one body, your own." It was quite true that the Right Reverend had been growing considerably more rotund of late, but Sir Reginald had been far too polite to point out the fact. "You obviously know nothing about my calling, my vocation." The word "vocation" was pronounced with such an air of mystery that Sir Allan almost felt that he was serious. Taking another look at Harold's nicely rounded belly, his smooth rounded laughing face, his bright bulging eyes, however, was enough to convince Sir Allan that the Right Reverend was the same good fellow who had helped him raid the buttery when both were at Christchurch. Something was up, to be sure, but what was up was not Harold's sense of pastoral obligation. Before Allan could pursue the matter, Sir Reginald broke in again. "Why can't you bring that shirt in a shopping bag, and change in the lockers after our round?" "Does my shirt offend you?" "Certainly not," Sir Reginald said hastily, "but it does inhibit me." "Hear, hear," said Sir Allan, reentering the conversation that had locked him out. "Inhibit you how?" "Come, come, old man," Sir Reginald began. "Surely you know how the game of golf works. We set the ball on a tee, take a couple of elegant practice swings, step up to the ball, and take a whack. What follows is this: The ball bounces sideways into a pile of leaves or the long grass, we curse loudly, throw our club, and move to the next shot." "Yes?" The Right Rev. was not known for being quick on the trigger. "Don't you see that we can't do this with you wearing that shirt of yours?" asked Sir Allan. "Whyever not?" "Let me be blunt, Harold," said Sir Reginald, fighting for his life to get control of the conversation that Sir Allan kept interrupting. "It's the cursing part. We don't feel comfortable cursing when you're out here in that collar." "But I have no problem cursing," said the Right Rev. This was perfectly true. Harold was the worst golfer of the three, and he always cursed like a soldier whenever he hit a bad shot, which meant every time he hit the ball. "Yes, of course, but you're a clergyman. That makes all the difference." "I fail to see how my being a clergyman makes any difference. If anything, it should mean that I'm more concerned about cursing than you." It was the first time that Sirs Reginald and Allan had considered this novel theory. A clergyman more concerned with holy behavior than the average person was almost too much for them to ponder. "You mean, you don't get a 'bye'?" Sir Reginald was struggling to find the correct theological term. "A 'bye'?" "You know, a break, some latitude, some extra leeway. After all, you devote yourself entirely to the church and the service of God, and doesn't that count for something? Doesn't that mean that you can get away with little blue sins like cursing on the golf course?" "Not at all. The pastoral vocation demands a high degree of personal holiness." There was that word "vocation" again, and it sent shivers through Sirs Reginald and Allan. Unfortunately, this high-level theological discussion was cut short by the astonishing transformation that suddenly overtook the Right Rev. Harold Puffmelon. His protruding eyes shrank to small and suspicious slits, his rounded body withered like a raisin, and his smooth round laughing face creased with worried wrinkles. Sir Reginald feared his friend was having a heart attack. "Harold, should we get you back to the clubhouse?" "Anything but that," he said in a shaky voice. "What is the problem?" Sir Allan had sauntered away to the tee, and had now returned. "I say, Harold, you don't look well." "I don't feel well. Not well at all." "Then we should take you home." "No. I can't go back there. I can't." Sir Reginald feared that Harold might start stomping his feet like a toddler, and perhaps even throw himself on the ground and roll around in a full-scale tantrum. As he considered this possibility, it occurred to him, not for the first time, how precisely like a toddler the Right Rev. looked. He had no time, however, to draw suitable implications from this insight, for Harold was pointing with quivering finger, like the grim reaper on an anti-smoking poster, toward the parking lot. Sirs Reginald and Allan could do nothing but follow the direction of the finger to discover the source of the Right Rev.'s unease. To the untrained eyes of Reginald and Allan, the parking lot disclosed no appalling secrets. Two middle-aged men had emerged from a black Mercedes and were pulling clubs from the trunk. One was very tall and wiry and had a tidal wave of very white hair on top of his thin, gray-skinned face. The other was half as tall, square-built and swarthy, and moved with quick elegant steps around the car. "Appalling," said Sir Allan. "What's that?" "Appalling, I say," repeated Sir Allan. "Yes, but what's appalling?" "That, of course." Sir Allan's finger, which was not quivering and which looked more like Uncle Sam's finger in a U.S. army recruiting poster than like the grim reaper's finger in an anti-smoking poster, joined the Right Rev.'s in pointing toward the two newcomers. Sir Reginald turned and looked again at the parking lot. "Have you ever seen anything so crude, so outrageous, so awful?" "Hmm," was all that Sir Reginald could muster. "Just look at those trousers." It was true. The tall wiry man was wearing the most shocking plaid trousers, a checkerboard of screaming yellows, reds, greens, and purples, arranged in no particular order and without concern for the viewer. The trousers were an assault upon, an act of battery against, a prosecutable offense to the visual organs, the ocular capacity, of the observer. Above the trousers the tall man was wearing a bright lime-green shirt with a mauve collar. In attire, the short swarthy man was exactly the reverse; he wore tight lime-green trousers and a screaming plaid shirt. They looked like mirror images one might see in trick mirrors at the carnival. The scene was enough to turn anyone philosophical, even someone with as little philosophical bent as Sir Allan. "There was a time," he began wistfully, his eyes tearing slightly, "when golf was a gentleman's game, when the courses were full of modestly dressed gentry who walked the course with a gentleman's leisurely gait and who cursed with a sense of tradition and decorum. Ahh, the world we have lost. Today, golfers buzz around in electric carts, curse in that awful modern way, and wear that." Sirs Reginald and Allan both sighed, and turned toward the tee. They were halfway there before they realized that the Right Rev. was still fixed in his position, his quivering finger still pointing at the pair from the black Mercedes. "I say, Harold, are you ready to play?" Sir Reginald asked. "Yes, Harold, we've seen the appalling costume. The clowns," Sir Allan growled. "I-I-I-It's not their at-at-at-attire," the Right Rev. finally sputtered out. "What, then?" queried the Sirs in chorus. They looked at each other with irritation. "It's who it is." "Who is it?" "Yes, who it is." "No, I'm asking, who is it?" "Who is what?" "Who is that?" "That what?" "That being at the end of your finger." Right Rev. Harold Puffmelon was neither an intelligent man nor a brave man, but he summoned sufficient intelligence and courage at this moment to blurt out in a rather loud voice. "It's the Archbishop! It's Archbishop Quesada, and the Dean Panzard." "Splendid! Perhaps they can join us for a round. Are they good?" Sir Reginald was impatient to begin the game. "You don't understand. I can't let him see me here." Light was dawning in the dark brains of Sirs Reginald and Allan. "Ahh," they said in unison, and looked at each other with irritation. "Ooh," said Sir Reginald again, this time beating Sir Allan, who was left spluttering nonsensical vowels. Reginald looked at Sir Allan triumphantly. "This is no time for oohing and ahhing. This is impossible. This will cost me my living. This will mean the end of all my hopes and dreams." "You have hopes and dreams?" "Of course. Dreams of quiet afternoons napping in the garden, dreams of quiet mornings puttering with my flowers . . ." "But no dreams of golfing with the Archbishop?" "This is a nightmare." "Pray," said Sir Allan, putting a reassuring arm around the chubby shoulders of his friend. "This is no time for prayer," the Right Rev. said angrily. "No, No. I was not suggesting that you pray. I was using 'pray' in the archaic sense, in which it has a meaning close to the modern usage of 'please.' It has always been a great sorrow of mine that the word 'pray' has gone so out of currency. No one uses it anymore except to talk about praying." "Enough!" The Right Rev. was in no mood for a lecture in historical philology, and Sir Allan brusquely removed his arm from the shoulders of his friend. "Pray, hum, er, please, my dear Harold," Sir Reginald intervened, "tell us why it is that you cannot be seen on the golf course by the said Archbishop?" The Right Rev. swallowed hard. "Right-o. I'm wearing my collar. . ." "We had noticed." It was another chorus. "Yes, well. I'm wearing my collar because I had been sent on an important mission. I was supposed to represent the bishop at the Roman Catholic-Anglican colloquy at Salisbury. The colloquy was finishing work on a joint statement on baptism, eucharist, and something or other, and I'm supposed to be there right now." "Why, then, are you here on the golf course?" asked Sir Reginald. "Yes, pray, why here?" Sir Allan put in. The Right Rev. Puffmelon took a deep breath. "Because Monday is golf day, and I haven't missed a golf day with you two for three years running. I thought I could pop in for an hour or so, play a round, and then run on to Salisbury in time for the final consultations. These colloquies are so populous, you know, that I would not be missed." Sirs Reginald and Allan furrowed their brows and pursed their lips and scratched their chins and did several other things to their faces in an effort to make themselves look thoughtful and sympathetic. Secretly, they were thinking how happy they were that they were not in their friend's position, which both would have described, if given the opportunity, as a terrible pickle. Despite the radiant sun twinkling on the still-dewy grass, despite the daffodils along the fairway, despite the fact that it was a day on which one could say without irony that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world, despite all this, they realized that storm clouds and fearsome weather were in store for their dear Harold. "There is only one thing to be done," Harold was saying. "One of you could put on my collar." Sirs Reginald and Allan were so engrossed by their relief that they were not in the same pickle as their friend that they did not hear this. "I say," Harold repeated. "One of you could put on my collar." Sir Reginald started as if awakened from a deep and satisfying slumber. "Oh?" "Hmm?" added Sir Allan. "I say," Harold began to repeat again, this time in desperation, for the Archbishop had just finished paying green fees and was walking toward the cart barn to pick out a golf cart, while the swarthy thick Dean walked elegantly behind. "Whatever would that solve?" "We could switch clothes." "But we look nothing alike," objected Sir Reginald. "I am tall and well-preserved, and you are short and increasingly fat." "Precisely." The Right Rev. looked positively smug. "Precisely?" "Precisely." "Precisely what, precisely?" "Precisely, we don't look anything alike." "Then what will my impersonating you accomplish, precisely?" "You won't be impersonating me, not precisely." "Then why will I be wearing your collar, precisely?" Sir Allan had as much of this precision as he could take. "Look here, Reginald, it's all quite simple. If you put on the collar, and Harold here puts on your shirt, then the Archbishop will see Harold wearing your shirt, and think that he's just come out for a round of golf. No doubt, he'll completely forget that Harold was supposed to be at the colloquy. What is a colloquy, anyway?" "That's not it at all." Harold was turning slightly pink, a color that, given his round face, made him look extraordinarily like a pig. "Not what I meant at all." "Well, perhaps you could explain the plan, then." Harold looked quickly in the direction of the cart barn. The Archbishop had sat down behind the wheel of a sleek red golf cart. As he pushed the pedal, the cart lurched forward and grazed the side of a royal-blue golf cart that was parked nearby. He tried to stop, but instead swerved sharply in the opposite direction. Harold watched in wonderment as Dean Panzard rolled out the side of the cart, and his lime-green pants and screaming plaid shirt disappeared under two large golf bags, several dozen clubs, and an avalanche of golf balls of various colors. By this time, the pro was running from the clubhouse, hands waving in the air, while the Archbishop had been able to stop the cart by guiding it head-on into a tree. Perhaps, Harold thought piously, God does answer prayer. "This buys us some time," he said hastily. "Listen. This is my plan. The Archbishop has seen me only once or twice. Mostly we talk by phone or correspond, and on the few occasions that we have been face to face I have always been decked out in my clerical garb or some other absurd regalia. If Reginald and I exchange shirts, then he won't recognize me at all." "Ahh." Yet another chorus, followed by more irritated glances. There was a pause. Then, "Say, who I am supposed to be then?" Reginald asked. "Whoever you please," Harold said, his face returning to its normal color and his mouth turning up in its normal grin. "But if I say I'm C of E, he's sure to catch me. He'll ask me where my parish is, who my bishop is, and then he'll probably ask me to recite the Thirty-Nine Articles." "He probably doesn't know them himself," Harold replied. "But I see your point. Say, you went to parochial school, right? Trained by nuns and Jesuits, correct? Learned the catechism, what? Why not pretend to be Roman Catholic?" "I haven't been to mass since before Vatican II," Reginald objected. "Last time I went, it was all in Latin and the priest was standing with his back to me. Very rude, I thought." "Yes, yes. That's all changed now. But that won't harm you. At your age, you could pass for one of those Tridentine hardliners who thinks that Vatican II was the fall of the church." Reginald posed further objections to the plan, but at last it was agreed to. Harold and Reginald snuck behind the bushes, and emerged a few minutes later, each transformed, one might almost say transfigured. Observing them emerge from behind the bushes, Sir Allan could not help but admire the courage and cunning of his friends. The Right Rev. was now wearing a tight-fitting brightly colored Hawaiian shirt, open at the collar and for three buttons down, revealing a hairless chest of quite striking whiteness. On his bald head was a gray fishing cap. He looked like an Icelandic mafioso on holiday. Sir Reginald was now wearing the purple clerical shirt, which was too short and hung on him as if he were a skeleton. The collar was too large by several sizes, and gaped loosely around his neck. He looked like one of the desert fathers making an unexpected and no doubt prophetic appearance on a sun-drenched golf course in central Wiltshire. A voice interrupted Sir Allan's meditations. "Good morning. Perhaps we can join forces and play as a fivesome." It was the Archbishop. II. Introductions all around. "I am the Archbishop Quesada, and this is Panzard, Dean of Canterbury." Panzard gave a slight bow, and Sir Reginald expected him to click his heels. "Sir Allan Pennymain," said Sir Allan Pennymain. "And this is my dear friend, um, yes, er. . ." "Arnold Muffleberry," Harold quickly said. "'Ah 'ah. My dear old and lifetime friend Sir Allan 'ere is such a joker, always pretendin' to forget me name, 'e is. Most pleased to meet you, gov'nor." Harold had put on the most disturbing cockney accent, dropping h's like an extra from My Fair Lady and winking and twitching as if a fly were stuck in the corner of his eye. The Archbishop looked carefully at Harold, opened his thin lips slightly as if to say something, but turned to Sir Reginald. "And you, sir? It looks as if we share the same vocation." It was the third time Sir Reginald had heard the word "vocation," and it was not yet nine o'clock. He shivered slightly, but forced a smile. "The Rev. Reginald Piggledy-Snout, at your service, sir." "Piggledy-Snout?" "You have it, sir, the first time." The Archbishop wrinkled his nose in thought. "Irish?" he asked. "Are you of the Dublin Piggledy-Snouts?" "I am afraid not, sir. I am London born and bred. Soho. I'm of the Soho Piggledy-Snouts." Dean Panzard had during this time said nothing, but stood impatiently leaning on his driver. "What say we begin playing? May we play together?" "O' course, mate," said Harold, with a broad wink and laying a hand of Panzard's broad shoulder. "It'd be a great 'onor to 'ave someone of your station to play along with the likes o' us." The Dean, it seemed to Sir Allan, was not keen about having hands laid on his broad shoulders. "Indeed." The Archbishop's mouth moved again as if he were going to speak further, but all that came out was, "Let's tee up, then." The Dean was the most eager to play, and he shouldered his way to the tee. The Archbishop turned to Sir Reginald, and said in a hushed golfing voice, "I don't believe that we have met before, have we? Is your parish close to here?" "No, no," said Sir Reginald. "As I said, I'm a Londoner through and through. I grew up and stayed in Soho, where I can minister to my own kind." "You don't sound as if you're from Soho. You sound more like, what?, Balliol?" "Christchurch, sir," Sir Reginald said hastily. "I did get out of Soho for a year or two to attend university. I suppose I picked up the Oxbridge twang." "Soho? Soho? Then you must know the Rev. Dr. Honeyhouse? Are you his assistant?" "I know no man of that name, sir." "How is that possible? You must have run across one another a time or two. He has been in Soho for years." "You see, sir," Sir Reginald drew himself up into his most Vaticanesque stature, "I am Roman Catholic." "Are you?" "I am." The Archbishop pondered this for a few moments as he watched Harold slice his drive far off the fairway. He let out a stream of invective and threw his club at the ball washer. "Your friend is rather a serious golfer." "He is indeed." Archbishop Quesada was contemplating his fortune in running across a London Catholic on the golf course in Wiltshire. "But how is it that you've not met Rev. Honeyhouse? I understood you Catholics were making every effort to pursue ecumenicism." "Ecumenism? Bah!" Sir Reginald thought of spitting, but decided it would be too melodramatic, and besides the wind might carry his spittle in unforeseen directions. He contented himself with a "Bah," then added another "Bah!" and another disgusted "Ecumenism!" The Archbishop was shocked. "But surely your attitude is quite out of step with the position of the magisterium?" Sir Reginald was on the verge of saying "Magisterium! Bah!" when some dim memory of his catechetical training held him back, some niggling reminder that "Magisterium" and "Bah" were not words that a Catholic, much less a Catholic priest, would yoke together in a single sentence. He opted for a more careful, more scholarly approach. "I believe that if you read the recent encyclicals with care, that you will find that Rome's commitment to ecumenism is much different than many Protestants believe." "Really?" "Really." "You really believe that?" "I really do." "Really." This was said not as a question but as a statement, and Sir Reginald decided that it was sufficient to bring closure to that portion of this theological conversation. He was beginning to enjoy himself. "Ah, but what about Vatican II? Lumen gentium and all that? Surely that was clear enough?" Sir Reginald had been preparing himself for this one. "Vatican II? Bah!" He was confident he could get away with this, and said it with relish. "You don't accept Vatican II?" "I do not, I never will. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. I'm all for Trent and Vatican I and transubstantiation and papal infallibility and anathemas and burning heretics and the whole bit. I'm a died-in-the-wool Tridentine. But Vatican II," he paused dramatically, "Vatican II was the fall of the church." "But surely you must agree that it was necessary for Rome to open itself to the modern world, to adjust to today's realities?" "I certainly do not agree. Rome, open to the modern world? Rome, adjust to today's realities?" Sir Reginald knew enough of rhetoric to realize that a third question of the same structure would be an effective device, and he paused for a moment to construct such a climactic sentence. Nothing came to him, and with a slight shrug he continued, "No, I say the modern world must open itself to Rome, and that today's realities must bend themselves to the will of the Holy Father, may he be blessed forever. It is a badge of honor for the Catholic to be out of step with the times. That is the essence of Catholicism. Because she is eternal, because our Holy Mother Church is unchanging, it is inevitable that the times will be different from the eternities of our eternal and unchanging . . ." Sir Reginald was losing track of his point, and his voice trailed off. It did not matter, for the Archbishop had long since ceased to listen, his attention being fixed on the elegant arch of Dean Panzard's drive. Reginald thought he heard the Archbishop curse under his breath. Suddenly, Archbishop Quesada turned to Reginald again. "What, then, of your separated brethren?" "Separated brethren! Bah! Oh, I see it's my turn to tee off." Sir Reginald walked as clerically as he could manage to the tee, leaving the Archbishop to ponder, with not a little astonishment, the fossil that he had just discovered. The fivesome proceeded from tee to green and thence to another tee and so on. Dean Panzard was by far the best golfer of the group. He hit drive after drive of textbook perfection, stroked his irons from the fairway with grace and took up the most delicate divots, read the breaks of the green like a professional topographer. Archbishop Quesada for his part might have been flailing at windmills, and in fact on several occasions he actually resembled a windmill--;he pulled his club back with a long and slow backswing, rushed forward like a propeller, completely missed the ball, and the force of his swing was such that his follow-through brought his club nearly back to where it began, as his body twisted into the shape of a loaf of challah. Bad as he was, the Archbishop resolutely refrained from cursing. "He must have some sense of vocation," Reginald thought. At the fourth tee, while Sir Allan was preparing for one of his jerky, middle-aged drives, the Archbishop sidled up to Harold and nudged him with an elbow. "We have met, haven't we?" "Oh, no, gov'ner. We've never met afore today." "You look terribly familiar to me." "Ah 'ave one of those faces, I guess. A face to launch a thousand chips, eh?" "Do you have a relative in the ministry, by any chance?" "Ah, no, sir, not the Church o' England. My family and me 'ave been Unitarians for generations, all the way back to the Unitarian Reformation, I do believe." "Oh?" "That's right, sir." "What did you say your name was again?" Harold fumbled through his memory files, getting paper cuts all the way. "Arnold," he said at last with relief. "No, no. Your surname." "Oh. Well. Yes." "Yes?" "Oh, my surname?" "Your surname." "That'll be Muzzlebergy, sir." "Really? I was sure you said Muffleberry before." "Muffleberry? I don't know the man, sir." "No, I mean you said your name was Muffleberry. Didn't you?" "Don't believe so, sir. And, beggin' your pardon, I do believe I'm capable of rememberin' me own name. No offense, sir, but I do believe I'm capable o' that." "Certainly, certainly. I must have misheard." "Likely that's the case, sir. I do speak in what me friend calls a dielect, and it's not always easy to understand if you don't 'ear it every day." "Indeed." Harold was confident he had dodged that bullet, and became bolder. "Now, there's the thing, sir." "The thing?" "Yes, sir, the thing. I mean, you just answered me by saying 'indeed.' That's part of a dielect too, isn't it? You wouldn't 'ear me goin' around sayin' 'indeed' now would you? I thought not. We almost can say we speak different languages altogether. We are a people separated by a common language, as they say." "Indeed." At the eighth tee, the Archbishop chose Sir Reginald to sidle up to. His every movement was a sidle. "My dear Rev., I have a proposal for you." "Indeed?" "Indeed." "And what might that be, sir?" "After this golf game, I'm on my way to Salisbury, where we are finishing up work on a joint Anglican-Catholic statement about baptism, eucharist, and something or other. I'd be very pleased if you would accompany me. You might find it interesting." "As I told you, sir, I do not go in for this ecumenical thing. I'm a Tridentine, a Tri-den-tine Catholic." Reginald spoke the word as if he were speaking to a deaf old lady or a very small child. "And as a Tri-den-tine Catholic, I consider you a heretic destined for eternal flames unless you return to mother church and kiss the feet of the Holy Father, may he be blessed forever." "Yes, I know that." "And you still want me to come?" "Yes, of course. Yours is a position that is, shall we say, underrepresented at gatherings like this. Everyone is so overly nice, muting their real disagreements. I believe that you could add a dash of spice to the proceedings, a bit of adventure. It would be like the old days, at the dawn of the movement, when excitement was in the air and danger was the name of the game." "You are, I suspect, still talking about an ecumenical gathering?" "Of course." "And you used the words 'adventure' and 'danger' and 'excitement'?" "Precisely. Back in the old days, we thought we were overcoming half a millennium of mutual suspicion and hostility, and opening up the possibility of a new Christian age, with a newly reunified church." "Sounds keen. What happened to it?" "Well, I hope you don't mind my saying it, but it was the Catholics, you see. Until Vatican II, there was one thing that was forcing all other churches together, and that was our mutual hostility to Rome. At least we could depend on the Catholics to be arrogant, standoffish, superior, Romish. But then suddenly they wanted to play the game with us--;'separated brethren' and mutual recognition were in, anathemas and papal bulls were out. How were we supposed to get our team working together when the opposing team wants to be on our side? Talk about dirty play." While the Archbishop was speaking, Panzard had snuck up behind Reginald, and drawn his finger slowly across his throat. Still the Archbishop talked, and Panzard stuck out his tongue and pinched it between his index and middle fingers as if he were cutting it out with a pair of scissors. Still the Archbishop talked, and Panzard had no choice but to interrupt. "I believe, your eminence, that you have made your point." It was one of the few times he had talked all morning, and Reginald noted that his accent was vaguely Mediterranean. "Yes, I suppose I have offended our Roman brother. Still, you must consider coming to the colloquy. I insist upon it." Sir Reginald offered every excuse that he could think of: Colloquies were for Protestants, colloquies gave him a rash, he was on vacation, he was not on vacation, he was heading to an important meeting, he was heading home, the weather was too bright, the weather was too gloomy. On and on it went, but the tall gray Archbishop and the short dark Dean found an answer to his every excuse. He had almost found a way of escape by protesting that his mother was in hospital, when Harold walked up to the trio to offer his contribution to the discussion. "I do 'ope you've convinced 'im, sir, since 'e is known throughout these parts as the very best preacher among the Catholic clergy. Catholics aren't known for their preaching, except me friend Reginald here." Reginald turned to glare, and his glare said, "After all that I've done for you! And now this is how I am repaid!" Harold's words were coming fast and thick, and he brushed off the glare without a thought. "Ah recall one very memorable sermon, on Easter it was. Why, it was like we was at the door of the tomb itself, 'e was so vivid. 'Today, new life burst from the grave. Today, a new world began. Today, it is your chance to share in that new life. Today is the day that the Lord has made.' Old ladies were swoonin', hardened old men weepin', prostitutes and curpurses converting on the spot. Oh, 'twas like a Protestant camp meetin'." "Excuse me, Har-, Arnold, may I speak to you in private?" Sir Reginald grabbed Harold by the arm, pulled him a few feet away, and hissed, "What do you think you are doing?" "Reginald, now. Don't be upset. I need you to do me this one last favor. You need to go to that colloquy. The old coot has almost recognized me twice, and I need something to deflect his interest from me." "Some way you choose to deflect interest, going on with stories about revivals. I can't preach!" "You were in the Balliol oratorical society, what?" "That's very different." "Oh, no. I can assure you that they are very similar. If you can orate on the dangers of admitting women to the common room--;which I believe I remember you did--;then you can preach." Sir Reginald was not convinced, and Harold realized that he had to play his trump card. "They'll feed you." "Eh?" "Food. Delicious food. A lot of food. More than a lot." "Hmm." "And beverages." "Really? At a colloquy?" "I suppose it started with the Lutherans, but the Catholics can drink a fair bit themselves." "Well . . . " "And tobacco." "Oh?" "But no cursing, unless it is to make a rhetorical point." "Of course." "And believe me I will owe you a huge favor, I will be indebted for life, or longer." "Well . . . " "It's settled then. 'E'd be most 'appy to go along." Harold leaped with both feet back into his imitation cockney, as he saw Panzard approaching. "'E just wanted to know that I 'ad me a way to get 'ome." And so it was decided. After the Archbishop and Dean had changed to more sober attire, Sir Allan and the Right Rev. Harold stood by the black Mercedes as it backed out of the parking lot and sped down the road, with Reginald tucked uncomfortably in the back seat. The last thing they saw was a desperate face looking at them through the back window, and Sir Allan thought he saw Reginald scraping against the window with his fingernails, like someone buried alive in a Poe short story. "Now I'm in a pickle," said Sir Reginald. Indeed he was, and a very sour and garlicky one at that. III. The Salisbury Anglican-Catholic Colloquy was destined to go down in history as the colloquy that reinstated the wars of religion. Not that war literally broke out in the aftermath of the colloquy, of course. No one at the colloquy cared enough about religion or war to carry on anything that combined the two, but the colloquy set the cause of ecumenism back by several decades according to some experts, by several centuries according to the more historically minded commentators. Not since Luther pounded the table at Zwingli chanting "hoc est, hoc est" had any church meeting designed to bring unity brought so much division. At the bottom of this was, of course, our very own Reginald Piddleby-Squeak, acting under the alias of the Rev. Reginald Piggledy-Snout, of Soho, London. When Reginald arrived, he was determined to keep his mouth shut, except to fill it with the delicacies that Harold had promised. In this, he was quite disappointed. It had not occurred to Reginald to ask if Harold had ever actually been to a colloquy, but it was clear that, if he had, it was a much more luxuriant one than the present. When Reginald arrived, the colloquy was taking a break for tea. Hungry from his round of golf, Reginald made straight for the table, only to find it covered with dry, wrinkled fruit, stale digestive biscuits, and slices of Swiss cheese that looked and tasted like bark chips with holes bored in it. He took a bite of cracker and cheese and felt crumbs tumble down the front of his shirt. Suddenly, a large hand slapped him on the back. "So, you are our special guest, the guest of honor, as they say?" Reginald turned around to an unfamiliar face. It is often said that the eyes of certain people are always atwinkle, and that is true for some of the cheerier sorts of people, and it was true of the face that went with the hand that had slapped Reginald on the back. But this face went far beyond the norm. Not only were the eyes a blaze of twinkling light, but the whole face looked as if it glittered with a thousand stars. The broad nose twinkled, the teeth twinkled, the cheeks twinkled, the forehead twinkled, the clerical collar seemed to be illuminated from behind with some sort of electrical contraption. Reginald felt an urge to shade his eyes from the blaze that confronted him, but decided against it on the grounds that it would have been impolite. "Umph, yumph," Reginald replied, trying to keep some of the cracker in his mouth long enough to chew and swallow. "I hear you're prepared to offer a very, shall we say, unique perspective on the proceedings today. That, to my mind, is something that--;how to say it--;needs to be done and done soon. The whole colloquy has descended into--;what to call it?--;terminal niceness. We need some spice, or so it seems to me. All this unity, unity, unity--;it's not honest and, if you ask me, it's not Christian." "Umph, yumph," Reginald returned, smiling. As he smiled, a fine spray of cracker crumbs escaped from his mouth. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Trevor Brooks, and I serve a parish in Liverpool, Church of England you see. There are a lot of, what shall I call them, your kind in Liverpool, are there not?" "My kind?" It came out as a croak. Reginald had finally forced the cracker down his gullet, but he was gasping for something to drink. Trevor Brooks twinkled. "You know, Catholics, Romanists, Papists, whatever you will. Terribly competitive, you know, but a healthy sort of competition, don't you think?" Reginald was about to respond when a cadaverous deacon in a moth-eaten tuxedo rang a large bronze bell that was set up at the west end of the nave, calling the colloquy back to its colloquizing. "That's our cue, as they say," Trevor Brooks twinkled. "I hope to see some, how shall I say it, fireworks from you, my dear fellow. Fireworks, if not worse, if not, say, a nuclear bomb!" With a twinkling laugh, Trevor Brooks twinkled his way through the commissioners to find his seat. The colloquy was taking place in a largish chapel that stood within sight of the impressive spires of Salisbury Cathedral. The commissioners crushed into the pews, each having been provided with a small board to use as a desk, and what looked like a table tennis paddle emblazoned with a number. When any commissioner wanted to speak, he would raise his paddle, be recognized by the chair, and then climb over arms and legs to an aisle to make his way to a microphone. At the front of the chapel sat the chairman, a young Roman Catholic with large, dark-rimmed eyeglasses and bushy eyebrows that made him look like an owl. Reginald had heard someone say that the chair lectured at Oxford. Reginald found an empty space near the back of the chapel, settled between two Anglicans, and prepared to make himself as invisible as possible. "Please come to order," said the chair. To Reginald, the chair certainly sounded like an Oxford lecturer, and Reginald instinctively began to feel the same pleasant drowsiness that had so often overtaken him during his own days at Oxford. "Please come to order. I remind you that this is the fifth and final plenary session. I am happy to inform you that all the committees have reported back their revisions of the original documents, with the exception of the committee on women's ordination, which I'm told has recessed to a local pub to discuss such issues on a more informal basis." Titters through the gallery, though to Reginald the idea sounded perfectly sensible. "Our procedure from this point on, then, will be to read out the final drafts of each portion of the joint statement, and allow any comments or proposals for further revision to be made directly from the floor. Remember, this will be your last chance to propose revisions. After that, you must vote the whole document up or down. Is that clear?" There was no immediate response from the commissioners, and the chair began to read out the first section of the joint statement. Before he could get a word out, a duet of voices arose from opposite sides of the room, one of them vaguely Mediterranean: "Mr. Chairman, a point of personal privilege." The chair looked over the rims of his glasses. "Archbishop Quesada? Dean Panzard? Which spoke first?" "I yield to my colleague." It was another duet, and more titters rippled through the crowd. "Which of you is going to speak, then?" asked the owl. "I most humbly yield to my superior, the Archbishop," Panzard said. He bowed elegantly and sat down. "Thank you, Dean," the Archbishop began. He stood for a moment surveying the assembly with a mixture of disdain and pity, as if he were Constantine looking out at the Nicean council and wearily shaking his head over the tedium of theological debate. "I rise to speak on behalf of diversity," the Archbishop finally began. Sir Reginald, stirred to waking consciousness by a familiar voice, realized that the Archbishop had adopted a very different tone, apparently his "colloquy voice," a tone of high seriousness, moderation, apostolicity and catholicity, that, even more than the Archbishop's normal voice, reminded Reginald of high vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses. "I hope," Sir Reginald thought, "that he doesn't say the word 'vocation.' I've had quite enough of that for one day." And he shuddered. "Diversity, I submit, is just another word for catholicity. For a church that is catholic is by definition one that is diverse, and a church that welcomes diversity is ipso facto one that is catholic. It is certainly one of the wonders of our mother, the church, that incorporated into its bosom are men and women from all walks of life, all colors, all sorts and conditions of men." Nods and grunts of agreement all around. Or, they seemed to be grunts of agreement. Reginald wondered if some grunts were not from agreement but the product of a chemical reaction from the mixture of soda water, digestive biscuits, and Wensleydale. Several of the Anglicans brightened slightly, recognizing a phrase from the Prayer Book. "But often we are terrified by the very catholicity that we claim to celebrate. For, my brothers and fathers, my fathers and brothers, the catholicity and diversity that we celebrate is not only a diversity of color or condition. That, to be sure, is something to be celebrated. But the diversity we should celebrate goes deeper, and is more fundamental, and we should not shrink back from this diversity. The diversity, the catholicity of which I speak, is catholicity of creed." Nods and grunts of approval, though fewer than last time. The Catholics in the colloquy were becoming suspicious. Something was up, something that smelled peculiarly Anglican, and the Catholics were wrinkling their noses and sniffing trying to discern the odor. "Within my own communion, you know, we have a rich diversity of belief and creed. Some of my fellow priests are fundamentalists of the most strident sort, men so gripped by the tradition of the church, that they believe that God created the world in the course of a week and that Adam was a real man." Nods and grunts, but it seemed that most of these were disapproving, though to be honest, it is very difficult to discern the different between an approving and an unapproving grunt. In most circumstances, further inquiry is required. "I am not of their mind," the Archbishop continued, "but I respect their right to exist, I welcome them into the communion of the Anglican church, as fellow priests and brothers. That, fathers and brothers, is catholicity in action. "Others in the Anglican church, I should say perhaps at the opposite pole of our communion, are those who have ceased to believe in God. At least, they claim that God is unknowable, the incarnation is a myth, the Bible is an absurd collection of fables and legends, the liturgy has no religious meaning, despite its moving aesthetic appeal. Some would conclude that such priests should hand in their collars and find honest work, but I say that they too are part of the rich tapestry of the church. The church is the one place in all the world where fundamentalist and atheist, orthodox and heretic, believer and unbeliever can embrace one another as brothers, can commune together in one body, can eat and drink together at one table." The Archbishop paused, apparently for effect, and the owl seized the opportunity. "With all due respect, Archbishop Quesada, and however much we may share your sentiments, your words at this time hardly seem to the point. If we did not believe in the catholicity of the church, we would not be here. Now, do you wish to speak to any of the proposed affirmations of the joint statement?" "I do not," the Archbishop had raised his voice to a booming. This must be his "prophetic voice," Reginald thought. "I do not wish to speak to the joint statement because the statement fails to represent the full range of opinion, either in the Roman church or in my own communion. We have ignored, as I say, some of our brothers. We have failed to take account of every permutation of opinion that is present in our respective churches. And therefore I say that the joint statement is not at all a catholic document, and does not deserve the title 'ecumenical.'" Grunts but no nods followed this statement. This time, Reginald was certain that the grunts were grunts of disapproval for they were accompanied by looks of astonishment, whisperings, nervous shufflings and scufflings and whufflings. An ancient Anglican priest, who had been snoring contentedly next to Reginald, jerked up, leaned over and whispered in Reginald's ear. "What's that?" Reginald asked. "I said, did he say something about acute medical conditions?" "No," Reginald whispered back. "He said that the document is not 'ecumenical.'" "Eh?" "Ecumenical." Reginald was nearly speaking in a voice of normal decibels by this time. The ancient priest looked uncertainly at Reginald, but before he could explain further, the drama on the floor of the colloquy continued. "Quiet, please," the owl was saying. "Order please." Shufflings and scufflings died away, but the whufflings continued, though quietly enough for the owl to speak. "Archbishop Quesada," the owl was saying. "You have made an astonishing charge, at this late hour of our colloquy. Certainly, you must know that every effort has been made to invite representatives of all the different factions within our respective churches. You are not seriously claiming that we have overlooked a crucial element in the church, are you?" "That is precisely what I am saying." "If your fundamentalist Anglicans are not represented, it is by their own decision. They were invited and refused to come." "No, Mr. Chairman, I speak of members of your own church." "Catholics, you mean? Surely you jest." "Not at all. Yes, I speak of Catholics. No, rather, I speak of Romanists, Papalists, Tri-den-tine representatives of your own church." "I dare say that no such dinosaurs exist, and if they did exist they would not find their way into a joint Anglican-Catholic colloquy." "There, Mr. Chairman, you are quite wrong. Here today, in this very room, sits one such 'dinosaur' as you call him. A fossil or relic he may seem to you, but I daresay he represents a viewpoint that is widely held among Catholics, though perhaps no such rough beast has ever slouched close to the precincts of the Oxford Divinity School." The owl was already perturbed, and the suggestion now that the Oxford Divinity School might be out of touch with the common folk of the church pushed him past perturbation to the borders of anger. "Archbishop Quesada," he said, controlling himself with a great effort. "Perhaps you would like to introduce this friend of yours, and perhaps he would like to address the body. Once we have heard him, we can certainly continue with our business." The owl was regaining control. "I would be most happy to introduce the man, who, by a most magnificence stroke of luck--;rather, of Providence, as our Puritan forbears would have it--;I happened to meet this very morning while stopping for a pastoral visit on the way to the colloquy." Reginald was amazed. How could the Archbishop have found the time to make a pastoral visit between the golf course and the colloquy, without Reginald even noticing from the back of the Mercedes? Perhaps, Reginald thought, he had drifted off during the ride. "He is a learned man, but most of all he is a man of the people, a priest who has ministered among the lower classes of our society and has his finger on the pulse of the nation's religion. I am very pleased to introduce to this most august and distinguished body. . . " The Archbishop paused again. Reginald felt his stomach beginning to growl and realized that he had had nothing to eat all day. After skipping breakfast and a vigorous round of golf, he had made his way to the colloquy with promises of ambrosial refreshments, only to find stale digestives. His stomach growled, certainly not a grunt of approval, and Reginald realized that he must leave for a moment to get a bite at the local pub. ". . . the Most Very Reverend. . . " Reginald half-rose from his seat, and started climbing over the ancient priest toward the side aisle. The priest was asleep again, snoring softly with his mouth open, a stream of saliva streaming down the side of his face. ". . . Reginald. . ." At the sound of his name, Reginald snapped straight up and looked at the Archbishop. As he did so, his leg became tangled in the leg of the ancient priest, who instinctively straightened his leg and sent Reginald sprawling into his lap. ". . . Piggledy-Snout, of Soho, London." The Archbishop pointed toward the back of the church, looking for all the world like the grim reaper in an anti-smoking advert. Several hundred clerical heads turned to where the Archbishop had pointed. Several hundred pairs of clerical eyes gazed in confusion at the sight of Reginald sitting in the lap of an ancient Anglican. Several hundred pairs of clerical ears awaited the words that would tumble from his lips. Truly, Reginald was in a pickle, more sour and pickley than ever. And the only positive feature of his current position was that the ancient Anglican priest never woke up. IV. Sir Reginald was less than completely honored by the prospects of addressing the colloquy; indeed, he was quite petrified, frightened out of his wits, scared stiff, and completely overwhelmed with deathly terror. He was, in short, a nervous fellow, and an uncomfortable one at that, for the ancient priest on whom he was sitting was not the puffy, soft, comfortable kind of priest, but the stiff, angular, ascetic kind of priest, all bones and knobby joints, and surely not suited to serve an easy chair. No doubt he preached law and believed in hell, and he was probably a fundamentalist. "I am in a pickle," thought Sir Reginald. And, if the reader has been paying attention, he will have noticed that Sir Reginald's assessment of his situation precisely corresponds to and wonderfully confirms our own. "How did I ever get into this pickle?" he asked himself. The answer to that, dear reader, is found in the preceding pages of this chronicle, which has been conveniently recorded above for your review. "How am I ever to get out of this pickle?" he asked himself again. The answer to that, dear reader, is found in the following pages. If you would be so kind as to proceed. Sir Reginald rose from the ancient Anglican priest and leaned heavily against the pew in front of him. He looked up to see rows of indistinct, nondescript clerical faces looking at him with a range of expression, everything from eager anticipation to horror to quite shocking opposition. He made out the figure of Archbishop Quesada, standing and smiling radiantly in his direction. He opened his mouth to speak, and a strange voice came out of it. It was a strange voice because it was not his. Maybe he was possessed, and a demon was speaking through him, he thought, and he felt a drip of sweat trickling down his collar. "Mr. Chairman, may I say a word on behalf of my friend?" the voice was saying, the voice that was not Sir Reginald's. The owl had apparently given his assent, for the voice continued. "I have known the distinguished guest from my youth and from my university days. I can attest that he will bring a most incisive, most insightful, and most unique perspective to bear on the proceedings." Sir Reginald desperately searched the room for the source of the voice, and finally decided that it was coming from a rather rotund figure standing toward the front of the church, and as his eyes began to focus, he noted the nicely rounded belly, the smooth rounded laughing face, the bright bulging eyes, and recognized the speaker as none other than the Right Rev. Harold Puffmelon, no longer incognito but perfectly cognito in clerical collar and a large silver crucifix necklace. Archbishop Quesada seemed to be studying Harold closely, but did not interrupt. "And so I second his eminence's proposal that we hear a statement from the Right Rev. Reginald Piggledy-Snort." "Piggledy-Snout, you mean," the Archbishop corrected. "Piggledy-S, we used to call him," Harold replied, laughing nervously. "And I always forgot whether he was a Snout or a Snort. Sometimes I even wondered whether he might not be a Piggledy-Squirt or a Piggledy-Squawk." "Piggledy-Squawk?" came a new voice from the back of the church. "That's right." "But how could that be? Pigs don't squawk," it was yet another voice. "Piggledy-Squawk? Is that Irish?" "No, no," Harold held out his hands to calm what he feared would become an uprising against his distinguished friend's name. "I meant that I sometimes believed his name was Piggledy-Squawk." "But how could such a name ever have arisen?" It was a new voice entirely. "Yes, suggest an etymology." This was the voice of the ancient Anglican priest, who had come alive, but had not yet noticed that Reginald was sitting in his lap. The owl was not pleased. "Gentlemen, fathers and brothers. This is not the time nor the place to discuss such matters. We have matters of great moment before us, and the Archbishop has kindly invited Mr. Piggleby-Snoot to address us." "Piggledy!" "Snout!" "Not Piggleby!" "Not Snoot!" "Very well, the distinguished visitor. Pray, proceed." Sir Reginald felt a surge of affection for the owl, who had used the word "pray" in its archaic and lamentably abandoned sense. At that moment, he might have embraced the owl, if he had not been so distant from the chair's chair. "I rise to speak," Sir Reginald finally blurted out, rising to speak. "Can't hear you." Reginald turned to see the ancient priest cupping his ear in his direction. "Yes, do please find your way to a microphone," the owl put in. There are moments in a man's life when the weight of significance that lies upon the action is so heavy that time itself slows with the inertia. It might be a child's first day at school, a young man's first real kiss, an unexpected award at the club, the first annual review with the C.E.O. At such times, everything seems fixed in place, every nuance and detail stands out in its full color and sharpness, every sound echoes endlessly in the mind, and the event becomes so firmly etched in the memory that it can be erased only with death. Nonegenarians forget their birth dates, their wife's name, the faces of their children--;but they do not forget such moments. This moment in Sir Reginald's life was nothing at all like that. In fact, he forgot everything from the moment he climbed over the ancient Anglican, who was again sleeping peacefully, to the moment that the first large-print Prayer Book hit the side of his head. Only much later, after consultations with Harold and other witnesses, was he able to determine exactly what happened, exactly what he said and did. These same witnesses, be it said, are our sources for the following reconstruction. "I rise to speak," Reginald began, as the microphone screeched. "I rise to speak against the unity of the church." Loud grunts that may have been gasps greeted him. He was most pleased. "Or, I should say, I rise to speak against the notion that we can unify the church by colloquies such as this. What are we doing here, I ask?" He looked around at the assembly expecting an answer to what they all considered a rhetorical question. For Reginald, it was anything but rhetorical, and he considered asking again in a plaintive, meeker tone, "What are we doing here, will someone please tell me? What am I doing here?" Seeing that no one was going to help him answer these pressing existential questions, Reginald decided to treat it as rhetorical, and continued. "Yes, I ask, what are we doing here? I will tell you." The assembly expected no less. "We are wasting precious time and energy, quarreling over words and phrases, pretending to agree and to love one another. But I say that it is all a charade, an act, a deception, a. . . " Reginald suddenly realized that he should have stopped at three parallel terms, since he was unable to think of a fourth. He let it trail off, and to cover his lapse, he forced himself into a coughing fit. "TB," he said, when he had calmed down. "Working among the poor exposes one to enormous risks." A few sympathetic glances, a few men sitting close by shifted away from his microphone. Most of the faces were impatient for him to continue, or, rather, to conclude. "Where was I?" Again, not a rhetorical question, for Reginald had completely lost his place. Since, however, his entire speech displayed a complete absence of coherence, it little mattered, and he boldly went on. "A deception, I was saying. We come up with these documents, these scraps of paper, that are supposed to express our unified confession. I say that they are not worth the paper they are written on. They are worth nothing." More grunts and gasps, and a hint of a hiss from one corner of the room. "Nothing, I say. For what sort of unity do they express? What kind of common vision is contained therein? What manner of. . . " Another coughing fit covered the fact that he had again been left on the platform while his train of thought pulled out of the station. "We sit here for a week, perhaps two, perhaps three, perhaps more. We sit here discussing baptism, eucharist, and something or other. And in the end we have a piece of paper that says we believe that water should be used in baptism, bread and wine in the eucharist, and so on and so forth. That is not progress. We all knew that before we came here for a week, perhaps two, perhaps three to discuss baptism, eucharist, and something or other. "But I ask you, do we really agree on such things?" Reginald's early training in catechism class was paying off. "Do we all believe that the water of baptism implants a seed of grace in our hearts, imprints an eternal character on our souls, washes us clean from all stain of original sin and protects us from actual sin? Do we all believe that the bread and the wine really and truly do become the very body and blood of Christ? If we all believe that, then let us join hands, stand in a circle, and sing "It's a Small World." But I daresay we do not all believe that. I daresay that very few of us believe that. I daresay. . . " Another coughing fit. "I appeal to my Catholic brothers. I stand here as a committed Tri-den-tine Catholic, and embrace with joy transubstantiation and anathemas and the whole bit. But, my Catholic brothers, my Catholic colleagues, can you say the same? Or have you sold out your heritage, the heritage of your fathers, the heritage of Mother Church, for the sake of an anemic unity with 'separated brethren.' Bah!" That "Bah!" Reginald thought most effective, and he paused to admire its effects. The once-quiet colloquy was becoming increasingly restive. Clergy are, by their vocation, required to take a lot, but there are limits even to clerical patience, and Reginald was fast approaching those limits. Reginald was unaware of the depths of passion he was arousing; he was having more fun than he had had since he threw spitballs at the priest during catechism classes. "I say there is only one way to bring unity to the church, and that is to bring back those who are separated to the fold of Mother Church, and to obedience to the Holy Father, may he be blessed forever. The only way to unify the church is on the basis of truth, and we Catholics have the truth while you Anglicans have only a counterfeit of the truth. What is your 'Prayer Book' compared with the venerable Roman Mass? What is your Archbishop compared with the Roman Pontiff, maker of kings and emperors, ruler of the world, may he be blessed forever? What is Canterbury--;Canterbury!--;compared to Rome? Nothing! Your Prayer Book is an oddity in the liturgical history of the West, your Archbishop presides over a sliver of the world, Canterbury is a wasteland. I do not appeal to you as 'separated brethren.' I appeal to you as heretics, apostates, schismatics, but I do appeal to you. Come home to the Mass, come home to your father (may he be blessed forever), come home to Rome, sweet Rome." "Now, I grant you that Canterbury has a decent pub or two, but it is nothing to the magnificence of the world capital, Rome." This last qualifying sentence, Reginald realized, reduced the rhetorical power of his plea, but he felt he had to give some concessions to the Anglicans in the colloquy. Reginald paused in reverie, remembering the last time he had visited Rome. He had avoided the Vatican like the plague, with its gaudiness and Baroqueishness and over-the-toppishness. He preferred the ancient ruins, stolid monuments to the enduring appeal of empire and strength, of law and justice. It was during this reverie that Reginald saw a dark object hurtling toward him from the side. Before he had time to react, a large-print Prayer Book had hit him squarely in the right temple and knocked him sideways, his eyes blurring and his legs buckling under him. He staggered and nearly fell, but the wall held him up. "There's a Prayer Book for ya," a voice shouted. "Maybe it's not the Roman Mass, but it makes a good weapon against you Papists." This shout was followed by what sounded like a war cry from an American Indian, a Sioux or, better, a Mohican. Reginald had recovered well enough to search out the source of the missile. An ancient Anglican priest was standing at the back of the church, waving his arms and dancing a jig and whooping like a savage. It was the same ancient priest which had served Reginald as a chair in the moments before his electrifying speech. "Papists?" It was the owl, struggling to maintain a calm demeanor. "We are not Papists, we are. . . " "Papist, Papist, Paaapist!" the ancient priest chanted. "Or, try this on for size: Romanist! Idolator! Servant of Antichrist!" "Lutheran!" It was the owl, whose struggle to maintain a calm demeanor had ended in a total victory for passion, and truth. "Schismatic! Heretic! Rebel against Holy Church!" By this time, the large-print Prayer Books were thicker than Japanese bombers at Pearl Harbor. Several Anglicans found they could throw the smaller, pocket-sized Prayer Books with more zing, and they flung them with glee at the owl and any other Catholic they could find. Contributors Philippe Bénéton Philippe Bénéton is Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Rennes 1 in France. He is the author of Le flé au du bien (The Scourge of Prosperity) and Introduction à la politique moderne, among other volumes. Though his essays previously have been translated for publication in journals such as First Things and Crisis, Equality by Default is his first book to appear in English. Betsy Childs Betsy Childs lives and works in Norcross, Georgia as a staff writer for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Barton Fink The author is a produced screenwriter who teaches at a CCCU institution. Barton Fink is a pseudonym. Geoff Holsclaw Geoff Holsclaw is an emerging church pastor at life on the vine, founder of up/rooted in Chicago and his thoughts are at for the time being. Owen Jones Owen Jones is an Orthodox layman who lives in South Carolina with his wife and three children. Prior to becoming Orthodox he was an Episcopal Priest. For the past ten years he has been involved in philanthropic ventures related to higher education. David Koyzis David Koyzis teaches politics in Hamilton, Ontario, at Redeemer University College. He is the author of the award-winning Political Visions and Illusions (InterVarsity Press, 2003). Peter J. Leithart Dr. Leithart received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England. His numerous books include Against Christianity, A Son to Me, A House for My Name, Blessed are the Hungry, Wise Words, and Heroes of the City of Man. His articles have appeared in First Things, Pro Ecclesia, Journal of Biblical Literature, Westminster Theological Journal, and elsewhere. He is presently a Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature and Librarian at New Saint Andrews College. Dr. Leithart lives in Moscow, Idaho, with his wife, Noel, and their ten children. Sumanth Prabhaker Sumanth Prabhaker recently graduated with his B.A. in English from Wheaton College. He has completed a novel manuscript that costs $10 to xerox at Kinko's, and he is currently at work on another that he hopes will one day cost slightly more.