I was reflecting with a colleague recently that the great challenge of the contemporary Christian university student is how to practice leadership - where the word has become abused as a sort of catch all for charisma or clear minded thinking. Leadership, he defined for me, was about being able to make a decision, when the choices seem equal. Don't talk to me about making the choice between the obviously right and wrong - he said - a child can do that! If we are serious about moral formation we must do more than train ourselves (and our students) to make the right call, we must learn how to make the tough call, to weigh it morally, and wisely, with rich resources and deep prayer - but to make it indeed.
I am especially impressed with Stephen Garber's idea of proximate justice. It belies the easy idealist puritanism of Christian youth. In the words of my colleague, if you're going to play in the sandbox you're going to get dirty. Absolute purity is a pursuit, not a state, and in its pursuit we must guard our integrity - negotiate as best we can the contradictions of life and our belief.
I find my own moral wisdom in short supply. I am impatient, at times arrogant, and look for the obvious right and wrong. I can always find that angle, because the (mis)information always exists for the uneducated to narrowly judge a complex problem - international politics is rife with it.
What are some of the resources at hand to ameliorate this? I want to suggest - and would love to hear feedback - that one of the best resources thinking Christians in public policy have is just war theory. Just War gives us resources to help think through how to take an unpleasant, broken, piecemeal action - how to morally and wisely weigh the contradictions, and then nevertheless to act.
The missing link for Christians in policy - in my opinion - is just such a broad based theory of policy: sophisticated theological tools that can be used to read, weigh, and provide decision making capacity to an idealist generation.
Could Just War be a departure for developing a Christian theory of public policy in a liberal democratic society?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Christian Theory of Public Policy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Or what about this: perhaps our pursuit of false purity is the very problem itself. A sermon I heard once by Tim Sheridan used the argument of Miroslav Volf in _Exclusion and Embrace_ to argue that churches are so worried about purity that they end up creating the same exclusionary violence they purport to get rid of. You're thinking in terms of International Relations, I suppose. But Volf argues that our first question should be "what kind of people do we want to be in relations to other people"--ie. what posture will we approach others with?
Oh that is *really* interesting. Think about Andy Crouch's new book Culture Making and what he talks about as gestures becoming postures. Perhaps our policy making posture is - as you say - exclusionary. My supervisor and I were reflecting recently on whether certain theologies reflexively support more violent/exclusionary foreign policies. Our (tentative) conclusion was that those traditions which did had an insufficient emphasis on piety and prayer (or mysticism maybe?) and what we called "common grace". Ironically, a few days later catching bits of a sermon in my mother's home town I reflected you could call this a failure to "love God, and our neighbor".
Very nice, all. Allow me to challenge a few things (hopefully productively).
What is wrong with exclusionary policies?
Policy is made after considered judgment. Judgment necessitates exclusion. Thus, I find it helpful to discuss postures -- an act of striking arising from a judgment made from one's knees and carried out from that position is less likely to be as damaging as a strike from above while standing --but we should not shy from exclusion. That said, there might be times to strike from a standing position.
What is unique in policy making is that politics -- by nature -- makes judgments which are exclusionary in an institutional context in which we rightly consider the diverse interests of others, and it is therefore inclusive.
Thus, I think that Adunare is onto something when he offers just war thinking as a stepping block, but not necessarily entirely because of it's posture. Or maybe I should say that posture isn't the most apt term of reference. Judgment is really what we're talking about; right judgment. And what is right judgment but righteousness in the OT sense?
Thoughts?
Sounds like we need some OT scholars weighing in... any of those around here ;)
Oli'o, you make me think - quite intentionally I gather - of Olivor O'Donnovan's 'Ways of Judgment'.
Perhaps the posture is neither inclusion or exclusion - but 'justice' - the amelioration of what will be included/excluded in a plural world. Just War certainly helps us in how we might think about this.
You're bang on, Adunare, with the Oli'o business. And where are those biblical scholars when you need them????????? Anyone??
p.s. I have no idea what "the amelioration of what will be included/excluded in a plural world" is intended to mean.
Touche! Postie habits die hard, my friend. By this I mean only one's capacity to judge between goods - a process which is, as you note, both exclusive and inclusive in specific ways - but not, therefore, somehow intrinsically wrong.
So time for a not so scholarly OT and NT guy to jump into the fray. My wondering here when it comes to right judgment and righteousness in the OT flows in two directions. First, the book of Proverbs which teaches us how to live in God's good but fallen world points to the importance of cultivating a life of prudence. This prudence seems to fall well into the world of Just War theories since even in Just War the lines are not easily seen and the way is not always clear. You need to be able to gather your best wisdom, do your best prayer and then dive in with your best guess--knowing that whatever choices you make there will be unintended consequences and unintended injustice.
The other strain that I see in the Old Testament in right judgment but righteousness is that evil is excluded. We judge rightly when we judge to exclude evil. Whether it is Baal being excluded by Elijah on Mt. Carmel or Adam being excluded from the garden or Phinehas excluding the couple having sex in front of the tabernacle, evil regularly is what is righteously excluded.
This exclusion, of course, is challenged to a certain extent in both Old and New Testament by calls to love your enemies, Jesus' actions of loving those most people of his day would consider evil, and Paul's words about those who used to follow the ways of the ruler of the air. But, even here, the inclusion of these people was an inclusion that carried the hope of transformation from evil to good, from darkness to light. Inclusion served a purpose, as did exclusion. Which leads me back to Proverbs and the importance of being a person of prudence so you know when you righteously exclude and when you righteously include. The "you" here is plural. Inclusion and exclusion are far too weighty of a matter to assume that one has the wisdom to make that call on his/her own. Not only so, but even a community that is isolated and caught up in group think ought to have the humility to hear the voices of others in this matter.
Nicholas Wolterstorff does some truly stunning stuff on reading 'justice' and 'love' in the New Testament. I have his (newish) book on this topic on my shelf and have - to my shame - only browsed it. If someone else has closely read it, I'd love to hear how they could weigh in here.
Is the consensus more or less that playing around with Just War and a Christian theory of public policy is a good thing? I'm thinking about drafting some thoughts together in a quick paper for the forthcoming RUC worldview geeks summit. I just don't have enough to do...
Thanks, Larry, and great to have you on board!
RJ, my thoughts are that Just War theory could go like this: Just War theory is nothing more than the articulation of principles of decision making in the service of justice that are latent in the broader Christian social thought tradition. Thus, it might be helpful to look at for policy making decision as you suggest.
But if you really want people to do policy -- make political judgment -- properly, you're better off to have them immerse themselves in the deep tradition, and in Scripture (as per Larry [did I mention I am happy to have him on board? Hooray!]. I'd recommend "Ignatius to Grotius" by Oli'O, "Desire of the Nations" by the same, and the bitching interlocutions of Oli and JC in "A Royal Priesthood." Then, have them read "Ways of Judgment."
Shit. I'm getting out of hand.
Seriously, though, start with JC's "Street level justice" from Comment. It's the best springboard in my mind. And read political biographies, especially of Kuyper, Lincoln, Churchill and Gladstone. And, get involved in decision making on even a small level. Make a budget for a club or committee.
I love that they are "bitching" interlocutions.
What I like about doing a simple Just War comparative exercise is exactly what you say - it's just a distillation of principles in broader Christian social thought; some easily digested and debated sign posts for policy making. I'm not suggesting it in place of the springboards you suggest, but as a simple entrance into the broader lit/ideas - something not unlike a shorter catechism. Wish I could talk to you about it this weekend - alas.
Post a Comment