In the Nuts and Bolts series I lay out some of the basic concepts thrown around in my areas of interest – philosophy, theology and biblical studies – and explain them for those unfamiliar with them.

This time I’m looking at the “Original Position,” a term that originates with John Rawls, one of the most significant political philosophers of the 20^th century. Rawls, like many people in the Western democratic tradition, advanced a form of social contractarianism; the view that the principles of just government are grounded in an agreement (a “social contract”) between the governed and those who govern. Those who govern must govern according to the terms of that contract, and in fact fellow citizens should only support policies or laws that are in keeping with that contract.

But what sort of contract would that be? Is it an overtly stated contract that we all actually agree to? No. Like many other social contractarians (e.g. John Locke), Rawls realised that the types of contracts that everyone might actually agree to could be significantly flawed in all kinds of ways. We want to think of social arrangements in terms of contracts partly because it stresses the fact that each side has the power to negotiate with the other on equal footing with them. But this is often not the case. Simply out of ignorance, for example, we might agree to terms that are actually unjust to us and unfairly advantageous to others. What if members of an ethnic minority in your society were willing to agree to a social contract that, unbeknownst to them, actually had the consequence that they were exploited and seriously disadvantaged when it came to, say, employment? What if all the kind, gentle people were happy to endure conditions in, say, trade negotiations that were flagrantly unfair to them and helpful to cutthroat, assertive, dishonest swindlers? So the actual contracts that people happen to form aren’t really good enough here.

What is needed to come up with the standard of what sorts of laws and public policies are acceptable, then, is a kind of hypothetical social contract, one that we would arrive at under idealised conditions. And what sort of conditions are those, you might ask? Here is where the title of this blog comes into play: The constitutional basis of law and government in a just society, says Rawls, are those that we – or at least ideal versions of ourselves – would formulate from the perspective of the Original Position.
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Do you support affirmative action in the workplace or the University? Affirmative action is, in brief, the effort to ensure that groups don’t miss out. If there’s a history of not many women graduating college, then affirmative action would be to favour women studying at college. If it looks like a black minority is not well represented in a sector of the workforce, then affirmative action would take steps to see that representation increased. The intention behind affirmative action is to undermine discrimination. For a fairly succinct guide to AA, see here.

Basil Wellington brought to my attention a rather amusing clip involving University students who thought that they endorsed affirmative action, until they were asked to sign a fairly simple petition that seemed to immediately transform them (temporarily) into opponents of affirmative action. See for yourself what happened:

What do you think? Should this competitive (and sometimes professional) environment be treated the same as other professional or competitive environments in regard to affirmative action?

The 4^th of July is American Independence Day, on which Americans celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence (the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand is also interesting, but that’s for another time). It’s one of those days when revisionary political liberals sharpen their pencils and write letters to the editor to try to offset the natural effect that facts have on people. In other words, they attempt to convince people of things that aren’t so. When it comes to the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the major thing that secular liberals might want to do is to distract people from what the declaration says – especially all that stuff about God – and to remind people of the supposed fact that in a truly free nation, religion stays out of the public square. Reading the Declaration of Independence pushes any such thought well into the background:

Consider the opening words of the Declaration:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The basis of human equality, along with the basis of human rights, is explicitly theological God bestows equal status and dignity upon human beings. From Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy, these sentences have held a place of privilege in many political figures since the time they were written.

Some secular liberals, however, are honest. Yeah I know, try to subdue your shock. Within the literature on political philosophy and the issue of religion in the public square, I’ve found that – unlike the opinion pages of the local newspaper – there’s a tendency to actually deal with reality. Take Martha Nussbaum for example. She doesn’t try to re-write history. She accepts the facts of what the Declaration of Independence says, but she’s a secular liberal, so she does the honest thing: She denounces the declaration. In fact, since she realises that a thoroughgoing secular outlook has no way of defending the claim, made in the declaration, that all people are really equal, she declares that this too, along with the reference to God, makes the declaration unacceptable in a secular liberal democracy. I don’t like her ideas, but I love her honesty.¹

Pope Benedict: "Come on in, the water's lovely!"

There are Christians in the world who sincerely believe that if only Christianity would be come more liberal and “with the times,” renouncing traditional and unpopular doctrines and practices, it would gain more respect for its “relevance.” They are wrong, plain and simple. For a skeptic to observe a religion that holds beliefs that he regards as false, that’s one thing.  For a skeptic to observe a religious person who wants to keep his name tag so that it can have continuity with a historical movement, but who is frankly so embarrassed by what it teaches that he wants to water it down, hide less acceptable aspects of it, change some bits to try and make it look more palatable to those who reject it outright, end up with something that the skeptic still thinks isn’t really true, but now thinking that it’s going to look better to an unbelieving world because it’s relevant – that’s a spectacle of a whole other kind (and not in a good way).

I make no secret of my Protestantism, and my grounds for being one are very conservative and old fashioned. But this I know: Whatever theological baggage you might think the Catholic church may have taken on board over the years, they are pretty faithful when it comes to not jettisoning beliefs just because they aren’t popular. There’s something basically respectable there: No BS, you accept the faith or you don’t, but it aint changing to suit you. As numerous Christian movements go the way of trying to change in the mistaken belief that it will help their survival, disllusioned members of those movements may quite understandably look to Catholicism for a contrast.

The Pope knows this. He, like plenty of other Catholics, Anglicans, and Christians in general, knows that Anglicanism isn’t what it used to be. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, along with numerous changes (or perhaps reductions) in belief and practice in recent decades, are testimony to a liberal shift in a movement that is experimenting with survival tactics. Individual congregations do provide welcome exceptions, yes, and I don’t want to overlook that. But an an official level, it aint pretty. This is an opportunity for Catholicism, and they aren’t missing it.

The Church of England may see a “flood” of traditionalist members moving to the Roman Catholic Church following an offer by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome Anglican priests and worshippers, a religious group said.

The Vatican said yesterday it has set up a special structure to integrate Anglicans and enable the faith’s married priests to become Catholic clerics.

“It could well be a flood, provided the terms and conditions are favorable,” said Stephen Parkinson, director of the Anglican traditionalist group Forward in Faith. As many as 1,000 priests could convert, he said today in a telephone interview. “We haven’t seen the fine print yet.”

The offer may be the most important step toward unity between the two churches since they split in 1534 over Pope Clement VII’s refusal to grant King Henry VIII an annulment to his marriage. Traditionalist Anglicans have threatened to quit their church over the ordination of female bishops and acceptance of homosexual bishops and same-sex unions.

The Vatican’s new structure for Anglicans, dubbed “personal ordinariates,” would allow married Anglican clergymen to be ordained as Catholic priests, though not as bishops.

SOURCE

It’s not only a very smart move, but also one that will improve the priesthood by reintroducing the existence of married priests (the unwarranted prohibition on marriage among priests has, I am certain, contributed to way too many scandals in the church). It’s not a change in policy on clerical marriage, but it’s a start.

It’s official. Se the Vatican’s statement HERE.

(Hat tip to NZ Conservative. See also the discussion on this over at Being Frank.)

Glenn Peoples

Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July 11, 2009. Page B5], reproduced at the YesVote website) that we should reject the “harsh views” on child rearing found in the Bible.

Mr Harris, unfortunately, joins many of those who promote the criminalisation of good parents by muddying the waters. He notes, for example, that someone who defends the right to use physical discipline also believes that children (like adults) are sinners. He then announces that since “progressive” Christians (by which he seems to mean those who no longer accept Christian theology) realise that this is based on an antiquated view, we should likewise reject the right to use physical discipline and we should criminalise those who do.

It is difficult to interact charitably with those who support the ban on smacking if this is the contorted way they are going to reason about the subject. Whether or not one thinks the theology held by some supporters of the right to use physical discipline is correct is quite a different matter from whether or not one thinks they ought to be made into criminals, surely!

Unfortunately again, Mr Harris attempts to use his platform as a mouthpiece of liberal (what he calls “progressive) Christianity to give credence to scientific claims that are obviously subject to great dispute. He makes the sweeping claim that this nebulous thing called “modern research” (while he cites no actual studies) shows that although corporal punishment does help bring about short-term compliance, it does not help a child to “internalise positive values for the longer term.”

I am constantly bemused by the way in which conservative religious spokespeople are ridiculed even when they do cite research, but obvious nonsense like this can be peddled by the liberal voices without so much as a single scholarly citation, and nobody is expected to bat an eyelid.

But even if what Mr Harris says is correct, the implication is that corporal punishment in and of itself has short term benefits and no long term ill effects. Hardly something to be prosecuting people for! The reality is that the effects he cites are perfectly compatible with the good of corporal punishment. Such punishment usually is administered to children when they are not willing to reason or reflect on the long term consequences of their actions. It is for when children are being unruly and unwilling to listen. Circumstances in which they are willing to do so are the circumstances under which corporal punishment is less necessary (meaning that the older a child becomes, the less frequent a smack will become). None of this gives the careful reader any reason to think that the occasional smack is immoral, much less worthy of criminal prosecution.

Bereft of compelling moral or scientifically grounded arguments, Mr Harris turns instead to arousing prejudice against the religious convictions of those who disagree with him about child discipline. Unable to find anything strong enough in what all Christians consider their holy book, he reaches into the book of Ecclesiasticus (part of the so-called “apocryphal” writings that did not make up part of the Hebrew canon) to find the claim that “he who loves his son will whip him often.”

But not only has Mr Harris strayed into literature that the so-called “fundamentalists” (most of whom would identify as conservative Protestants) that he attacks do not even regard to be part of the Bible at all, he has clearly sought out the most extreme translation of the verse that he can find. He conjures up grizzly pictures of leering parents towering, horsewhip in hand, over the broken and bleeding bodies of little children with misleading language like this.

But just a few minutes research would dispel this attempt. The New American translation reads, “He who loves his son chastises him often.” The Douay Rheims translation (the Catholic Bible, which does include this book as part of the canon) reads “He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him.” The old King James version, the one that “fundamentalists” are most likely to read if the read this book at all, reads “He that loveth his son causeth him oft to feel the rod.” Of course, because it’s a metaphor for physical discipline that’s probably still too much for Mr Harris, but needless to say, it robs him of his “whipping” bogeyman.

After the rhetorical debris is stripped away, all that’s really left is a string of namecalling and fearful language. He calls the views of his opponents “repugnant.” He calls them “fundamentalists” with “antiquated” views that are opposed to “progressive” thought. But where’s the actual substance? Like much of the rhetorical fireworks that is being leveled at those who want the law changed to a common sense view that refuses to place thousands of good parents in the criminal category, Ian Harris offers more heat than light, and manifests just the sort of shallowness and bias that this debate could do without.

Here’s Episode 008, in which i discuss whether a truly secular version of liberalism can really embrace a proper liberal doctrine of equality. I argue that it cannot.

I’m also experimenting with lower quality mp3 files to save space, and it make it quicker to download. This one is only 64kbps.

I also have a cold in this episode. I hate colds.

Episode 008: Eqiality and Secularism [ 56:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Part 2 of a 2 part series on Religion in the Public Square.

For those interested, here’s the transcript for this episode, and here‘s the transcript for episode 2. Comments are welcome, and remember, if you’d like to email questions/comments/feedback for me to address in the show, feel free to use the contact button over on the right.

Episode 003: Religion in the Public Square, Part 2 [ 45:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the first of 2 episodes on religion in the public square, a subject that will probably come up from time to time at the podcast.

Episode 002: Religion in the Public Square [ 38:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download