Correspondence On reading Stout's 'Hauerwas'
The next pope As Pope John Paul II celebrates the twenty-fifth year of his papacy ("A Remarkable Presence," October 10), I look forward to the future and a new pope. Although I admire and...
...It serves a purpose-exposing corruption-but the danger is that viewers will walk away thinking that it is the whole story...
...It said so...
...If anyone "tells a largely false story about the sort of society we live in," it's Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus, whose shilling for capital has been far more influential than Hauerwas's work...
...Not the least of the problems is the imprecise use of the term "democracy...
...and John Milbank...
...Please cancel my subscription at once...
...Since Gordon Marino has once again cited Bill Clinton's parsing of the verb "to be" ("Never Saying You're Sorry," October 10), I must cite what I noted at the time: Clinton's distinction about "what 'is' is" was valid...
...It is time to open more windows-and some doors, too...
...Stout underlines this point but seems to forget it by the end of his article...
...Hauerwas would agree with such an observation...
...You don't have to be a Marxist to contend that liberal institutions-resting on the separation of "private" and "public"-have served to limit the scope of democracy, and that they aren't the only imaginable forms of democratic life...
...Voters are enjoined not to vote immediate individual preference, but to consider the overall good, even if it goes against individual interest...
...when liberals have a moral problem, they make it up...
...I do not want someone who judges people by their loyalty, but someone who is open enough to see the work of the Spirit in diversity of thought and opinion...
...Or is Jo McGowan ("Breathless in Fall River," October 10) allowed to make God a she...
...John XXIII talked about opening windows...
...JOSEPH FRANGO Woburn, Mass...
...General Flip-flop Reading Wilson Carey McWilliams paean to Wesley Clark ("Commander in Waiting," October 10), I wonder if it is the same candidate I find in the media...
...I do not know how, in good faith, Stout could make such a claim if he has read Hauerwas's essays on pacifism...
...September 11 and its aftereffects confirm Hauerwas's concerns that in their eagerness to be good citizens Christians too easily lose sight of the claims made on them by Christ...
...The truth about nuns Peter Mullin's movie The Magdalene Sisters ("Heart of Darkness," Richard Alleva, October 10) is like a movie on the history of baseball that focuses entirely on the 1919 White Sox scandal...
...I can't remember the context, can you...
...The governmental structures in place in California- recall and ballot initiatives, superma-jority votes on taxes-are touted as powerful and fundamental instruments of democracy...
...GRANT KAPLAN New Orleans, La...
...The disgrace Clinton brought on his family and on our country may be forgiven, but it is not forgotten...
...Could Hauer-was, at least, set his compass to Hippo...
...Democracy & capitalism As someone whom Stanley Hauerwas (in print and in person) has instructed, inspired, and irritated-sometimes all at once-I share some of Jeffrey Stout's misgivings about one of America's foremost intellectuals...
...Stout mentions Hauerwas's critique of liberalism but never his critique of nationalism...
...In Spanish and maybe in other languages, esta signifies "at this moment," whereas es signifies "permanently...
...Hauerwas reminds Christians that the virtues and habits of peacemaking may be radically at odds with the violent and imperialist culture in which Christians live...
...It was ironic that the very week that Stout's article appeared in Commonweal, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California...
...Neither man identifies capitalism as the main solvent of religious tradition...
...I agree that Law has made "grave mistakes," but mistakes aren't deliberate-sexual abuse is, whether the abuse is done once or hundreds of times...
...The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed up the dilemma of tradition vs...
...They need to embody justice through their fidelity to a Lord who loves all creation into existence, suffers for its sins, and reconciles it peacefully to his plan...
...First of all, where is this "democracy" that Stout defends and Hauerwas attacks...
...Which did Clinton mean...
...Monica who...
...R. H. Tawney, whose work richly merits rediscovery...
...Marx got it right: our "heavenly ecstasies" are "drowned in the icy waters of egotistical calculation...
...I think Higgins is wrong to say, "the effect on [Clinton's] popularity was negligible...
...Clinton's legacy I think Thomas Higgins ("The 'Gov-inator,'" October 24) mistakenly confuses the popularity of many of President Bill Clinton's political ideas with the fact that many Americans also hold him in low esteem because of his sexual scandal...
...The word has almost universal rhetorical appeal...
...Far more than being the "just war" poster boy of "Christian realists" old and new, Augustine has much to teach us about spiritual formation as political education...
...Tradition directs us to consider-not slavishly to imitate- something already established...
...Yet the average American Christian experiences no conflict because most churches fail so miserably at the tasks Hauerwas encourages...
...Hauerwas & democracy Commonweal and Jeffrey Stout ("Not of This World," October 10) deserve an A for effort in trying to explicate, disentangle, and critique Stanley Hauerwas on "liberal democracy...
...Even if one disagrees with the "inevitability" of the degeneration of liberal politics into entertainment, it certainly is a besetting temptation...
...Sadly, Stout's article eventually devolves into the same flaccid criticism that has been directed at Hauerwas for decades, and like most of the previous ones, misses the point...
...Yet his views on both international and domestic issues are widely regarded as well thought out and in the true American tradition of freedom and equality...
...DICK MURPHY Beacon, N.Y...
...the Alasdair Maclntyre of before as well as after After Virtue...
...I am thankful that my country does not persecute my beliefs, and I am embarrassed that Christian leaders have let themselves and their churches serve so thoughtlessly and faithlessly the goals of a violent nation...
...This question must be posed prior to asking what is best for my company, my nation, or even my family...
...As Richard Tuck has recently reminded us in The Rights of War and Peace, John Locke's formulation of property and its rights-the cornerstone of liberal social and political thought-had very undemocratic, imperialist, even genocidal consequences...
...Hauerwas is not the first person to worry about "democracy...
...What Stout defines as the collective "taking responsibility for...tradition and...the justice of our social and political arrangements" has to exist for this debate to be substantive...
...DENNIS O'BRIEN Middlebury, Vt...
...Forget about American democracy, consider California democracy...
...Stout's sociological observation confirms this: "A large percentage of those who call themselves Christian favor capital punishment, the possession of nuclear weapons, and using force to defend their nation against terrorists...
...Despite what Stout says, it is obvious from reading Hauerwas's articles that he opposes Christian military service and Christian chaplains ministering to the Army...
...After months of the usual "exploratory" ritual, in the first week of his official candidacy, General Clark supported the Iraq war on Tuesday, opposed it on Wednesday, and refused to comment on Social Security, Medicare, and AIDS, stating that he needed time to study the economics...
...Hauerwas's view is that they are most likely to vote their individual preference...
...Neither will quite do...
...French, English, and American per-sonalists...
...These electoral mechanisms have certainly transferred significant decision making directly to the voters...
...He (and Stout) would also have to confront Augustine's demand for Christian participation in the politics of the earthly cities they inhabit-a participation mandated, guided, and limited by the "true religion and piety" fostered in the civitas Dei...
...Hauerwas is not concerned with making rules for all Christians, because he thinks that a practiced virtue ethic should yield answers on a more spontaneous basis...
...For my own health, I feel I must stop before I blow a gasket...
...Still, without trivializing their differences, I'd suggest that both men obscure the ground on which democracy and religious tradition are meeting-and withering...
...Although I admire and appreciate much of what John Paul has done, I do not want another pope like him...
...it is identified with our "freedom...
...Was the German Democratic Republic a "real" democracy...
...To recast the terms and clarify the stakes in this debate, we should first remember Christians who have addressed the role of capitalism in both eroding religious tradition and inhibiting democracy: the guild socialists of the 1910s...
...Clark's entry into the fray gives proof to the apt phrase of the ancient historian about "sham giants strutting amongst authentic pygmies...
...EUGENE MCCARRAHER Villanova, Pa...
...At least part of Hauerwas's critique of our democracy is that it is democracy in an entertainment state...
...THOMAS F. MADER Walnut Creek, Calif...
...Stout's statement is both untrue and nonsensical...
...I want someone who, instead of going around the world preaching to everyone what they should do, will spend his time listening to the voices of the people, especially women, people of the third world, and even theologians who are not of his school of thought...
...As it is, we're left with a tiresome slugfest over "individualism" and "tradition...
...Still, his message is powerful and not heard nearly enough in American Christendom...
...But by doing so, the governor and the legislature have been diminished, if not wholly eliminated, as effective players in state policy making...
...EDWARD J. FINNIE Chicopee, Mass...
...Stout and Hauerwas are, I fear, fighting over a phantom...
...Eager to maintain the integrity of Christian community, Hauer-was could appeal to Augustinian ec-clesiology...
...As a Catholic, I cannot share all of Hauerwas's conclusions...
...Yet, strangely enough, Stout concludes that Hauerwas cannot say what his church "stands for...
...Yet when a term is universally applauded it usually means that it has lost all meaning...
...Is this "democracy...
...If voters are to be granted immediate decision-making authority, on what basis do they make their decisions...
...In Plato's Republic, it is almost at the bottom of degenerate states, right behind tyranny...
...It's a messy situation that won't be straightened out until we learn how to attract mentally stable candidates to the priesthood, be they male or female, single or married...
...Hauerwas & pacifism Jeffrey Stout begins his article on Stanley Hauerwas with a perceptive and at times lucid analysis of Hauerwas's critique of liberalism...
...Here in Vermont, in order to vote, you have to take "The Freeman's Oath...
...Individualism plays well in America...
...leon lukaszewski Walnut Creek, Calif...
...Plato's worries fit California to a T. Plato's "democracy" is a sort of "entertainment" state in which the members pursue pleasant images rather than stern realities...
...But should I vote my "individual preference...
...Let me try to give some sense of what seems to bother Hauerwas and let the reader decide whether it is a condemnation of "democracy...
...Stout states that Hauerwas offers only a "quixotic gesture" at pacifism because he has not "made clear what his pacifism demands...
...No wonder Clark's campaign has been thrown into disarray by the swift resignation of a top adviser following his announcement...
...Second, note that Augustine has been the theological polestar for several of these figures...
...LUCY FUCHS Brandon, Fla...
...Nationalism becomes idolatry when one's concern for America takes priority over one's loyalty to Christ...
...paul t. sullivan Montdair, N.J...
...DAN SCZYGELSKI Wausau, Wis.s...
...He sees "individualism" as characteristic of "liberalism," which is wary of external governing authorities: kings, bureaucrats, bishops...
...What is needed is to move beyond images- media, PR, spin doctors-to some sense of the ongoing good of the society...
...For one, I see a greater compatibility between liberal democracy and Christianity than he does...
...Any reader of Stanley Hauerwas knows that his essays on abortion, the mentally handicapped, and homosexuality articulate quite clearly what a virtuous community should look like...
...Conducting their debate in terms of "liberalism" and "democracy," they ignore the daily practices of labor, commodification, and consumption from which a bogus and empty "choice" emerges as our summum bonum...
...Hindsight tells us Law should have known better, but even episcopal leaders can become disoriented in attempting to deal with the sickness of sexual abuse in the priestly ranks, especially when the shortage of priests has reached the crisis stage...
...Hauerwas's call for "the church to be the church" means that the ethical starting point for Christians should be: What should we Christians as a community do...
...DAN SCZYGELSKI Wausau, Wis.ase cancel my subscription at once...
...The reality is that baseball and the Catholic sisterhood are far better than these aberrations...
...Whether the effort succeeds is not at all clear...
...Gumbleton on Law Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton says Cardinal Bernard Law was guilty of "grave mistakes" in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse (Correspondence, October 10), and that Law and other bishops have received lenient treatment compared to priests "sometimes guilty of far less grave actions...
...Christians need to do more than articulate positions...
...It's certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind...
...Hauerwas's interest in "tradition" and the "virtues" are attempts to locate that good...
...Lacking philosophic probity, or a sense of tradition, or even good economic calculation, the democratic individual opts for the attractive image...
...Yet Law was not guilty of the "zero tolerance" that Gumbleton considers a "cruel response" to the accused priests...
...Hauerwas's strong claim seems to be that liberalism inevitably drifts into individual preference...
...Yet, whether looking at the venal and doltish citizenry, or at the ever more openly plutocratic government, I don't see any functioning democracy in this country...
...Pru-(Continued on page 40) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 6) dence is a virtue that checks flights of political fashion...
...liberalism: "When Catholic bishops have a moral problem, they look it up...
...Ad hominem Has Commonweal finally given God a type of sexuality...
...Boiling point Your politics are so far to the left that I find reading your magazine simply raises my blood pressure...
...Besides, since when are "liberalism" and "democracy" coterminous...
Vol. 130 • November 2003 • No. 19
