They've stolen my name:

...If so, questions, then the adjectival compro- muticulturalism is the most illiberal thing then the Christian-Kantian universalism mise has broken down...

...From this philosophical premise it followed that we should get rid of all unnecessary social inn my younger days I did not hes- meant you were in favor of civil liberties, equality (the substantive half of the libitate for a moment to describe e.g., freedom to speak and organize, the eral program) and that we should get rid myself as a liberal, which in those right to a fair trial...

...Many in ple, Luke mentions Jesus' name only once, when he first joins today's campus congregations, who can usually fulfill their the two men fleeing Jerusalem...

...I liked that...

...Liberalism could be seen I remained content with that self-de- wishes that some of his "friends" in the as a secularized version of Christian an- scription for a long time...

...in favor of the underdog, e.g., working peo- categorical imperative: Always treat So defined, liberalism was not inple, the poor, blacks...

...No, for that means we are really con- and unity in its own civilization, particucan succeed...

...In Luke's story where the resurrected Jesus sexual relationships of first-century Palestine, and make the appears to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, for exam- original words relevant to Brooklyn and Bosnia...

...The other twelve references religion requirements without reading the New Testament, are to Jesus as "he," clearly to underline the fact that we the will have virtually no knowledge of Scripture other than what readers know Jesus' identity, while the travelers, up to the they hear read to them in church-all the more reason to prelast minute, do not...

...and in the public mind his adminis1973, and I saw liberals greet the deci- tive without violating the logical princi- tration is equally defined by gay rights and sion with jubilation...

...o Islamic civilizations," while exploiting the differences and conflicts between them...

...If humans are of ab- ent people...

...Even granting this, the their own particular cultural heritages, potential human remained a thing of im- abandoning the search for a common mense value...

...But when cultural abortion as by deficit reduction and health the right to abortion was consistent, at least issues invade politics, when political de- care...

...So what shall people like me call ourBut that was awkward...

...Or in more popular language: Treat human beings as persons, never simply as things...

...What concerns me is Huntington's belief that the West "will have to accommodate to these nonWestern modern civilizations, whose DEMOCRACY & ITS LIMITS power approaches that of the West but IT'S WONDERFUL...

...be a liberal in education nowadays means But no matter how hard I tried (and I did that you are in favor of multiculturalism...

...but I am content gay rights and abortion movements would thropology...

...gy or economics, but culture...

...Then are committed to the liberal cultural agenRoe v. Wade was announced in January, you can be both a liberal and a conserva- da...

...al, but I don't agree on the abortion issue...

...The inates anything from the gospel message that makes us feel same right we have to tamper with the texts of Aristotle, Plato, ill at ease, anything odd or foreign or difficult to understand...

...but neither and it can no longer be said, as it could sues...

...Meanwhile, preachers should not theology and good prose...

...denying women ordination-but also the notion that the New RAYMOND A. SCHROTH Testament itself is oppressive...

...To shave the beard off the Since there is no sound scriptural argument against women's Michelangelo's Creator in the Sistine Chapel...

...So place the text in its historical context, explain the social and should the men...

...About a hundred years ago servatives, and Republican conservatives larly between its European and North Herbert Spencer and other champions of at that...

...I even nearly infinite value of the individual right...

...We'll have the same old ized Christianity and that the Scriptures have been used some- male priests who will stand at the altar, raise their hands, and times as an instrument of that oppression-for example, in intone: "The Force be with you...

...of all unnecessary impediments to freefar-off times meant two things: (a) Philosophically that old liberalism dom (the procedural half of the prosubstantively, it meant you were was based on something like Kant's gram...

...Is Jesus' concept of further the cause of racial justice...

...for that matter was Bell, at least not ac- not so long ago, that the cultural issues Shall we call ourselves "true liberals" cording to the usual meaning of that are a sideshow, while the traditional po- and argue that we have a better right to word...

...those headed by people like Slobodan Commonweal 13 August 1993: 9...

...To stantive component of the liberal agenda...

...Most of us are still not ready to turn American components," bringing into its laissez-faire argued, with good reason, Republican, and we hope that the grace of orbit those Eastern European and Latin that they were the true liberals and that final perseverance will keep us from that American cultures whose values are close the new welfare state liberals were traitors...

...That felt just he is in gay rights and abortion...

...It is cer- underlying other civilizations and the fairs (excerpted in the tainly tempting to look at something like ways in which people in those civilizaA% New York Times, June the bombing of the World Trade Towers tions see their interests...

...To those of us who rewas told that since only women could be- the radio station...

...Often it means multiracialsolute and nearly infinite value, how can ism, which involves elevating one's racial we abort them with justice...

...The In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only power of the original stories, which, like all stories, are not one issue is published each month during July and August...

...volved supporting the liberal cultural ministration will stimulate the economy, Still I continued to call myself a liber- agenda...

...means...

...But whatever his perFor me this easy identification with long as culture and politics remain rela- sonal feelings, he and his administration liberalism changed forever on the day tively segregated from one another...

...This will require the West to develop a much more profound understanding of the basic ren essay in the summer But this doesn't really change the central ligious and philosophical assumptions issue of Foreign Af- thesis, which is probably correct...

...Or in more exalted lanTHEY'VE STOLEN MY NAME guage: Always remember that the human person is a being of absolute and nearANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS...

...moves in to fill the void...

...Some er trouble than we realize...

...b) procedurally, it humanity, whether in yourself or in an- compatible with Christianity...

...It will require an 6) suggests that the and the more recent foiled attempt to effort to identify elements of commonalfundamental sources of conflict during bomb a number of other New York City ity among Western and other civilizaour time will not involve political ideolo- targets-products of what is becoming tions...

...Huntington identi- tions: the West should see to its own in- mension) as it is of Judaism, Islam, Buddfies these as "Western, Confucian, terests by "promoting greater cooperation hism, or Hinduism...

...Can we go beyond it...

...are not required to agree-they should be that as the world becomes smaller and in- expected only not to distort or caricature teractions among people increase, the 0 them) does not offer us reason to be conawareness of these differences will inten- fident that we will see any sensitivity to sify...

...tale, waiting for some angelic spirit to re- military expansion of "Confucian and Or shall we admit that we are neoconser- veal to us our true name...

...There, now...

...in the world, reminiscent of such earlier that I had imagined to lie at the heart of For quite some time now this is in fact twentieth-century notions as "proletariliberalism was out the window...

...eracy that is almost as ignorant of that the world has moved beyond the old Huntington makes a number of sugges- Christianity (certainly in its historical dicold-war categories...

...We can try the same tacGod culturally conditioned...

...I found what has been happening...

...sad eventuality...

...This is the voice of Moderation...

...The description works only as go jump off a cliff...

...Some satisfaction for some women (and probably some men) in the congregation...

...Have we a right to monkey with his terminology...

...I wouldn't Kantian universalism that underlay the Nor was my mind put at ease when I go so far as to say we have actually seized old liberalism...

...Clinton's program includes both tra- selves...

...ly infinite value...

...Shakespeare, and Tolstoy...

...Omitting the socialist part of the litical issues are the main event...

...to the West, encouraging international inBut words have a life of their own, and For the present, it seems, we'll just stitutions that "reflect and legitimate Spencer, it turned out, was fighting for a have to sit here like a character from a fairy Western interests and values," limiting the lost verbal cause...

...There is, first of all, the astonishing actions between the "seven or eight major idea that the basic differences do exist at religious illiteracy of the West-an illitcivilizations" will shape the future, now this level...

...The inability of the Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, New York Times's editorialists to underLatin American, and possibly African civ- stand religious objections to euthanasia ilizations...

...presume that their listeners are too dumb to make distincAlso lost is theological precision...

...could believe that gender trumped hu- a political liberal has increasingly in- I don't know how much the Clinton admanity...

...For a long time it has might be made that this new right was a been reaching, for instance, into policy boon for underdogs, in this case women, decisions about education, which are still and therefore consistent with the sub- chiefly made outside of Washington...

...But the rewriters can't abide "he" and bom- sent them with an authentic, not an amateurish, or ideologibard us with Jesus' name again and again, violating both good cal, translation of the text...

...undated with cultural issues...

...women-like Jairus's daughter and the persistent woman Culturally conditioned, yes...

...He says that the differences or abortion (objections with which they among them are basic and centuries old...

...suspect that there must be days when he human person...

...Just the Commonweal 13 August 1993 7 opposite, in fact, for it was Christianity self "a political liberal and a cultural con- ested in health care and the economy than that had first taught the absolute and servative...

...that is, culture an science" and (worse still) "Aryan sciit difficult to understand how a liberal and politics have been merging, and to be ence...

...about "the individual in question" (originally a man born blind The next issue will be dated September 10...

...in John 9) or a "crippled one" but concrete, particular men or women whom the evangelists see when they tell the stories and we are supposed to see when we hear them...

...IT'S NOT ENOUGH whose values and interests differ significantly from those of the West...

...sages of the New Testament...

...The author, known, too simply, as "Islamic funda- If this is what we need, we are in trouSamuel P. Huntington, argues that inter- mentalism"-and see confirmation of the ble...

...other, as an end, never simply as a OF SEVERAL MINDS David R. Carlin, Jr...

...Or change ordination, the Scripture, truly understood, must be the best Handel's "Messiah" to "And this person shall reign for ever weapon for the liberation of women and men alike...

...Of course...

...no longer...

...Jesus' self-understanding tions between what words mean in one context and in anas one intimately related to the Father is one of the central mes- other...

...And it could future...

...and I to Washington or to the two issues of gay could even appreciate that an argument rights and abortion...

...on traditional political and economic iscourse I wasn't a socialist...

...Some of this could be seriously disOF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey puted, but not here...

...I admit to some sympathy 8: 13 August 1993 Commonweal with this approach, but I am doubtful it vatives...

...The sad with its doctrine of romantic nationalism fact is that governments which are most and secularism versus earlier imperial 4 effective at mobilizing their people are Western, Islamic, and Orthodox cultures...

...The danand ever...

...Sometimes it means that persons of of abortion was a "potential" human, not diverse cultural ancestry should focus on an "actual" one...

...Only now I amended the description a administration, the floodgates have tural liberalism in the field of education, bit, saying, "Well, I'm basically a liber- opened, and today American politics is in- both by policy and by example...

...and how could aborting it human culture...

...And it did not identity above our common human idenhelp very much to be told that the victim tity...

...try), I could not see how abortion was Granted, this is a vague concept, which consistent with the philosophical foun- means ten different things to ten differdation of liberalism...

...Of military, public funding for abortion...

...at first glance, with the personal freedom cisions become decisions about cultural But cultural liberalism isn't confined component of the liberal agenda...

...But whatever it means, be justified for anything less than the it is almost always incompatible with the gravest reasons...

...member the lessons we learned when come pregnant, then only women were en- being schooled in that old liberalism, titled to have opinions on abortion...

...To stick in "Abba God" every A faculty friend told me the story of the nineteenth-centime Father appears is to hit the congregation with a mystify- tury abolitionist preacher who took his scissors and clipped ing sound-more out of "Star Trek" than the evangelists-and all the references to slavery out of his Bible, as if that would to undermine the original author's design...

...tic, and we'll end up with a wishy-washy religion that elimSure...

...I suspect the label than those who have recently description, then, I took to calling my- that Clinton personally is far more inter- usurped it...

...This has been demonstrated, he also be argued that the argument was, in says, in Yugoslavia, where action to halt some sense, about culture all along-the aggression would be risky, dangerous, culture of the post-Enlightenment West 0 and would therefore be unpopular...

...ger is that by the year 2000 this kind of movement for "equalUnderlying these rewrites is not just the obviously valid idea ity" will have so unsexed the liberating power of the Gospels that women have historically been oppressed by institutional- that we won't have women priests...

...If so, the preacher's job is to with the hemorrhage-retain their sex in these rewrites...

...Certainly not conservatives, beEventually I stumbled across Daniel ditional political subject matter (e.g., de- cause even though we are in agreement Bell's description of himself as a socialist ficit reduction, health care for all) and with many of the conservatives on cultural in economics, a liberal in politics, and a cultural subject matter (e.g., gays in the issues, we are still out of step with them conservative in culture...

...I could appreciate that ple of contradiction...

...But with the coming of the Clinton but it is almost certain to stimulate culal...

...But once we start seeing the basic Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., a male person, is a journalism texts of our religion as obstacles to our belief, we are in deep- professor at Loyola University in New Orleans...

...In the July 15 New York Review of Some of this can be questioned: self- Books, William Pfaff writes of "a fundaconsciousness about civilization and mental inability of governments responculture itself is a relatively modern phe- sive to popular opinion to deal with nomenon, for instance, at least where it problems whose consequences lie in the takes a nationalist form...

...that local identities erode because of Islamic or Orthodox or Hindu concerns, economic and social change, and religion or any real understanding of them...