Say that we asked, "if liberal teaching undermines conservative
beliefs, then why should conservatives encourage such teaching," and the
"encourage[ment]" was equal access to fora that are open to many other
speakers (recall that the issue has to do with religious speech in
schools where other speech, such as political speech, is allowed).
Wouldn't we have lots of good answers for this? "Conservatives should
allow funding for liberal student newspapers as well as other student
newspapers, because that's only fair." "Conservatives should allow
funding for liberal student newspapers as well as other student
newspapers, because this enriches public debate." "Conservatives should
allow funding for liberal student newspapers as well as other student
newspapers, because if they really think that conservative views are
right, they should welcome people's hearing all sides of the issue." I
would have thought that many Catholics would take the same views that
we'd like to see conservatives take here. It certainly seems to me that
they should take these views.
But beyond this, I would have thought that many Catholics are
interested in seeing people come to accept Christ as their Lord and
Savior, in seeing children who were raised Christian continue to be
Christian, and in seeing adults who are Christian remain Christian.
Doubtless they would prefer that people accept Catholicism, but I take
it that they'd rather see a Protestant remain a devout Protestant than
to see him lapse into agnosticism, or to stop being devout. I take it
that if the Catholic thinks abortion is murder, he would also think that
it's good that Protestants are making that argument.
I took Prof. Newsom's earlier post to suggest otherwise: "Tom
and I read the tea leaves somewhat differently. I am not sure that the
critical divide is intradenominational conflict between liberals and
traditionalists. For that to be true one has to pretend that the
previous 500 years or so have left little to no imprint on the attitudes
of Catholics and Protestants towards each other. I don't know what has
happened since 1970 to cause such collective amnesia.
"Tom discounts the possibility that all that we may be
witnessing is an interest-convergence between conservatives in various
religious
traditions which, by its own force is not enough to wipe out 500 years
of history. There is still some denominational integrity left in
America. The great danger, one that Herberg noted 50 years ago, is that
that integrity may be in trouble, especially for Catholics and Jews.
"The real issue is whether conservative Catholics and Jews will
recover their senses and defend the integrity of their religious
traditions. Is it more important to be Catholic, or is it more
important to be a [white] conservative? The answer to this question is
not apparent, although I think that Tom believes that it is."
I would have hoped that my post clearly had "[some]thing to do
with" this issue. In case it wasn't clear, my point is that Catholics
today are (I hope and believe) quite different from Catholics of 500
years ago, and more open to genuine alliance with, respect towards, and
even affection towards Protestants who disagree on some liturgical
questions, but agree on deeper questions, both theological (acceptance
of Jesus) and moral (rejection of abortion). At the very least, I don't
think that a Catholic who takes this view needs to "recover [his]
senses," since I don't think he's lost them.
Eugene
Michael Newsom writes:
> What's a "scare quote?"
>
> What does anything below have to do with the tough and hard
> theological questions, especially those that concern the
> church-sacrament system? And what does anything below have to
> do with the problem at the center of the anecdote, namely, if
> evangelical Protestant teaching undermines the Catholic
> faith, then why should Catholics encourage such teaching?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Volokh, Eugene [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 7:06 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: 500 years
>
> Surely evangelical Protestants have no intention of
> abandoning their effort, now 500 years old, to convert
> non-evangelical Protestants. Likewise, surely Catholics have
> no intention of abandoning their even older efforts to
> convert non-Catholics. Nor do I think that, in a nation that
> secures the right to free speech and the right to free
> exercise, it's necessary to put into scare quotes the "right"
> to try to persuade others of your views.
>
> Yet I would think that the history of the Catholic Church
> over the last 500 years shows how things can and do change.
> I suspect that many Catholics would agree that the Church of
> today is very different from the Church of hundreds of years
> ago, and for the better -- it is genuinely (and I would hope
> not just tactically) more tolerant of Jews, of Protestants,
> and of religious freedom more broadly than it has been in the
> past. Many Catholics hope to shift it even further, on
> questions such as tolerance of homosexuality, contraception,
> abortion, and the like.
>
> So if I'm right, then at least some of the last 500 years
> of history
> -- anti-Semitism, militant hostility to Protestantism (not
> just disagreement and attempts to convert, but willingness to
> fight wars and to engage in coercive suppression), and the
> like -- have indeed been "wiped out," and much to the good
> both of Catholics and their non-Catholic countrymen. (I
> don't mean to single out the Catholic Church on this, by the
> way; many religious movements have behaved badly over the
> last 500 years, and I would hope that most of them have
> gotten better since.) Conversely, if one really thinks that
> the weight of history is so heavy that little will change in
> inter-church relations, and that so little of amity has been
> learned in the last 500 years and so much of hostility, then
> that speaks ill of the modern Catholic Church (as well as
> presumably some modern Protestant denominations).
>
> Eugene
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