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Jewish World Review April 5, 2005 / 25 Adar II, 5765 ‘Theocrats’ for freedom By Rich Lowry
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The word "theocrat" is a rapidly emerging swearword in American
politics. If someone opposes gay marriage, or supports giving
sustenance to Terri Schiavo, or has any strong moral convictions
that inform his policy positions, he is a "theocrat" who secretly
wishes to begin burning people at the stake. How odd, then, that
this week we mourn the death and celebrate the life of a man, Pope
John Paul II, who had "theocratic" trappings and convictions and yet
is universally regarded as a great warrior for freedom.
Actually, it is not odd at all. Many of the great leaps of
freedom in the West have come at the instigation of Christian
believers. Their faith lends them an unbending belief in human
dignity and an audacious hope in success against all odds that sweep
aside excuses for inaction.
When the Quakers began agitating against slavery in 18th-century
England, igniting a wave of moral revulsion against it, they didn't
care that slavery was important economically to the country. They
believed slavery was a violation of G-d's law — enough said. When
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his collection of (in secular terms)
fellow religious fanatics began marching in the American South in
the 1960s, even some pro-civil-rights liberals demurred, warning
against "impatience." King responded that justice wouldn't wait.
John Paul II acted in this tradition of Christian confrontation of
evil in his titanic struggle against communism in Eastern Europe.
Through accidents of history, Protestantism has traditionally
been associated with political freedom. The Catholic Church, in
contrast, had a scarring experience with a nominally democratic
revolution in France in 1789 that was viciously anti-clerical. In
Europe especially, the church tended, thereafter, to side with
established authority.
But there had always been an important seed of freedom in
Catholic thought: True faith must be freely chosen. This
appreciation of "interior freedom" wouldn't be joined with full
acceptance of liberal democracy until the 1960s, when American
bishops pushed for adoption of a "Declaration of Religious Freedom"
as part of the Vatican II council. It put the church firmly on the
side of liberty of conscience and pluralism. Karol Wojtyla advocated
for the Declaration, realizing what a powerful tool it would be for
the church in Eastern Europe.
Pope John Paul believed in the connection between truth and
freedom. One school of thought — generally, liberal secularist —
has held that truth is a threat to freedom: If there is only one
true way, it will inevitably squash freedom. Another school of
thought — associated with religious reactionaries — believes that
freedom represents a threat to truth because it will lead to moral
relativism. The pope rejected both arguments.
The secularist view misses that freedom is grounded in truths,
in the G-d-given dignity of man as a rational creature and in our
fundamental equality. This is why the pope could say, "G-d created
us to be free." If the idea of freedom is detached from these
truths, it has no secure ground, because the strong will inevitably
attempt to dominate the weak unless checked by moral truths (see
slavery or segregation or communism).
The reactionary view is mistaken too, because freedom, properly
ordered, is not a threat to truth. Freedom shouldn't be understood
as moral anarchy, which makes freedom impossible. Truth narrows our
choices. In Pope John Paul's thought, truth makes dictatorship
impermissible, but also abortion and exploitation of the poor —
they all offend against human dignity.
The pope's views had a real-world test in Eastern Europe, where
a commitment to truth undermined a system based on lies; a
recognition of the fundamental imperatives of human dignity exposed
rank injustice; and religious belief made it possible for people to
brave the threats of a police state. It was Pope John Paul's faith,
in turn, that gave him the convictions, the courage and the optimism
necessary to shepherd this revolution to fruition. When the chips
are down, give me a freedom-loving man of faith every time.
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© 2005 King Features Syndicate |
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