Month: November 2016
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Autumn Falling
This is a little ambient composition I did on the “Una Corda,” a virtual instrument by NI.
Like many others, I’ve been reflecting on the theological and pastoral significance of Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency. And, like many others, I’ve been troubled by the support Trump garnered from some evangelicals. As a law professor and theological ethics professor, I feel I need to risk a few public thoughts about political leadership, so here they are:
- Character Matters. Character matters because a leader’s character will inform his or her substantive policy decisions, particularly on hard, contested, urgent issues. Character also matters because a leader in high office serves a symbolic role that sets a baseline for conduct in every sphere of the commonwealth. A person invested with the authority of political office bears a heave responsibility to act wisely, with gravity and restraint.
- Symbols Matter. Human beings are a symbolic species. It is part of our created nature to respond to symbols that identify authority and power. This is no less the case for an elected President than it is for a hereditary King. A person entrusted with stewardship of powerful symbols — whether they are clerical vestments, a royal scepter, judicial robes, or the Oval Office — bears a heavy responsibility to perform wisely, with gravity and restraint.
- Words Matter. Words are among the most powerful human symbols. Language signifies both specific concepts and broader attitudes, and invokes transcendent realities of thought and truth. Through his or her words, a political leader represents these transcendent realities to the commonwealth and in a mystical but real sense represents the commonwealth before these transcendent realities. A person entrusted with the responsibility to speak to and for the commonwealth bears a heavy responsibility to speak wisely, with gravity and restraint.
There is nothing novel about these convictions. They are present, I think, in the great tradition of political theology running through the Torah, the Old Testament histories and prophets, the New Testament’s reworking of the Hebrew scriptures, and in great Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas. Until recently, I think they were widely acknowledged by most serious Christians on the right, left, and in between.
In recent American history, when Bill Clinton defiled the Oval Office by exploiting a female intern, even engaging in illicit sexual conduct literally at the President’s desk, most Christians agreed that it mattered. When he lied to the public about the affair, it mattered. When his defenders dismissed this conduct as a meaningless “sex lie,” it mattered. Many of us, myself included, were outraged by this dishonest, facile defense. I thought Bill Clinton was generally a good President on policy questions, particularly on economic issues, but such conduct cannot pass unchecked. Whether or not this conduct merited impeachment and removal from office, it rightly provoked grave concern and approbation.
Many conservative Christians have now abandoned proper concerns about character, symbols and words because they think Trump is “pro life” and “small government,” in contrast to the deficiencies, real and perceived, of President Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. There are many reasons to doubt Trump’s commitments to these policy positions, and many reasons to question the strange brew of restorationism and libertarianism that characterizes much of the religious right. Even granting those concerns, however, it is wrong, unprincipled, and dangerous to surrender the historic Christian conviction that earthly political leaders play a central role in mediating truth to and for the commonwealth through actions, performance and speech. We must now hold President Elect Trump to account in this role.
(Image Source = @realDonaldTrump Twitter profile).
Here are lectures I put together recently on friendship, marriage, sex, and same-sex relationships for the Christian Theological Ethics class I’m teaching. I hope they present a balanced and thoughtful overview of these subjects.
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My Teaching Philosophy
This is something I put together recently.
I believe the best teachers empower their students to think critically within the framework of an interpretive and practicing tradition. By “think critically” I mean the capacity to understand and evaluate arguments and to formulate one’s own views about an issue. By “an interpretive and practicing tradition” I mean to suggest that any kind of meaningful discourse is embedded in a human context that arises from particular historical circumstances and that may apply in various concrete ways to contemporary circumstances.
As a law professor and professor of theological ethics, it is not enough for me to teach “black letter” rules. Students need to understand the reasons for a black letter rule so they can evaluate whether the arguments for or against the rule are sound. But it is not enough for students merely to know how to be “critical.” Even the notion of the “soundness” of an argument suggests that the argument refers to some source beyond its bare internal logic.
Any argument about law or policy is relatively “sound” or “unsound” only in relation to some ideal of human society and flourishing. This is why critical thinking must occur in relation to an “interpretive and practicing tradition.” Students need to learn to think critically about ethics, law and policy so that they are prepared to extend, refine and improve the tradition, in particular as they apply those rules within the concrete circumstances of their “practice.”
This emphasis on application “in practice” means that I try to demonstrate how high-level theories lead to concrete principles and rules that get worked out in individual cases. In this regard it is useful to employ case law, case studies, historical examples, hypothetical scenarios, and “flipped classroom” exercises that help students experience what happens to theories, rules and principles “on the ground.” A classroom is a “community of practice” in which learners are always being formed as whole people.
At the same time, the possibility that the “tradition” as a whole can be improved suggests some external ideals to which even the tradition itself is subject. While all human circumstances are historically contingent and therefore in some sense unique, I believe there is an objective reality that gives authentic shape to our contingent concepts of ethics and the “good.” Therefore, I believe the best teachers ultimately point their students towards reflection on what is universally good, true, just, and right, even if such ideals can be hard for any human being or human community to understand or apply. Perhaps the best and most lasting lesson any teacher leaves his or her students, to paraphrase Aquinas and Aristotle, is a sense of commitment to the pursuit of a good that is beyond one’s self.