Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Wedoittooity: In Which I Vehemently Disagree with Andrew Klavan
In a recent podcast during his Mailbag segment, Drew Klavan talked about all our Western values being Christian values. He spoke about caring for the poor through either right-wing acts of charity or left-wing distribution of government “welfare,” for example. Here’s a transcript from the part I take issue with. Podcast 3/4/2020 at minute 36:
Everything about our values is Christian. Even socialism is a Christian movement. It is trying to fulfill Christian goals. My argument with it is it’s doing it the wrong way ‘cause it’s putting aside one the most important Christian goals, which is freedom. Christ freed us for freedom. So, that’s one of the reasons I don’t like socialism, because I think it’s slavery.
However, there’s a wonderful book called The Minion, by Tom Holland, which explains that almost all of our ideas come from Christianity. I made the point that when we were arguing about gay marriage, both sides were arguing a Christian point of view. One side was arguing the shall not, which is part of Christianity, and the other side was arguing the judge not, which is also part of Christianity.
You know how Jonah Goldberg uses “whataboutism” to criticize Trump supporters for noticing how the Left hypocritically bullies and cancels conservatives, as if we excuse Trump’s nasty tweets the way the Soviets deflected from gulags and forced deportations by noting America’s slave history and lynchings? As if Trump calling Mayor Bloomberg, “Mini Mike,” has some moral equivalence to the Democrats’ “kill-it” third-trimester abortion policy or antifa showing up in balaclavas to menace people and destroy private property? Yeah, this is the same type of error I’m ascribing to Klavan in the above quote, but I call it “wedoittooity.”
Let’s start with the source material:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get [Mt. 7.1-2].
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back [Lk. 6:37-38].
First, what do these passages not intend to teach us? I’m taking this from an article by Catholic apologist Jimmy Aiken. Jesus is not providing an out for immoral behavior in general, or immoral sexual behavior in particular. He’s not prohibiting us from admonishing the sinner — in fact, he encourages us to “bring him back” to the truth [James. 5:19-20]. He’s not trying to shut down conversation about moral truths. Ahem. He’s not endorsing moral relativism. As Aiken says, “If it is wrong to make moral judgments regarding the behavior of others then it would be wrong to judge others for judging!”
So, what is Jesus teaching? He’s elaborating on the Golden Rule: treat others as you would be treated — be merciful, compassionate, and forgiving — as you would be judged by God!
Which begs the question, what does it mean to be merciful, compassionate, and forgiving? It doesn’t mean affirming someone in his disordered love. We all know someone who has a disordered relationship with food and is therefore either unhealthily thin or overweight. We still love her, as in willing her (true, objective) good, but we’re not called to encourage her in the disordered behaviors either personally or socially/legally — as we’ve done with gays and same-sex marriage. We are meant to affirm the inherent dignity of each person as a creature of God’s making in His image and likeness. As sinners ourselves, we are meant to have compassion (meaning, sharing in the person’s suffering), recognizing our own disordered ways of being. We are meant to love the other — willing his good apart from, even above(!), our own.
Christianity (maybe especially Catholicism) takes a very positive view of God’s creation and recognizes that God made us good, although we’ve since fallen. Christians can recognize that two men may love each other (willing the good of the other) and care for each other. We may even admire how, together, they’re each made better men (the test of any good relationship). What we can’t do is deny the telos of human sexuality, which is reproduction in cooperation with God’s creative enterprise, and the unity of man/woman as a visible sign of the love of the Holy Trinity in total self-giving, including one’s reproductive faculties. Nor can we deny the objective, primordial truth of marriage as a means of civilizing men and protecting women and children, both for their own sakes and for the common good of society. This is not judgmental of men or women afflicted with same-sex attraction. At worst, it is indifferent (the opposite of love) to homosexual acts with regard to marriage. From a Christian perspective, we would will something better for everyone — chastity — which is properly ordered sexuality either inside or outside (abstinence) marriage.
Almost no Christian I know has argued for the traditional understanding of marriage from a “thou shalt not” perspective. Not Ryan T. Anderson, author of What Is Marriage? Not the signers of the Manhattan Declaration. Even politicians who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act could be assumed to have believed primarily in the “defense” of the reality of and secular benefits to male/female marriage, rather than in hostility to gay couples. It is neither statism nor uncompassionate judgmentalism to deny marriage licenses to couples who don’t meet the most basic, least intrusive standards of male/female, age of consent, and distant blood relation. It is compassion for men, women, and especially children, who have the (natural) right to a two-parent, mom-and-dad family structure. It also happens to be common sense, which is increasingly uncommon.
I reject the charges of wedoittooity.
Published in General
Socialism has nothing to do with God. In fact, it robs the dignity of the person. Government becomes the highest good upon which every person is totally dependent. A slave as it were.
In the theological structure, with God’s design, God is the supreme good and man is created in His image, with a great dignity of his own.
“We do it too” requires an analysis of the first strike. For instance, Hitler and Germany launched WWII. The United States “did it too” but only as an equal and opposite reaction to Hitler’s evil. In another example, President Trump plays the democrats at their own game and wins, a much better result than the previous responses of the feeble GOP. “We do it too” to save the greatest Republic on the face of the earth.
The “Judge not” standard argues more for dropping number and consanguinity requirements than for dropping gender requirements. But where are those non judgey Christians?
At first thought I agreed with you WC, that is an awfully dumb thing for a smart guy like Klavan to say. But on reflection, sadly, he is probably right about many Christians reasoning in that way to themselves. Then they could pat themselves on the back for their superior loving-kindness and bask in the approval of their fellows….if they were careful not to think too long , or too hard, or too logically.
The “Thou Shalt Not” probably was the dumbest thing Klavan ever said. No one argued that in regard to marriage; it was not the question. It was not even relevant to the question. The gay marriage question was not a decision about homosexuality, it was a decision about marriage.
Now that I think about it, that is how they succeeded in hijacking marriage. They convinced people (like the shallow-thinking Christians above) that gay marriage was about kindness or fairness to gay people, not about the purpose of marriage.
We’re in agreement, of course. When Klavan gives Christian socialists credit for wanting to help the poor (which is part of Christianity), he’s crediting them with good intentions, not good outcomes. Intentions are everything to Christian socialists, which indicates just how narcissistic the mindset is. “It doesn’t matter how destructive my ideas are to people as long as my intentions are good.” Well, no. It matters. “Judge them by their fruits” and all that.
On the SSM issue I would say the same. People who support it are self-congratulating themselves about their compassion and support for gays, paying little heed to the wages of same-sex relations (physical, emotional, high rates of gay infidelity and lesbian domestic abuse. . .) because they feel so darn good about themselves for giving gays the affirmation they want. They also ignore the ramifications of separating procreation from marriage and motherhood and fatherhood from parenting. Children hurt worst.
BTW, I’m a huge fan of Andrew Klavan and agree with 95% of his opinions. But, I feel he loses his way on issues of sexual morality, not wanting to acknowledge the downside of alternate lifestyles and not recognizing the fullness of the good God intends through human sexuality and marriage.
Andrew Klavan has been bugging me for awhile now with this line of reasoning. All he does (and all any political commentator ever does) is argue about what is right or wrong. Judging is literally his job. Then when it comes to homosexuality, he says we can’t judge. What makes homosexuality different? He never explains.
I think homosexuality is fine and I am not a Christian but since I was fifteen I have been annoyed by lefties saying, “I don’t judge.” I would call it tortured logic but there is no logic in it. Lefties judge homosexuality as OK as I judge it OK. They are mistaking judging something for not judging something.
Andrew Klavan judges homosexuals as being OK and then he makes the nonjudgemental argument. Balderdash I say.
We cannot escape from moral judgement and it doesn’t matter whether we are are atheist or Christian or left or right.
In conclusion, Peter Robinson was interviewing Milton Friedman and Peter Robinson interrupted the economist by saying, “That’s a moral argument, not an economic one.” Milton responded by saying, “What other argument is there.”
As for “we do it too,” it is not a fair comparison either in scale or in kind. The Allies didn’t set out to kill innocent Germans the way the Nazis killed millions of innocent Jews and others. Denying gays marriage is not comparable to harassing them and outlawing their relationships. Which is not to say there aren’t bad apples who did kill innocents in WWII and who do harass gays. It’s just an important to distinction to make rather than painting with the broad brush of wedoittooity.
Amen, sister!
I wasn’t aware that Jonah uses the term “whataboutism” (because I can’t listen to that guy. It’s for my blood pressure), but that term was thought up by the liberals as yet another way to quash dissenting opinions and not have to hear them. When someone says that, they are sticking their fingers in their ears and going “Lalalala I can’t hear you.”
But as to the judgment part, it isn’t true that socialism is engaging in it but we aren’t. While the Bible tells us not to judge lest we be judged, it doesn’t mean “Don’t ever make any kind of moral value judgment,” which is what the Left thinks. It means our first impulse must be kindness, not criticism, of the person engaging in the behavior. I can’t believe that what Jesus intended was the Left’s “Anything goes, who am I to judge if you’re an unwed mother on welfare with five children from four different fathers.” Taking non-judgmentalism to a fault, as the Left does, results in a weakened and depraved culture. They can’t tell me Jesus would approve of that. And by the way, Socialists, while Jesus does exhort us to care for the poor, He also says (in Thessalonians II) that we must work for our food.
I thought Andrew said “Judeo-Christian” values. If that’s the case, he’s pretty much on the money . . .
If I’m helping pay for it, who am I to not judge?
I was thinking, today, about how unwise it is to take any passage of the Bible and say “this is it! this is what God wants.” The whole thing—taken all together—is God’s word. And it is —as befits a work addressing human being and behavior—complicated ( apparently) contradictory, infuriating and inspiring, and both inviting and deserving of a lifetime’s attentive study.
Yes.
Yes.
Man, people could write books about this disordered love stuff.
Very good, very good. (The Augustine account of this in the same book, chapter 6.)
I don’t even know where the apparent contradictions are.
But otherwise–yes!
Dangerous to base any teaching on a single passage.
Edit: Doubled-post delanda est.
~suspects @augustine is somewhat partisan.
Yeah. He’s a partisan and a nerd. And a loser.
Mailbag day is my least favorite day. Whenever he answers questions about morality and the Bible I start to cringe. There really are better people to go to for that stuff.
I find Klavan to be very annoying, not his ideas, just his mannerisms, so I avoid him. That’s just a personal preference of mine and nothing to do with his character. So, I’ve not followed him since the early days of blogs.
This statement about “all” western civilization being christian is just too much to let pass. Western civilization, of course, is heavily based on Greek and Roman traditions and they have little in common with christianity. I think Mr. Klavan needs to acknowledge and abandon his religious bigotry and read some pre-christian history.
Well, of course there’s something wrong with being a homosexual. That’s plain on its face. It is perversion by definition. That’s what perversion is.
There’s a big difference between allowing a free person to be a pervert without bothering him, and forcing others to label his perversion as inoffensive, or even laudable.
As for judging, one of the worst things about christianity is the oft repeated plea to “judge not lest ye be judged.” Well, I live my life as morally as I can. I work hard to live right and treat people respectfully. I admit I’m not perfect, but neither are you. I insist on being judged. I want people to see that I make good decisions. I will judge you and I demand that you judge me as well. That’s a better moral code.
Except that Andrew Klavan repeatedly, expressly, denies this. He, in his self-assumed wisdom, has decided that the four Gospels are the real, authoritative, message from God, and all the rest is time-bound human wisdom, superseded in all the parts he does not want to follow by social progress and a supposedly more morally advanced understanding of the modern age. He gets all kinds of nervous when Christians start challenging him on “proof texts.”
Hey, of course I have no comment on your religious beliefs, but I wanted to drop in and affirm that new word which I really like.
Put “I
RejectSpurn Wedoittooity” on a T Shirt Ricochet!(And give Western Chauvinist a cut of the profits.)
I was trying to pronounce it French until I got it.
The “who am I to judge” argument has been terribly misused by the left. It doesn’t mean we cannot judge the actions of others. All it means is we shouldn’t judge others by certain standards if we don’t apply those standards to ourselves. Being the ultimate judge, God can see if we’re being hypocrits or not . . .
Aw, heck. I’ll be the contrarian.
The purpose of a life in which one follows the Torah is to grow our relationship with G-d. It is not about procreation, or perversion or labels.
Homosexuality is forbidden (yes, “Thou Shalt Not“) for those who seek to have a relationship with the divine. And for the same reasons why incest is forbidden, and beastiality… the relationship is not challenging enough to make a person be able to stretch toward a relationship with G-d.
If someone does not want that relationship, then they can act as they see fit. I view homosexuals as I do people who think cows are gods: they do not seek what I seek. Live and let live.
As a Jew, I have no problem with judging, with one codicil: it has to be productive and constructive. Since judging others is usually neither of these things I avoid being judgemental on a purely pragmatic basis. I have to always decide what is right for me and mine, and I do that by quietly assessing others and figuring out how it might relate to me.
Same here(!), but I don’t think I was offering a “purpose of life” argument. I was making a “purpose of human sexuality” argument, though.
Agreed, but the New Testament is much bigger on “Thou Shalt.” — love thy neighbor even if it costs you your life. Now, what’s the definition of “love?”
Christianity is totally non-coercive. Jesus came to divide, but we get to decide whether we’re with the sheep or the goats. Non-Christians and Christian socialists don’t seem to get this. I agree we should live and let live with homosexuals. What we shouldn’t do is stop willing something better for them and stop opposing laws destructive to the good of others — specifically children.
I think I said that applies to Christians, too. God gave us the faculties for moral reasoning. We should use them! A more direct way of repeating Jesus’ admonition might be, “judge rightly.” And then show compassion, kindness, mercy, forgiveness. . .
I like the way you think! It’s about time this housewife started bringing in some money!
I think by “Christianity” Klavan does not mean “Baptist” or whatever. He means “Non-Pagan”–the new idea that all humans have dignity, which he finds in the Judao-Christian world view but not in ancient Greece, Rome, or modern secularist views. One God, who is Father to us ALL.
My own take is non-theological. When children are needed for group survival, bachelors get fined (as in Rome). Homosexuals get stoned or imprisoned. When over-population is the worry (rightly or wrongly) sexual mores will change. In any case, homo-eroticism is perfectly natural.
If a man cannot become a woman, why should I think a gay person can (or should) become straight? There are interpretations of the Bible that do not lead to terms like “disordered love” or even “sin.”
I don’t think he for a second would disagree with your “correction.” But Yeats asked about a “rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born” for good and sufficient reasons. Christians have been the norm in Western Civilization for a long, long time. And what follows is assuredly, and sadly, “post-Christian.”
I’m all in favor of whataboutism and wedoittooity. We need more of both of them. We also need to overthrow the deep state and return to a limited government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and we need to make sure that President Trump gets re-elected this fall.
My view is whenever we’re talking about the West and Christianity, Judaism, Greece, and Rome are assumed. It’s just that Christendom and the West were synonymous up until somewhat recently.
Except I don’t think the Greeks or the Canaanite pagans or the Egyptians were thinking about overpopulation. It would be interesting to know whether homosexual acts became abhorrent in times of famine or such.
But, as far as I know homo-eroticism has been widely accepted under all kinds of conditions because, let’s be honest, male sexual nature is profligate. Christianity has a lot to say about fighting our “natures” by the grace of God. Any interpretation of the Bible that neglects “sin” totally negates the purpose of the Incarnation, which is to save us from it, and must therefore be rejected by professing Christians.
That “disordered love” isn’t mentioned in the Bible is unpersuasive, since many ideas are not explicitly mentioned, including, for example, the Trinity.