Seizing the middle ground is a sure-fire way to lose an
audience, and, in so doing, lose a debate. Compromise is cowardice
these days. The major issues of our time cut cleavages so deep that
the difference cannot be split. Like being pregnant, one cannot be
half at war, to take one example. For that matter, one cannot half
have an abortion; and along similar lines one cannot half support
gay marriage or half assent to gay weddings, no matter how
dedicated a federalist or an Episcopalian one strives to be.
It nonetheless feels to me entirely unsatisfactory to go
whole-hog for either Andrew Sullivan’s or R. Andrew
Newman’s position on the Gay Union Question — in spite of and
because of the fact that both Andrews succeed where the other
fails. (I should mention here that I have met Sullivan once and
Newman zero times, which I suspect is primarily a function of
living in the same city as the first and not the second.)
Rather than the muddle of the middle, I propose we seize upon
each Andrew’s rhetorical extreme. There, oddly enough, their truths
find their centers of gravity. What each misses about bigotry and
religion the other hits like a nail. Newman portrays Sullivan as
thinking that all Christianists are bigots, but Newman himself
refuses to admit the possibility that any of them are. In truth of
fact, we must not be afraid to admit that some Christians are
bigots, even as we reiterate that the Christian religion has no
monopoly on bigotry.
In short, Sullivan is right that Christianism exists. But he is
wrong to imply that every Christianist is a bigot. And though
Newman is wrong to ignore Christian bigotry, he is right that even
Christianists are not necessarily bigots. If Christianism as
Sullivan defines it is to be attacked, it must be attacked on other
grounds.
Ending up with the idea that bigotry is indeed bad but
Christianism may not be, we begin with Newman’s description of
Sullivan’s attitude: “It’s only that Christianists have hijacked
Christianity like Islamists have hijacked Islam. Except,” Newman
writes, “they haven’t slammed a plane into the Pentagon, leveled
walls on homosexuals, stashed women in burqas, or rioted because
Jesus appeared on the funny pages. But beyond that, I’m sure he has
a point. Somewhere.”
Alas, he does. It’s posted on Sullivan’s website — often — and
here is one of its phrasings.
We have the first truly sectarian, religious
administration, appealing for support on theological grounds, and
relying on churches to sustain it. I find this deeply troubling
both for government and for religion. If support for a president
rests on his religious faith rather than a judgment of his
policies, then civil, secular politics — whether on the right or
left — is finished. Faith cannot be debated; it can merely be
asserted. If it is the core basis for politics, as we see in Iraq
or the Balkans or Northern Ireland, a multi-faith society ceases to
function as a democracy. Conservatives, while respecting religious
faith, should nonetheless strongly resist this temptation to turn
politics into religion.
True to Sullivan’s spirit, this thesis of his can be debated. It
may be agreed or disagreed with but not disinvented. He has a
complementary thesis — that there are Christians who want to wield
Christianity as a political force, and conform the rules of state
to those of their religion. This thesis cannot just be debated but
is certainly true. No true Christian can tolerate laws that are
directly contrary to the Judeo-Christian ethic. This is something
to be proud of. And certainly there are Christians who are proud to
insist upon the public display of the Ten Commandments and the
minting of the motto “In God We Trust” because those things reflect
the expressly Christian heritage of our country. To oppose abortion
because one considers it, like slavery, to be an unacceptable crime
in the eyes of God is to wield one’s religion as a political force.
Abolitionism and, indeed, the civil rights movement are points of
light in the glaring and successful American tradition of what
Sullivan terms Christianism.
But Christianism, like every ism, comes in degrees.
There are varyingly intense forms of Islamism. What goes in Kuwait
does not go in Iran. What goes in Kuwait, indeed, didn’t go this
time last year: ism is not an on/off switch. There are
total racists, total socialists, and total fundamentalists, and if
the ruthless destruction of Trotsky is any indication it is
possible, for example, to be half communist. Sullivan’s definitions
of Christianism could be read to exclude “soft” Christianists, but
I don’t think it does. Surely he speaks of a broader group than
those in favor (and I have met some) of establishing a Christian
monarchy.
The debate is not about an American Falange, but rather about
Christians who wish to preserve the still-prevailing moral order of
the United States — by, among other things, enshrining it overtly
in the Constitution. Newman is on firm ground when he switches from
offense to defense; the trouble is he does so little of it. But the
subtext shines through: not all Christianists, surely everyone can
agree, are bigots. It is possible to hold, as an article of faith,
that gay relationships are wrong enough to ban — without having
hate in your heart. It is also possible to do so, however, with a
freightload of hate in your heart — or condescension, cruelty,
ignorance or anything else.
Newman does not admit these possibilities. Sullivan says quite
convincingly that “I feel that my own relationship is a gift from
God. I cannot alone in my conscience before God believe otherwise,”
and Newman’s reply is that, somewhere, “Martin Luther is wishing
he’d had a better intellectual property lawyer.” That is not the
full story, and I would challenge anyone to deny it. A Christian
may despair or condemn another Christian’s revelation, but he
cannot make it go away. This is the lesson of two thousand years of
Christian history, and it has been propelled by the raw power of
faith.
The question, as I see it, is whether Christians have a
spiritual duty to love all — and beyond that, a duty to wield
their faith as a political force for that universal love. I suspect
I am not alone in thinking that another ism is born of the
prospect that both duties exist. For this reason I acknowledge the
seriousness of Sullivan’s gay marriage federalism. And because I
see virtue in a federalism of Christianities, I also acknowledge
the seriousness of those who seek to love sinners but to hate, and
outlaw, sin. There is a point at which this passion runs afoul of
the Constitution, but it is not at the get-go; Prohibition suggests
how successful, and how unsuccessful, Christianism can be at the
national level.
But it is mistaken to think that even all Christianists feel the
need for a nation under Christian law. For many, it is
good enough to live in a state that prohibits behaviors at
fundamental odds with their faith. Sullivan’s federalism, if not
his faith, can tolerate the spread of bigoted state law. And one
aspect of Newman’s conservatism, if not another, can tolerate the
spread of Sullivan-style Christianity. This is the beauty of that
old and true conservatism that allows us to see eye to eye, to take
— or leave — one another’s extremisms as we find them. It permits
us whatever duties we choose but mandates for us all the
indispensable freedom — of distance.
