Strangers in a Strange Land

Strangers in a Strange Land, Archbishop Charles Chaput

The problem with any critique that compares current society to past society, from an ethical and moral perspective, is that it is indisputable that most people are not only doing better but are treated far, far better today than they were even 30, 40 60 years ago or more. This isn’t to say that there are not critiques to be made of modern society, but those critiques lose almost all meaning when they are meant to show how progressives, or anyone else, have ruined society compared to years ago, rather than addressing these complaints as unique problems of our own time.

Chaput’s book, Strangers in a Strange Land, is full of these sort of nostalgic complaints, and joins the rank of others, such as Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, and all of Fox news, in asserting that gay marriage is the final evidence that society and religious liberty are broken today in ways that they never have been before. This book doesn’t just assert that there are challenges in society, just as there have been in every generation. No, the issue is that feminists, gay activists, and progressives are pushing to expand respect, rights, and common decency to include LGBT individuals and thus destroying society, especially compared to how civics worked back at the founding of the country. And this attack on tradition—although he calls it religious liberty, ignoring the liberty of the United Church of Christ, Unitarians, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Reform and Conservative Judaism, and others who allow for LGBT inclusion—is undermining our respect for one another and for the civic glue that holds the country together, threatening the democratic underpinnings of our society.

Chaput tries to argue that this attack on tradition is leading us to oppress religious individuals and also destroy our previous cultural obligation to care for one another as we instead only look to our own interests and individual rights. But this ignores that across the board almost all groups are treated far better, and are doing better, than the were a few generations ago—Catholics included! There are obvious examples, such as that slavery does not exist today, although this should not be glossed over lightly. In almost every category outside of Protestant White Male, there is a level of respect, inclusion, and extension of humanity that didn’t exist before. It is only 40 years ago that in the US women couldn’t even have a credit card on their own. Religious minorities are more accepted today than ever before.  It is only a few decades ago that many clubs would still not allow Jews, and in the 30s the German American Bund, a Nazi sympathizer group, had great support. John F. Kennedy may have won the presidency, but his Catholicism was a point of actual debate in the country. And, a category that is far too often overlooked, those with cognitive or physical disabilities, are included in society now, deemed worthy of respect. And it is the forces of progressivism that have made that possible.

It is not so long ago that anyone with a mental challenge or deviance of any kind would have been condemned to a likely horrific institution, with no health or decency standards, subject to rampant abuse and forced sterilization. Those with physical deformities would be outcast, perhaps gawked at. The Americans With Disabilities Act was only passed in 1990. Providing ways for those with learning disabilities to attend school and participate in society has only happened within the last 20-30 years. In Strangers Chaput rails against the throwaway culture that encourages the abortion of a baby shown to have Down syndrome or other cognitive disabilities, which I agree is an ethical and moral outrage. But would anyone really argue that abandoning them to institutions was not throwing these people away? That there is not more respect and options for those with physical and mental challenges today than a generation ago?

And instead of simply critiquing the act of aborting a baby who would face a challenging life as a problem in its own right, he wraps it into a wider critique of a progressive culture. He claims it is because progressive culture would have us not care for others, and live a life of only our own selfishness, as exemplified by both abortion and celebrating LGBT rights. This ignores the fact that the progressive community that wants to see LGBT people extended rights and respect as full members of the human family and participants in society in many cases includes the same medical professionals and activists who fought for those with physical and mental disabilities to be included in our society. Expanding our circle of who counts and who demands our ethical concern is a key aspect of modern social justice. It’s not that the progressive community has always showered itself in glory with people with disabilities (eugenics being the obvious, glaring example), or even that every aspect of the progressive community does so today. But in the last few decades extending respect and assistance to those in need, and extending the ethical concerns of society, has been a progressive pursuit.

Then, of course, there are the critiques of feminism, the assertion that somehow women are less respected due to contraception and pornography.* Plus an odd critique of an Obama era add showing how government would assist a single woman to get a college degree and a job that criticized the ad for saying a woman would then rely on government rather than a husband! He even includes a line about feminists fighting, “imagined boogeymen like patriarchy”, again ignoring inconvenient facts such as that a short time ago a woman couldn’t by a car on her own, that until 1979, it was legal throughout the US for a man to rape his wife, and that major world religions have enshrined gender inequality into their doctrine..

The suggestions that women are less respected now due to contraception are ridiculous and condescending. There is a reason women were the ones pushing for the legality of contraception, a reason women jumped at this opportunity—because they knew that controlling their own fertility was essential to controlling their own lives. And the Catholic Church acknowledges that healthy timing and spacing of children is important, or else natural family planning (NFP) wouldn’t be permitted either. And his assertion, one that I’ve heard before, that anyone having sex while on contraception is destroying their experience somehow, that “contraceptive intimacy” is not intimacy is just as insulting. He asserts that “….their sexual contact is neither intimate nor fertile nor really mutual in any sense.” Now, listen, I actually don’t have a problem with church leaders making ethical or moral proclamations about married life, at least in the abstract, if they stick with ethical claims about contraception and reproduction. But it is simply ridiculous to assert that a priest has a better idea of what helps people be intimate and have a mutually respectful and happy marriage than the married couple themselves and there is a reason people continue to use contraception, including over 90% of Catholics. And that well over 80% of Catholics say that it shouldn’t be a moral issue. Make a better argument for natural family planning—the goal of which is to not be open to having kids at that time, by the way—don’t say that there’s no reason a married couple might want intimacy without a child *at that moment*.

This isn’t to say I disliked the book entirely. I actually really appreciated some of the critiques of the breakdown of civics, and the importance of building a society together and respecting one another, which is part of what made some of the complaints about extending respect to LGBT individuals so jarring. I also think that Chaput does truly believe that Catholicism is called, in part, to respect others, embracing people in the love of Jesus, which he highlights in the book. Again, though, this is part of what was surprising. I understand that people are called to different issues, but this book was written at the end of the 2016 election cycle, when Donald Trump had been calling Mexicans rapists, threatening a ban on Muslim refugees, and saying that he would murder the families of terrorist (all against Catholic teaching, by the way, with racism and murder of innocents in war being ‘intrinsic evils’). It seems odd to say that the biggest attack on Christian belief in the country is a loosening of sexual mores.

I think that Chaput is sincere in his faith, and that he does see the importance of respecting each individual. Again, many of his general statements about the importance of truly living out and embracing our faith, about the importance of a civic life, about the need for the Church to stand up for what is right and not reflexively support the state, I agree with. Some of his other criticisms of the tendency of people to go along, and not be honest with ourselves and our beliefs, and represent those to others, struck me as well—I underlined many passages in this book. And on a wider note, I greatly respect that he wants to engage in society, rather than retreating, and that he sees the essential nature of the Church being one of hope, love and joy rather than despair and anger, which I find many a conservative leader retreating into. He shows an admirable willingness to engage those with whom he disagrees, to criticize hatred,  and to call out those on the right when necessary—his statement on Charlottesville was excellent. But I cannot agree with the underlying assumptions of his book, or that for the Church to be respected it means we cannot even allow the respect of those with a different belief that does not cause harm to anyone.

What it comes down to is that I agree with a quote from Chaput, from page 210, that Christians need to love other persons as “living, unique, unrepeatable images of God’s own love, imbued with his dignity.” This is what we must try to live out in every part of our lives. And where that may challenge our moral theology, well, I defer to Jesus.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[c] 38} This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[d] 40} All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”–Matthew 22:37-40

 

 

*As an aside, I would love to one day do a side by side comparison of current Catholic critique of pornography with second wave feminist critiques of pornography. My strong suspicion is that there would be a good deal of overlap.