JONAH GETS IT

Jonah Goldberg is an interesting guy. His mother Lucianne was invloved in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and along the way as people invited Jonah onto talk shows, they realized he was pretty darn smart and articulate. Now he's an Editor-at-Large for National Review, which I find remarkable since I imagine it takes a lot to impress a bunch of graybeard paleo-cons. His latest column addresses my latest topic and does it succinctly and intelligently.

But what offends them [left-wing intelligentsia attempting to understand the 2004 election] so much about religion is that it is a source of authority outside — and prior to — politics. What has offended the Left since Marx, and American liberalism since Dewey, is the notion that moral authority should be derived from anyplace other than the state or "the people" (conveniently defined as citizens who vote liberal). Voting on values not sanctified by secular priests is how they define "ignorance." This was the real goal of Hillary Clinton's "politics of meaning" — to replace traditional religion with a secular one that derived its authority not from ancient texts and "superstitions" but from the good intentions of an activist state and its anointed priests. Shortly before the election, Howell Raines fretted that the worst outcome of a Bush victory would be the resurgence of "theologically based cultural norms" — without even acknowledging the fact that "theologically based cultural norms" gave us everything from the printing press and the newspaper to the First Amendment he claims to be such a defender of.

What Maher, Raines, and Smiley fail to grasp is that all morality is based upon transcendence — or it is merely based on utilitarianism of one kind or another, and therefore it is not morality so much as, at best, an enlightened expediency or will-to-power. It is no more rational to vote based on a desire to do "good" than it is to vote based on a desire to do God's will. Indeed, for millions of people this is a distinction without a difference — as it was for so many of the abolitionists progressives and civil-rights leaders today's liberals love to invoke but never actually learn about.

Love, in fact, is just as silly and superstitious a concept as God (and for those who believe God is Love, this too is a distinction without a difference). Chesterton's observation that the purely rational man will not marry is just as correct today, because science has done far more damage to the ideal of love than it has done to the notion of an awesome God beyond our ken. Genes, hormones, instincts, evolution: These are the cause for the effect of love in the purely rational man's textbook. But Maher would get few applause lines from his audience of sophisticated yokels if he mocked love as a silly superstition. This is, in part, because the crowd he plays to likes the idea of love while it dislikes the idea of God; and in part because these people feel love, so they think it exists. But such is the extent of their solipsism and narcissism that they not only reject the existence of God but go so far as to mock those who do not, simply because they don't feel Him themselves. And, alas, in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics.

Mr. Goldberg goes on to say he isn't religious. However he has articulated the key philosophical point at the root of our current red-state/blue-state cultural divide. And this shows what Christians are really after in this war for culture: not a forced and thereby false religious conversion of the entire nation, but merely an acknowledgement of the existence of some higher-than-human morality. Unfortunately even this piece of ground is one nearly all liberal elites refuse to surrender. And tragically, we even disagree on what to name this battleground. Liberals call it Rational Thought and Intellectual Honesty. Conservatives call it something like "Rejection of Traditions Upon Which Western Civilization Was Built." Christians call it Pride and Arrogance.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7 ESV)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10 ESV)

As Christians we constantly struggle against the built-in desire to exalt our own human thoughts, feelings, and passions above God's law. Giving one's life to Christ is merely the first step in a lifetime of bending, submitting, subjecting ourselves to Him, and no one does it perfectly. But when men and women reject a priori the existence of any binding divine authority upon humanity, the lofty goal of superior wisdom and knowledge so keenly pursued by pundits and philosophers is already beyond their reach.

God promises wisdom to all those who ask Him for it. The Lefties proclaim an Intolerable Prerequisite to religious faith. They insist that Christianity requires the abandonment of all logical reasoning in order to enter the gates. Christians maintain that logical reasoning can only begin from the foundation of faith. And in fact this proclamation from the left is an ironic article of faith itself!