Article VI Blog

“Evangelicals In The Public Square” - A Continuing Book Discussion - Part 2

Posted by: John Schroeder at 07:03 am, January 9th 2007 &mdash No Comments yet »

This wonderful book includes an Afterword by Jean Bethke Elshtain. In it she looks at some of the places the discussion in the book proper did not tread. Among them, she looks at Dietrich Bonhoeffer, perhaps the last true Christian martyr in the West.

Bonhoeffer was one the early influences on my thinking, so I enjoyed her retelling of one of Bonhoeffer's "arguments" with Immanual Kant:

The portion of Kant that so agitated Bonhoeffer was in a discussion of lying, where Kant argues that one is obliged always to tell the truth. If someone who is seeking to harm a friend of yours knocks on your door asking for his whereabouts, and your friend is hidden on the premises, then you are obliged to turn your friend over. You are not permitted to lie; telling the truth is a categorical imperative. You cannot lie or try to deceive the person who means to harm your friend. But Bonhoeffer says that at that point the moralist turns into a tormenter of humanity. Better to lie and spare your friend, to smudge yourself with the hard complexities of the world. Those are the kinds of moral dilemmas that interest me as a political thinker.

Bonhoeffer wrestles with the problem of "dirty hands." When we act in the world, we cannot control the consequences of our actions. People respond to our actions in ways that we can neither predict nor control. So, Bonhoeffer asks, do we remain in a position of purity, above the fray, where we can bask in our own virtuousness? Or do we enter the fray, knowing that it is likely to get us dirty? We cannot remain absolutely pure.

Bonhoeffer was confronted with these question on the deepest of levels in 1930's Germany as he watched the church remain "above the fray" as the Jews were carted off to the Holocaust. He ended up put to death, though in a far more humane manner, for his concern for the Jews.

But it is the "purity" discussion that is most fascinating for this blog. It strikes me that those creedal Christians that would not vote for a Mormon are doing so, at least in some part, for reasons of remaining "pure." And yet, what if said Mormon represents the best chance we have for issues that matter most - abortion for example - a matter often compared with the Holocaust? Do we, like the German church stand by and let it continue for the sake of our purity?

Now, of course, the question as to whether Romney is that best chance remains open. But the point I make remains - for it is that question, the best chance question, that is the right grounds for making a decision about who to vote for. To make the decision on the question of "purity" is to disengage and is inconsistent with the desire of so many Evangelicals to be politically active.

Technorati Tags: Evangelicals, Mormons, dirty hands, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jean Bethke Elshtain, politics, decisions, action, abortion