[1] There are few authors as adept as Mark Lewis Taylor at navigating the fine line between incisive, biting commentary and partisan polemics. Whether he is writing about the criminal justice system (in The Executed God) or the cooptation of religion by repressive political regimes (in the present book), his agenda is clear: the deconstruction of the center and the end of marginalization. Yet Taylor, while no stranger to popular writing, rarely allows his cultural critique and liberative vision to slide from cogent analysis to op-ed journalism. His method alone is worth study by those who, like Taylor, strive to direct a boiling rage against injustice to reasoned, yet passionate deliberation and constructive action.<\/p>\n
Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right[2] Before summarizing his argument and offering critique, a dose of honesty is necessary here. Taylor\u2019s book, published in 2005, is dated in many ways. Reading it, at times, seems like a Proustian (or perhaps Dantean) journey through a past filled with terrorism, anti-war demonstrations, faith-based initiatives, and hyper-patriotism that has been overshadowed recently by economic collapse, the presidency of Barack Obama, the waxing of the Tea Party, and the waning of the Occupy movement, none of which is mentioned by Taylor, save for a brief, almost comical reference to \u201cGrover Norquist, president of an anti-tax group\u201d (60). Nonetheless, while the context has changed \u2013 though perhaps not as much as we might think \u2013 Taylor\u2019s elucidation of \u201cprophetic spirit\u201d and critiques of Christianity and neo-conservatism remain relevant and are worth reading as much now as they were then.<\/p>\n
[3] The core argument of Taylor\u2019s slim volume is that 9\/11 shattered the \u201cmythic view\u201d of the US as \u201can Eden-like nation, protected between its oceans and chosen for a divine destiny\u201d (40). This occasioned the rise and intermingling of two streams of mythic nationalism: \u201cethno-religious nationalism,\u201d represented by the Christian Right and its political romanticism, and \u201ccivic nationalism,\u201d represented by the \u201ccontractual liberalism\u201d of neo-conservatives (45). What is so pernicious about the Christian Right and neo-conservatism, each of which draw on a deep tradition of \u201crevolutionary romanticism\u201d \u2013 one religious, the other secular \u2013 is not their existence as independent movements but rather the \u201cdeadly alliance\u201d they formed after 9\/11, which helped to preserve various forms of inequality and allowed the Christian Right \u201cto baptize the neocons\u2019 aggressive, unipolar militarism with its vision of a righteous kingdom\u201d (67). The danger here, according to Taylor, is that \u201c[t]heocratic impulses working in tandem with militarist impulses yield an especially aggressive nationalism\u201d which foments violent conflict in the name of hegemony, resists progressive change, and stifles the very dissent which makes democracy valuable and possible (67).<\/p>\n
[4] The first chapter, \u201cEvil in Public Life Today,\u201d provides the frame necessary for understanding Taylor\u2019s discussion in Chapters Three and Four, even if it is one of the most dated sections of the book. His exposition of the dominant rhetoric of evil here comes as no surprise to readers today, familiar as most of us are with its limitations: a narrow focus on terrorism has the effect of \u201cshort-circuiting sustained public attention to other kinds of evil\u201d (yes, yes); the narrow vision of opposition to this evil gives \u201clittle attention to what it is we might be fighting or living for\u201d (yes, yes) (18). Neither is his critique of Jean Bethke Elshtain\u2019s Just War against Terror particularly novel, even for the time it was written (see for example, the October 2004 issue of Journal of Lutheran Ethics for three fine reviews.) What is particularly valuable here, perhaps even more so after the events of the last several years, is his analysis of two elements of evil gleaned from the New Testament: opportunism and privation.<\/p>\n
[5] Taylor\u2019s discussion of evil as privation of the good is especially helpful. Evil, he argues, is inherently deceptive. \u201c[I]t distorts by taking an acknowledged good, leaving its trappings in place (as so much disguise and dress), and twisting the good towards destructive ends\u201d (31). It \u201cis an operation performed upon the good, that\u2026is intrinsically bound up with some good [and] comes distorting publicly appealing structural forces that pose as good\u201d (31-32). What makes evil so destructive, so powerful, is its ability to manipulate a good and thus gain popular support and legitimacy even while corrupting and distorting that same good. It is the Nazi party appealing to national identity and the pride of the volk (goods), while twisting these publicly appealing constructs to destructive ends, a privation Paul Tillich rightly termed \u201cdemonic\u201d (32). In our time, perhaps it is the appeal to public safety (a good) to legitimize and gain support for racial profiling in states bordering Mexico. Or, maybe it is the popular appeal to unity and concord (goods) exercised through a dismissal of economic equity as \u201cclass warfare.\u201d Taylor gives readers a name for these deceptions and manipulations: evil. His theodicy may not explain its existence, but it does offer a useful way to understand its prevalence: evil looks like and talks like a good we can all agree on.<\/p>\n
[6] In Chapters Three and Four, Taylor describes how the privation of those goods threatened by \u201cthe 9\/11 moment\u201d (addressed in Chapter Two) has given rise to the influence and power of the Christian Right and contractual liberalism, respectively. At the outset, it should be noted here that Taylor does not have in mind all conservative Christians or even all fundamentalist Christians. Rather, he means by Christian Right \u201ca subset of conservative Protestants in the US, one that adheres to and is committed to developing as aggressive US American political romanticism [and that] tends toward a program of political rule\u201d (6). This group \u2013 relatively small despite its influence \u2013 has successfully appealed to what Taylor terms \u201cbelonging being,\u201d that intrinsic desire for identity, for community, for a sense of \u201cbelonging to the past, to past traditions, nations, peoples [and] lineages\u201d (49). Its ability to tap into and manipulate the mythos of US national identity has empowered its proponents to marginalize non-Christians, to deny legal rights to women, gays, and lesbians on the basis of scripture, and to sanctify the use of violence by the US military, all with popular support. Appeals to the supposed Christian identity of America, popular support of political candidates who want to \u201cthrow up\u201d when hearing praise for the separation of church and state, and congressional investigations of American Muslims all share a common root: the manipulation of a desire for identity through the mythic construction of national origins, coupled with a presumed divine mandate to establish a righteous kingdom. By appealing to \u201cbelonging being,\u201d the Christian Right has provided a history, a story, an \u201cidealized past\u201d to a people whose sense of self and nation was \u201cruptured\u201d by 9\/11. The symbols and structures of this history have since been employed effectively to change public policy even today, long after George W. Bush, darling of the Christian Right, left office.<\/p>\n
[7] Chapter Four is a prescient account of \u201ccontractual liberalism,\u201d made all the more intriguing by the Tea Party and Occupy movements which emerged after Taylor wrote these pages. In contrast to the romanticism of the Christian Right, which looks backward to the past to fulfill the need for belonging being, contractual liberalism, represented by neoconservatism, looks to the future in fulfillment of the common need Taylor labels \u201cexpectant being.\u201d The term \u201ccontractual liberalism\u201d may cause confusion. Taylor does not use the term to denote social contract theory or the business contract. Rather, it refers to those contracts denoted in book titles like Charles Mills\u2019 The Racial Contract and Carole Pateman\u2019s The Sexual Contract, namely the notion that liberalism \u201cwhile claiming to maximize those values [of freedom and liberty] has always been practiced in a restricted manner \u2013 restricted to a select body of people\u2026deemed worthy of freedom\u201d (74). The term is imprecise, its meaning left less clear without systematic exposition of either the racial or the sexual contract, which Taylor refers to often but does not adequately describe. The reader is left to wonder whether \u201ccontract\u201d is used in the sense of \u201ccontraction,\u201d an ever-closing circle of persons included, or in the sense of \u201ca contract,\u201d that is, a set of prescribed benefits and responsibilities given to one group whose boundaries are static. Mills and Pateman mean the latter. My sense is that Taylor means a little of both senses, but more precision here would be welcome, especially since if he is following Mills and Pateman, he is making a pragmatic critique of social contract theory, despite his insistence otherwise.<\/p>\n
[8] This is incidental, however, to an otherwise fine chapter. Taylor is right to note that liberalism, with its promises of freedom, progress, and inclusion, has been limited by racial, sexual, and heterosexist contracts that are oppressive and restrictive. Its fulfillment of expectant being, that innate human need for hope in the future, the new, the creative not-yet, is a false fulfillment. Contractual liberalism, or \u201canti-liberal modernism, as he refers to it when wedded to political romanticism, is touted as a promise for the many, even while it remains a realistic expectation only for the few (83-84).<\/p>\n
[9] What is particularly distressing for Taylor is the way in which this anti-liberal modernism, through its political romanticism, rewrites history as a mythical ideal, thereby glossing over the very real contracts which excluded Native Americans, women, poor whites, and African Americans, notably in the US Constitution. When wedded to religious romanticism, in particular, the results are disastrous. The story of national origins is a case in point. The structures of law (including the Constitution) and social order as they emerged from a re-mythologizing of the American Revolution are not only essential elements of the American \u201cgreatness\u201d and exceptionalism lauded by neoconservatives but, more perniciously, are the God-given backbone of a nation with a divine character and commission. They are thus imbued with religious reverence. Reading Taylor\u2019s chapter post-Tea Party, one gleans the sense that political pundits who proof-text \u201cFounding Fathers\u201d and rally attendees who dress in colonial-era garb are not extolling mere national pride or pageantry \u2013 this is religious fetishism of mythic figures in a mythic creation story. If Taylor is right, then there is a reason that attendees of Tea Party rallies often find as many tables dedicated to conservative Christianity as those dedicated to anti-tax groups. The two movements have become united in a unique way since 2001.<\/p>\n
[10] What can be done to counteract this alliance? Taylor spends the rest of his book describing a recovery of \u201cprophetic spirit,\u201d a \u201cspecter\u201d that challenges the sort of nationalism engendered by political romanticism and contractual liberalism. It does this not by declaring them wholly evil \u2013 and thus demonizing their adherents \u2013 but by recognizing that the success of both is due to the fact that they appeal to real needs \u2013 the need to belong and the need to expect \u2013 by offering real goods \u2013 an historical identity and the promise of a better future. Central to dismantling this alliance, then, is the construction of a new sense of identity, a \u201crevolutionary belonging\u201d (Chapter Six), and a new sense of hope, a \u201crevolutionary expectation\u201d (Chapter Seven.) Prophetic spirit offers both; its \u201cmajor contribution to public life after 9\/11 consists in its reworking of belonging being and expecting being\u201d (96).<\/p>\n
[11] In Chapter Five, Taylor discusses the nature of prophetic spirit through the \u201cspatial dimensions\u201d of breadth and depth. Whereas romanticism and liberalism orient themselves temporally, looking backward to an idealized past or forward to future progress, prophetic spirit \u201canalyzes human movement through time by looking through lenses that broaden and deepen our views of temporal life\u2026discerning spatial dimensions (broader realms, deeper levels, encompassing wholes) within historical life\u201d (98). Prophetic spirit, while not ignoring the forward movement of history, \u201cstresses that history\u2019s moving forward happens not just by means of some posited historical impetus or force of progress but by various kinds of dynamic interplay between social groups (conflict and antagonism as well as cooperation and coordination)\u201d (99). Key to this is a view of history that takes seriously the complex interplay between those in the \u201ccenter\u201d and those on the \u201cperiphery\u201d of society, which remains aware of the imbalance of power between the center and the periphery, and which is thus able to deconstruct the myths and imagined histories (and futures) or romanticists and contractual liberals.<\/p>\n
[12] In Chapter Six, Taylor describes \u201crevolutionary belonging,\u201d which stands in marked contrast to the vision offered by \u201cthe romanticizing strict constructionists among us [who] cultivate their revolutionary heritage by making a near fetish of the Declaration of Independence or of the US Constitution, both interpreted, so it is advised, \u2018as the founding fathers intended\u2019\u2026while overlook[ing] the fact that both the founders and the founding documents drew their power not from themselves but from a revolutionary mobility among the populace\u201d (111-112). There are three elements of this \u201cmobility\u201d that can serve as a ground for revolutionary belonging. First is a recovery of the \u201cmotley crew,\u201d the \u201crevolutionary subject\u201d of US history that, while marginalized and oppressed, formed the diverse, belabored, and excluded collective agent of revolutionary change in the colonies (113). Second is recovery of the \u201crevolutionary tradition\u201d of this motley crew, a tradition of revolt stretching back to the Diggers and Levellers of the 1600s that \u201cprepared the way for the American Revolution\u201d (116-117). Third and finally is \u201can aesthetics of resistance, an artful dreaming of emancipator practices and revolutionary fulfillment\u201d that provides a \u201crevolutionary mythic language\u201d to \u201cmobilize the strength of the motley crew\u201d (118-120). The revolutionary belonging afforded to those who identify with the \u201cmotley crew,\u201d who place themselves within a diverse tradition of resistance to injustice, and who find inspiration in a \u201cmotley and multiple mythos,\u201d Taylor argues, empowers citizens to resist na\u00efve romanticism, whether it takes the form of support for hegemonic imperialism or the sanctification of individualistic economic inequality.<\/p>\n
[13] The revolutionary expectation offered by prophetic spirit in Chapter Seven is carried out by this motley crew. Taylor designates his proposal as a \u201cradical liberalism\u201d which foregrounds \u201cthe agency of marginalized and oppressed groups in public life as the primary collective forces of transformation\u201d (128). Without giving a detailed picture of what life in a radically liberalized US might look like, Taylor points to certain groups and individuals as \u201cagents of revolutionary expectation,\u201d the genres appropriate to this new way of \u201cexpecting being,\u201d and the \u201cdistinctive social practices \u201c which might be needed to resist romanticism and contractual liberalism. The agents he describes are multiple, ranging from dissenting veterans of the US military to environmental activists to advocates for incarcerated persons (Taylor\u2019s own activism on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal being one example.) What unites these agents is their resistance to marginalization, whether it comes in the form of anti-immigration xenophobia, sexual marginalization, or the increasingly prevalent suppression of organized labor. The genres or styles in which these groups express their expectation both distinguish the groups and unite them as they seek revolutionary change (141). Briefly, the genres are: aesthetic imagination, including art and storytelling; public enactment, including marches and protests; and \u201cdeliberative reasoning,\u201d which \u201cseparates the revolutionary mob from a thuggish gang that only rampages and vents\u201d (146). \u201cProphetic spirit works to create spaces wherein practitioners of all three genres learn to respect their need for one another. The future of a radical expectation depends upon their mutual interplay\u201d (147).<\/p>\n
[14] Perhaps his most interesting suggestion in this chapter is his proposal for \u201ca form of movement conciliarism, public efforts to form paragovernment councils in which the agents mentioned above and their supporters, using the genres of revolutionary expectation, seek to plan practices of radical liberalism in post-9\/11 United States of America\u201d (147-148). This \u201cnew league of demes\u201d will intentionally serve as an \u201calternative structure\u201d to the dominant centers at work in US politics and culture today. Certainly, conservatives have been very efficient at such conciliarism and organization. One need only glimpse the ability of the Tea Party to influence national politics far beyond the weight of its actual numbers. Liberals, especially radical liberals, have been less adept. One wonders how well the Ryan budget would fare in a Congress where the Occupy movement enjoyed a caucus equal in strength to that of the Tea Party. Taylor\u2019s practical suggestions in this chapter are necessary if the frustration, disappointment, and, yes, rage, to which he gives voice are to offer a counter-ontology to the US public.<\/p>\n
[15] While the book builds to these practical suggestions, Taylor\u2019s final reflection, \u201cChristian Faith and Counterimperial Practice,\u201d is far more significant than the designation \u201cepilogue\u201d ought to suggest. Taylor responds to the absence of theology in his book (a rare exclusion, given his previous writings) with perhaps the most damning criticism of the entire book. \u201cWhy relegate a Christian commentary to this brief epilogue?…[Because] it is hard to point to Christian communities as active bearers of prophetic spirit\u201d (156). US Christians have been too \u201cinsignificant\u201d to revolutionary practice to be discussed in the constructive chapters. This is not to say that Christianity is without resources to aid in discerning prophetic spirit\u2019s new way of being; Taylor in fact describes the importance of the Gospel and \u201creconciliatory emancipation\u201d as two such resources. The problem, for the time he was writing as for us seven years later, is simply that Christian churches have not been as active as they must be to counter the marginalization and violence encouraged by the Christian Right and contractual liberalism. Taylor\u2019s critique is biting here: the Christian Right has become the public face of Christianity because other forms of Christianity have allowed it this license. Despite representing a small segment of all US Christians (even of the larger group of conservative Christians, some of whom disagree with its theocratic agenda), the Christian Right has become the voice of Christianity in the public square.<\/p>\n
[16] The book is not without its shortcomings. Some of the distinctions are drawn too sharply, and some of the terms \u2013 especially his casual sliding between neoconservatism, contractual liberalism, and anti-liberalism \u2013 are downright confusing. His description of agents of revolutionary expectation are disjointed, including military veterans and those who practice BDSM sexuality. There is little rhyme or reason to the grouping beyond the single unifying stance of anti-marginalization. Taylor doesn\u2019t really take into account the marginalization of each other that these agents might practice or desire. What ultimately unites the groups is opposition to current centers of power, but this doesn\u2019t lend to the \u201cmotley crew\u201d a collective, agreed-upon sense of purpose beyond opposition, the same stance he criticized in the dominant rhetoric of the anti-terrorist, post-9\/11 US. In his opposition to \u201cAmerican exceptionalism,\u201d Taylor also fails to mention the ways in which revolutionary groups have adopted exceptionalism to progressive ends. Richard B. Miller, in contrast, has noted the ways in which \u201cexceptionalism\u201d has been used both to insulate the US from critique and to call the US to its own high standards. Being a \u201ccity on a hill\u201d does not just mean being safe from ideological or physical attack; it may also mean being a role model, an example for other nations. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, used this latter sense of American exceptionalism to bolster his appeals for civil rights.1<\/p>\n
[17] Given these shortcomings and the general tenor of his book, Taylor is not going to convince his opponents to jump ship and convert to his brand of \u201cradical liberalism.\u201d But this does not appear to be his intent. The book is quite clearly written for those who are already prepared to agree with his assessment. What Taylor offers the choir to which he preaches is, first of all, a way to situate their message within both an historical tradition of resistance and an existential account of those human needs we meet through common life. Second, and perhaps more significantly, Taylor\u2019s challenging critique of the Christian Right, political romanticism, and American exceptionalism represents a gauntlet thrown down before those moderates who agree with him but whose passivity or indifference has allowed Christianity to become a handmaiden to empire. Taylor may not convert conservatives to the left, but he may convert moderates to action, may motivate them get out of their armchairs \u2013 or pews \u2013 and actually resist inequality and marginalization. If King, whom Taylor cites, is correct that \u201cthe white moderate\u201d is more anemic to social change than even the conservative racist, this may very well be the more important conversion to inspire.<\/p>\n
Endnotes
\n1 See Richard B. Miller, Interpretations of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, and the Just-War Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991), especially Chapter 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[1] There are few authors as adept as Mark Lewis Taylor at navigating the fine line between incisive, biting commentary and partisan polemics. Whether he is writing about the criminal justice system (in The Executed God) or the cooptation of religion by repressive political regimes (in the present book), his agenda is clear: the deconstruction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-civil"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n