Monday, January 11, 2021

Hawley's heresy

 Sapere aude is not for him. The young Christian senator/soldier denies your right to think for yourself, to use your reason, to invoke your own understanding, and to fashion your own "concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." He denies a democracy of mental freedom. He denies Enlightenment values. He affirms a medieval worldview. And he's a symptom of something much larger and more dangerous than himself. As his democratically-smarter colleague from Maine said last night on 60 Minutes, he's very smart in a narrow IQ sense... but that doesn't stop him from being dumb and disingenuous about democracy.

The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage Why do so many Republicans appear to be at war with both truth and democracy?

...In multiple speeches, an interview and a widely shared article for Christianity Today, Mr. Hawley has explained that the blame for society’s ills traces all the way back to Pelagius — a British-born monk who lived 17 centuries ago. In a 2019 commencement address at The King’s College, a small conservative Christian college devoted to “a biblical worldview,” Mr. Hawley denounced Pelagius for teaching that human beings have the freedom to choose how they live their lives and that grace comes to those who do good things, as opposed to those who believe the right doctrines.

The most eloquent summary of the Pelagian vision, Mr. Hawley went on to say, can be found in the Supreme Court’s 1992 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Mr. Hawley specifically cited Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words reprovingly: “At the heart of liberty,” Kennedy wrote, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” The fifth century church fathers were right to condemn this terrifying variety of heresy, Mr. Hawley argued: “Replacing it and repairing the harm it has caused is one of the challenges of our day...”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/opinion/josh-hawley-religion-democracy.html?smid=em-share