The Weekly, October 28, 2024
Hi all,
I’ve got a new piece up at Plough on tolerance as a virtue. Key grafs:
Rather than treating tolerance as a necessary evil, we can recognize tolerance as a virtue. In this sense, tolerance is a habit or practice that actually helps us grow in our capacity to love our neighbor, to live well among others, and to better discern the good. Though this is a counterintuitive thought for many, particularly those who following Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas are inclined to see a conflict between the cultivation of virtue and democratic life, it is actually not that hard to discern the ways in which tolerance functions like any other virtue.
Consider chastity, something long regarded as a virtue. The chaste person chooses to forego some more immediate, lesser good or, at least, pleasure – sexual union with another person – in order to lay hold of some higher good – lifelong monogamy with a spouse or a particular form of lifelong devotion to God. The lesser good is set aside, rejected, because something greater is (rightly) valued more highly. Indeed, all of the virtues have this sort of quality, calling us to distinguish and judge between competing goods with wisdom as we pass through this life. Tolerance, then, is a virtue of much the same sort.
When we practice tolerance, we are essentially telling ourselves that some particular thing we find objectionable or distasteful should be patiently endured so that some higher, better good can be enjoyed. To take a simple example, most of the coffee shops I frequent as a full-time remote worker are owned and staffed by people who do not share my traditionalist Christian social democrat politics. But their business tolerates my presence because there are other goods we enjoy together. Their distaste or disapproval for my political views, or mine for theirs, is not the sum total of our relationship. That component is real, but not exhaustive.
Special thanks to Justin Hawkins for first turning me onto John Bowlin’s work, which was essential to the drafting of this essay.
Books
Finished Technopoly and Dominion. Finally.
Still working on the Brand book, and also on Bray and Keane’s How to Use the Book of Common Prayer.
Articles
It’s a long story, but last week I got a last-minute writing assignment that devoured a good deal of my time. Amongst other things, it meant reading more closely a couple papers that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, wrote about liberation theology while serving as the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Of all the things I found in those documents, the phrase that I most loved is this from the opening section of the 1984 document, the first of the two Ratzinger wrote.
She (the church) intends to struggle, by her own means, for the defense and advancement of the rights of mankind, especially of the poor.
“To struggle, by her own means, for the defense and advancement of the rights of mankind, especially of the poor.”
It almost reminds me of Schaeffer’s common saying that we must do “the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.” A good word, perhaps, for eight days before an election.
Elsewhere
I’m very much in the midst of book writing mode, which is a mixture of equal parts trying to write and still attempting to gather up stories and sentences and ideas as you go, a bit like Frederick and his colors.
I’ve been reading more on baptism lately and was really struck by this passage from Gregory Nazianzus on baptism and spiritual despair:
If after baptism the persecutor and tempter of the light assail you (for he assailed even the Word my God through the veil, the hidden Light through that which was manifested), you have the means to conquer him. Fear not the conflict; defend yourself with the Water; defend yourself with the Spirit, by Which all the fiery darts of the wicked shall be quenched.
It is Spirit, but That Spirit which rent the Mountains. It is Water, but that which quenches fire. If he assail you by your want (as he dared to assail Christ), and asks that stones should be made bread, do not be ignorant of his devices. Teach him what he has not learned. Defend yourself with the Word of life, Who is the Bread sent down from heaven, and giving life to the world. If he plot against you with vain glory (as he did against Christ when he led Him up to the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, Cast Yourself down as a proof of Your Godhead), be not overborne by elation. If you be taken by this he will not stop here.
For he is insatiable, he grasps at every thing. He fawns upon you with fair pretences, but he ends in evil; this is the manner of his fighting. Yes, and the robber is skilled in Scripture. On the one side was that It is written about the Bread, and on the other that it Is written about the Angels. It is written, quoth he, He shall give His Angels charge concerning you, and they shall bear you in their hands. O vile sophist! How was it that you suppressed the words that follow, for I know it well, even if you pass it by in silence? I will make you to go upon the asp and basilisk, and I will tread upon serpents and scorpions, being fenced by the Trinity. If he wrestle against you to a fall through avarice, showing you all the Kingdoms at one instant and in the twinkling of an eye, as belonging to himself, and demand your worship, despise him as a beggar.
This part, particularly, goes really hard:
Say to him relying on the Seal, I am myself the Image of God; I have not yet been cast down from the heavenly Glory, as you were through your pride; I have put on Christ; I have been transformed into Christ by Baptism; worship thou me. Well do I know that he will depart, defeated and put to shame by this; as he did from Christ the first Light, so he will from those who are illumined by Christ. Such blessings does the laver bestow on those who apprehend it; such is the rich feast which it provides for those who hunger aright.
“Despise him as a beggar.” Then: “I have been transformed into Christ by Baptism; worship thou me.”
That’s how one of the great fathers of the church advises us to address the devil when he tempts us or assails us with fears, doubts, or worries.
And please be attentive as you read: None of the boldness that Gregory counsels has anything to do with us; rather, it has all to do with Christ. The only reason it works, so to speak, is because Jesus did it and it worked for Jesus and we are in Jesus. Therefore, just as the first Light purged the devil from its presence, so too can the devil be purged from the presence of those illumined by that light.
Daring counsel, I think, for people vexed by despair or fear or trepidation, but also, I suspect, stronger and more bracing than anything we tend more often to turn to today.
Thanks for reading!
Under the Mercy,
~Jake