On Sin 4

Thanks to CR for raising the matter of the seven deadly sins in her comment. The 'Seven Deadlies' were not my primary concern in On Sin 3, but rather a characterisation or thematisation of sin as a whole (which, then, the seven deadly sins would seem to instantiate in various ways). Nevertheless, it got me thinking...

It is fascinating - and outrageous - that in numerous identifiable ways the seven deadly sins are now no longer considered sins as such, but rather are actually relied upon and positively encouraged as the basis of much of our society and (especially) economics, and in that sense has become the basis of our supposed security.

If we did not have envy, for example, we could not have fashion - the planned 'obsolescence' of otherwise serviceable clothing - and could not then have an industry and its resultant profits surrounding it. (Not that it is only envy, but it is at least that.)

One of the dilemmas of capitalism, historically, is how to create demand in order to sustain production. Recourse to (at least some of) the seven deadly sins has been one of the solutions.

Naturally, for Christians at least, any structure which relies on - rather than merely accounting for - the seven deadly sins must be held in some suspicion.

But turning to the seven deadly sins themselves, I wonder if there isn't actually a polarity or dualism within them? (I haven't done much work on these, so this is probably a banal observation.) That is to say, it seems relatively easy to get locked into an orientation which reacts against (say) lust, and assumes the opposite (say, anhedonia) to be the virtuous position. But to take this position - reacting against lust - actually incorporates lust into virtue, as virtue becomes a reaction against it, a rejection of it, rather than something which has gone beyond it. Getting beyond these dualisms seems increasingly important to me.

If we instead think of virtue as - well, not merely a mean between extremes, but rather something escaping or transcending the dualism, then we seem to get closer to what we are called to by God as humans.

On Enemies

There has been a little talk about enemies going around recently, with President Bush raising questions about the value of diplomatic strategies - 'talking' - with America's 'enemies', likening this to appeasement, and invoking the (rather over-invoked) spectre of Chamberlain, Germany, and the Sudetenland.

But it seems worth asking just what an enemy is? Or more specifically, what makes someone an enemy? We live in a world of cause and effect, in which we can generally enquire as to why something or other might have happened or might be the case. Why is it that someone might set themselves to oppose us?* It seems that there are four general causes. I'll mention the first three first:

Ignorance: the other might simply not know the reasons for one's actions or understand the stance one has taken in the world. In this case, it would seem that informing the other of the genuine nature of things would alleviate the situation.

Insanity: the other might not be capable of knowing the genuine nature of things due to some defect of function.

Wickedness: the other might oppose one because he or she is wicked, perverted in such a way that he or she willfully refuses to acknowledge the genuine nature of things.

I'll be blunt: these three are rarely wholly and objectively the case with 'the other'. Moreover, it is easy to see how invoking them would serve ideological ends; that is, that they would be a way of lying to ourselves to avoid the truth of the matter.

The other cause is this:

Reasons: the other might oppose one because he or she has genuine reasons for doing so, reasons which might be more-or-less well formed or articulated but nevertheless represent the other's interests and person.

It is worth mentioning that, in the case of a dispute between parties, to call someone an enemy for one of the first three reasons locates the cause of their 'enemyhood' in the other; by implication, this allows oneself to escape scrutiny. The reason there is a dispute is because the other has bumbled into it (ignorance), isn't capable of anything better (insanity), or has deliberately and perversely chosen it (wickedness). The reason the other is opposing one is simply because of something within him or herself; any consideration of oneself as involved in the making of the dispute is out of bounds and improper.

But the fourth possible cause - because the enemy has a reason - brings one into a relationship, opening up the possibility of self-reflection, of exchange, of debate, of talk: also the possibility of repentence and conversion.

Because the enemy might have a reason - more-or-less well reasoned or articulated, correct or incorrect - allows the other to be seen as human. Yet the possibility of self-reflection, for considering how we are implicated in the other's 'enemy-ness' does not unmake the enemy, nor does it explain away or justify the more-or-less well reasoned or articulated, correct or incorrect reasons one has for considering the other an enemy.

Parties to a dispute, enemies, are involved in history - maybe for thousands of years - and there may well be reasons of various sorts over the span of time. Yet to acknowledge that there are reasons between the parties rather than simply within the other party is to open up a horizon within which a conversation (of some sort) might open.

This is not meant to be sunny or pollyanna-ish, just the opposite. To take a sober look at a situation, and allow ourselves to be a party in it - rather than simply a victim of the other - is at least to escape a dangerous and sinful delusion; or, to look at it from the other side, it is to come more fully to grasp the truth of the matter. It is seeing oneself only as an innocent victim and the other only as wicked perpetrator which is sunnily optimistic and out of touch with reality.

Rather, to see the relationship of enemies as mutually constituting constituted by various reasons is to allow both oneself and the other to be genuinely human, both implicated in the other's 'enemy-ness', both caught up in sin - which in various ways partially resembles ignorance, inanity and wickedness - and yet both presented with the possibility of repentance and reconciliation in the Spirit, through Christ.

As we are implicated in - and constituted by - our neighbour, so also are we by our enemy. It is in this way that we can begin to see some of the depth and wisdom in Christ's counsel to love one's enemy. (Mt 5.44)


[aphoristic addenda 20/05/08 21.30]
What I am trying to do, in part, is think a social/relational economy which is shaped by the gospel, recognises the mutual constitution of persons, and can do justice to enemies, sin and grace within this economy. This is intended to recognise the humanity of the other, and not to take his or her sin with greater seriousness than our own - and to recognise how we are ourselves implicated in his or her sin, while he or she is implicated in ours.

If we are mutually constituted as persons by others (and we constitute them) then we are constituted by both sin and grace. But the grace is prior, and elemental; at bottom, we are constituted by God's grace.

Sin is not (ultimately) subject to explanation, at least not in the sense of 'explaining away', as if it were merely a matter of information and not perversity. Barth was right that sin is the 'impossible impossibility'. Yet this perversity must never be allowed to allow sin to be self-evident or 'natural', and must never dampen thinking, attempts to trace and understand (if not explain) it.

This 'mutually constituting' is burden, responsibility, opportunity and delight. But it is not a task per se.

It is commonly enough the case that bad reasons may be offered for 'enemy-ship'. One common situation would be that x constitutes y as an enemy when the real grievance is with z. Yet the proper response would not be for y to respond to x by colouring him in the ways described above. (Actually, ignorance wouldn't be too far off the truth.) But this situation gives the opportunity for x and y and (hopefully) z to talk.


*Taking 'us' and 'them' in the most general terms possible: individual, social, national, and so forth.

Here and there around the blogosphere

I've been crazy busy recently, but have also had the pleasure of running across a few interesting essays and posts that I thought I would share with you.

Stephanie Paulsell writes in the latest Christian Century about the importance - the proper importance - of a learned ministry. I heartily endorse what she is saying; in fact, I would have written a broadly similar essay if given the opportunity. The church suffers when it is anti-intellectual. The church also suffers when it is over-intellectual, although it is my sense that, on the whole, we have suffered more from the former than the latter recently. The key is loving to learn and using whatever intellectual gifts one has to love and serve others, not fancying that being a smarty pants makes you better than or above others - and not letting others put you down or marginalise you because you've got a lot of 'book' learning. (I've written more about this elsewhere.)

Being part of the 'body' of Christ means that we are each given gifts which are meant to be realised in serving and loving others; it also means that others have gifts which are meant to be realised in serving and loving others too, including oneself. There is no gift which puts us 'above' another, and there is no gift which puts us 'beneath' others. There is of course difference, genuine difference, but this is not a difference which exalts one and puts another down.

We should never nourish the conceit that we can 'go it alone', any more than we would look at a dismbodied hand lying in the street and say 'hey, good for it - it's finally decided to go its own way!' This is another way of acknowledging that whatever gifts we have also involve limitations and incompletions which can only be filled by others - and similarly that we may have something for them as well.

Also, Doug over at Metacatholic draws our attention to a survey which seems to bear out the intuition that self-identified fundamentalists don't know the Bible better than others. In light of the study's finding that there is no correlation between Biblical literacy and political orientation (i.e. conservative may be either biblically literate or illiterate, liberals the same), Doug makes the observation that: "If true, however, it may suggest very controversially that not only does “believing the Bible” function as a shibboleth rather than anything else, but that the scriptures may exercise very little power over the biblically literate and illiterate alike. If Bible reading and knowledge has no correlation with political affiliation, that would seem to be suggested."

That is one way of analysing the data, but not the only one. It may actually suggest that it is people who have ideologies and political orientations, and not texts - and so a broad range of people may know and love the Bible, but interpret it differently. Or, a different and less hermeneutical point would be this: perhaps the politics suggested by the Bible are not easily mapped onto present-day political syntheses, and so there are both continuities and discontinuities between Scripture and the present day, such that the Scriptures do form people when engaged thoroughly and with depth, and yet without dictating which of the present political syntheses on offer is most appropriate or faithful.

He does helpfully raise the question about the (potential) incorrigibility of our beliefs and practices, political and otherwise, which is a serious question, as well as the possibility of our failing to hear and not even realising our failing - a possibility which ought to haunt us.

Oh yeah, well deconstruct this!

It's been awhile since I've posted. Of all the habits of blogging, doing it consistently, regularly, has been the hardest for me. I'll get a streak of several posts within a week or so, and then be dark the next week as my 'real life' (ha ha) gets busy. All of which is not to say that I'm going to be better on this front, just that yes, I know...

Anyway, I ran across an article by Jamie Smith - who is usually assistant professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, but just now is overseeing their exchange program at York St. John's University - on The Incarnation as More Radical Hermeneutics. It is a critical yet appreciative review of John Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

I like the sort of stuff that Smith does, and this is a good introduction to part of it. Part of his critique of Caputo is that his portrait of Jesus is (ironically) hard to tell from contemporary liberalism, and that the Jesus of the gospels - indeed, for those with ears to hear, of orthodoxy - is far more radical than that. One way this is so is that the scandal of the incarnation creates a body, an institution, which carries on in the Spirit down the ages, witnessing to the Word, the living God; this body is scandalous (to us) by not simply being a voluntary organisation of like-minded people, a benevolent organisation whose watchword is laissez-faire individualism. At least in this way, we are different from the world around us.

Or so we're supposed to be.

Go and have a read of Smith's essay, it's good. I've borrowed a couple of terms and intellectual moves from him for the above, which is an improvisation on one or two aspects of the essay.

Sin, Society, Violence and Responsibility

This is a slightly modified version of a response given to a comment on an earlier post.

The larger claim (the 'deeper question' as I phrased it) I was making in my post Getting Schooled? Violence in three movements - the claim which brackets the gun talk - is that America is a violent nation and seems to have become moreso in the last few years. I was ruminating on that and wondering where we’ve gone wrong, how is our soul deformed so as to work out this way? (So the risk is more a matter of being in the society than being in its schools.)

It is noteworthy that this is an American problem, not a problem for humans per se – other developed nations have nothing like the gun crime rates, nor overall violent crime rates that we do.

And my ruminations on Noah’s Ark suggest that, perhaps, at least theologically, violence is not the solution to violence.

So I am left wondering what can be done earlier in the process so we don’t get to the point of violence. There is disagreement among Christians, on Scriptural grounds, about the legitimacy of violence as a response to violence - although it would seem that all Christians, even those who espouse just war, must admit of limits to our actions, geopolitically and (presumably) personally. But Christians of all stripes would, I take it, be interested in the question of what gives rise to this violence, peculiarly focussed in one society.

Naturally, the answer on some level is that the problem is sin, and the response needs to be repentance, reconciliation and healing. I wholeheartedly agree. But sin is particular to systems and individuals, and the form of repentance, reconciliation and healing are just as particular. Given that violent crime – much of it between strangers, according to statistics – is so widespread in America, what particular form would these take for us?

Or to put it only slightly differently, what is broken and deformed in our system which prompts people to act out in this way? How might we even be complicit in this? After all, the ‘problems’ are not just those who act out, but also the extended social network by which they are formed and of which they are a part – and which they contribute to forming. The sin is not just the violent acting out, but also the sin done to a person to prompt them to act out, and the broader, systemic sins committed against a person. Sin begets sin.

Note well: This is not in any way saying that someone who acts out is merely a victim and not responsible – on the contrary, we are all victims and simultaneously we are all responsible. We are all sinned against, and we all sin.

So that’s the set of questions I am sitting with: what are the specific conditions of sin – and the specific shape of redemption and healing needed – in America today? At this point, I see the effects (violence) but am only beginning to grope towards an analysis of the causes in greater detail than ‘sin’ (which is universal, yet takes different characteristic shapes). I suppose in some sense, this has been an ongoing preoccupation of this blog ever since I began it.

Photos of rapeseed crops used in accord with relevant copyrights: uppermost image from Wikimedia commons; lower image from stock.xchng. Unfortunately, it is probably another 4 to 6 weeks for the local rapeseed to blossom.

Not an end, but a beginning

The Australian Parliament today, by way of the Prime Minister, apologised officially for the mistreatment of the Australian Aboriginal Peoples. (BBC story here.)

Looked at from one perspective, this might be an end, a balm to troubled consciences, a way for the oppressor to move on and forget, to say to himself 'well, that's fixed, no more worries there': a way for nothing to change.

Or it can actually be the beginning of something much bigger, much messier, less manageable, and more troubling. It might not be a balm (in the short to midterm) for consciences, but actually stir up more trouble; it might be the occasion for more stories to be told, more uncomfortable truth to come to light. Any apology, by dint of coming clean about what one has done, always contains the risk of encountering more fully the depth and nature of one's offense

But maybe, just maybe, it will be the beginning of healing and reconciliation - ultimately, for all involved (for the oppressor often forgets how his oppression distorts his own humanity). And that would begin to change everything.

And maybe - just maybe - my own people in America might take a cue.

Jason Goroncy, an acquaintance who is a PhD student at the University of St. Andrews, and an Antipodean native himself, blogs on this new development here (with the text of the official apology) and here (with an extended reflection on guilt and forgiveness - good stuff).

Theocapitalism and theological economics

I'm surprised to find it's been a fortnight since I've managed to post anything. I've been ill, and crazy busy, between writing up and preparing for lectures and whatnot.

But I ran across a post over at Scot McKnight's blog The Jesus Creed, in which he is exploring some of the ideas of Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change.

(I don't know about you, but whenever I'm confronted with a book title like that, I am instantly skeptical - oh, yeah? says who? on what grounds? to serve the interest of whom? and so forth. The odd thing about McLaren is that usually when I get around to reading him - and I do - I find that what he's saying isn't very radical or new at all but just seems, well, common. Odd experience, I don't know if anyone else has encountered that or not. Maybe I'm just not his audience, maybe he' s intending to 'rock the world' of an older group or a different part of the church or something. Or maybe I'm just radically out of step with massive parts of the church.)

So anyway, Scot has posted four points that McLaren makes about Jesus' counter-stories to the theo-capitalist mythology. In order not to simply reproduce that post, I will just provide a link to it - go and check it out, there are some very important points made here. Also check out, in the third comment, the very potent and rich phrase: 'Would it not be a good idea to have a group of people from different disciplines work on these ideas to design a “sacred ecosystem” as a genuine alternative to theocapitalism...' Indeed, developing that 'sacred ecosystem' may be part of the church's task for the foreseeable future, as it provides - often unintentionally, and in many cases less so now than in previous years - one of the few viable or widespread alternatives in America to theocapitalism.

(What is theocapitalism? Apparently McLaren says more in his book about it being an 'economic idolatry', and McKnight says a bit more here. As a term, it at least serves to place a wedge between our present arrangements and the Lord in such a way as to open some space for thinking.)

There have also been two provocative postings by Scott Stephens on Faith and Theology recently on theological analysis of political economics, one entitled Marx and Hitchens among the Theologians, and another called On Capitalism, God, and Mammon. They are not without their limitations - I've indicated as much in a comment on the latter one, (and further, although I don't see it, to the extent he actually is taking a Marcionite perspective on things, he wins no points from me). But in the former one, whilst incisively critiquing Christopher Hitchens' latest work, he also helpfully reminds readers that, for Christians, Marx may actually be (at least) as much of an ally as an opponent.

Defenseless Enemies

In a - not terribly well verified - news story running the circuit of mostly conservative blogs, it is claimed that Israel easily breached the radar defenses of Syria and bombed a certain site well inland in that country. The upshot of all of this is that, the story alleges, Syria and Iran are now shaking in their boots as they realise that any sites within their borders can now be attacked at will by Israel and/or the US.

I'm not going to link to the story, but if you want to see it, google 'defenseless enemies are fun'. That's the rather striking line that the story/ essay ends with.

Of course, that is just the sort of rationale that terrorists use, whether in open air markets in Baghdad, buses in Tel Aviv, or airliners over New York. But never mind the likelihood that we are becoming the very thing we allegedly are fighting against.

And never mind that, in the usual process of global escalation, as we constantly militarily up the ante, it will soon be our enemies saying the very things about us: 'defenseless enemies are fun'.

I say never mind that not because those aren't massive problems that even a bit of reflection and prayer might bring to mind, but because they are simply more of the same that we have had through time to this point, only magnified by technology and anxiety. It's just sin, which is banal and unsurprising, if also unacceptable.

But I do wonder what Jesus would make of it.

I seem to recall that he told us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us and do good to those who persecute us. And when he was arrested, subjected to a mock trial, and executed on a cross by his enemies, the enemies of God - that is, by us - he asked his Father to forgive them. And then after he was raised again he didn't return to kick some butt, but instead went to those who abandoned him and sent them to those (others) who killed him, with a message of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Or maybe he would agree that 'defenseless enemies are fun', not because that means you now have untrammelled, irresistable power (unchecked by love or goodness), but rather because it might deliver us from our own obsessive need for defense at any cost, giving us the basis for peaceable Christian witness, and the possibility for forgiveness and reconciliation. After all, the first apostles were sent without weapons, or security of any sort. Even granted the changed cultural situation we live in - heck, maybe because of the changed cultural situation - why should we expect to be any different?

I do wonder, however, to the extent that the attitude in this essay captures the present American spirit, on just what grounds we can maintain the pretense that America is a Christian nation.

Civility on the web

I appreciated Jonathan Freedland's op-ed piece in the Guardian today, entitled "The blogosphere risks putting off everyone but point-scoring males." It makes the (not terribly insightful) observation that the internet, which is potentially an experiment in wide-ranging democracy and exchange of ideas typically is dominated by loud mouths, cranks, and ideological hacks. Too often an exchange of ideas becomes a series of personal attacks (a logical fallacy) and conversations become ideological echo-chambers, with the result that thinking is avoided --seemingly at all costs. Although there nothing particularly new about hand-wringing over civility on the web, there really is a sense in which the potential of this experiment (viz. the internet) really raises the stakes for humanity.

I found this passage particularly interesting:

But that advantage [i.e. instant feedback on matters such as factual errors, etc.] is surely out- weighed by the risk that the blogo-sphere, which could be a new, revolutionary public space, instead becomes a stale, claustrophobic environment, appealing chiefly to a certain kind of aggressive, point-scoring male - and utterly off-putting to everyone else. This is not just bad news for media outlets like the Guardian, keen to build an audience; it means that this great democratic opportunity is lost.

Ah, but this free-for-all is democratic, say the devotees. Any change would be censorship. But imagine that public meeting. Would that constitute a democratic debate, or a shouting match in which the loudest, most intimidating voice wins? Surely the more democratic encounter is the meeting properly chaired, allowing everyone their say and ensuring no descent into bar-room brawl. That's certainly how we operate in the real world, so why should the virtual realm be any different?

Freedland puts his finger on the typical justification for libertarian attitudes towards society and politics (and, in a different way, free market economics): a semi-mythological attitude which insists that any limitation - or, better, any heteronomous limitation - is ipso facto illegitimate. But notice what Freedland notices: that when autonomy and nothing else is the only possible criterion, then the strong - the bullies - win, and life becomes not only oppressive, but also monotonous and excessively dull. The better - in Freedland's terms, the more democratic - alternative is not simply to allow whoever whatever they wish to say, with whatever force, rage and ill-will they can muster, but rather a 'proper chairing', which would allow different voices to contribute to advancing the conversation. It ends up being a collaborative, open-ended project with a measure of competition and contest, but not, I think, dominated by selfishness and abuse of power.

It might be objected that this 'proper chairing' is necessarily value-laden: fine, so is libertarianism. A value-laden ordering of space, time, relationships, and so forth cannot be gotten around. And so the question ends up being not, a specific, value-laden arrangement versus something non-value-laden and 'neutral', but rather which is the best, most just, and in Christian terms, most Godly and most oriented towards God's Kingdom. (And, yes, the criteria for for the judgements, not just the judgements themselves are value-laden.)

Anyway, it is a good essay, go and read the rest.

Miscellaneous updates and an AKMA reference

I haven't blogged for some time, partly due to a lurking illness which hasn't yet been bold enough to assert itself fully. Low grade sickness saps your energy, but not enough to wipe you out, In this way, it is rather like an inch or two of snow: not enough to cause life to grind to a blessed halt so you can rest and recuperate, just enough to add misery to exhaustion.

Also, I've been busy, not least with looking at several General Ordination Exams. I will be helping the Board of Examining Chaplains to assess them next week at an Episcopal camp outside of Houston. I've done this for three years now and while it is an awful lot of work, I think the GOEs are important and I am glad to be able to serve the church in this way. In a certain slightly perverse way it is even fun. But it also means I won't be able to blog next week.

All grad school applications are now in, but I won't hear about them until probably March or so. Shpilkis in the meantime. I don't like not knowing where we will be living several months from now.

AKMA has contributed an interesting post on the subject of Christian marriages, with all of his usual eloquence and charity. (This was the third in a series for him. Here's the first, and here's the second.) Along the way he expands his discussion, summarizing and clarifying what I have written elsewhere about contested questions. (I don't mean that he actually looked at what I said and summarized or clarified, this isn't a statement of literary dependence -- it is more likely, if anything, that I have unwittingly imported ideas he set out on his own. But it seems at least that our minds are travelling in similar circles.)

His entire post is very much worth a read, but I thought the following sentence particularly worth marking:

Facile binaries between “us” and “them” serve the political purpose of drumming up the fevers of the
partisans (especially when we pathologize or anathematize those with whom we disagree), but they rarely
clarify the best grounds for advocating one or another theological position, and almost never give somebody a good reason for changing her or his mind.

I originally wrote "...the following sentences worth marking:" but when I returned to the original post, I realized that I wanted to quote the whole darn thing: it's gold. So go and read it. Now. That's okay, I'll be waiting here when you're done....

Other miscellaneous tidbit to include here include a couple of note about upcoming blog stuff:

1) I owe Peter (and others, no doubt) a definition of "church marketing", which is forthcoming.

2) Rhett has asked me to discuss premillenial dispensationalism and what I find problematic with it, particularly its eschatology, and this might be more interesting in a post than in an e-mail. (Tell me if I'm wrong, Rhett.)

3) I need to provide some more evidence and argumentation about church marketing generally, in support of my earlier post.

4) I am planning to start a series of entries which introduce modern theologians to readers, with links to online resources. Regular readers will be not at all surprised to find that my list of theologians leans towards Anglicans, the Radical Orthodox, and postliberals. Rowan Williams, David F. Ford, John Milbank, and Stanley Hauerwas will be among the first.

5) Some more ruminations about the Christian faith and its relation to the "public sphere" (and why the "public sphere" is such a dubious and dangerous idea).

6) I also owe Howlin' Hobbit something on the relationship between doctrine and life/ethics/behavior/something like that. I have been wanting to blog on this for a while, anyway.

7) More book reviews.

So, watch this space! But not next week, I'll be gone.

A Startling Suggestion from a Sensible Fellow

Alasdair MacIntyre, who has had a singular influence on my thought since my undergraduate days, makes a startling suggestion in this essay about not voting. MacIntyre's thought is creative and challenging, and his suggestion that we should eshew voting reflects this. As so often with his ideas, he expresses with clarity and detail what I have only murkily intuited on my own. Although I have not (yet) intentionally refrained from voting, I have voted for third party candidates out of a frustration borne by the same observations that MacIntyre makes about the two-party system. I did vote in this year's presidential election, but am not fully satisfied with my choice. (By the way,I oppose Bush.)

I'm not yet fully persuaded that the way to vote against the system is to not vote, however. Not that voting itself is much more than being co-opted into the system. What I mean is that this year's election already seems destined to be decided by five guys from Sandusky, Ohio, and three little old ladies from the "I-4 Corridor" in Florida. Michigan was besieged by advertising, but Illinois and Indiana were comparatively neglected, and have so far returned quite predictable results. My point is that if Indiana and Illinois all simply failed to vote, the effect would be the same, fighting for the votes of Michigan. And if all of Michigan refrained from voting, except for my wife and me, and we both voted for, say, Nader, it would look like a landslide and a mandate. Not voting is inherently ambiguous, even if the choices are between arsenic and cyanide.

(Kudos to AKMA for the link to MacIntyre's essay.)

Wednesday morning update: and now, just in time for no one to give a darn, two similar essays from two more "sensible fellows". In Commonweal, Paul Griffiths argues against voting in the election, and Mark Noll does the same, from a different perspective, in the Christian Century. Both Griffiths and Noll are intelligent, careful scholars, and serious Christians (Griffiths, Roman Catholic; Noll, evangelical). Is this a move afoot? And more importantly, what should the church -- as rival polis -- do instead?

(A tip o' th' pin to Ekklesia Project for the links)