Catholic thinker Jody Bottum’s recent controversial Commonweal essay suggested, “American Catholics should accept state recognition of same-sex marriage simply because they are Americans.” A bow to legally institutionalizing sexual liberalism has become the ticket to American civic engagement, it is suggested.
Noting he is a “Christian first, and an American second,” columnist Rod Dreher responded to Bottum by noting that “traditionalist Christians should think about what patriotism means in an America that is turning hostile to them.” He recalls that “many conservative Christians have thought, wrongly or rightly, for many years that being a ‘good Christian’ and being a ‘good American’ were one and the same.” But the “emerging order is forcing them, or should force them, to rethink all this.”
Dreher cited the provocative 1996 symposium that Bottum’s predecessor as editor of the influential journal First Things, Catholic priest and thinker Richard Neuhaus, hosted, which suggested a time when orthodox believers no longer can affirm “God and country” but must choose between “God or country.” Neuhaus himself was unashamedly committed to America as a political and spiritual project. In his final book, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile, which explored the duel loyalties of Christians, he declared: “When I die, I expect to meet God as an American.”
More here-
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/06/god-and-country-in-the-same-se
No comments:
Post a Comment