Posted by
Joe Knippenberg on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 6:28:04 AM
Michael Gerson's
op-ed in today's WaPo summarizes the theme of his
new book: there are two strands of contemporary conservatism, small-government libertarianism and Roman Catholic social thought (the best devolped form of Christian thinking about political and social life):
Various forms of libertarianism and anti-government conservatism share a belief that justice is defined by the imposition of impartial rules -- free markets and the rule of law. If everyone is treated fairly and equally, the state has done its job. But Catholic social thought takes a large step beyond that view. While it affirms the principle of limited government -- asserting the existence of a world of families, congregations and community institutions where government should rarely tread -- it also asserts that the justice of society is measured by its treatment of the helpless and poor. And this creates a positive obligation to order society in a way that protects and benefits the powerless and suffering.
This obligation to protect has never, in Jewish and Christian teaching, been purely private. Hebrew law made a special provision for the destitute -- requiring that a portion of harvested crops be left in the field to be gathered by the poor. The Hebrew prophets raucously confronted the political and economic exploitation of the weak.
A significant portion of the Republican Party and the American public is influenced more by the social teachings of the Jewish and Christian traditions than by the doctrines of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Religious conservatives, broadly defined, prefer free-market methods. But they believe that the goal directing all our methods must be the common good.
He argues that without a serious engagement with its Christian strand--which isn't reflexively statist but is concerned with a common good--conservatism doesn't have (and doesn't deserve) a political future.