March 29, 2025 • 58 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to our Saturday podcast. If
after hearing this podcast, you have a thought you'd like
to share, maybe a suggestion of something you'd like or
suggest or recommend we use for a future podcast, or
in any other way, want to communicate with me. The
website is Michael Berryshow dot com. You can sign up
for our blast list there. It's our free newsletter we
(00:22):
send every afternoon with links to things we talked about
on the show. And I mean, we don't sell you anything,
and we do have merchandise on the site, but we
don't try to push it to you. And you can
sign up there. It's free. We never sell or share
your email ever ever, never have, never will. We're not
harvesters anyway. Glenn Elmers is an American political commentator and
(00:43):
scholar specializing in political philosophy and a most fascinating moment
in world history, the founding of America. He studied under
the renowned political philosopher Harry V. Jaffa. He's been a
speechwriter for two US Cabinet secretaries, been associated with research institutions,
(01:06):
and he has written some interesting books, including one on
Harry V. Jaffa. His sort of mentor. He has been
an interesting part of the national conversation about the founding
of America and what it means. There are those who
wish to change the meaning of the founding and who
our founding fathers were, and what those founding documents mean.
(01:30):
This is important. We're going back to the bylaws of
the nation here. And I love the fact that he
draws upon classical sources as well as contemporary It means
he's better grounded, he has a better understanding of the
source documents. So this week we wanted to play for
you a lecture that he gave at Hillsdale College, which
(01:52):
we think does wonderful work on the theological problem, sorry,
the theological political problem, and the American founding. It's going
to be a little more taxing and probably a little
less what you would have expected, and certainly not lightfare,
but we enjoyed it and we thought you might as well.
(02:14):
So here goes.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Thank you Hannah for that very gracious introduction. Thank you
to Hillsdale College for having me here. It's a pleasure
and an honor. One of the most beautiful things written
during the American Founding, In fact, one of the most
beautiful things written ever, is George Washington's seventeen ninety letter
to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Washington had
(02:36):
visited Newport in August of seventeen ninety and met with
many groups of citizens, including members of the Truro Synagogue.
Shortly after his visit, one of the leaders of the
Jewish community there are men named Moses Sexis, writing on
the behalf of the congregation, sent Washington a nice letter,
thanking him for his visit and congratulating him on his
conduct as President. Washington wrote back, in turn of very
(02:59):
memorable letter, and I want to read the whole thing,
since it's relatively short and deserving of our full attention.
I'll read it from this lovely book that Hillsdale College
has put out called Constitution a Reader, which is full
of wonderful documents from the founding era.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
If you don't have one, I encourage you to get one.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is Washington's letter in reply, gentlemen, while I receive
with much satisfaction your address, replete with expressions of esteem,
I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I
shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial, welcome I
received in my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
(03:39):
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which
are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness
that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have the wisdom to make the best use
of the advantages with which we are now favored, we
cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government,
(04:04):
to become a great and happy people. The citizens of
the United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged
and liberal policy, a policy worthy of imitation all possess
alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is
(04:29):
now no more that toleration is spoken of as if
it was by the indulgence of one class of people
that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.
For happily, the government of the United States, which gives
to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, requires only
(04:56):
that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves
as good sos citizens, giving it on all occasions.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Their effectual support.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character,
not to avow that I am pleased by your favorable
opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell
in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good
will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit under
(05:30):
his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be
none to make him afraid. May the Father of all
mercies scatter light and not darkness in our path, and
make us all, in our several vocations, useful here and
in his own due time, and way everlastingly happy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It's quite a letter. I think.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The principle of religious liberty and shrine in the American Founding,
which Washington magnificently he summarizes in this letter, was one
of the greatest accomplishments in human history. Yet can we
say that the United States lives up to Washington's hope Today?
We've all seen the vicious anti Semitism on display in
many college campuses, not this one, thank god, but at
(06:19):
many campuses. Protests over the war in Gaza include despicable
acts of intimidation and violence against Jewish students, Can we
claim that what Washington prayed for in seventeen ninety, that
everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree,
and there shall be none to make him afraid, still
obtains today. Of course, the principle of religious liberty is
(06:43):
now under assault, not only against Jews, but against Christians
as well. In innumerable ways, American Christians and Jews find
their faith mopped and threatened by an aggressively secular, even atheistic,
ruling class. I'd like to sh to share with you
some thoughts and reflections on this precious gift of religious liberty,
which we seem to be in danger of losing, and
(07:06):
talk a little bit about where the idea came from
and why it took almost two thousand years for Christianity
to put this idea into practice. We're going to jump
into a sort of a time machine and hop back
and forth a little bit to look at certain key
moments in the history of Western civilization, and our first
stop will be twelfth century England, where we will examine
(07:29):
the confrontation between King Henry the Second and Saint Thomas Beckett.
This confrontation was an important milestone in the slow development
of religious Liberty. Beckett lived from eleven eighteen to eleven seventy,
so his contribution to our story occurs almost four hundred
years before Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation in
(07:51):
fifteen seventeen, which was about two decades before King Henry
the Eighth established the Church of England in fifteen thirty four.
Now I want you to get your money's worth from
this lecture, so we're going to have a little audio
visual segment and watch a short scene from the classic
nineteen sixty four film Beckett. If you've never seen it,
(08:13):
maybe this clip will induce you to go rent it
from Netflix or someplace. It's really a marvelous movie and
it stars Richard Burton as Thomas Beckett and Peter O'Toole
as King Henry the Second. Beckett and the King had
been very close friends and confidence, but their friendship, as
we will see in a moment, had become strained by
a huge battle over the question of religious versus political
(08:37):
authority and whether the church could be or should be.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Independent of the King.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
In the scene we're about to watch, in a moment,
Beckett is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ranking religious
figure in England, which of course, at this point still
means Catholicism. Beckett is in exile in France, having fled
King Henry's wrath because he refuses to submit to the
King's authority over the church. Now, in this scene again,
(09:06):
Richard Burton as Beckett, Peter O'Toole as King Henry, and
John Gilgood in a marvelous cameo role as the Pope,
lay out their essential dispute. So if we could roll
the video clip, I'll make some remarks after that.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Start Go Thomson.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
You know it's a strange thing, but make its safety
has become quite dear to me.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
You look older, Thomas, So do you, my prince?
Speaker 6 (10:15):
You cold?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I'm frozen, stiff, chill blames are killing me.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
You love it?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Of course You're in irrelevant, aren't you? Just that monk's habit.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I always told you one must fight the cold with
the cold's weapons, Strip yourself naked every morning and splash
yourself with cold water.
Speaker 8 (10:37):
I used to when you were there to make me.
I never washed. Now I stink. How's your son? He
must have come of age.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
He's an idiot and sly like his mother. Thomas, don't
you ever marry.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
You took that matter out of my hands when you
had me ordained.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
If we start on that with shorter quarrel about something.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Else very well, as your majesty done much hunting lately? Yes,
every day.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
It doesn't amuse me anymore, Beckett, I'm bored, my prince.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I wish I could help you.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
What are you waiting for?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
For the honor of God and the honor of the
king to become one?
Speaker 4 (11:27):
That may take long?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Yes, that may take long.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I'm the King, Thomas, and so long as we are
on this earth, you owe me the first move. I'm
prepared to forget a lot of things, but not the
fact that I am king.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
You yourself taught me that. Never forget it, My prince,
you have a different task to do. You have to
steer the ship and you what do you have to
do to resist you with all my might when you
steer against the Lord God?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
What you expect of me?
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Then?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Are you hoping I'll weaken?
Speaker 5 (12:04):
No, I'm afraid we must only do absurdly what it
has been given to us to do.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Right to the end.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Look, suppose we come down to worth and use words
that makes sense to a boor like myself. Otherwise we'll
never get anywhere, and there'll be two frozen statues trying
to make their peace in a frozen eternity.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
My Lord, I was doing my best to make you
understand I'm an idiot.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Then talk to me like an idiot. Will you lift
the excommunication you've pronounced on Lord Gilbert.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
No, because it's the only weapon I have left to
defend what was given into my care.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Will you agree to the ten proposals which the bishops
accepted in your absence, particularly to the surrender of priests
who seek the protection of the church to escape my
courts of justice.
Speaker 8 (12:55):
No.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
My role is to defend my sheep, and they are
my sheep. But I shall agree to the nine other
articles in a spirited peace, and because I know you
must remain king in all and of all save the
honor of God.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
All right, I will give away on this one point
the memory of our past friendship.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
You may return to England. Thank you, my Prince. I
meant to go back in any case and give myself
up to your power. But in all things that concern
this earth, I owe you obedience.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We're finished now.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And I'm cold.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I feel go too.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
You never loved me, did you, Thomas, in so far
as I was capable of love?
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Yes, I did.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Did you start to love God?
Speaker 9 (14:15):
You know?
Speaker 6 (14:17):
I'll have a simple question.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yes, I started to love the honor of God. I
should never have seen you. It hurts too much, my prince. No,
no pity, it's dirty.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
This is the last time I shall come begging to you.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Go back to England, there will, my Prince, I say tomorrow,
I know that I shall never see you again.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I'll dare you say that to me? When I've given
you my royal word?
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Do you take me for that?
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Trade?
Speaker 6 (15:03):
Tops?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
All right?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So that you can gather the gist of their dispute
from that scene, The solution to the dilemma we just
saw there might seem clear to us. The King has
his authority and the Church its authority, and these are separate.
The king oversees worldly matters, the Church has sovereignty in
(15:58):
the spiritual realm. There can be peace and harmony when
each authority, political and ecclesiastical recognizes the authority and independence
of the other. But this solution, which seems so obvious
to us, was not obvious in the twelfth century, or
at least not completely. So we see here the beginnings
(16:21):
of religious liberty, or the beginnings of a practical solution
to the theological political problem, but only the beginnings. To
understand why it would take another six hundred years to
put that solution into practice, we need to go back
into our time machine and travel back a little further,
actually another millennium and a half, to the ancient world,
(16:43):
the pre Christian world. As with so many things, the
past is the secret to understanding the present. This is
another reason to study history and philosophy. You can't understand
the modern world without looking to its roots in Jerusalem, Athens,
and Rome. The most important fact about the ancient world
(17:05):
for our purposes is that prior to Christianity, all religions
were emphatically political. Now what do I mean by that?
A few verses from the Old Testament can help us
understand the point. Many of you will know this passage
from Exodus twenty quote. I am the Lord, thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
(17:26):
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no
other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, For I,
(17:48):
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. We also
read in the Bible of God's special covenant with the Jews,
who are repeatedly described in the Old Testament as God
chosen people. Now, what's interesting is that all the ancient
tribes or nations considered themselves chosen people, chosen and protected
(18:12):
by their own local gods, whether it was Apollo and
the other Olympian gods in Sparta, Marduk and Nabu for
the Babylonians, ra and Isis and Osiris in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Or Jehovah among the Jews.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The gods of the ancient world were always particular. The
gods were always the gods of some specific people. That
is what I mean by saying that religion in the
ancient world was always political. In this respect, Jerusalem was
like all the other cities in the classical world. It
was unique in one respect. Israel was monotheistic. The Hebrew
(18:52):
God was, or I should say is singular, mysterious and omnipotent,
He was the god of the whole world. In that sense,
Judaism obviously prepared the way for the first truly universal religion, Christianity,
but the ancient Israelites did not proselytize or seek converts.
(19:12):
In fact, no pre Christian city, including Jerusalem, wanted to
share its gods. Unlike Israel, the other ancient nations typically
had a pantheon.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Of gods pagan gods.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
But apart from this important qualification, the story of the Israelites,
their way of life is basically the same as what
we find all over the Mediterranean. All ancient cities, including Jerusalem,
were closed societies, where civil and religious obedience were identical.
All law was divine law. To be a good citizen
(19:49):
meant to be a pious worshiper of the city's gods.
There was no such thing as religious toleration or religious pluralism.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
That was unthinkable.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Priests were public officials, and the distinction between church and
state was incomprehensible.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Every city had its.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Own god or gods, which belonged to them alone, and
which protected its chosen people. To defeat another nation in
war meant to defeat its gods Even this militant and
somewhat bloodthirsty aspect of the ancient world shows up to
some degree in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy seven, we
read quote, when the Lord thy God shall bring Thee
(20:29):
into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and
hath cast out many nations before Thee, the Hittites and
the Gergoshites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Parizites,
and the Hibbites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and
mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before Thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly
(20:54):
destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
show mercy to them. And then a little later in
Denteronomy twelve, ye shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars,
and burn their groves with fire, and ye shall hew
down the graven images of their gods and destroy the
(21:17):
names of them out of that place.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Now this is.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
What the New York Times might call extremist rhetoric, but
in fact it was perfectly normal in the ancient world.
And it was how all the tribes of the classical
world viewed their enemies as unclean heretics who had to
be destroyed because they worshiped false and hateful gods. Now,
just to belabor this point a little bit further, I
(21:45):
want to emphasize one key aspect of ancient religion that's
absolutely essential, and it is, in a way the central
point of my whole presentation about religious liberty and where
it came from and why it took so long to
put into practice in the pre Christian world. And again
I'm speaking of Western civilization, not China or India. The
authority of the law always came from God or the gods.
(22:08):
The laws were absolutely binding and sacred because they came
directly from a divine authority. You all know the story
of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the tablets. God
directly and immediately issued his commandments to his people, and
each people had its own divine commandments which came from
(22:29):
its particular gods. That means that Moses's authority as a
political leader also came directly from God. And this was
true again for all the ancient cities. Plato's longest dialogue,
even longer than the Republic, is called the Laws and
The very first word of that dialogue is God. The
(22:50):
main character, who is a kind of Socrates in disguise,
is on a pilgrimage walking to a Greek holy site,
and he asks his two traveling companions, one from Sparta
and one from Crete, where do your laws come from,
you spartan in Eucrete, from a man or a god?
And both answer a God. Of course, God is always
(23:11):
the source of all law, all political authority, and there
is no distinction between civil and sorry between religious and
civic obligation. To be a good citizen meant to obey
the sacred law. Every ancient city, every polis, if you
know this Greek word, understood itself to be a holy city.
(23:33):
So if we're clear on that, let's jump back into
the time machine and return to twelfth century England and
meet up again with Thomas Beckett and King Henry.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
When Henry the second in.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
The film clip we just saw, rejected any distinction between
political and religious authority and believe that he could supervise
the clergy and he could enforce the canon law. He
was relying on a very old tradition. He thought that
piety and citizenship go together. Because his authority came directly
(24:05):
from God. And he believed for the very good reason
that people had always believed that, of course political authority
came from God. Where else could it come from. And
of course the law commanded both the body and the soul,
because morality includes both. How could you attempt to separate
the obligations of piety from the obligations of citizenship. Good
(24:28):
citizens are good people, and therefore they obey the law,
which is not some invention of self interest or utility,
but reflects the commands issued by God. Yet, as we
saw in the film, this approach, this attitude creates as
many problems as it solves. About one hundred years after Beckett,
(24:50):
another Thomas Saint, Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Would start to develop the philosophical.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Distinctions between the ecclesiastical and the political realms. But this
was also very preliminary and strictly theoretical. That distinction would not,
as I've mentioned, have any practical effect until the American founding.
Both Thomas's Beckett and Aquinas were wrestling with a problem
(25:17):
that did not exist in the ancient world. They were confunctioning.
They were confronting a problem created by Christianity. Now let
me be clear I don't mean to say that Christianity
itself as a faith is a problem, but only that
from the point of view of political philosophy, from the
perspective of how political obligation had always been understood, it
(25:39):
presents a problem, in fact several. Of course, in one sense,
the fact that Christianity complicated things should not be surprising.
The Incarnation changed the world, and Jesus himself says, I
bring not peace but the sword. So what exactly were
these difficulties that Christianity introduced. Let me first clarify that
(26:05):
the political problems were actually created by two factors, two
massive monumental events and their confluence, the biblical monotheism of
the New Testament plus the rise of the Roman Empire.
When the old Roman Republic ended with Julius Caesar, the
new Roman Empire became the universal city, the regime of
(26:26):
the whole Mediterranean world. All the small independent tribes of
the old ancient world were incorporated into a single regime,
a single empire. And when Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the
official religion of the Roman Empire, the old unity was restored.
One regime, one God, one law. So far, so good.
(26:49):
The union between citizenship and piety holds. But when Rome
is sacked by the Visigoths and the empire collapses in
the fourth sen Country, a real dilemma emerges, actually three dilemmas,
which would not be resolved for more than a millennium.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Problem one.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
The collapse of Rome leaves one God but many regimes
many kingdoms. For the first time in Western civilization, religious
and civil authority become separated. That is to say, the
divine and the civil law are no longer the same.
All of Europe belongs to one church, but is split
(27:32):
into many principalities under many rulers. Citizens confront for the
first time the challenge of dual allegiance. They were required
to obey both their king and their pope. But what
if those two disagree? We saw an indication of that
in the film. What if your prince tells you something
(27:53):
different from your priest? This political schizophrenia, as we might
call it, was something new problem too. What is the
source of political authority? Why should anyone obey the law?
Remember that in the ancient city, the laws come directly
from God. Moses literally brought the commandments down from Mount Sinai.
(28:17):
The Spartans likewise, believed their laws came directly from Apollo
and so on in all the ancient cities. But where
did the Prince of Bavaria, for example, in the year
twelve hundred, get his authority. The solution the Europeans came
up with is something you've all heard of, the doctrine
of divine right of kings. This was an attempt to
(28:39):
reconnect civil and divine authority, and that was necessary because,
as all the ancient cities understood, the laws must be
sacred in order to command obedience. Political authority must have
some supernatural foundation. The divine right of kings means, in practice,
(29:02):
is hereditary monarchy as a religious and political necessity. If
the king's ancestors receive their authority directly from God, as
the idea of divine right holds, then only the king's
direct descendants can exercise that authority. This causes enormous problems
(29:22):
for the question of succession monarchical succession.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
What if the king.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Has no legitimate heirs, or what if the only heir
is totally unqualified to rule.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
We saw the.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Comment in the film in which Henry says his son
is an idiot. This sort of problem happened, and what
if a nephew or a cousin, someone with a partial
claim on the throne is far more qualified. Well, we
know what happens, because it did happen over and over again,
as anyone familiar with the history of England can tell
(29:55):
you Civil War. Many of Shakespeare's history plays examine these issues.
As my teacher Harry Jaffa liked to say, the doctrine
of divine right of kings never finds a way to
combine legitimacy with competence. Again, this was not a problem
that the ancient world had to deal with. Problem three.
(30:18):
The content of belief, or the question of doctrine becomes
incredibly important in a way that was not the case
in the classical world.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Recall what I said.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Earlier about the paramount importance of law. Now, it would
be an exaggeration to say that what you privately believed
in the ancient cities was irrelevant.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
That would be too strong.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But there was very little investigation into private matters of conscience.
Socrates only got into trouble because he was so vocal
and so obnoxious about questioning the sacred opinions of the Athenians.
Because all ancient religions were political. What was overwhelmingly important
was that you'd your loyalty to the community and its
(31:03):
gods by obeying the divine law, by participating in the
public ceremonies, by performing.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
The appropriate rituals.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
This outward expression of piety, showing that you were a
good citizen of Sparta or Jerusalem, that's what mattered. In Christianity,
of course, belief becomes paramount, and this opens the door
to persecution in a way that you simply didn't have
in the pre Christian world. Even before the Reformation, which
(31:35):
ushered in centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, the
problem of doctrine was already present in terms of heresy.
Early on, the Church had to spend centuries hammering out
the precise content of the Catechism. Gnosticism, arianism, Pallagianism, and
(31:55):
many other heresies had to be investigated and then declared
to be errors. And of course, since these errors undermine
the faith, they could not be tolerated and had to
be stamped out. So the issue of religious persecution emerges
as yet another challenge. You may know that during the
Spanish Inquisition, the Church determine what constituted deviation from the faith,
(32:19):
and the state then imposed the punishment. But these lines
were not so easy to maintain, and the problem of
theocracy or some variation on theocracy, was a constant danger
in medieval Europe. These difficulties, which Western civilizations struggled with
for hundreds of years all through the Middle Ages, emerged
(32:41):
because Christianity is the first non political religion of the West.
To reiterate, being a Christian is not a question of
what political community you belong to, what your tribe is,
but a matter of choice of faith, of belief that
is incredibly liberating.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Of course, it.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Means salvation is potentially open to every human being, but
it creates all the challenges that I've mentioned for politics
and citizenship. Now, one more trip in our time machine
for our last stop, which will bring us to the
American colonies in the seventeen seventies, and I think at
this point we're in a better position to appreciate the
(33:26):
challenges that the American founders faced the problem of establishing
republican self government included at the most fundamental this complicated issue.
The title of my talk the theological political Problem, and
I've tried to lay out what that problem meant in
the Christian West. The American founders had to figure out
(33:48):
first how to create moral and political legitimacy for a
new nation and at the same time established the sacredness
of the law, which alone can command people's devotion and
obedience and address the problem of religious conflict and persecution
that had plagued Europe. A pretty difficult set of challenges,
(34:11):
I think, and the answer they came up with is
right there in the Declaration of Independence. As you all know,
the laws of nature and Nature's God. I think we
don't always appreciate the genius of this revolutionary truth, which
manages to combine in a prudential way, human reason and
(34:33):
divine revelation, and thereby provide the best practical solution to
the theological political problem possible in the modern world. The
founder's political science or political theory, grounded in the laws
of nature and Nature's God, made it possible for the
first time in history to establish religious liberty and solve
(34:57):
the theological political problem in a practical way. Incidentally, I
might add that the final version of the Declaration says
that the truths derived from the laws of nature are
self evident, But in Jefferson's first draft he had written
sacred and undeniable, and it was Benjamin Franklin who had
(35:18):
suggested the new language.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I think this.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Indicates that the framers knew they were grappling with the
theological political problem, and they understood that their efforts could
be traced back to Jerusalem and to Athens. The laws
of nature and Nature's God mean that there is an
objective moral order in the world, because that world is
(35:41):
created by a benevolent God, because God is reasonable, and
because our minds are a gift from God which he
intends us to use. We can perceive much of this
moral order through our own rational faculties. We can't know
those things that come only from revelation, including the first
(36:01):
Table of the Decalogue. Aristotle, who lived hundreds of years
before Christ, could not know about keeping the Sabbath holy,
but he could know the precepts of the second Table
of the Decalogue, the commandments about theft and murder and
honoring one's parents. And that's why Aristotle's book on Ethics
(36:22):
is almost perfectly compatible with the morality proclaimed in the Bible.
There are some minor differences on the questions of piety
and pride, but we can set those aside. They don't
affect the main point. Let me add that this natural
moral order exists outside of our will.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
It exists whether we like it or not.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We are born into a physical and a moral world
we do not create. However, much today's leftists think that
they can command or alter human nature, for example, by
allowing Chill to choose gender reassignment surgery. This will never
work and it will never lead to true happiness because
(37:08):
we cannot change human nature. Now, all of this is
extremely significant for the question of religious liberty, because the
laws of nature and Nature's God become the new ground
for political authority, and they supply the law with its
sacred and transcendent authority. This allows the principles of the
(37:30):
Founding to address all three of the problems I mentioned earlier. First,
it solves the problem of political schizophrenia, the split between
piety and citizenship, by supplying a common ground for morality. Because,
as Aristotle showed, we can understand virtue and vice through
(37:51):
our own rational faculties. The law can support and enforce
moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities.
In other words, because the morality of the Bible and
the morality of reason are compatible, one can be both
a pious believer and a good citizen without invoking the
(38:16):
contentious sectarian disputes that tore Europe apart. Second, because of
this common ground of morality, it is now finally possible
to clearly delineate the political and the religious realms. The
separation of church and state becomes possible as a practical
(38:36):
matter for the first time, which we can see most
clearly in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom of.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Seventeen eighty six.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
The Declarations teaching about the laws of Nature and Nature's
God establishes a kind of political theology, a non sectarian
ground of legitimacy that can make the laws sacred without
getting the government involved in disputes about the Trinity, or
(39:07):
transubstantiation or faith versus works. According to many Protestant ministers
during the Founding era, this also allows what they called
true Christianity to flourish for the first time, because it
is now possible to practice Christianity with a free and
loving heart as a choice rather than as a matter
(39:28):
of coercion, and you can find this point made in
many sermons from the Founding era. Third, the Founders solved
the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the
churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible
with both reason and revelation. Each can now operate within
(39:51):
its proper realm without intruding on the other. It becomes possible, therefore,
to institutionalize religious liberty by prohibiting religious tests for office
and keeping the government out of the business of punishing heresy.
As George Washington said in the letter that I read
(40:12):
at the beginning, the government of the United States gives
to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, and requires
only that those who live under its protection should demean
themselves as good citizens, giving it on all occasions their
effectual support. The American Founder's invocation of the transcendent moral
(40:40):
authority of nature is one of the most remarkable acts
of statesmanship in human history, and providing a ground for
religious liberty is only one way in which the laws
of nature and Nature's God serve the cause of self government.
If I had more time, I could discuss how eliminating
(41:00):
religious persecution also grants freedom to philosophy. That is, it
protects the metaphysical freedom of the human mind. We could
also talk about how prohibiting religious coercion goes hand in
hand with the Founder's elimination of artificial class distinctions and
(41:20):
allows for what Jefferson called true aristocracy to emerge, that is,
the aristocracy of merit in contrast to the artificial aristocracy
of birth. In old Europe, the old medieval caste system
and the old structures of theocratic oppression were great impediments
to human excellence. Under the Founder's revolutionary new conception of
(41:46):
republican government, equality under the law would liberate moral virtue,
while freedom of conscience liberates intellectual virtue. Now I recognize
that I I've covered a great deal of historical and
intellectual ground, and we can discuss some of the details
in the Q and A. I hope I've given you
(42:08):
some sense of the problems the Founders confronted and the
brilliance of their practical solution. The question which we and
all American patriots confront today is whether we still understand
and appreciate this incredible gift left to us by the Founders.
(42:29):
Do we still have the knowledge and the courage to
keep alive the sacred Fire of liberty.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 11 (42:50):
Doctor Elmers has agreed to sign copies of his book
The Soul of Politics directly after the session in the
Serle lobby. We now have time for Q and A.
If you have a quotquestion, please make your way to
a microphone. Student questions will be given preference.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Everything was so clear, there are no questions.
Speaker 12 (43:20):
Hello, and thank you so much for your talk. You
mentioned at the end that you mentioned at the end
of your talk that the old cast system prevented people
(43:42):
from achieving excellence. And though I agree with that point,
Tokville argued that it was the old aristocracy that actually
allowed for great education and for true nobility, and that's
how how people like people became great philosophers, and Americans
(44:07):
don't really have any good philosophers or people of great genius.
That's his argument. Anyway, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Sure, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
I just wrote an article on Tokfoe which was just
published in the New Criterion. Tokevil had many brilliant insights.
He was a brilliant man. He didn't quite understand everything
about America. It's important to remember Chokeville studied democracy in
America because you wanted to understand democracy as a kind
of phenomenon, as a kind of historical force, and then
learn how France could deal with it.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
And so he missed a couple important.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Things about about how democracy operates in America. He was right,
I mean, he thought that there was a kind of
aristocratic spirit in Europe that you know, the life of
the gentleman, the life of the leisure gentlemen who can
pursue knowledge for its own sake.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
That.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Gets overclipsed a little bit in the frenetic, entrepreneurial activity
of democratic capitalism. So we had a fair point. But
I think he overstated some things, and.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
I think.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Jefferson's understanding of I think the founder's own self understanding
was not as hostile to excellence as Tokel suggested. On
the contrary, Jefferson's whole point about allowing the aristocracy of merit,
the natural aristocracy, to emerge. It's precisely so that human
beings could pursue excellence without the artificial inhibitions that you
(45:32):
saw in the old European aristocracy.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Doctor Elmers, thank you for your enlightening lecture. My question
relates to whether or not the theological political problem really
in the solving of it by the Founders, really relates
to Christianity. It solves it in so far as it
allows for Christianity or kind of Christianity to be congruent
with political life, because it seems as though there are
(46:00):
ultimately still claims made by the state contra certain religious
teachings that have to be taken into account, and one
has to be supreme over the other. In the American context,
it seems an older and a newer issue would be
Mormonism and Islam, both religions that in their religious teachings,
for instance, allow polygamy, and that's something that ultimately the
(46:21):
state has to adjudicate whether that's going to be allowed
or not. So I'm wondering if my understanding's correct, that's
what you're referring to as Christianity and the politics can
go together under the Founder's scheme, or whether there's some
way that all religions can go can work under the
Founder's scheme, thank.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
You well, not all religions, the religion of Moloch, the
religion of the Aztecs, which included human sacrifice, and even
in some cases, yeah, they had a problem with Mormon polygamy,
and they certainly would have had a problem with the
extreme versions.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Of Sharia that we see.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
So this goes back to the point I made about
the compatibility between the virtue that we can understand our
natural reason and the morality of the Bible. It's only
in so far as they are compatible that you can
have a society, a Christian society in which Christian morality flourishes.
Any interpretation of Christianity or any other religion which undermines
(47:16):
just government, which undermines a decent society, that is a problem,
and it is both the right and the duty of
the state to prohibit that. So insofar as someone interprets
Christianity in a way that undermines public morality or is
in some way offensive, or any other religion promotes things
that are offensive to natural decency and natural morality, it
(47:38):
is the obligation of the government to prohibit those things.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (47:41):
So, if the sacredness of American law comes from the
idea that nature was created by a God and you
can therefore know certain truths sort of a posteriority, is
there any basis for following law or any basis that
the law is sacred in a society that's atheistic entirely.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, that's a real problem. My teacher's teacher, who is
a famous political philospher named Leo Strauss, once said, Now,
he said this in the middle of the last century,
in the nineteen fifties or sixties, there's never been a
completely atheistic society in the history of the world. If
he had lived a little longer, he might have changed
his mind when he saw the contemporary the United States.
(48:22):
But I think, as my remarks indicated, it's not working.
You know, I wrote a little book in which I
claim that wokeism and you know, political correctness and this
weird ideology that the left has is in a way
there deranged substitute for religion. I think there's something built
into the human soul that requires a need for the sacred,
a need for the transcendent. And if you reject that,
(48:45):
something has to fill the hole in your soul, and
it becomes whatever weird paganistic belief. Wokeism is right, but
you people have to believe in something. And so I
think it is true that no society become can be
completely atheistic, and if it tries, it's simply substitutes something else.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
What is that great line from G. K. Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
When people stop believing in God, it's not that they
believe in nothing, they'll believe in anything, right, And so
that's trying to achieve the atheistic society. Trying to achieve
an atheistic society just opens you up to believing all
sorts of crazy things instead.
Speaker 14 (49:24):
So my question is about priests or somebody who has
some sort of theological authority, and whether there'd be a
way that they can hold political office or interact politically
as well. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
So like a minister being elected to Congress.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Perhaps, I don't know.
Speaker 14 (49:47):
I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that for
the theological political.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, I mean it's I wouldn't say there's an absolute
rule against it. You know, the Founders, although they agreed
on a great did have some minor differences on some things.
And how exactly the religious liberty is supposed to work
on the ground in the details is a complicated questions
(50:12):
and it requires some use of prudence as circumstances change.
If you're interested in this question, I take it you're
a student, a friend of mine who I went to
grad school with, who's a professor at Notre Dame named
Philip Munoz, has written what I think is one of
the best books on religious liberty, and he explores how
there were some differences among the founders that I think Jefferson,
(50:32):
for example, would not have appreciated having a clergyman holding
elective office. Madison might have been more open to that.
These are difficult questions, and I'm reluctant to say that
there's a hard and fast rule. I think what they
agreed on is the important point, right, no religious test
for office, no persecution. On the other hand, there's no obligation,
(50:55):
no public obligation to accept religious practices that are clearly
indecent or moral. On some of the finer points, I'll
beg off and say that that that requires a statesman,
a statesmanly exercise of prudence to decide in the moment.
But read Phil's book, I think you'll find it a
much more nuanced response to your question.
Speaker 15 (51:23):
Thank you very much for your interesting talk. Jurney. Through time,
it seems like secular Americas and principles held together by
the judiciary and it's working or not, which you comment
on that, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Kind of strange.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
You know, the judiciary is the third branch of government.
It was supposed to have, according to the Vegulist papers,
neither force nor will. And yet it seems that we're
ruled by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
And it's also weird.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
I just mentioned this, oddly enough a week and a
half ago when I was down at Ole, miss giving
a talk for Constitution Day, that all the populace and
advocates of direct democracy who want to get rid of
the electoral college and all these impediments to the direct
expression of popular will, heave in a way reversed the
electoral college, and we now elect presidents and a Senator
(52:10):
whose main job is to pick the Supreme Court, and
the Supreme Court rules it. So we picked the president
of the Senate, the president, and the Senate picked the
Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court rules us.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
That's not how it's supposed to work.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Needless to say, so how we got to that point
is a very strange story. It does affect, you know,
it creates all sorts of prems, including in the area
of religious liberty. Another virtue of Professor Munos's book, which
I just mentioned a moment ago, is he looks at
some of the Supreme Court jurisprudence and brings out all
the ways in which it's had a very inconsistent approach
(52:45):
to the very important questions of religious liberty. But yeah,
the simple answer to your question is everything is completely
upside down in the country right now, and one of
those manifestations is that the court seems to be the
ruling branch, which is exactly opposite of what Madison intended.
Speaker 16 (53:02):
I've worked as a clinical psychologist for thirty years, and
identity emerges all the time, and in order to form
a healthy identity, morality is necessary because the human condition
is about the tension between what I am and what
I need to be. Could you please comment about the
necessary or necessity of that morality? Right?
Speaker 2 (53:24):
I mean, in a way that's a kind of carloid corollary.
Excuse me, to the point of the atheistic society, right,
I mean, a lot of people think that they're, you know,
avatars of the Enlightenment, they're beyond morality. But just like
the atheistic society ends up believing in all sorts of
crazy things, people who think they're beyond morality end up
(53:48):
substituting a kind of airsots or degraded or deranged form
of morality in its place, even though they don't recognize
it as such.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
I think if you go to Berkeley and talk to
some purple haired sociology's grad student, right, she might tell you,
you know, if you can understand her through all the
piercings in her face, I don't believe in morality, but
of course that's bogus. She believes in all sorts of morality. Right,
She's extremely eager to impose her morality on you, even
though she doesn't call it that.
Speaker 14 (54:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
So people can't live without people can't live with a
spiritual hole in their soul, and they can't live without morality.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
And if they try to repudiate it.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
They just end up putting something else in its place,
which is more than likely to be something weird and
deranged and counterproductive.
Speaker 10 (54:34):
We have time for one more question.
Speaker 9 (54:38):
Thank you very much for your talk, doctor Elmers. I
actually study theology and religion at John Carroll's Society, and
I've really been quite interested in your research, so I
appreciate very much this opportunity to hear you in person.
So John Courtney Murray argues that freedom of religion being
enshrined in our constitution is protected in a plerialist society.
And I'm curious as we continue to move forward in
(55:00):
this post modernist society where religion is only guaranteed a
place at a table in the name of tolerance, if
you still think his theology holds true.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
John Kurtney Murray's point, Yes, yeah, I mean, uh, I
mean yeah, sure, I mean that's obviously the answer is yes. Look,
all of us here on the right are concerned about
the crisis in the West, the crisis in America. The
(55:29):
whole country seems to be sort of coming apart of
the seams under the intense pressures. And there's two problems,
and one is the institutional problem. And this sort of
came up with the gentleman's question about the court. We
have to fix the institutions of government, which are all
out of whack. But the other problem, and the more
difficult problem, and what John Courtney Murray is sort of
pointing to, and it's interesting John Carroll. People may not
(55:51):
know that John Carroll was the first bishop in the
United States. His brother they were a very wealthy family,
a very wealthy family in Maryland. One brother signed the
Declaration of independence. One was the first Catholic bishop of
the United States. But the other point is, even if
we fix the institutions, we have to fix the people.
Speaker 14 (56:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
The founders were emphatic, you cannot have self government without
a moral people, and moral generally means by and large,
religious people.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
And if people lose their attachment to religion and lose
their attachment to morality, they cannot have the habits and
the virtues that make self government work. Now, how to
fix the institutions, that's a big challenge. How to fix
this other problem, right, How to bring the people back
to the moral habits and virtues necessarily for self government.
I don't have a simple answer to that, but we
(56:34):
need to do both, as difficult as that sounds.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
If you like the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(56:59):
mieow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and podcast
is produced by Ramon Roebliss, the King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Nakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(57:24):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit, Where not,
(57:46):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(58:11):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to our Saturday podcast. If
after hearing this podcast, you have a thought you'd like
to share, maybe a suggestion of something you'd like or
suggest or recommend we use for a future podcast, or
in any other way, want to communicate with me. The
website is Michael Berryshow dot com. You can sign up
for our blast list there. It's our free newsletter we
(00:22):
send every afternoon with links to things we talked about
on the show. And I mean, we don't sell you anything,
and we do have merchandise on the site, but we
don't try to push it to you. And you can
sign up there. It's free. We never sell or share
your email ever ever, never have, never will. We're not
harvesters anyway. Glenn Elmers is an American political commentator and
(00:43):
scholar specializing in political philosophy and a most fascinating moment
in world history, the founding of America. He studied under
the renowned political philosopher Harry V. Jaffa. He's been a
speechwriter for two US Cabinet secretaries, been associated with research institutions,
(01:06):
and he has written some interesting books, including one on
Harry V. Jaffa. His sort of mentor. He has been
an interesting part of the national conversation about the founding
of America and what it means. There are those who
wish to change the meaning of the founding and who
our founding fathers were, and what those founding documents mean.
(01:30):
This is important. We're going back to the bylaws of
the nation here. And I love the fact that he
draws upon classical sources as well as contemporary It means
he's better grounded, he has a better understanding of the
source documents. So this week we wanted to play for
you a lecture that he gave at Hillsdale College, which
(01:52):
we think does wonderful work on the theological problem, sorry,
the theological political problem, and the American founding. It's going
to be a little more taxing and probably a little
less what you would have expected, and certainly not lightfare,
but we enjoyed it and we thought you might as well.
(02:14):
So here goes.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Thank you Hannah for that very gracious introduction. Thank you
to Hillsdale College for having me here. It's a pleasure
and an honor. One of the most beautiful things written
during the American Founding, In fact, one of the most
beautiful things written ever, is George Washington's seventeen ninety letter
to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Washington had
(02:36):
visited Newport in August of seventeen ninety and met with
many groups of citizens, including members of the Truro Synagogue.
Shortly after his visit, one of the leaders of the
Jewish community there are men named Moses Sexis, writing on
the behalf of the congregation, sent Washington a nice letter,
thanking him for his visit and congratulating him on his
conduct as President. Washington wrote back, in turn of very
(02:59):
memorable letter, and I want to read the whole thing,
since it's relatively short and deserving of our full attention.
I'll read it from this lovely book that Hillsdale College
has put out called Constitution a Reader, which is full
of wonderful documents from the founding era.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
If you don't have one, I encourage you to get one.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is Washington's letter in reply, gentlemen, while I receive
with much satisfaction your address, replete with expressions of esteem,
I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I
shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial, welcome I
received in my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
(03:39):
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which
are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness
that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have the wisdom to make the best use
of the advantages with which we are now favored, we
cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government,
(04:04):
to become a great and happy people. The citizens of
the United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged
and liberal policy, a policy worthy of imitation all possess
alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is
(04:29):
now no more that toleration is spoken of as if
it was by the indulgence of one class of people
that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.
For happily, the government of the United States, which gives
to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, requires only
(04:56):
that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves
as good sos citizens, giving it on all occasions.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Their effectual support.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character,
not to avow that I am pleased by your favorable
opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell
in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good
will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit under
(05:30):
his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be
none to make him afraid. May the Father of all
mercies scatter light and not darkness in our path, and
make us all, in our several vocations, useful here and
in his own due time, and way everlastingly happy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It's quite a letter. I think.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The principle of religious liberty and shrine in the American Founding,
which Washington magnificently he summarizes in this letter, was one
of the greatest accomplishments in human history. Yet can we
say that the United States lives up to Washington's hope Today?
We've all seen the vicious anti Semitism on display in
many college campuses, not this one, thank god, but at
(06:19):
many campuses. Protests over the war in Gaza include despicable
acts of intimidation and violence against Jewish students, Can we
claim that what Washington prayed for in seventeen ninety, that
everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree,
and there shall be none to make him afraid, still
obtains today. Of course, the principle of religious liberty is
(06:43):
now under assault, not only against Jews, but against Christians
as well. In innumerable ways, American Christians and Jews find
their faith mopped and threatened by an aggressively secular, even atheistic,
ruling class. I'd like to sh to share with you
some thoughts and reflections on this precious gift of religious liberty,
which we seem to be in danger of losing, and
(07:06):
talk a little bit about where the idea came from
and why it took almost two thousand years for Christianity
to put this idea into practice. We're going to jump
into a sort of a time machine and hop back
and forth a little bit to look at certain key
moments in the history of Western civilization, and our first
stop will be twelfth century England, where we will examine
(07:29):
the confrontation between King Henry the Second and Saint Thomas Beckett.
This confrontation was an important milestone in the slow development
of religious Liberty. Beckett lived from eleven eighteen to eleven seventy,
so his contribution to our story occurs almost four hundred
years before Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation in
(07:51):
fifteen seventeen, which was about two decades before King Henry
the Eighth established the Church of England in fifteen thirty four.
Now I want you to get your money's worth from
this lecture, so we're going to have a little audio
visual segment and watch a short scene from the classic
nineteen sixty four film Beckett. If you've never seen it,
(08:13):
maybe this clip will induce you to go rent it
from Netflix or someplace. It's really a marvelous movie and
it stars Richard Burton as Thomas Beckett and Peter O'Toole
as King Henry the Second. Beckett and the King had
been very close friends and confidence, but their friendship, as
we will see in a moment, had become strained by
a huge battle over the question of religious versus political
(08:37):
authority and whether the church could be or should be.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Independent of the King.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
In the scene we're about to watch, in a moment,
Beckett is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ranking religious
figure in England, which of course, at this point still
means Catholicism. Beckett is in exile in France, having fled
King Henry's wrath because he refuses to submit to the
King's authority over the church. Now, in this scene again,
(09:06):
Richard Burton as Beckett, Peter O'Toole as King Henry, and
John Gilgood in a marvelous cameo role as the Pope,
lay out their essential dispute. So if we could roll
the video clip, I'll make some remarks after that.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Start Go Thomson.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
You know it's a strange thing, but make its safety
has become quite dear to me.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
You look older, Thomas, So do you, my prince?
Speaker 6 (10:15):
You cold?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I'm frozen, stiff, chill blames are killing me.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
You love it?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Of course You're in irrelevant, aren't you? Just that monk's habit.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I always told you one must fight the cold with
the cold's weapons, Strip yourself naked every morning and splash
yourself with cold water.
Speaker 8 (10:37):
I used to when you were there to make me.
I never washed. Now I stink. How's your son? He
must have come of age.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
He's an idiot and sly like his mother. Thomas, don't
you ever marry.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
You took that matter out of my hands when you
had me ordained.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
If we start on that with shorter quarrel about something.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Else very well, as your majesty done much hunting lately? Yes,
every day.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
It doesn't amuse me anymore, Beckett, I'm bored, my prince.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I wish I could help you.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
What are you waiting for?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
For the honor of God and the honor of the
king to become one?
Speaker 4 (11:27):
That may take long?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Yes, that may take long.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I'm the King, Thomas, and so long as we are
on this earth, you owe me the first move. I'm
prepared to forget a lot of things, but not the
fact that I am king.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
You yourself taught me that. Never forget it, My prince,
you have a different task to do. You have to
steer the ship and you what do you have to
do to resist you with all my might when you
steer against the Lord God?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
What you expect of me?
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Then?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Are you hoping I'll weaken?
Speaker 5 (12:04):
No, I'm afraid we must only do absurdly what it
has been given to us to do.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Right to the end.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Look, suppose we come down to worth and use words
that makes sense to a boor like myself. Otherwise we'll
never get anywhere, and there'll be two frozen statues trying
to make their peace in a frozen eternity.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
My Lord, I was doing my best to make you
understand I'm an idiot.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Then talk to me like an idiot. Will you lift
the excommunication you've pronounced on Lord Gilbert.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
No, because it's the only weapon I have left to
defend what was given into my care.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Will you agree to the ten proposals which the bishops
accepted in your absence, particularly to the surrender of priests
who seek the protection of the church to escape my
courts of justice.
Speaker 8 (12:55):
No.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
My role is to defend my sheep, and they are
my sheep. But I shall agree to the nine other
articles in a spirited peace, and because I know you
must remain king in all and of all save the
honor of God.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
All right, I will give away on this one point
the memory of our past friendship.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
You may return to England. Thank you, my Prince. I
meant to go back in any case and give myself
up to your power. But in all things that concern
this earth, I owe you obedience.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We're finished now.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And I'm cold.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I feel go too.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
You never loved me, did you, Thomas, in so far
as I was capable of love?
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Yes, I did.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Did you start to love God?
Speaker 9 (14:15):
You know?
Speaker 6 (14:17):
I'll have a simple question.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yes, I started to love the honor of God. I
should never have seen you. It hurts too much, my prince. No,
no pity, it's dirty.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
This is the last time I shall come begging to you.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Go back to England, there will, my Prince, I say tomorrow,
I know that I shall never see you again.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I'll dare you say that to me? When I've given
you my royal word?
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Do you take me for that?
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Trade?
Speaker 6 (15:03):
Tops?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
All right?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So that you can gather the gist of their dispute
from that scene, The solution to the dilemma we just
saw there might seem clear to us. The King has
his authority and the Church its authority, and these are separate.
The king oversees worldly matters, the Church has sovereignty in
(15:58):
the spiritual realm. There can be peace and harmony when
each authority, political and ecclesiastical recognizes the authority and independence
of the other. But this solution, which seems so obvious
to us, was not obvious in the twelfth century, or
at least not completely. So we see here the beginnings
(16:21):
of religious liberty, or the beginnings of a practical solution
to the theological political problem, but only the beginnings. To
understand why it would take another six hundred years to
put that solution into practice, we need to go back
into our time machine and travel back a little further,
actually another millennium and a half, to the ancient world,
(16:43):
the pre Christian world. As with so many things, the
past is the secret to understanding the present. This is
another reason to study history and philosophy. You can't understand
the modern world without looking to its roots in Jerusalem, Athens,
and Rome. The most important fact about the ancient world
(17:05):
for our purposes is that prior to Christianity, all religions
were emphatically political. Now what do I mean by that?
A few verses from the Old Testament can help us
understand the point. Many of you will know this passage
from Exodus twenty quote. I am the Lord, thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
(17:26):
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no
other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, For I,
(17:48):
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. We also
read in the Bible of God's special covenant with the Jews,
who are repeatedly described in the Old Testament as God
chosen people. Now, what's interesting is that all the ancient
tribes or nations considered themselves chosen people, chosen and protected
(18:12):
by their own local gods, whether it was Apollo and
the other Olympian gods in Sparta, Marduk and Nabu for
the Babylonians, ra and Isis and Osiris in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Or Jehovah among the Jews.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The gods of the ancient world were always particular. The
gods were always the gods of some specific people. That
is what I mean by saying that religion in the
ancient world was always political. In this respect, Jerusalem was
like all the other cities in the classical world. It
was unique in one respect. Israel was monotheistic. The Hebrew
(18:52):
God was, or I should say is singular, mysterious and omnipotent,
He was the god of the whole world. In that sense,
Judaism obviously prepared the way for the first truly universal religion, Christianity,
but the ancient Israelites did not proselytize or seek converts.
(19:12):
In fact, no pre Christian city, including Jerusalem, wanted to
share its gods. Unlike Israel, the other ancient nations typically
had a pantheon.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Of gods pagan gods.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
But apart from this important qualification, the story of the Israelites,
their way of life is basically the same as what
we find all over the Mediterranean. All ancient cities, including Jerusalem,
were closed societies, where civil and religious obedience were identical.
All law was divine law. To be a good citizen
(19:49):
meant to be a pious worshiper of the city's gods.
There was no such thing as religious toleration or religious pluralism.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
That was unthinkable.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Priests were public officials, and the distinction between church and
state was incomprehensible.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Every city had its.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Own god or gods, which belonged to them alone, and
which protected its chosen people. To defeat another nation in
war meant to defeat its gods Even this militant and
somewhat bloodthirsty aspect of the ancient world shows up to
some degree in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy seven, we
read quote, when the Lord thy God shall bring Thee
(20:29):
into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and
hath cast out many nations before Thee, the Hittites and
the Gergoshites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Parizites,
and the Hibbites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and
mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before Thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly
(20:54):
destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
show mercy to them. And then a little later in
Denteronomy twelve, ye shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars,
and burn their groves with fire, and ye shall hew
down the graven images of their gods and destroy the
(21:17):
names of them out of that place.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Now this is.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
What the New York Times might call extremist rhetoric, but
in fact it was perfectly normal in the ancient world.
And it was how all the tribes of the classical
world viewed their enemies as unclean heretics who had to
be destroyed because they worshiped false and hateful gods. Now,
just to belabor this point a little bit further, I
(21:45):
want to emphasize one key aspect of ancient religion that's
absolutely essential, and it is, in a way the central
point of my whole presentation about religious liberty and where
it came from and why it took so long to
put into practice in the pre Christian world. And again
I'm speaking of Western civilization, not China or India. The
authority of the law always came from God or the gods.
(22:08):
The laws were absolutely binding and sacred because they came
directly from a divine authority. You all know the story
of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the tablets. God
directly and immediately issued his commandments to his people, and
each people had its own divine commandments which came from
(22:29):
its particular gods. That means that Moses's authority as a
political leader also came directly from God. And this was
true again for all the ancient cities. Plato's longest dialogue,
even longer than the Republic, is called the Laws and
The very first word of that dialogue is God. The
(22:50):
main character, who is a kind of Socrates in disguise,
is on a pilgrimage walking to a Greek holy site,
and he asks his two traveling companions, one from Sparta
and one from Crete, where do your laws come from,
you spartan in Eucrete, from a man or a god?
And both answer a God. Of course, God is always
(23:11):
the source of all law, all political authority, and there
is no distinction between civil and sorry between religious and
civic obligation. To be a good citizen meant to obey
the sacred law. Every ancient city, every polis, if you
know this Greek word, understood itself to be a holy city.
(23:33):
So if we're clear on that, let's jump back into
the time machine and return to twelfth century England and
meet up again with Thomas Beckett and King Henry.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
When Henry the second in.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
The film clip we just saw, rejected any distinction between
political and religious authority and believe that he could supervise
the clergy and he could enforce the canon law. He
was relying on a very old tradition. He thought that
piety and citizenship go together. Because his authority came directly
(24:05):
from God. And he believed for the very good reason
that people had always believed that, of course political authority
came from God. Where else could it come from. And
of course the law commanded both the body and the soul,
because morality includes both. How could you attempt to separate
the obligations of piety from the obligations of citizenship. Good
(24:28):
citizens are good people, and therefore they obey the law,
which is not some invention of self interest or utility,
but reflects the commands issued by God. Yet, as we
saw in the film, this approach, this attitude creates as
many problems as it solves. About one hundred years after Beckett,
(24:50):
another Thomas Saint, Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Would start to develop the philosophical.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Distinctions between the ecclesiastical and the political realms. But this
was also very preliminary and strictly theoretical. That distinction would not,
as I've mentioned, have any practical effect until the American founding.
Both Thomas's Beckett and Aquinas were wrestling with a problem
(25:17):
that did not exist in the ancient world. They were confunctioning.
They were confronting a problem created by Christianity. Now let
me be clear I don't mean to say that Christianity
itself as a faith is a problem, but only that
from the point of view of political philosophy, from the
perspective of how political obligation had always been understood, it
(25:39):
presents a problem, in fact several. Of course, in one sense,
the fact that Christianity complicated things should not be surprising.
The Incarnation changed the world, and Jesus himself says, I
bring not peace but the sword. So what exactly were
these difficulties that Christianity introduced. Let me first clarify that
(26:05):
the political problems were actually created by two factors, two
massive monumental events and their confluence, the biblical monotheism of
the New Testament plus the rise of the Roman Empire.
When the old Roman Republic ended with Julius Caesar, the
new Roman Empire became the universal city, the regime of
(26:26):
the whole Mediterranean world. All the small independent tribes of
the old ancient world were incorporated into a single regime,
a single empire. And when Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the
official religion of the Roman Empire, the old unity was restored.
One regime, one God, one law. So far, so good.
(26:49):
The union between citizenship and piety holds. But when Rome
is sacked by the Visigoths and the empire collapses in
the fourth sen Country, a real dilemma emerges, actually three dilemmas,
which would not be resolved for more than a millennium.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Problem one.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
The collapse of Rome leaves one God but many regimes
many kingdoms. For the first time in Western civilization, religious
and civil authority become separated. That is to say, the
divine and the civil law are no longer the same.
All of Europe belongs to one church, but is split
(27:32):
into many principalities under many rulers. Citizens confront for the
first time the challenge of dual allegiance. They were required
to obey both their king and their pope. But what
if those two disagree? We saw an indication of that
in the film. What if your prince tells you something
(27:53):
different from your priest? This political schizophrenia, as we might
call it, was something new problem too. What is the
source of political authority? Why should anyone obey the law?
Remember that in the ancient city, the laws come directly
from God. Moses literally brought the commandments down from Mount Sinai.
(28:17):
The Spartans likewise, believed their laws came directly from Apollo
and so on in all the ancient cities. But where
did the Prince of Bavaria, for example, in the year
twelve hundred, get his authority. The solution the Europeans came
up with is something you've all heard of, the doctrine
of divine right of kings. This was an attempt to
(28:39):
reconnect civil and divine authority, and that was necessary because,
as all the ancient cities understood, the laws must be
sacred in order to command obedience. Political authority must have
some supernatural foundation. The divine right of kings means, in practice,
(29:02):
is hereditary monarchy as a religious and political necessity. If
the king's ancestors receive their authority directly from God, as
the idea of divine right holds, then only the king's
direct descendants can exercise that authority. This causes enormous problems
(29:22):
for the question of succession monarchical succession.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
What if the king.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Has no legitimate heirs, or what if the only heir
is totally unqualified to rule.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
We saw the.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Comment in the film in which Henry says his son
is an idiot. This sort of problem happened, and what
if a nephew or a cousin, someone with a partial
claim on the throne is far more qualified. Well, we
know what happens, because it did happen over and over again,
as anyone familiar with the history of England can tell
(29:55):
you Civil War. Many of Shakespeare's history plays examine these issues.
As my teacher Harry Jaffa liked to say, the doctrine
of divine right of kings never finds a way to
combine legitimacy with competence. Again, this was not a problem
that the ancient world had to deal with. Problem three.
(30:18):
The content of belief, or the question of doctrine becomes
incredibly important in a way that was not the case
in the classical world.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Recall what I said.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Earlier about the paramount importance of law. Now, it would
be an exaggeration to say that what you privately believed
in the ancient cities was irrelevant.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
That would be too strong.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But there was very little investigation into private matters of conscience.
Socrates only got into trouble because he was so vocal
and so obnoxious about questioning the sacred opinions of the Athenians.
Because all ancient religions were political. What was overwhelmingly important
was that you'd your loyalty to the community and its
(31:03):
gods by obeying the divine law, by participating in the
public ceremonies, by performing.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
The appropriate rituals.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
This outward expression of piety, showing that you were a
good citizen of Sparta or Jerusalem, that's what mattered. In Christianity,
of course, belief becomes paramount, and this opens the door
to persecution in a way that you simply didn't have
in the pre Christian world. Even before the Reformation, which
(31:35):
ushered in centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, the
problem of doctrine was already present in terms of heresy.
Early on, the Church had to spend centuries hammering out
the precise content of the Catechism. Gnosticism, arianism, Pallagianism, and
(31:55):
many other heresies had to be investigated and then declared
to be errors. And of course, since these errors undermine
the faith, they could not be tolerated and had to
be stamped out. So the issue of religious persecution emerges
as yet another challenge. You may know that during the
Spanish Inquisition, the Church determine what constituted deviation from the faith,
(32:19):
and the state then imposed the punishment. But these lines
were not so easy to maintain, and the problem of
theocracy or some variation on theocracy, was a constant danger
in medieval Europe. These difficulties, which Western civilizations struggled with
for hundreds of years all through the Middle Ages, emerged
(32:41):
because Christianity is the first non political religion of the West.
To reiterate, being a Christian is not a question of
what political community you belong to, what your tribe is,
but a matter of choice of faith, of belief that
is incredibly liberating.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Of course, it.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Means salvation is potentially open to every human being, but
it creates all the challenges that I've mentioned for politics
and citizenship. Now, one more trip in our time machine
for our last stop, which will bring us to the
American colonies in the seventeen seventies, and I think at
this point we're in a better position to appreciate the
(33:26):
challenges that the American founders faced the problem of establishing
republican self government included at the most fundamental this complicated issue.
The title of my talk the theological political Problem, and
I've tried to lay out what that problem meant in
the Christian West. The American founders had to figure out
(33:48):
first how to create moral and political legitimacy for a
new nation and at the same time established the sacredness
of the law, which alone can command people's devotion and
obedience and address the problem of religious conflict and persecution
that had plagued Europe. A pretty difficult set of challenges,
(34:11):
I think, and the answer they came up with is
right there in the Declaration of Independence. As you all know,
the laws of nature and Nature's God. I think we
don't always appreciate the genius of this revolutionary truth, which
manages to combine in a prudential way, human reason and
(34:33):
divine revelation, and thereby provide the best practical solution to
the theological political problem possible in the modern world. The
founder's political science or political theory, grounded in the laws
of nature and Nature's God, made it possible for the
first time in history to establish religious liberty and solve
(34:57):
the theological political problem in a practical way. Incidentally, I
might add that the final version of the Declaration says
that the truths derived from the laws of nature are
self evident, But in Jefferson's first draft he had written
sacred and undeniable, and it was Benjamin Franklin who had
(35:18):
suggested the new language.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I think this.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Indicates that the framers knew they were grappling with the
theological political problem, and they understood that their efforts could
be traced back to Jerusalem and to Athens. The laws
of nature and Nature's God mean that there is an
objective moral order in the world, because that world is
(35:41):
created by a benevolent God, because God is reasonable, and
because our minds are a gift from God which he
intends us to use. We can perceive much of this
moral order through our own rational faculties. We can't know
those things that come only from revelation, including the first
(36:01):
Table of the Decalogue. Aristotle, who lived hundreds of years
before Christ, could not know about keeping the Sabbath holy,
but he could know the precepts of the second Table
of the Decalogue, the commandments about theft and murder and
honoring one's parents. And that's why Aristotle's book on Ethics
(36:22):
is almost perfectly compatible with the morality proclaimed in the Bible.
There are some minor differences on the questions of piety
and pride, but we can set those aside. They don't
affect the main point. Let me add that this natural
moral order exists outside of our will.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
It exists whether we like it or not.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We are born into a physical and a moral world
we do not create. However, much today's leftists think that
they can command or alter human nature, for example, by
allowing Chill to choose gender reassignment surgery. This will never
work and it will never lead to true happiness because
(37:08):
we cannot change human nature. Now, all of this is
extremely significant for the question of religious liberty, because the
laws of nature and Nature's God become the new ground
for political authority, and they supply the law with its
sacred and transcendent authority. This allows the principles of the
(37:30):
Founding to address all three of the problems I mentioned earlier. First,
it solves the problem of political schizophrenia, the split between
piety and citizenship, by supplying a common ground for morality. Because,
as Aristotle showed, we can understand virtue and vice through
(37:51):
our own rational faculties. The law can support and enforce
moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities.
In other words, because the morality of the Bible and
the morality of reason are compatible, one can be both
a pious believer and a good citizen without invoking the
(38:16):
contentious sectarian disputes that tore Europe apart. Second, because of
this common ground of morality, it is now finally possible
to clearly delineate the political and the religious realms. The
separation of church and state becomes possible as a practical
(38:36):
matter for the first time, which we can see most
clearly in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom of.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Seventeen eighty six.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
The Declarations teaching about the laws of Nature and Nature's
God establishes a kind of political theology, a non sectarian
ground of legitimacy that can make the laws sacred without
getting the government involved in disputes about the Trinity, or
(39:07):
transubstantiation or faith versus works. According to many Protestant ministers
during the Founding era, this also allows what they called
true Christianity to flourish for the first time, because it
is now possible to practice Christianity with a free and
loving heart as a choice rather than as a matter
(39:28):
of coercion, and you can find this point made in
many sermons from the Founding era. Third, the Founders solved
the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the
churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible
with both reason and revelation. Each can now operate within
(39:51):
its proper realm without intruding on the other. It becomes possible, therefore,
to institutionalize religious liberty by prohibiting religious tests for office
and keeping the government out of the business of punishing heresy.
As George Washington said in the letter that I read
(40:12):
at the beginning, the government of the United States gives
to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, and requires
only that those who live under its protection should demean
themselves as good citizens, giving it on all occasions their
effectual support. The American Founder's invocation of the transcendent moral
(40:40):
authority of nature is one of the most remarkable acts
of statesmanship in human history, and providing a ground for
religious liberty is only one way in which the laws
of nature and Nature's God serve the cause of self government.
If I had more time, I could discuss how eliminating
(41:00):
religious persecution also grants freedom to philosophy. That is, it
protects the metaphysical freedom of the human mind. We could
also talk about how prohibiting religious coercion goes hand in
hand with the Founder's elimination of artificial class distinctions and
(41:20):
allows for what Jefferson called true aristocracy to emerge, that is,
the aristocracy of merit in contrast to the artificial aristocracy
of birth. In old Europe, the old medieval caste system
and the old structures of theocratic oppression were great impediments
to human excellence. Under the Founder's revolutionary new conception of
(41:46):
republican government, equality under the law would liberate moral virtue,
while freedom of conscience liberates intellectual virtue. Now I recognize
that I I've covered a great deal of historical and
intellectual ground, and we can discuss some of the details
in the Q and A. I hope I've given you
(42:08):
some sense of the problems the Founders confronted and the
brilliance of their practical solution. The question which we and
all American patriots confront today is whether we still understand
and appreciate this incredible gift left to us by the Founders.
(42:29):
Do we still have the knowledge and the courage to
keep alive the sacred Fire of liberty.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 11 (42:50):
Doctor Elmers has agreed to sign copies of his book
The Soul of Politics directly after the session in the
Serle lobby. We now have time for Q and A.
If you have a quotquestion, please make your way to
a microphone. Student questions will be given preference.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Everything was so clear, there are no questions.
Speaker 12 (43:20):
Hello, and thank you so much for your talk. You
mentioned at the end that you mentioned at the end
of your talk that the old cast system prevented people
(43:42):
from achieving excellence. And though I agree with that point,
Tokville argued that it was the old aristocracy that actually
allowed for great education and for true nobility, and that's
how how people like people became great philosophers, and Americans
(44:07):
don't really have any good philosophers or people of great genius.
That's his argument. Anyway, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Sure, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
I just wrote an article on Tokfoe which was just
published in the New Criterion. Tokevil had many brilliant insights.
He was a brilliant man. He didn't quite understand everything
about America. It's important to remember Chokeville studied democracy in
America because you wanted to understand democracy as a kind
of phenomenon, as a kind of historical force, and then
learn how France could deal with it.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
And so he missed a couple important.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Things about about how democracy operates in America. He was right,
I mean, he thought that there was a kind of
aristocratic spirit in Europe that you know, the life of
the gentleman, the life of the leisure gentlemen who can
pursue knowledge for its own sake.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
That.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Gets overclipsed a little bit in the frenetic, entrepreneurial activity
of democratic capitalism. So we had a fair point. But
I think he overstated some things, and.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
I think.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Jefferson's understanding of I think the founder's own self understanding
was not as hostile to excellence as Tokel suggested. On
the contrary, Jefferson's whole point about allowing the aristocracy of merit,
the natural aristocracy, to emerge. It's precisely so that human
beings could pursue excellence without the artificial inhibitions that you
(45:32):
saw in the old European aristocracy.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Doctor Elmers, thank you for your enlightening lecture. My question
relates to whether or not the theological political problem really
in the solving of it by the Founders, really relates
to Christianity. It solves it in so far as it
allows for Christianity or kind of Christianity to be congruent
with political life, because it seems as though there are
(46:00):
ultimately still claims made by the state contra certain religious
teachings that have to be taken into account, and one
has to be supreme over the other. In the American context,
it seems an older and a newer issue would be
Mormonism and Islam, both religions that in their religious teachings,
for instance, allow polygamy, and that's something that ultimately the
(46:21):
state has to adjudicate whether that's going to be allowed
or not. So I'm wondering if my understanding's correct, that's
what you're referring to as Christianity and the politics can
go together under the Founder's scheme, or whether there's some
way that all religions can go can work under the
Founder's scheme, thank.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
You well, not all religions, the religion of Moloch, the
religion of the Aztecs, which included human sacrifice, and even
in some cases, yeah, they had a problem with Mormon polygamy,
and they certainly would have had a problem with the
extreme versions.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Of Sharia that we see.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
So this goes back to the point I made about
the compatibility between the virtue that we can understand our
natural reason and the morality of the Bible. It's only
in so far as they are compatible that you can
have a society, a Christian society in which Christian morality flourishes.
Any interpretation of Christianity or any other religion which undermines
(47:16):
just government, which undermines a decent society, that is a problem,
and it is both the right and the duty of
the state to prohibit that. So insofar as someone interprets
Christianity in a way that undermines public morality or is
in some way offensive, or any other religion promotes things
that are offensive to natural decency and natural morality, it
(47:38):
is the obligation of the government to prohibit those things.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (47:41):
So, if the sacredness of American law comes from the
idea that nature was created by a God and you
can therefore know certain truths sort of a posteriority, is
there any basis for following law or any basis that
the law is sacred in a society that's atheistic entirely.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, that's a real problem. My teacher's teacher, who is
a famous political philospher named Leo Strauss, once said, Now,
he said this in the middle of the last century,
in the nineteen fifties or sixties, there's never been a
completely atheistic society in the history of the world. If
he had lived a little longer, he might have changed
his mind when he saw the contemporary the United States.
(48:22):
But I think, as my remarks indicated, it's not working.
You know, I wrote a little book in which I
claim that wokeism and you know, political correctness and this
weird ideology that the left has is in a way
there deranged substitute for religion. I think there's something built
into the human soul that requires a need for the sacred,
a need for the transcendent. And if you reject that,
(48:45):
something has to fill the hole in your soul, and
it becomes whatever weird paganistic belief. Wokeism is right, but
you people have to believe in something. And so I
think it is true that no society become can be
completely atheistic, and if it tries, it's simply substitutes something else.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
What is that great line from G. K. Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
When people stop believing in God, it's not that they
believe in nothing, they'll believe in anything, right, And so
that's trying to achieve the atheistic society. Trying to achieve
an atheistic society just opens you up to believing all
sorts of crazy things instead.
Speaker 14 (49:24):
So my question is about priests or somebody who has
some sort of theological authority, and whether there'd be a
way that they can hold political office or interact politically
as well. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
So like a minister being elected to Congress.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Perhaps, I don't know.
Speaker 14 (49:47):
I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that for
the theological political.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, I mean it's I wouldn't say there's an absolute
rule against it. You know, the Founders, although they agreed
on a great did have some minor differences on some things.
And how exactly the religious liberty is supposed to work
on the ground in the details is a complicated questions
(50:12):
and it requires some use of prudence as circumstances change.
If you're interested in this question, I take it you're
a student, a friend of mine who I went to
grad school with, who's a professor at Notre Dame named
Philip Munoz, has written what I think is one of
the best books on religious liberty, and he explores how
there were some differences among the founders that I think Jefferson,
(50:32):
for example, would not have appreciated having a clergyman holding
elective office. Madison might have been more open to that.
These are difficult questions, and I'm reluctant to say that
there's a hard and fast rule. I think what they
agreed on is the important point, right, no religious test
for office, no persecution. On the other hand, there's no obligation,
(50:55):
no public obligation to accept religious practices that are clearly
indecent or moral. On some of the finer points, I'll
beg off and say that that that requires a statesman,
a statesmanly exercise of prudence to decide in the moment.
But read Phil's book, I think you'll find it a
much more nuanced response to your question.
Speaker 15 (51:23):
Thank you very much for your interesting talk. Jurney. Through time,
it seems like secular Americas and principles held together by
the judiciary and it's working or not, which you comment
on that, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Kind of strange.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
You know, the judiciary is the third branch of government.
It was supposed to have, according to the Vegulist papers,
neither force nor will. And yet it seems that we're
ruled by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
And it's also weird.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
I just mentioned this, oddly enough a week and a
half ago when I was down at Ole, miss giving
a talk for Constitution Day, that all the populace and
advocates of direct democracy who want to get rid of
the electoral college and all these impediments to the direct
expression of popular will, heave in a way reversed the
electoral college, and we now elect presidents and a Senator
(52:10):
whose main job is to pick the Supreme Court, and
the Supreme Court rules it. So we picked the president
of the Senate, the president, and the Senate picked the
Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court rules us.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
That's not how it's supposed to work.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Needless to say, so how we got to that point
is a very strange story. It does affect, you know,
it creates all sorts of prems, including in the area
of religious liberty. Another virtue of Professor Munos's book, which
I just mentioned a moment ago, is he looks at
some of the Supreme Court jurisprudence and brings out all
the ways in which it's had a very inconsistent approach
(52:45):
to the very important questions of religious liberty. But yeah,
the simple answer to your question is everything is completely
upside down in the country right now, and one of
those manifestations is that the court seems to be the
ruling branch, which is exactly opposite of what Madison intended.
Speaker 16 (53:02):
I've worked as a clinical psychologist for thirty years, and
identity emerges all the time, and in order to form
a healthy identity, morality is necessary because the human condition
is about the tension between what I am and what
I need to be. Could you please comment about the
necessary or necessity of that morality? Right?
Speaker 2 (53:24):
I mean, in a way that's a kind of carloid corollary.
Excuse me, to the point of the atheistic society, right,
I mean, a lot of people think that they're, you know,
avatars of the Enlightenment, they're beyond morality. But just like
the atheistic society ends up believing in all sorts of
crazy things, people who think they're beyond morality end up
(53:48):
substituting a kind of airsots or degraded or deranged form
of morality in its place, even though they don't recognize
it as such.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
I think if you go to Berkeley and talk to
some purple haired sociology's grad student, right, she might tell you,
you know, if you can understand her through all the
piercings in her face, I don't believe in morality, but
of course that's bogus. She believes in all sorts of morality. Right,
She's extremely eager to impose her morality on you, even
though she doesn't call it that.
Speaker 14 (54:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
So people can't live without people can't live with a
spiritual hole in their soul, and they can't live without morality.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
And if they try to repudiate it.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
They just end up putting something else in its place,
which is more than likely to be something weird and
deranged and counterproductive.
Speaker 10 (54:34):
We have time for one more question.
Speaker 9 (54:38):
Thank you very much for your talk, doctor Elmers. I
actually study theology and religion at John Carroll's Society, and
I've really been quite interested in your research, so I
appreciate very much this opportunity to hear you in person.
So John Courtney Murray argues that freedom of religion being
enshrined in our constitution is protected in a plerialist society.
And I'm curious as we continue to move forward in
(55:00):
this post modernist society where religion is only guaranteed a
place at a table in the name of tolerance, if
you still think his theology holds true.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
John Kurtney Murray's point, Yes, yeah, I mean, uh, I
mean yeah, sure, I mean that's obviously the answer is yes. Look,
all of us here on the right are concerned about
the crisis in the West, the crisis in America. The
(55:29):
whole country seems to be sort of coming apart of
the seams under the intense pressures. And there's two problems,
and one is the institutional problem. And this sort of
came up with the gentleman's question about the court. We
have to fix the institutions of government, which are all
out of whack. But the other problem, and the more
difficult problem, and what John Courtney Murray is sort of
pointing to, and it's interesting John Carroll. People may not
(55:51):
know that John Carroll was the first bishop in the
United States. His brother they were a very wealthy family,
a very wealthy family in Maryland. One brother signed the
Declaration of independence. One was the first Catholic bishop of
the United States. But the other point is, even if
we fix the institutions, we have to fix the people.
Speaker 14 (56:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
The founders were emphatic, you cannot have self government without
a moral people, and moral generally means by and large,
religious people.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
And if people lose their attachment to religion and lose
their attachment to morality, they cannot have the habits and
the virtues that make self government work. Now, how to
fix the institutions, that's a big challenge. How to fix
this other problem, right, How to bring the people back
to the moral habits and virtues necessarily for self government.
I don't have a simple answer to that, but we
(56:34):
need to do both, as difficult as that sounds.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
If you like the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(56:59):
mieow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and podcast
is produced by Ramon Roebliss, the King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Nakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(57:24):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit, Where not,
(57:46):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(58:11):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!