Sub Ratione Dei

New Page

I have added a written work page to the blog comprising select longer papers I have written. comments are welcome.

I am also in the process of collating a index of book reviews by year, 2006 has now been done.

 

Book Round Up

Jay Beaman, Pentecostal Pacifism: The Origin, Development, and Rejection of Pacific Belief among the Pentecostals, Center for Mennonite and Brethren Studies, (1989).

For a long time this book was the only text devoted solely to the subject of pacifism in pentecostalism's birth and early history - a belief that would with time thoroughly diminish as the predominant view becoming instead a minority opinion. This uniqueness, coupled with the fact that the book as been out of print for a long time (it took me about 3 years to get hold of a copy) and has a foreword by John Howard Yoder mean expectations were high. To say that expectations were not met is an understatement, I struggle to think of a time I have been more disappointed with a book.

As a text to demonstrate that many pentecostals were pacifists it does its job, not particularly well but still it's something. The book is almost entirely bereft of any real critical analysis - which given the fact that this book post-dates Anderson's Vision of the Disinherited (UK Link) by over 10 years is scandalous. Fortunately, the signs are (I have only skim read sections) that the publication Alexander's Peace to War (UK Link) earlier this year means that there is now a half decent monograph on pentecostal pacifism (although not on pacifism alone I still think Anderson takes some beating, however).

 

Mary Kenny, Germany Calling: A Personal Biography of William Joyce / Lord Haw Haw, New Island, (2003).

In Germany Calling Kenny has produced an accessible and honest account of Joyce's career. Joyce, who is better known by his radio pseudonym Lord Haw Haw, was the last person to be executed for treason in the UK - even though the legalities of such having been born in the US were hotly contested. The nature of Joyce's treason was his pro-German transmissions for the Nazi propaganda effort to Britain - transmissions that would prove to be very successful

Although it is as Lord Haw Haw that Joyce would become infamous as a British traitor Joyce's defection to the German Nazi's, where he was courted by Goebbels, was out of character. Having been raised in Ireland Joyce was a firm supported of the Irish loyalists to the British crown and would eventually be driven out of Ireland by the IRA following his sharing of intelligence with British forces. Once in the UK Joyce meandered around educational establishments never really devoting himself to his studies while also getting involved in far right politics. Joyce was soon gathering attention as a dynamic and charismatic speaker and was soon a leading light in Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists but after being tipped off that the British authorities were about to detain him under Defense Regulation 18B he emigrated to the US.

Kenny has produced a good biography. I do question whether the real force of Joyce's anti-semitism has really been accounted for, either morally or biographically, as when it comes down to it although Kenny has succeeded in humanising Joyce and showing his strengths I think Kenny has also produced a sympathetic account of a kindred Irish loyalist. It is however an interesting and well-written book.  

Related post: Mosley's Fascism and elsewhere the author's summary of the book.

Walking Away from Nuremberg

Walking Away From Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility, University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Walking Away from Nuremberg is a carefully crafted and intricate thesis on the regrettable evolution of military ethics and its relation to Augustinian Just War Theory. Among Just War theorists the jus in bello requirements are commonly treated sceptically. A law if it is to be effective must have the expectation that this will be enforced when transgressed. Historically, as Oliver O'Donovan (UK Link) notes, nobody expected jus in bello offences to be punished until the rise rise of International Humanitarian Law in the nineteenth century. This development in the just conduct of war reached its apotheosis in the Nuremberg trials with its clear enunciation of the doctrine of command responsibility in the trial, and subsequent execution, of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The “Yamashita precedent” of command authority held that

It is absurd ... to consider a commander a murderer or rapist because one of his soldiers commits a murder or a vicious rape. Nevertheless, where murder and rape and vicious, revengeful actions are widespread offenses, and there is no effective attempt by a commander to discover and control the criminal acts, such a commander may be held responsible, even criminally liable, for the lawless acts of his troops, depending upon their nature and the circumstances surrounding them (cited on p. 80).

However, the reference to Nuremberg in Walking Away From Nuremberg is misleading, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is only the subject of Rockwood's thesis by derivation. For the purposes of the US military it was not the command responsibility of IHL, as expounded in the Yamashita precedent, that is the tradition from which the US walks. Instead, Nuremberg was merely the international culmination of national policy antecedents. This is one of the most interesting and positive aspects of Rockwood's thesis. IHL is still a nascent collaboration whose future is uncertain; hence even among its humanitarian agencies who may be among its natural supporters the implementation of IHL by the United Nations has drawn criticism. Conor Foley (UK Link) , for example, has shown the ICC among other tribunals to be ineffectual, what has proved more constructive is a return to more local , and often pre-legal conflict resolution. More common is the the argument that IHL can represent either the usurpation of the democratic will seen in communitarian critiques or that the IHL cannot even be seen as law such as pluralist facets of the English School of International Relations.

Much has been written regarding the changes in US foreign policy and whatever the moral judgements regarding its utility undoubtedly represents a retraction from previous isolationist policies. This which Barber (UK Link) defines as the policy ambition to impose "a universal peace imposed by American arms" (p. 53). With the swift dismantling of Guantanamo Bay by the Obama administration it is clear that from the Commander in Chief at least Command Responsibility is in this instance taken more seriously, however while the means utilised may change there are no signs that Pax Americana itself has a foreign policy goal is. It is in this milieu that the jus in bello arguments become significant. Drawing on an antecedent tradition stemming from the Lieber Code, named after Francis Lieber's General Order 100 which was promulgated in 1863, Rockwood makes a convincing case that command responsibility, that Rockwood takes to be a pivotal area of the jus in bello, has placed the developments that were later delineated in Nuremberg. Hence for Rockwood the US military has in its recent history been guilty of crimes against humanity, or at least complicity in the same and in doing so and in this has not so much walked away from Nuremberg but away from Lieber whose jus in bello principles the Nuremberg doctrine explicated.

What makes the argument so compelling is the partiality of its author.In his lengthy foreword Stephen Wrage, Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy demonstrates that this book had its origins in the personal experience of its author, formerly a Captain in the Tenth Mountain Division (US Army). In September 1994 Lawrence Rockwood, then a Captain of the Tenth Mountain Division deployed to Haiti. In his role as a counter intelligence officer Rockwood received reliable intelligence that human rights abuses, including murder, were taking place within the jurisdiction of the US military but despite repeated requests by Rockwood to intervene, no remedial action was taken by his superiors. Subsequently, in disobedience to military orders Rockwood inspected the prisons; an action that was to lead to him being court-martialled and eventually dismissed from the US Army.

On receiving his sentence Rockwood commented on the US Army's legacy which, he suggested, had been compromised by recent departures from the jus in bello ideals that had informed it's actions. The US Army was "the greatest human rights enforcer the world has ever known. The United States Army is the institution that brought the end to slavery in North America. The United States Army, together with its allies, put the end to the concentration camp system. That is the true legacy of the United States Army" (P. xix). The 'Golden Age' rhetoric of Rockwood's eulogy may be debatable; however, in delineating the history of military ethics rooted in Just War thinking Rockwood has, in addition to producing a work of solid scholarship makes a good argument for 'just warmaking' from a specifically intratextual narrative that does not rely on IHL to reach the same conclusion. Rockwood has, in Walking Away From Nuremberg, offered an important contribution the literature on Just War of the Augustinian-realist persuasion.

Eagleton on Ditchkins and Christianity

I have been reading through Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (UK Link) after it has been getting some favourable comments elsewhere. I can't say I have been overwhelmed with the book but it is thus far been an enjoyable read.

At times Eagleton on Ditchkins (a conflation of Hitchens and Dawkins - although with some Dennett and Grayling thrown in) is highly acerbic such as this gem:

The truth is that many secular intellectuals with a reasonably sophisticated sense of what goes on in academic areas than their own tout an abysmally crude, infantile version of what theology has traditionally maintained. These days, theology is the queen of sciences in a rather less august sense of the word "queen" than in its medieval heyday ... As far as theology goes, Ditchkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion consists in; it is just that Ditchkins rejects it while Pat Robertson and his unctuous crew grow fat on it. (p. 49-50, 51).

But, and this is to the book's significant credit, this acerbic wit is not directed solely to Ditchkins. A few pages later Eagleton asserts that it is on Christianity itself that the responsibility lies:

Yet it is most certainly Christianity itself which is primarily responsible for the intellectual sloppiness of its critics. Apart from the signal instance of Stalinism, it is hard to think of a historical movement that has more squalidlybetrayed its own revolutionary origins. Christianity long ago shifted from the side of the poor and dispossessed to that of the rich and aggressive. The liberal establishment really has little to fear from it and little to gain. For the most part, it has become the creed of the suburban well-to-do, not the astonishing promise offered to the riffraff and undercover anticolonial militants with whom Jesus himself hung out. (p. 55).

Domination or Liberation

Alistair Kee, Domination or Liberation: The Place of Religion in Social Conflict, SCM, 1986.

This little book is the result of Kee's Ferguson Lectures at Manchester University in 1986. I don't think this is a good book and is certainly dated but nonetheless is an interesting read. In his introduction Kee quotes Peter Berger “Religion has been the historically most widespread and effective instrument of legitimation. All legitimation maintains socially defined reality. Religion legitimates so effectively because it relates the precarious reality constructions of empirical societies with ultimate reality” (x).

The first three chapters, each of which represent a different lecture, Kee casts a critical gaze upon Gender, Race and the Poor and key theologians in the area, notably Fiorenza, West, Boesak, Marx and Sobrino. At stages, particularly in his chapter on the power of the Black Jesus Kee is engaging but it is not in the survey or or the specific critiques in isolation that is what makes this an interesting book. The complete lack of equivocation in the title points to is what it is that makes this little volume noteworthy.

This is the way a marxist reading of ideology runs through Kee's account. Towards the end of Kee's discussion of feminist thought, in particular the feminist emphasis on documenting the history of feminine oppression:

Men have institutionalized discrimination against women for their own advantage. This social evil can be documented again and again in historical studies. To what end? Is there not a certain naivety here? Did men do this through ignorance, so that with historical knowledge they will stop discriminating? In the history of the world, what system of discrimination has ever been brought to an end by exposing it as evil? (28-29).

Kee is adamant that this unveiling is necessary but it is but a small part of the problem. Religion can, like so many facets of the human be oppressive not specifically because of individual malfeasance but because of its submersion in false consciousness. It is here that Kee relies heavily on Boff in particular in his delineation of the capitalisation of the ecclesiastical ritual especially in the clericalisation of the church.

The result is a stimulating little book that can be read in one sitting. It is not not a thorough piece of research and those not inclined to agree will find many a straw figure adversary presented. It is also of course a book rooted in a different time but not, I think, that different.

Pentecostalism and Liberal Theology

Although I am unable to locate the reference I believe it was Walter Hollenweger who suggested that the burgeoning pentecostal movement was not so much a reaction against liberal theology than its apotheosis. Schleiermacher famously laid the structure of liberal theology on the foundation of humanity's feeling of absolute dependence; in its focus on immediacy and unmediated nature there is more than a passing resemblance to the pentecostal's existential faith. However, whether on a primal level the pentecostal experience can be explained by such appeals is a moot point. Even if it were granted that the “pentecostal experience” preceded reflection upon the same it remains that it is in the reflection after the fact that pentecostalism differentiates itself from similar experiences of those outside its surrounding and form a collective identity (theology). To take over the liberation theologian's method it is in the dialectical relationship of first order experience and second order reflection that theology and therefore pentecostal identity is formed.

Charity and Religion

My MA thesis deal with the implications of John Rawls' "political" turn in his political philosophy in regard to the religious citizen. I argued that Rawls' theory imposed an epistemic bifurcation on the citizen of faith that was unreasonable and undemocratic.

I was reminded of this reading the Von Hugel Institutes criticisms of the Charity Commission in their Moral, But No Compass: Government, Church and the Future of Welfare. But first some background - the 2006 Charities Act while maintaining the previous heads of charitable classification (advancement of religion, advancement of education etc) has removed the presumption of public benefit. A religious group qua religious group is not automatically deemed to be of public benefit and therefore eligible the for advantages that official governmental recognition of charitable status confers. Something more than mere religion is needed to be charitable (and, in so doing, get the concomitant tax breaks / financial incentives). But, for the writers of the report the Charity Commission are engaging in an act of epistemic bifurcation, they are, apparently, imposing undue burden on religious groups' theological self-understanding. The authors write:

[T]he Charity Commission's view, as demonstrated in its guidance on public benefit, as to what constitutes 'the advancement of religion' or a 'faith-based charity' has little or no relation to the way that many people of faith actually understand their way of life or the embodiment of their religious principles in personal volunteering and the creation of institutions. For example, the work of cathedrals is self-defined by a deep understanding of the idea of 'hospitality', which includes educational, cultural, and other activities that are not flagged aggressively as 'religious'. Therefore, to subdivide the charitable activities of a cathedral into the 'religious' as opposed to the educational, cultural and other would be to rewrite its theology. It would mean that the commission would make judgements as to what constitutes good religion despite protestations to the contrary (P. 55).

And, as if to secure their point much rhetorical importance was placed on the fact that major charities such as Church Action on Poverty and Islamic Relief are not classed as religious charities at all by the Charity Commission but, presumably, aimed and preventing and relieving poverty. So what are we to make of this? In my view absolutely nothing - the authors are writing nonsense. In fact guidance regarding the public benefit clause published earlier this week are explicit that the is no such sacred/secular divide necessarily implied. The more interesting point is why should the Government view the advance of religion as a charitable aim in itself? Ian Williams in his excellent The Alms Trade, a history of Charity Law in the UK (up to the late 1980s) has shown how the heads (education, religion, etc) have served to undermine what has always been Charity's key feature, the relief and eradication of poverty.

I believe there is a valued place for "faith-based charitable works" to contribute to the public good but why must religion qua religion be given preferential treatment over, for example, the British Humanist Association.In this way it is quite right that Church Action on Poverty is not a "religious" charity, it aims to offer relief to the most downtrodden on society and, in so doing, does a damned site more to advance religion than many the Charity Commission may regard under the heading.It's worth remembering the charitable status does not impose warrant to do the work the group does but merely financial benefits and a governmental seal of approval (for the public benefit). So, I'll close with a quote from Ben Whitaker's Minority Report to the Goodman Committee in 1976 (cited in Williams, 40):

The ideal criterion for charitable status would be any purpose beneficial to the community - provided always any such benefit was easily accessible to all members of the community who wish to avail themselves of it. But since charitable resources and the public ability to give tax relief are both limited, I believe the first priority should be to concentrate these primarily on deprivation and the disadvantaged. Those should be interpreted to include the results of not only poverty and sickness (physical and mental), but also of lack of human rights and education. While the duty of mutual care in human society is shared by and extends to the whole community, I consider it right that if the public is to be compulsorily taxed, it should be able to determine the priorities to which limited supplies of public funds are devoted. Private benefactors who prefer to help those people who are not disadvantaged should, of course, be free to do so, but they ought not to assume that the remainder of society should compulsorily be made to assist them.

And, while we're on the subject here's a song about the subject from the wonderful Tim Minchin (HT Ben via Stephen)

References

Francis Davis et al, Moral, But No Compass: Government, Church and the Future of Welfare, Matthew james, 2008.

Ian Williams, The Alms Trade: Charities, Past, Present and Future, Unwin, 1989.

Doubletalk Theology

The Barefoot Bum has been getting pretty annoyed with theists recently, and on the basis of most of those he's linked to I understand why. I am a theist (whether I am, to use his deligtful phrase a "fucktard" I will leave to others to decide) but must admit I am a little sympathetic to his latest rant:

The theologian, on the other hand, often bristles at these assertions. He can't tell you what he's talking about, and if he happens to say something meaningful (usually by accident), he can't or won't tell you why he believes it. Theologians will usually try to bury you in doubletalk and ambiguity, hoping you'll think it's all too complicated for your tiny little mind and just accept their authority. Newsflash: If you truly understand something, you should be able to explain it to a curious six-year-old, or, for the really super-complicated stuff like Quantum Mechanics, an ordinary college freshman (excluding those at Christian colleges, of course). Atheism is not true just because Christianity bullshit, but Christianity is indeed bullshit. When atheists condemn theists (especially Christians and Muslims) for shifting the burden of proof, we're simply demanding they clearly answer the questions: What are you talking about? Why do you believe it? Anyone who tries to shake off the burden of proof does so only because they cannot or will not answer these simple questions.

Augustine on Nature

In her discussion of Augustine Carol Harrison comments

For Augustine, peace is a natural law inherent in the order of nature, the absence of which moves even irrational creatures to seek to recover it. All rational creatures possess a certain degree of peace in the ordered subjection of the body of the soul. It is, in fact, a part of a natural order of human existence in society. Disorder and war are simply symptoms of its absence, of the dissolution of human society (p. 207).

I have to say I find this argument troublesome. I don't really see what reasonable use the idea of "natural law" has in this context. It is clear that Augustine is referring to a pre-lapsarian state. Nature here seems to represent not to an underlying state of affairs, that which is a given and common / accessible to us all but something that is in a real sense unobtainable. If, as I think she is, Harrison is signalling that the world as it is experienced is for Augustine a distortion of the the divine will then fine. But why label this unobtainable and theoretical pre-lapsarian state as natural when, viewed from a post-fall perspective, it is completely non-experiential (from the post-lapsarian perspective). Experience, by which I mean an encounter - although not necessarily cognisance of the same - with that which is apart from faith, is surely an indispensable facet of any meaningful notion of natural law/theology. For sure, the question of revelation is relevant here. But unless one sees revelation as general, namely accessible to all, in which case it is functionally synonymous with nature as I have described it here then to label such knowledge / believe as "nature", as Augustine does here, makes no sense to me. It is as though Augustine has turned the notion of nature on its head, that which is, is not, that which is not is a symptom of the natural order of things. I was going to post a little more on how Harrison develops Augustines theology of peace but this is already a little too convoluted so perhaps soon.

References ...
Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity, (2000). (UK Link).

Against the God of the Philosophers

From Wolfhart Pannenberg, Metaphysics and the Idea of God, T&T Clark, (1988), 28-29:

I am skeptical of the claim that with the notion of highest perfection we have already reached the idea of God. The idea of God, however construed, has a considerably higher specification than is inherent in the general picture of a being with maximal perfection. For the idea of God cannot be separated from the elements of personality and of a will. It follows that the notion of a highest perfection as such is not yet identical with the idea of God. Of course, if we have arrived at the idea of God on other grounds, and if we then form the conception of a being with maximal perfection - and if, in addition, we raise the question of whom we should affirm this highest perfection - then in such a case it must be clear that this attribute can be affirmed only of the one God. It is in this sense that we are to understand Anselm's thesis that God is the being "greater than which none greater can be conceived". This sentence does not define the idea of God but already presupposes it and predicates of it the highest perfection.