’

The Gadfly is an independent journal of Philosophy,Politics, and Economics at The King’s College, NewYork City. Through a combination of elevated dis-course and incisive journalism, we hope to inspire,

and when necessary goad, the students and faculty of the Col-lege to insightful scholarship. To that end, we are committed to-ward critical engagement, journalistic integrity, academicexcellence, and Socratic inquiry.

Critical engagement. By publishing insightful commen-tary and elegant prose, we will embody the culture we wish toinhabit, and so foreshadow the seeming impossibility of a Chris-tian liberal arts college that rivals the Ivy League.

Journalistic integrity. We hold our contributors to rigor-ous standards of ethics, thoroughly checking their submissionsfor accuracy, and thus taking care to protect the reputations ofour authors, editors, and advisors.

Academic excellence. We are zealous for excellence in oureducation, and that means we advocate rigor within and withoutthe classroom. We love a challenge, and we love anyone whoshares that passion. Academic seriousness should be the founda-tion of our common identity, and it is the focal point of muchof the Gadfly’s commentary. We take theology seriously and allowthe Gospel to inform our political and economic thought.

Socratic inquiry. “The unexamined life is not worth liv-ing.” In the tradition of Socrates, we will follow the facts wherethey lead. In our constant examination of our community life,we will be a gadfly to The King’s College even as Socrates wasto Athens—though, we hope, with better results.

Were it not for our love of this institution, youwould not be reading this now. Many late nightsand long hours were invested in the pages be-fore you, all out of a desire to call The King’s

College to the fullest realization of its audacious vision. Untilthat vision comes to pass, the Gadfly will remain committed topestering, prodding, provoking, and cajoling students, faculty,and staff to “live lives worthy of the calling with which they havebeen called,” and thereby to be a force for change in the strategicinstitutions of our nation and world.

A Hymn to God the Father

Hear me, O God!

A broken heart

Is my best part.

Use still thy rod,

That I may prove

Therein thy Love.

If thou hadst not

Been stern to me,

But left me free,

I had forgot

Myself and thee.

For sin's so sweet,

As minds ill-bent

Rarely repent,

Until they meet

Their punishment.

Who more can crave

Than thou hast done?

That gav'st a Son,

To free a slave,

First made of nought;

With all since bought.

Sin, Death, and Hell

His glorious name

Quite overcame,

Yet I rebel

And slight the same.

But I'll come in

Before my loss

Me farther toss,

As sure to win

Under His cross.

- Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

News & Features.

Opinion & Editorial.

Nick Dunn

Brendan Case

J.M. Hundscheid

Azy Groth

Bryan K. Nance Jr.

Ethan Campbell

Editorial

Editorial

C. David Corbin

William Brafford

6

9

12

14

16

20

24

27

28

32

No King’s Student Left Behind

A report on TKC’s controversial new retention initiative

The Eternal Dance

An introduction to trinitarian theology

The Eucharist

Lay presidency examined

Title IX

Affirmative Action and the sciences

Concepts of Liberty in Europe

A senior thesis excerpt

Enough For Me that You Are Here Somewhere

A critical analysis of Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor”

The Death of Difficulty

Academic rigor and the future of

Free Market Theology

The clash of economic and theological orthodoxy

Out of the Wilderness

Obama, Europe, and the exile of conservativism

The Exile

The Benedict Option

Welcome to the first iteration of what we hope will become a

mainstay of the academic community at The King’s College.

For the past few months, the editorial staff at the Gadfly has been

working hard to bring you a publication worthy of this unique

college, and we’re quite proud of this first edition. As you can

read more about in our “Manifesto” (Page 1), the Gadfly exists to

be to the King’s community what Socrates was to ancient

Greece. It is our intention to critique, advance, and refine the

academic discourse at our school towards the lofty ideals we

espouse—by encouragement when possible, by indictment when

necessary.

A brief perusal of the contents of this magazine should be a

testament to the depth and intellectual diversity of the King’s

academic community. One of the issues we will be continually

examining is that of academic standards at this institution. Over

the past few months, there has been much discussion about what

an academically rigorous Christian school looks like, and

whether or not we are one. Some have argued that standards

have dropped significantly; others swear that the school is as dif-

ficult as it has always been. Some welcome a “lowering of the

bar” as a laudable development; a remnant resents this. Hybrid

theories such as “leadership school,” “standards v. rigor,” and

“quality of engagement” have sprung up, but never really caught

on. We find that the discussion thus far has been inconclusive

and as such disappointing.

In this month’s lead editorial, “The Death of Difficulty” (Page

24), we add our voice to the noise and examine this perceived

relaxing of standards in recent years through a number of

benchmarks and policy shifts. In the feature “No King’s Student

Left Behind” (Page 6), Nick Dunn (PP&E ’12) and I further

examine how some of these recent shifts have already resulted in

the dilution and impairment of the King’s vision.

On page 16, senior Bryan Nance (PP&E ‘09) offers an excerpt

of his thesis, which traces the concepts of liberty in Europe from

John Stuart Mill’s harm principle through modern-day pluralism

and the “millennium ahead.” A full copy of Nance’s thesis is

available on our website.

Along with elucidating all things political, philosophical, eco-

nomical, and controversial, The Gadfly will have recurring

theological features as we work towards a King’s community that

is as conversant in theology as we are in capitalism. This month,

John Hundscheid (PP&E ’11) and Brendan Case (PP&E ’10)

weigh in on issues as diverse as the Eucharist and Trinitarian the-

ology.

O Captain! My Captain!

In our Culture section, recent King’s grad Mike Toscano (PP&E

‘08) offers a review of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a riveting film

adaptation of John Boyne’s novel depicting the bond of friendship

forged between the young son of a Nazi officer at Auschwitz and a

Jewish prisoner who lives “on the other side of the fence” (Page 29).

We also offer an exclusive interview with Zach Williams, an up-and-

coming artist who recently headlined the King’s Fall Concert (Page

31), and a review of the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival

of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons (Page 30).

I am also terribly excited to announce that the Gadfly has given

our monthly back page column over to our old friend, William

Brafford. In the first installation of “The Exile,” William wrestles

with Stanley Hauerwas’s argument that “the political task of Chris-

tians is to be the church rather than to transform the world”

through ideas such as the Benedict Option and New Monasticism.

Throughout this magazine, you will also find poems and short

fiction from some of the most creative and thoughtful minds in the

King’s community. This month, we’re proud to feature original

works by Stephen Wesley, Amy Leigh Cutler, Professor Ethan

Campbell, and Dr. David Corbin.

We are quite pleased with the wealth of talent we have amassed

for our first issue, but we also know we have only scratched the sur-

face thus far. If you share our excitement for incisive journalism,

thoughtful commentary, and captivating creative writing, send us

your story ideas.

Additionally, it is not our intention to lecture the academic com-

munity at this school but rather to engage it. To that end, we

encourage you to join in on the debate. Agree with what we say

and want to build on it? Disagree and care to show us where we

went wrong? Undecided and want to ask more questions? E-mail

editor@gadflymag.com with your comments.

Many of us were drawn to King’s by its infectious vision of a

Christian school that could compete with the Ivies. Going forward,

I am reminded of the words of Socrates, who said, “The way to

gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to

appear.” We aspire to compete with the Harvards, Yales, Oxfords,

and LSEs of the world. For forty-some-odd pages a month, we

hope that lofty aspiration will appear to be a tangible reality.

Dear Reader,

Daniel Hay

4 The Gadfly

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done / The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is wonThe port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting / While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring”

Lorem Ipsum

Poetry appears throughout this publication. Student contributors to this issue include: Amy Leigh Cutler (“To be so subjective”—Page 19),

Prof. R.L. Jackson (“A Sonnet for the Teacher”—Page 32), Stephen Wesley (“Product Placement”—Page 15). The following poems have

been printed with permission: John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XII”, George Herbert’s “Love-Joy”, Ben Jonson’s “A Hymn to God the Father”.

Sketches appear courtesy of the Art team: “The Death of Socrates” (Inside Back Cover), “The Rose” (Page 1), “Pilgrim Rolls Down the

Hill” (Page 26), “Dumbo” (Page 30), William Brafford Caricature (Page 36), Floral Background (Inside Back Cover).

Front Cover designed by: Matthew Von Herbulis

William Brafford is a former PP&E student at The King’s College. He currently attends

the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majors in Philosophy and

Mathematics. His blog, www.williamwrites.blogspot.com, was recently cited by Andrew

Sullivan of The Atlantic. His column, “The Exile”, will appear monthly in The Gadfly. He can

complete a Rubik’s Cube in under one minute.

Ethan Campbell is an assistant professor of English at The King’s College. He received

his Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Yale University, and is currently a Ph.D.

candidate at the City University of New York. He recently authored Teen Challenge: 50 Years

of Miracles.

C. David Corbin is an assistant professor of Politics at The King’s College. He has served

in the New Hampshire State Legislature, and was a candidate for governor in 2002. He

received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston University in 2006, and recently co-

authored A Reader’s Guide to Aristotle’s Politics, which will be released in May 2009.

Azy Groth (PP&E ’09) is a student at The King’s College, from San Diego, California.

This summer, she interned for former provost Peter Wood at the National Association of

Scholars, in Princeton, New Jersey. She graduates this semester and plans to take a trip to

Guatemala in January.

Bryan K. Nance, Jr. (PP&E ’09) is a student and Founder’s scholar at The King’s College.

Born and raised in North Carolina, he spent much of his adolesence touring as the lead

singer and guitarist with the bands Phat Chance and Stereo Motion. He graduates this

semester and plans to continue to work as an Admissions Counselor.

Mike Toscano (PP&E ’07) is an alumnus of The King’s College. He currently resides in

Harlem and is a former film student. His areas of interest include writing short fiction and

novels, and reading the works of Tolkein and Bunyan.

The Gadfly

an independent magazine of

Philosophy, Politics, & Economics

at The King’s College,

New York City

Editorial Board

Brendan Case

Lucas Croslow

Nick Dunn

Daniel Hay

John Hundscheid

Art

Sara Blum

Betsy Brown

Online

Website: www.gadflymag.com

Blog: www.gadflymag.blogspot.com

The Gadfly (ISSN 1944-3714) is pub-

lished monthly by Gadfly Media

Partners (GMP), 90 Church Street

Suite 200, New York, NY 10014.

Copyright ©2008

Gadfly Media Partners

All Rights Reserved

Contributors

December 2008 5

Submissions can be sent to submissions@gadflymag.com. The Gadfly is currently

accepting poetry and short fiction, entertainment reviews, editorials, and articles of an

academic nature.

Letters to the Editor can be sent to editor@gadflymag.com.

Subscriptions can be purchased for $50 per year (10 issues): subscriptions@gadflymag.com

Correspondence

Miscellany

The Gadfly6

No KiNG’S

STudeNT

LefT BehiNd

By Nick Dunn & Daniel Hay

Months before the 97-student Class of 2012 arrived at The King’s College in late

August, it was billed as the brightest ever to matriculate here—poets, musicians,

athletes, and models, all committed to making the big move to the Big City. They

were met with excitement as staff, faculty, and returning students looked forward to the po-

tential of these students to re-shape King’s, as each new class does. Few considered the equal

possibility of these students to change the school in ways many would oppose. The now-

prevalent concerns about the class of ’12 fall into two categories: the academic quality of

the students, and their dedication to the Mission Statement and Honor Code. In a survey

administered to students, upperclassmen opined that many freshmen came to King’s more

for the city than the school. Some described their young brethren as “partying” and “rule

breaking,” citing the mandatory Residence Life meetings, presumably unnecessary in past

years, as an example of the perceived qualitative difference in the new class.

How did everyone’s high hopes prove so misplaced? It turns out the enthusiastic reports

of the new class’s quality were rather exaggerated. As the oft-quoted Benjamin Disraeli quip

so succinctly reminds us, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

7December 2008

For example, while the average SAT score of the class of ’12,

at 1880, is indeed higher than last year’s 1850, the range is

wider, meaning the top scores are higher, but the bottom

scores are lower, and possibly much lower. The more meaningful

metric in this case would be the median score, since a few great

scores or a few awful ones could significantly skew the average. The

college does not make

the median score

public, and represen-

tatives would not di-

vulge the number

when asked.

In any case, the

academic crisis of the

class of ’12 is now well known. Halfway through the fall term,

reports emerged of an unacceptable number of students failing or

in danger of failing one or more classes. Provost Marvin Olasky and

his assistant, Kiley Humphries, PP&E ’07, went to work on the

problem right away. Olasky, formerly an advisor to then-Texas Gov-

ernor George W. Bush, took a page from his onetime boss’s book,

developing a color-coded hierarchy of King’s students sorted

according to their academic status. The colors are the same as in

the Homeland Security Advisory System created by the Bush

administration: a “green” student is considered “low-risk,” while a

student on red-alert is “at-risk.” The internal nickname for the pro-

gram is another Bush allusion: “No King’s Student Left Behind.”

“Every college has an at-risk list,” said Humphries. “Everyone goes

through college shock … [and] there are a good number [of stu-

dents] struggling with school this year.” The question, she

suggested, is not whether to help our struggling students, but rather,

“how much do we help?” The New York Board of Regents, by

whom the college is currently accredited, and the Middle States

Commission on Higher Education, from whom the college is seek-

ing accreditation, require King’s to offer support services to its

students. The nature and extent of these services varies from year

to year, with a well-prepared, academically-inclined class requiring

less support from the school than a lackluster group.

This year King’s has had to provide more assistance than admin-

istrators expected, and certainly more than was offered to last year’s

freshman class. The most visible manifestation of this fact is the

study sessions which have been started for most freshman-level

courses. These tutorials, as they are known, are not just “a test prep

or a cheat sheet,” says Humphries. Rather, she says they are “a time

to rehash the subjects” for students who need more attention than

is given them in the

confines of the class-

room.

Kyle McCracken,

PP&E ’11, is one of

three students leading

a tutorial for Prof.

Peter Kreeft’s Logic

course. Early in the semester, McCracken was approached by

Humphries, who told him that “many of the freshmen are strug-

gling and we want to provide any help that we can.” A typical

tutorial session conducted by McCracken includes a review of the

most recent weekly Logic quiz, a discussion of the current week’s

reading, and questions from those in attendance. Thus far,

Humphries says, “students have been attending [the tutorials] and

it has been helpful.”

The advent of the tutorials is one factor among many that have

caused doubts about the academic quality of the class of 2012. Sev-

eral professors have begun to distribute study guides, a practice

formerly forbidden by the Department of Academic Affairs.

According to several

sources within the

college, not only are

many freshmen fail-

ing, but the grading

curve is actually an

“inverse bell,” mean-

ing instead of a few

students earning high marks and a few earning low ones, with the

rest concentrated in the middle, the opposite is occurring. Few stu-

dents are receiving average grades of B, C, or D; most are either

failing or passing with flying colors.

The data present the administration with an unsettling choice.

On the one hand, the students at the bottom of this inverse bell

curve need all the help they can get, from tutorials to more-gracious

professors to the gradual grade inflation that is common on college

campuses. On the other hand, academically serious students on the

higher end of the curve want to be challenged. That is why they

came to King’s in the first place. Unfortunately, an institution of

TKC’s size cannot satisfy the demands of both groups. King’s must

choose whom it will serve.

Seven years ago, when King’s hired Eric Bennett to create the

Student Services department, the college’s retention rate was

a dismal 53 percent. Nearly ten years after re-opening, the

college had no academic requirements for admission. Now led by

Assistant Provost Jody Paul, Student Services today looks much as

it did then: four Peer Advisors help the administration identify “at-

risk” students—those struggling academically, emotionally, spiritu-

ally, or otherwise—in order to provide them with support and

hopefully improve retention.

The results of Bennett’s campaign were dramatic. By the fall of

2003, two years after Bennett started, the retention rate had risen

to nearly 71 percent, climbing further to nearly 78 percent the fol-

lowing year, 2004. More incredible still, an astounding 84 percent

of the class of ’11 returned to King’s this fall for their sophomore

year, besting the national average by two percentage points.

A high retention rate is essential to the future of The King’s Col-

lege, but equally

important is recruit-

ment, and this is the

job of the Admissions

department. There is

an undeniable eco-

nomic aspect to

recruiting: Vice Presi-

dent of Admissions Brian Parker says his department “lives at the

corner of tuition revenue and academic quality.” His goal, as he

sees it, is to find a balance between the two. Even not-for-profit

businesses must generate enough revenue to keep their doors open,

and for colleges, revenue comes either in the form of tuition or

donations.

As for the students who do not meet

“Kingsian” standards, Bennett

says, “I would encourage them to leave.”

“If a student wants to be here,” says

Humphries, “we are going to do every-

thing it takes to retain them.”

It is a poorly-kept secret that King’s loses money every year. The

business model developed for TKC by former CFO Gary Latainer

calls for around 800 students before the college breaks even. Until

then, it is the responsibility of W. Lance Covan’s Department of

Institutional Advancement to raise enough money to bridge the

“gap” between operating expenses and tuition revenue.

Last fall, when Admissions enrolled only 56 students, the college

lost even more money than usual. This year, with 97 freshmen, the

damage was less severe, but the school must now play catch-up to

meet its annual admission targets and reach the break even point

by the specified date, around five years from now, according to

sources. This presents a dilemma: it would seem that quality and

quantity of students admitted are inversely proportional. In other

words, admitting only students of quality sufficient for the rigor of

the King’s curriculum means sacrificing tuition revenue, but admit-

ting enough students to meet revenue targets means sacrificing high

admission standards, and, in the interest of retention, academic

rigor.

“What kind of student succeeds at King’s? What kind of person

is a good fit?” These are the questions Humphries says we must ask

ourselves as the college continues to grow. The danger in answering

them is that King’s could too narrowly define itself, turning away

students that otherwise would have contributed positively to the

school’s development. Yet, failure to answer these questions, or

answering them too broadly, will result in increased speculation over

whether certain students “belong.”

Humphries believes that, “every year brings a unique group of

students, [and] this year we got a fun group of people who have a

lot to offer [in terms of] art and the City.” Bennett called the class

of ’11 an “anomaly” in terms of academic quality. Yet there is a

significant correlation between recruiting and retention: the greater

the number of students who are, as Bennett put it, “on board” with

TKC’s mission, the higher the retention rate. Or as McCracken

said, “anyone is a good fit at King’s if they are willing to own the

honor code and give their all in school.” Still, Humphries was

emphatic: “we have been really encouraging students to work

hard…. If a student wants to be here, we are going to do everything

it takes to retain them.”

While a 100 percent retention rate would reflect well on the

school and perhaps make everyone feel good about their job per-

formance, retention is not necessarily a barometer of academic

quality; in fact, it can be exactly the opposite. It is not enough to

simply recruit and retain students—the school needs to recruit and

retain students who know and understand the vision of the school

and are able to balance a rigorous course load with the distractions

of city living. As for the students who do not meet these “Kingsian”

standards, Bennett says, “I would encourage them to leave.”

At a recent Inviso weekend, President Andrew Mills reflected

on the future of The King’s College. “One of the toughest

challenges we will face,” he said, “is staying ‘on vision,’

making sure that what we’re talking about here is being carried out

in the classrooms.” Staying “on vision” can be one of the toughest

challenges for any new institution, especially one whose business

plan demands faster-than-sustainable growth. The college is in a

season of growth, and growing pains can be expected. But as any

King’s student knows, denying the existence of a problem is coun-

terproductive to its eventual resolution. Unless TKC is a college

both capable and willing to rise to the necessary level of self-evalu-

ation, many students and faculty members fear that the final verdict

on the once-dynamic King’s vision will be the tragedy of a college

left behind.

The mission of The King’s College, old and new.A side-by-side demonstration of TKC’s evolution.

… prepare …

… students for careers in which they will help to

shape and eventually to lead strategic public and

private institutions: …

… to improve government, commerce, law, the

media, civil society, education, the arts and the

church.

Through its commitment to the truths of

Christianity and a Biblical worldview, The King’s

College seeks to …

2005—2006

… transform society by preparing …

… students for careers in which they will help to

shape and eventually to lead strategic public and

private institutions, …

… and by supporting faculty members as they

directly engage culture through writing and

speaking publicly on critical issues.

Through its commitment to the truths of

Christianity and a Biblical worldview, The King’s

College seeks to …

2007—Present

8 The Gadfly

The Eternal DanceAn Introduction to Trinitarian Theology

This is a short piece on the central doctrine of the Christian

faith. Of course, the centrality of the Trinity does not stand

over against the doctrines of God’s goodness or justice, or

of the Incarnation, or the Resurrection, but rather is the height to-

wards which all doctrine ascends, the vantage from which the entire

expanse of creation, fall, and redemption displays the richness and

variety of its meaning. Thus, though the fullness of the Trinity in-

deed exceeds its every articulation, it is the one doctrine about

which we must never cease to speak, for in speaking of it, we cannot

fail to tell the whole wondrous story that is the gospel of the king-

dom. In an attempt to allow this essay to imitate, and thus convey

as fully as possible the richness of the Godhead, I have struc-

tured it according to (what I hope is) a Trinitarian logic,

dividing it into three distinct movements that, while in-

dependent and singular, nevertheless form a unified

whole, such that the full interpretation of any one

part requires the other two. The essay thus consists

in an admittedly crude imitation of God’s perichore-

sis, the mutual indwelling of the individual in the

whole, which results, not in the immolation of

the part, but rather its achieving new depths

of meaning and beauty in the glow of its

fellows’ radiance.

Before attempting a discussion

of the Trinity itself, we must

pause to consider, not

merely the peculiarity of this doc-

trine, but rather its astonishing his-

torical uniqueness. Countless religions or

philosophies (the distinction between which is in this regard more

subtle that one might imagine) offer discourses of radical transcen-

dence: consider Platonic idealism’s opposition of eidos and simulacra;

or, perhaps Aristotle’s metaphysics of substance and accident, orig-

inating in the vastly transcendent Unmoved Mover, with its more

palatable cousin, Islam’s Allah, still exalted beyond true apprehen-

sion, though softened somewhat by Islam’s genesis from Christian-

ity. Likewise, there are countless variations on utter immanence,

which prevails not only in every flavor of pantheism, whether

Hindu, Buddhist, or Stoic, but also in what David Bentley Hart

identified in The Beauty of the Infinite as “the ancient pagan narrative

of being as sheer brute event…against which must be deployed the

various restraining and prudential violences of the state, reason,

law,” a narrative adopted and reinvigorated by Nietzsche in his op-

position of Apollonian innocence to the terrible depths of

Dionysian mystery, or by Heidegger, in his evocative explication of

“the world” as “fourfold: the heavens, the earth, the gods, the mor-

tals.” Ultimately, either results in what John Milbank in Theology

and Social Theory named “an ontology of violence,” whether

within a dialectic of being and beings whose very grammar is di-

remption and alienation, or within an indeterminate chaos sur-

mounted only by force.

Within that tangled skein of tragedy and desperate longing, how-

ever, was woven a lone, brilliant thread; a tribal, near Eastern

people kept alive the whisper of a radically different ontology, one

that insisted upon a God who, though “heaven and the highest

heaven cannot contain [him],” (1 Kings 8:27) nevertheless

“elects Israel as his bride, and tabernacles among his peo-

ple.” This is the God of transcendent Wisdom, who

creates the world the by word of his mouth; yet, the same

God comes to walk in the Garden with his creatures.

He is the God who “stretches out the heavens like a

curtain” (Is. 40:22), but who also knows the numbers

of hairs upon man’s head, (Lk. 12:7) the God both of

Creation, and of Election, at once transcendent,

and immanent. The revelation of such a God

propelled Israel to develop a set of “various

symbols and ideas”—explored at length

by N.T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of

God—with which to speak of this

immanent transcendence, among

them “Shekinah, or Presence, Torah,

Wisdom, Logos, and Spirit,” through

which Israel spoke of her God as

“continually active within the world, and

specially active within her history,” by means of an analogical oscil-

lation between tentative metaphor, and trembling reality.

After the long disjunction of the Exile, when the flickering spark

of Israel’s “ontology of peace” threatened to vanish entirely, a per-

son erupted within history with such force as to interrupt and

destabilize, not only the philosophers’ cold metaphysical hierar-

chies, and paganism’s overwhelming chaos, but even the analogical

categories of Jewish thought, such that centuries of reflection and

adoration could only begin to comprehend the meaning and mys-

tery of his presence. Which is to say, of course, that Jesus arrived as

not merely the bearer of a triumphant proclamation, but also its

content, “announcing, and embodying, the return of YHWH to

Zion.” Or, to assume the still bolder style of John’s Gospel: “The

Logos became flesh, and dwelt among us” (1:14); the transcendent

Creator immanently assumes the nature of his creatures, in order

By Brendan Case

December 2008 9

that they “may become partakers of the

divine nature,” (2 Pet. 1:4) thus effecting the

redemption of creation from its “subjection

to futility” (Rom. 8:20).

All Trinitarian theology departs

from, and must ultimately return

to, the Incarnation, deriving from

the “economy of salvation…as a truth

made manifest in the life, death, and resur-

rection of Christ.”

However, out of this

reflection the church

recognizes that God’s

saving work in Jesus,

and—by the Spirit—in

the life of the church

constitutes precisely

the redemption of cre-

ation from that “ontol-

ogy of violence.”

Though irresolvable

alienation seemed to reign over a broken

creation, its force and warrant are utterly

shamed in the Incarnate union of the infi-

nite with the finite, which opens a new tra-

jectory within the distortions and despair of

fallen history, such that “this perishable

body” might “put on the imperishable” (1

Cor. 15:53), and thus cross the great rift

opened by metaphysics within the nature of

being, into a realm where difference is me-

diated by a peace deeper than strife. The

saving work of Christ disproves both the di-

alecticians of totality and the “philosophers

of chaos,” by asserting with triumphant fi-

nality that “there is no substance to creation

apart from…variations on God’s outpour-

ing of infinite love,” that being is not funda-

mentally estrangement or violent

willing-to-be, but rather the elaboration of

an already infinitely varied and delightful

theme into a polyphony of joy, in which dif-

ference is ever given from God to his crea-

tures, and ever offered back to him in the

abandon of doxology. In short, the resurrec-

tion—in keeping with his Father’s declara-

tion, “Behold I make all things new” (Rev.

21)—effected a revolution within our under-

standing of the very nature of being itself,

which forever marginalized the claim of

evil, violence, or pain to primacy, because it

revealed, beneath the tarnish of fallen time’s

wear, the ontological goodness of a creation

whose knowledge, act, and being participate

in the life of a “God [who] is love,” (1 John

4: 16) which is to say, a God who is Trinity.

But, more to that end anon.

The strangeness of the Trinity makes it

advisable to emphasize once more that the

doctrine originates, not in a set of a priori,

“Hellenistic” accretions upon a simpler Jew-

ish kingdom-theology, but rather in the

necessary reflections towards which the

work of Christ on the cross, and of the

Spirit in the church, led the early Christians.

Hart summarizes Basil the Great: “As only

God can join us to God…the Spirit who

unites us to the Son (who bears us up to the

Father) must be God.” In On the Holy Spirit,

Basil the Great, reflecting on Christ’s com-

mand to the disciples in Matthew 28:19,

wrote,

“We are saved…because we were regen-

erate through the grace given in our

baptism. How else could we be? And after

recognizing that this salvation is established

through the Father and the Son and the

Holy Ghost, shall we fling away that form

of doctrine which we received?”

Paul (more implicitly, for reasons of

chronology) develops a similar argument in

the first part of Romans, which culminates

in the climactic vision of the Spirit’s role in

the redemption of the church, and the

renewal of all creation. The very opening

of Romans insists that it is the Spirit who

declares Jesus to be “the Son of God in

power,” (1:4) and by whom “God’s love has

been poured into our hearts” (Rom. 5:5).

Having been set free from the law by

Christ’s victory on the cross, Christians now

“serve in the new way of the Spirit” (7:6). In

fact, the Spirit’s “dwelling within” the

church constitutes their redemption from

the corrupted nature of the fallen world in

“the flesh,” (Rom. 8:9) and indeed, “sustains

the church in the interval of eschatological

suspense between Christ’s resurrection and

return,” so that we might truly say, “Those

who are led by the Spirit are sons of God”

(Rom. 8:14).

The Spirit illuminates and glorifies the

Son for those he comes to save, extends the

love of the Father to the world in that salva-

tion, and unifies and comforts (and so

constitutes) the church in their awaiting the

final redemption of all things. Still more, it

is the Son himself who “sends the Advo-

cate,” who, however, “proceeds from the

Father” (John 15:26). Per-

haps the clearest picture

of the intricate dance

(chorein) that is the mutual

indwelling (perichoresis) of

the Trinity comes in

Matthew 3, in the iconic

display of the life of the

Trinity at Jesus’ baptism.

Jesus, obedient to the

Father’s will, and in order

“to fulfill all righteous-

ness,” submits to his immersion in the

waters, which surely reverberate with the

harmonizing echoes of the cold clutches of

the grave, and even of the primordial keno-

sis by which the Son faithfully enters the

world to image the Father, and so restore

the tarnished Imago Dei. In that moment of

submission, the “heavens are opened,” and

we are permitted a glimpse of being in

truth, for the moment unveiled from the

Fall’s clinging folds: the Father expresses his

delight in the Son’s humble descent, and so

exalts him in the heights of praise, while the

Spirit descends in the form of a dove

(which, as Jonathan Edwards notes in his

unpublished “Essay on the Trinity,” is very

often “an emblem of love or a lover” in

Scripture, cf. Song Sol. 1:15, 5:2) to bestow

his radiance upon the love of the Father,

and the obedience of the Son, thus framing

their fellowship in a nimbus of glory, and in

the same moment diverting it outward, in

his sending the Son into the wilderness, into

the wastes of a broken world. Basil wrote,

“In the creation bethink thee first, I pray

thee, of the original cause of all things that

are made, the Father; of the creative cause,

the Son; of the perfecting cause, the Spirit”

: God is pleased in his every act to submit

and exalt each divine Person within the

Godhead in his turn, and so the Son

delights to carry out the will of his Father,

while the Spirit ever dances among his

Companions, arraying their company in

All Trinitarian theology departs from,

and must ultimately return to, the

incarnation, deriving from the

"economy of salvation…as a truth

made manifest in the life, death, and

resurrection of Christ."

10 The Gadfly

splendor, and carrying their tidings outward; he is light that displays

the love of God to the world, and so is the movement within the

Trinity which “always breaks the bonds of self-love, the person who

from eternity assures that the divine love has no single, stable center,

no isolated ‘self.’”

And, of course, “In the beginning was the Word, and the

Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (Jn. 1:1) and

likewise, the Spirit has from all eternity “proceed[ed] from

the Father,” (Jn. 15:26) so we must insist that “the theophany at the

Jordan” was in fact a revelation of the eternal life of God, which

consists in the utter unity comprised among the nevertheless also

the infinite “interval of appraisal, address, recognition, and pleas-

ure” that is perichoresis; the Trinity is an infinity of desire and de-

light displayed and reflected in the manifold possibilities of

particularity, in which Being has from all eternity disclosed itself in

the joyful relationships

among several Persons,

and so displays no ten-

dency within itself to

regress from the realm

of created particulars

into unreachable tran-

scendence, or to dissolve

into a Nietzschean “Sub-

lime” before the mani-

festation of becoming.

No, this God is the God

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who walks in the Garden

with Adam; the God who displays his beautiful glory in the “form

of a slave” (Phil. 2:6), who takes on flesh and dwells among his peo-

ple. This is a God who enjoys matter, who delights in conversation

(Is. 1:18), a God who is in fact entirely aesthetic, pure surface , but

who is thus likewise entirely surfeit: the infinity of the Trinity con-

sists in the limitless variety, supplementation, and embellishment of

the fellowship of the Persons, so that in its very nature, “being al-

ways already differs.”

God thus is not at all the transcendent “high” set against the

refracted or emanating “lows” of existence; in fact, Hart insists, all

such transcendent ‘gods’ are merely finite beings within some dis-

course of totality. Rather, “the entire terrain [of being] belongs to

the infinite distance in which God exceeds and is present to cre-

ation” ; He “is the infinite act of distance that gives high and low a

place.” The infinite difference always present within the life of

Trinity provides the opportunity for all the difference of creation,

both from God, and from itself, but in so doing, also provides the

basis for true relationship: it is only because of the infinite dis-

tance—infinitely crossed from all eternity—dividing Jesus from the

Father that Jesus can pray, “That they may be one, even as we are

one” (Jn. 17:11). God already comprises an infinite, and ever dif-

ferentiating, difference that nevertheless subsists in perfect peace, in

which his creatures may situate their own encounters with differ-

ence.

Jesus’ prayer that the church “may all be one, just as you, Father

are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,” (Jn. 17:21) is

among the most profound expressions in Scripture of the coinci-

dence of salvation-hope

and Trinitarian theology,

perhaps rivaled only by

its reflective exposition

in 1 John: “God is love,

and whoever abides in

love abides in God, and

God in him,” (4:16)

whose truest meaning

and interpretation is in

fact the doctrine of the

Trinity, which posits the

very being of God as donation and delight, as the flight of desire

towards the beloved , and so likewise posits the being of creation as

“an ontic ecstasy ex nihilo,” a gratuitous gift bestowed needlessly

(but thus magnificently) in the “Let us make” of Genesis. In the

vision of being disclosed in the Trinity, no room remains for any

necessary tension between an alienated transcendence and imma-

nence, any more than for the stale uniformity of a

hermetically-sealed immanence , for being exists in the loving, par-

ticular relations of several persons, in the eternal dance of the

Trinity from grace to grace, and so creation is merely the opening

of this dance to others, the invitation of still more variety and

embellishment into the beauty that is being itself.

The Trinity is an infinity of desire and

delight displayed and reflected in the

manifold possibilities of particularity, in

which Being has from all eternity

disclosed itself in the joyful relationships

among several Persons.

Photo courtesy of www.xkcd.com

December 2008 11

For forty years the Diocese of Sydney

in the Anglican Communion has dis-

cussed the issue of lay presidency at

the celebration of the Eucharist. There have

been reports, debates, and several votes, but

never any substantial action. That appears

to have changed with a vote at the Sydney

Synod last October. The diocese voted to

allow lay presidency, taking a decisive step

towards removing the requirement of ordi-

nation to the Presbyterate for administering

the Eucharist.

The case put forth by the Sydney Angli-

cans begins with the biblical evidence.

Nowhere in the New Testament is there an

explicit requirement that someone who is

ordained perform the administration of the

Lord’s Supper. Then again, the New Testa-

ment never mentions ordination and

therein lies the dilemma. Scripture only

provides so much guidance on the issue of

the sacraments. Our understanding of them

is formed by thousands of years of tradition

and historical Christian thought. It is

impossible, therefore, to divorce the inti-

mate bond of scripture and history.

The Australians claim that restricting

administration of the sacrament creates

superstitions in the life of the church. Sev-

eral influential churchmen from down

under authored a series of essays entitled,

“The Lord’s Supper in Human Hands:

Who Should Administer?” One of the main

contentions of the book is that the Lord’s

Supper is not essential to the ministry of the

church. After all, the Book of Common Prayer

doesn’t even prescribe that it be adminis-

trated regularly.

Sydney must consider how their actions

will be perceived in the communion at-

large. The diocese was instrumental in

organizing the GAFCON conference in

Jerusalem this summer and continues to be

a vocal critic of The Episcopal Church’s

blatant disregard for church process and

order.

It will become difficult for the Sydney

Diocese to exercise leadership among con-

servative Anglicans if the Archbishop signs

the resolution presented to him by the

Synod. The GAFCON coalition consists of

Anglo-Catholics who will consider lay pres-

idency a significant barrier to cooperation

in forming a new Anglican province should

the need for one arise. The marginalization

of Sydney would be a loss to the commun-

ion. The biblical emphasis and gospel

message of the diocese are helpful contribu-

tions to Anglican thought.

There isn’t a uniform Anglican Eucharis-

tic theology. A plethora of opinions exist

within the communion that span the theo-

logical spectrum. However, from low to

high church, Anglicans have held for cen-

turies that Eucharist needs to be

administered by a priest ordained via the

episcopate. This isn’t to make Sydney’s sug-

gestion seem historically heterodox; they are

not the first or only group to raise the issue

of lay leaders presiding over communion.

The difference in opinion regarding the

Eucharist is mainly a result of one’s a priori

assumptions. Our starting place and

method will influence the conclusion that

we will reach. Do we assume a stringent

Sola Scriptura mindset? Or do we acqui-

esce to tradition and the weight of history?

Is it possible to build a middle road between

the polar dogmas?

The paradigm for evaluating how the

church should conduct the Eucharist needs

to be a theological framework. Theology is

vital because it can contain all the processes

necessary to develop an informed opinion.

It is scriptural, rational, and historical in

and of its nature. It prevents us from proof-

texting and appealing to undue authorities.

The starting place must be to assess the

nature of the sacrament. To consider lay

presidency a memorialist view must be

adopted. Such a view is devastating to the

mission and ministry of the church. Jesus

tells his disciples, “This is my body” not

“This is like my body.” Ironically, the same

proponents of a literal interpretation of

scripture must make our Lord’s words in the

gospels a metaphor.

Such a “spiritualization” of communion

undermines the potency of the event. The

Eucharist is fundamentally about the good-

ness of creation. Rowan Williams, the

Archbishop of Canterbury, eloquently artic-

ulates the importance of the bread and

wine: “The material, habitually used as a

means of exclusion, of violence, can

become a means of communication. Matter

as hoarded or dominated or exploited

speaks of the distortion and ultimate sever-

ance of relationship, and as such can only

be a sign of death...The matter of the

Eucharist, carrying the presence of the

risen Jesus, can only be a sign of life.”

This is what Jesus meant when he told

the disciples that they must eat his flesh and

drink his blood. Christ, our Passover sacri-

fice, has given us the bread of life. The

Eucharist is the ultimate rejection of the

Gnostics; it is the Father insisting that His

world will not remain fallen. At the Lord’s

Table divine grace and material reality

overlap. Our bodies are temples that now

contain the Holy of Holies, the body of

Jesus Christ.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul

By J.M. Hundscheid

The Eucharistand the issue of Lay Presidency

The Eucharist is the ultimate rejection of the

Gnostics; it is the Father insisting that His

world will not remain fallen.

12 The Gadfly

tells the Christians in the city that as often as they participate in

communion as the church they “proclaim the Lord’s death.” Paul

views the sacraments as means that the church can actively live out

the life of Jesus. He links the remembrance of the Son’s death to

certitude about our future resurrection. In Romans 6:4, Paul writes,

“We were buried therefore

with him by baptism into

death, in order that, just as

Christ was raised from the

dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in

newness of life.”

The Eucharist is a

continuation of the

incarnation. It is a

sign that the Word became

flesh and dwelt among us, but

it is more than mere sign. A

sign points towards a signified

object, but the Eucharist is

both the signifier and the sig-

nified since it indicates the

Lordship of Jesus while con-

taining his body. In the

Greek, Eucharist means

“thanksgiving.” The sacra-

ment is a means of grace and

a celebration of the goodness

of creation. It is not a memo-

rial of Jesus’ death, but rather

a testament to his risen life.

Every service we relive Easter.

The tears we shed in contri-

tion become joy. We become

keenly aware that we are liv-

ing in the world as gift.

Implicit in the account of

the Eucharist that I have pro-

vided is the assumption that

there is a deeper reality in

play then what can be ration-

ally observed. I am

indifferent about the termi-

nology used to describe this

phenomenon: transubstantia-

tion, real presence, etc. There are technical philosophical

distinctions to be made, but they aren’t essential. What we need to

be wary of is the danger is John Updike identifies in his poem

“Seven Stanzas at Easter.” Updike writes to those who would deny

the physical resurrection of Christ, “Let us not mock God with

metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; making of the

event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier

ages.”

If the sacrament represents something more than just symbol-

ism, then it needs to be a ceremony that is carefully guarded.

Ordination, it seems, is a natural requirement arising from the

nature of the Eucharist. The Book of Common Prayer cautions those

who approach the table: “For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent

hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the dan-

ger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord's

Body. Judge yourselves,

therefore, lest you be judged

by the Lord.”

The question of

authority is found through-

out the New Testament. The

Jews ask Jesus by what

authority he does signs and

wonders. Jesus responds that

he possesses his Father’s

authority, since he and the

Father are one. The Son

then endows the church with

his authority. After Peter

confesses his faith to Jesus,

our Lord instructs him to

“feed my lambs.” The

importance of the sacramen-

tal ministry should not be

minimized; we continue the

tradition of Passover at every

Eucharist. The authority of

the church lies in the fact

that it is a conduit of the

incarnation. Hence, ecclesi-

astical and divine authority

are convertible. The Father

exercises His authority via

the church. St. John

Chrysostom wrote on the

nature of this relationship:

“It is not the power of man

which makes what is put

before us the Body and

Blood of Christ, but the

power of Christ Himself

who was crucified for us.

The priest standing there in

the place of Christ says these

words but their power and

grace are from God. 'This is

My Body,' he says, and these words transform what lies before him."

To fence the table and insist on oversight is not an act of totali-

tarian control, nor is it a denominational power grab. We protect

the Eucharist out of reverence and love. We cannot approach the

table of our Lord lightly and on our own volition. The Eucharist is

not a human meal, but a divine creation. Every time we receive the

sacrament and hear the words of institution, we pause and reflect

on our neediness. The Father has offered us a participation in the

body and blood of His Son. We accept the gift with a broken spirit

and a contrite heart.

Product Placement

Dear Coca-Cola Corporation,

I am writing to suggest some new advertisements

to promote your fine array of products.

One features Wang Ji Dong, the Buddhist monk,

moments before he immolated himself in Tiananmen Square,

in protest of the Chinese Government.

He is standing by the great North Heroes Statue in the ad,

with small brown eyes as graceful as the flight of cranes,

as he looks out on the growing ring of onlookers.

His enrobed arm moves in the frame,

and his hand arcs in a sweep of orange linen to his pocket

with a gentleness that would make Buddha weep.

With what he has taken from his pocket he begins

rinsing his skin, as if he were bathing

the old statues on the fó dàn.

And you can tell from the deepness of his gaze

that he is thinking of his brothers for a moment,

the way they ran their sea sponges and rags

over the cool marble and jade and flesh.

Standing there, Wang Ji Dong, perfect in the moment,

splashing gasoline on himself

from a green, plastic Sprite bottle.

- Stephen Wesley

December 2008 13

In the name of equality, women have lost the freedom to

choose—that is, to choose whether they want to pursue Ph.D.s in

physics or not. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was

renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act

in 2002 when Mink, the author, passed away. The revised moniker

may be symbolic of the law’s underlying purpose: to offer women

equal opportunity in education. Patsy T. Mink must be proud of

Title IX, but there are serious questions about this legislative decree

in action. The law was clearly passed with good intentions to elim-

inate discrimination, but when interpreted to its extreme, it

becomes oppressive in its own right.

As part of the 1972 amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

Title IX functions to outlaw sex-based discrimination in education.

Precisely, it states, “No person in the United States shall, on the

basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the ben-

efits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education

program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

While technically applying to all areas of education, Title IX

earned its household status by the vast changes it brought to many

rinks, fields, courts, and tracks. It made sure that women’s sports

teams were being fairly funded. Before 1972, women’s teams had

been neither as various nor as numerous as men’s teams.

It was difficult to enforce the legislation, so the U.S. Department

of Education created the following “three-prong test.” An institu-

tion is in compliance if it meets any one of the three prongs:

1) The intercollegiate- level participation opportunities for

male and female students at the institution are "substantially pro-

portionate" to their respective full- time undergraduate enrollments,

2) The institution has a "history and continuing practice of

program expansion" for the underrepresented sex, or

3) The institution is "fully and effectively" accommodating

the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

In practice, prongs two and three are hard to prove, so the first

prong is the default yardstick. According to the National Women’s

Law Center (NWLC), only 1 in 27 female high schools students

participated in sports before Title IX was passed. As of 2005-2006,

women made up 41% of high school athletes. While this is

progress, parity has not been achieved according to the first prong

(and NWLC) because women represent 49% of all high school stu-

dents. Only when the percentages match up will the fight be

finished, the battle won.

While perhaps it is a victory to see women’s rugby teams popping

up on campuses around the country, men’s teams are often cut to

make room in the budget. Unfortunately the men’s teams being cut

are usually more popular and have more participants than the

women’s teams that replace them. Tough luck for the wrestling

wunderkind. It borders on ridiculous when in 2002 Howard

University cut the men’s baseball and wrestling teams to make

room for women’s bowling, all in fear of violating Title IX. As

Wade Hughes, the former head coach of Howard’s wrestling team,

writes of the mostly-black university, enrollment of black men in

colleges and universities is dropping rapidly. Sports are one way to

attract male students, but if the higher percentage of females limits

the number of males allowed to participate, then do not expect the

percentages to balance out. Hughes says that “Historically Black

Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have enrollment ratios

approaching 65 percent female to 35 percent male.”

Wrestling, waterpolo, swimming, and gymnastics have borne the

brunt of the butchering. According to ABC news, there were 107

NCAA men’s gymnastic teams in 1979 and only 20 in 2004. As

UCLA proves, track record has little to do with it. UCLA sent 4

male gymnasts to the 1984 Olympic Games, 1 to the 1992 Games,

and 3 to the 1996 Games. Nonetheless, the program was cut after

the 1993-1994 academic year. The program disappeared along

with men’s swimming, and women’s gymnastics. The following year,

women’s soccer appeared, and women’s gymnastics reappeared

shortly after that. If you consult a proponent of Title IX, they will

tell you that those sports are not cut for the sake of adding women’s

sports, rather, they are presented on a platter to the hearty appetite

of the football program’s budget.

In July of this year, John Tierney of the New York Times wrote

about a relatively new application for the legislation: science. The

physical sciences, including physics, architecture, and engineering,

have always been male-dominated fields, and women have not yet

entered the arena in any significant number. In universities, only

about 20% of Ph.D.s go to women. Women have, however, had

great success in most other fields—including the medical profession

and biology.

Many say that women are not represented in the physical sci-

ences because they meet with discrimination from department

heads and other scientists. Furthermore, the system and society

keeps them out by sustaining stereotypes that women are not as

good at math and science as men are. In 2006, in the quest for par-

ity, Congress asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) and

NASA to investigate whether women receive a sufficient welcome

into the physical science departments. Their conclusions are pend-

ing, but in 2005 the American Institute of Physics performed a

similar study and concluded that most women are not interested in

the physical sciences in the first place. That accounts for their

absence more than does discrimination.

Should the NSF and NASA’s study show signs of discrimination,

it is likely that either a three-prong test or quotas will be employed

to right the wrongs. If it was ever in the language of the Title IX

amendment to ensure equal numbers of sport teams, then I expect

it will not be difficult to find the language in the amendment to

equalize Ph.D. holders. Male-female quotas in science departments

have not officially been “seriously considered,” but many suspect

that that will change.

While there are fewer women in the physical sciences, women

account for “60% of Biology majors and 70% of psychology

Ph.D’s,” Tierney writes. Is anyone asking where all those men have

gone? They are being lost earlier than graduate school—most likely

they fall out of the race in high school. Women currently account

for 58% of college students. Conversely, Title IX proponents at the

NWLC bemoan that there are too many women in traditionally

women-dominated fields: “Sex segregation persists in career edu-

cation, with young women representing more than 90 percent of

Title IX By Azy Groth

14 The Gadfly

Affirmative Action and the Sciences

the students in training programs for the traditionally female fields

of health, teaching, graphic arts, and office technology.” While per-

haps trying to liberate women from the imaginary chains of society

that “limit” them to teaching and healthcare, it sends the message

that those women made the unenlightened choice and are sustain-

ing sex-based

discrimination. They

are the unwitting vic-

tims of society’s

expectations. They

should want to be

architects and physi-

cists, instead of

“settling” for careers as

nurses or elementary

teachers.

The implications of

applying Title IX to

sciences are much

weightier than apply-

ing it to high school

and college athletics.

Athletics are relatively

peripheral to the

national interest. Science, on the other hand, is a more serious mat-

ter. One letter to the editor of the Times said it so well that it bears

quoting Tim Goncharoff of Santa Cruz: “We can no doubt survive

without college wrestling, but it certainly won’t help the competi-

tiveness of our nation to shut down science programs in the

misbegotten quest for an elusive social goal.”

Suppose that researchers find that women are discriminated

against in the physical sciences. They discover that women who are

as qualified as male applicants are not being hired because they are

women. In the twenty-first century, the American response is likely

to be outrage. The media will pressure science departments to prac-

tice fair hiring, and the

discriminators would be

appropriately punished

under the current anti-dis-

crimination laws. For fear

of being labeled sexist (an

epithet that will sink your

boat as fast as “racist” or “homophobic”) departments would be

extra careful not to discriminate on the grounds of sex. While not

the quickest way to end discrimination, it would be more equitable

in the long run than applying quotas.

If departments were required to hire an equal number of male

and female hires, it would be to the detriment of science in the

United States. The fact remains that ---women are not as interested

in the sciences as men. I expect that more women will choose the

physical sciences in the future, but right now most of the applicants

are still men. The true inequality would be if less-qualified women

were hired instead of better-qualified men. It would be like cutting

a champion wrestling team to fund recreational bowling.

In addition to the concern that the overall quality of science will

decline, Title Niners ought to be wary of how drastic parity meas-

ures intended to give women a boost will actually penalize them.

Clearly, women have the ability to succeed in the male-dominated

fields of engineering, architecture, physics, etc., but it is not as clear

why women are pressured to develop an interest in entering these

fields. Tierney’s Times article referenced Susan Pinker, a clinical psy-

chologist, who says

that women who excel

in physical sciences in

high school often find

themselves pressured

to pursue the career to

its very end, whether

they enjoy it or not.

Those talented women

frequently find them-

selves in careers they

do not like—all in the

name of trail blazing.

The other conse-

quence is one that I, as

a woman, find particu-

larly unjust. Women

who are right now in

the science profession

fought their way in, countering the cultural norms. They are

women in a male-dominated field and they can be proud that their

achievement and merit have earned them a place there. If a quota

were in place to guarantee a certain number of positions to women,

then the field would likely be flooded with under-qualified women.

While the under-qualified women with a new job and a good salary

might not care, they should. They will be taken less seriously

because who knows whether that woman got the job because she is

an exceptional scientist or because she is a woman? Similarly, the

woman who earned her way in before the mandate will find herself

receiving the same patronizing glance. Ms. Pinker said that “creat-

ing equal opportunities for

women does not mean that

they’ll choose what men

choose in equal num-

bers….The freedom to act

on one’s preferences can

create a more exaggerated

gender split in some fields.” And that should be allowed. Certainly,

there should be no discrimination in the sciences, but that does not

mean that an equal proportion of women to men want to be phys-

ical scientists. It is the same way that the proportion of women that

want to play high school and college sports is different from the pro-

portion of men. The solution is not to cut men’s sports but to

ensure that women’s sports are widely available regardless of the

number of men’s teams.

Women already benefit from affirmative action in college science

departments, and quotas are not a long a leap from there, says Dr.

Christina Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism and a resident

scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’ll be devastating to

American science if every male dominated field has to be calibrated

to women’s level of interest.”

Lin

da

Ba

rtle

tt,

Na

tio

na

l C

an

cer

Inst

itu

te

The true inequality would be if less qualified

women were hired instead of better-qualified

men. It would be like cutting a champion

wrestling team to fund recreational bowling.

December 2008 15

Concepts of Liberty in Europe

The foundation of a democratic regime is its concept of lib-

erty, for, as Aristotle notes in the sixth book of his Politics,

“The basis of a democratic state is liberty.” Liberty, Aris-

totle says, “can only be enjoyed in such a state,” and enjoying liberty

is “the great end of every democracy.” Though a great end, for

Aristotle liberty is not the sole end of an excellent democratic

regime. Democratic states, like all states, must also be “established

with a view to some good; for mankind always acts in order to ob-

tain that which they think good.” If one is to know and criticize a

regime, then, one must have a mind disposed toward the good, ask-

ing critical questions of the way liberty aims that regime toward the

good. That a democracy is thriving and free says little about the

goodness of that regime.

Western Europe today is thriving and free. Its pressing challenge,

however, is its inability to articulate the goodness of democracy

within the confines of thriving nation-states. If it is to contribute

to solving the global challenges ahead while preserving its liberty, it

must undergo a philosophical restructuring.

Europe has a cultural problem. Observing through an American

paradigm, renowned Catholic public intellectual George Weigel has

labeled this the “European problem.” As Weigel has claimed,

“Europe’s approach to democracy and to the responsibilities of the

democracies in world politics seems so different from many Amer-

icans’ understanding of these issues. In the aftermath of

September 11, 2001, and particularly in the debate that preceded

the Iraq War of 2003, Americans became acutely aware that there

is a “European problem.”

Weigel has determined that Europe’s problem is that it has both

neglected its religious and predominately-Christian heritage and

has failed to produce a single western European country with a

replacement-level birthrate. Appalled that Europe’s mortality rate

is higher than its birthrate, Weigel charges Europe with “systemat-

ically depopulating itself ” by “committing demographic suicide.”

The very basic element of societal flourishing—procreation—is

dwindling in Europe. As an example of the dire straits Europe’s

democracy is in, Weigel notes that by 2050, “on present trends,

almost 60 percent of Italian people will have no brothers, sisters,

cousins, aunts, or uncles.” Civilization and the family structure is

in peril in Europe, and its democracy is in vital need of investiga-

tion and criticism.

Where Weigel argues that the problem in Europe resides in a cul-

tural struggle, however, French political philosopher Pierre Manent

points to a political problem. Manent claims that Europe’s problem

lies in the political “ambiguity of Europe.” Its democratic sensi-

bilities are strong, but Europe’s concept of the nation-state is weak,

Manent says, and the “practical political difficulty” of a weakening

nation-state is that “the democratic principle does not define the

framework within which it operates.” Democracy couched inside

an elusive and disconnected body politic is the great ambiguity of

Europe, for “Europe refuses to define itself politically.” For

Manent, Europe has become a political body that promises the ben-

efits of democracy, but to no one in particular. Except, perhaps, all

who claim to have a stake in the universal human community—

which would, in turn, be everyone. Manent says that as Europe

expands and makes its promises of democracy, it becomes “a

Europe of indefinite expression, a Europe contradictorily defined

as indefinite expression.” So he poses the question: “How many

nations, in fact, belong to it? Twelve? Twenty? Thirty? Does

Turkey, for example, belong? Why not? Or why? The European

political class has not even seriously begun to ask these questions,

let alone answer them.”

As Europe expands indefinitely, it becomes ambiguous: its “ver-

sion of democratic empire” has at its core “not a central nation but

what [Manent calls] a central human agency.” This agency,

“detached from any particular territory or people…is now occupied

with extending the area of ‘pure democracy.’” And pure democ-

racy in Europe is “democracy without a people—that is,

democratic governance, which is very respectful of human rights

but detached from any collective deliberation.” It is “a kratos with-

out a demos. What now possesses kratos is the very idea of

democracy.” If there is no demos, there can be no true democratic

character, for Europe neglects to define its citizenry.

If Europe neglects to define its citizenry, it neglects to follow

Aristotle’s advice for democratic education. Well-formed liberal

democracies require that citizens be educated for participation in

their regime, and “the neglect of education does harm to the con-

stitution.” Aristotle prescribes that in all excellent regimes,“the

citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under

which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character

which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The

character of democracy creates democracy…and always the better

the character, the better the government.”

With Aristotle, Manent criticizes that the European Union,

Europe’s central human agency, has become an authority over an

ambiguous and weakly-defined Europe—a regime aimed at creat-

ing democracy, even before it seeks to educate a specific body of

citizens to enjoy the goodness of democracy.

Europe’s lack of political clarity has been transferred nearly

intact from one of its most articulate advocates for individual lib-

Europe has become a

political body that promises the

benefits of democracy, but to no

one in particular… It is “a kratos

without a demos.”

From Mill to the Millennium AheadBy Bryan K. Nance Jr.

16 The Gadfly

erty, John Stuart Mill. Mill, a European himself and former Mem-

ber of British Parliament, was a rare breed of both academic and

social activist, passionately committed to the preservation of indi-

vidual liberty in mid-nineteenth century England through both his

writings and his political involvement. His political contribution as

a British MP during the passing of the Reform Act of 1867, which

expanded enfranchisement in England, was only the begin-

ning of the expansion of liberty in England. Mill wrote

in “The Subjection of Women” only a year after exit-

ing Parliament that even women—a group not

entitled to enfranchisement during his time—should

enjoy greater political liberty. “Exactly where and in

proportion as women’s capacity for government have

been tried,” he wrote, “in that proportion they have

been found adequate.” Mill doubtlessly viewed

expanded enfranchisement as a necessary and

just development for political society in Eng-

land, and these arguments emanated from

him both in academia and in Parliament

where his political debates were ripest.

Mill’s commitment to individual liberty

can be summed up by the harm principle: a

person’s good is found in his free ability to

choose the path he wills, uninhibited by

coercion from the state, and that the only

legitimate grounds for coercion is when freedoms

overlap and a citizen brings harm to his neighbor. He

posits: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individu-

ally or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any

of their number, is self-protection… [T]he only purpose for which

power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized

community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own

good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

As Mill penned “On Liberty,” he revealed his commitment to lib-

erty to be what Isaiah Berlin later called “the rigid limitation of the

right to coerce.” Mill believed that a justly free citizenry was made

up of a body of un-coerced individuals, limited only by their neg-

ative responsibility to avoid

harming their neighbors.

In his commitment to

negative liberty, Mill

voiced a disagreement

with Aristotle, who

claimed that all excellent

regimes contain citizens

who have commonalities and who must make sacrifices. A true

state, Aristotle says, is “a community of families and aggregations

of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing

life. Such a community can only be established among those who

live in the same place and intermarry.” Contained within states,

then, are “family connexions [sic], brotherhoods, common sacri-

fices, amusements which draw men together.” Citizens, as

members of families and, therefore, members of the state, are to be

geared toward the virtue and flourishing of the state. Moreover,

“The end of the state is the good life, and [the connections and sac-

rifices] are the means towards it. And the state is the union of

families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we

mean a happy and honorable life.” Aristotle concludes by saying

“that political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not

of mere companionship.” For Aristotle freedom is penultimate,

nobility and goodness ultimate.

Mill’s harm principle, therefore, reveals the great tension

between modern liberty (freedom from coercion) and

ancient liberty (freedom to participate in furthering the

good of society). French political philosopher, writer,

and politician Benjamin Constant, whose influence

on post-Revolution thought in France may have trick-

led over to Mill’s England by 1859, illuminates this

point. In “Liberty of Ancients Compared with

that of Moderns,” a speech delivered in 1816,

Constant reflected on the French Revolution

and the events that followed, arguing that the

law, in addition to securing individual lib-

erty, must have a moral purpose.

Constant’s philosophy elevated ancient lib-

erty—“an active and constant

participation in collective power”—to the

forefront of a public square obsessed

with modern liberty—“peaceful enjoy-

ment and private independence.”

Constant had observed at the time that

“Individual independence is the first need of the

moderns.” His contemporaries, living just after the

Revolution, would be hard pressed sacrifice individual liberty for

the sake of the common good.

Constant, however, critiqued the modern obsession with indi-

vidual liberty, arguing that institutions must not be constructed

strictly for the private independence of each citizen. Institutions

must aim at ordered liberty, not liberty alone. In his concluding

remarks, Constant said: “Therefore, Sirs, far from renouncing

either of the two sorts of freedom which I have described to you

[“modern freedom,” or freedom from coercion, and “ancient free-

dom,” or freedom to contribute to the common good], it is

necessary, as I have shown, to

learn to combine the two

together. Institutions, says

the famous author of the his-

tory of the republics in the

Middle Ages, must accom-

plish the destiny of the

human race; they can best

achieve their aim if they elevate the largest possible number of cit-

izens to the highest moral position.”

Constant would not praise a political institution unless it was

aimed at some moral end for its citizens, for, even in modern times,

“Institutions must achieve the moral education of the citizens.”

Institutions must have some moral order at which to aim.

One could see Mill’s harm principle as the direct antithesis of

Constant. European leaders during Mill’s day were indeed asking

these foundational questions about liberty as the French Revolu-

tion’s dust had settled. On Constant’s side, the great end of

political regime was measured in terms of its citizens’ moral char-

Europe’s lack of political clarity has

been transferred nearly intact from one

of its most articulate advocates for

individual liberty, John Stuart Mill.

Sketch courtesy of www.utilitarianism.com

December 2008 17

acter. For Mill, however, the great end of a just democracy was

measured in terms of its citizens’ maximum moral irresponsibility.

Mill immediately became a thinker to be both criticized and

acclaimed, but to two prominent British thinkers, Bertrand Russell

and Isaiah Berlin, he was a philosophical father. Russell, whom

Berlin later called “Mill’s godson,” was a prolific writer, philoso-

pher, mathematician, historian, logician, and social activist whose

writings emerged just a quarter of a century after Mill’s death in

1873. Russell’s writings were some of the most important in the

twentieth century, and his commitment to individual liberty would

later inform the European Union’s inception. Nearly transliterating

Mill’s harm principle, Russell wrote in Political Ideals: “Those who

realize the harm that can be done to others by any use of force

against them, and the worthlessness of the goods that can be

acquired by force, will be very full of respect for the liberty of oth-

ers; they will not try to bind them or fetter them… They will not

condemn those who are unlike themselves; they will know and feel

that individuality brings differences and uniformity means death.”

Most succinctly, Russell summed up Mill: “Liberty demands self-

government, but not the right to interfere with others.” Russell

anticipated that a commitment to individual liberty, and ultimate

deferral to private independence, would lead to some sort of global

cooperation and would “secure the reign of universal peace.”

Hoping for a Kantian “perpetual peace,” Russell used Mill’s

harm principle to develop what would become the dominant wave

of European thought. Both George Weigel and American political

commentator Robert Kagan agree, however, that with an obsession

with individual liberty comes

the false hope of progressive

human perfection. Today,

Kagan comments that only a

couple of generations after

Mill and Russell had begun

writing in Europe,

“[Europe’s] economic and

ideological determinism…

produced two broad assump-

tions that shaped both policies and expectations. One was an

abiding belief in the inevitability of human progress, the belief that

history moves in only one direction… The other was a prescription

for patience and restraint. Rather than confront and challenge

autocracies, it was better to enmesh them in the global economy,

support the rule of law and the creation of stronger state institu-

tions, and let the ineluctable forces of human progress work their

magic.”

Weigel agrees that this has been Europe’s logic since the Enlight-

enment: “Europe’s new mission civilisatrice,” he observes, “is to

bring to the world the fulfillment of Immanuel Kant’s vision of

‘perpetual peace.’” Europe’s committed liberalism secures individ-

ual rights against the state, commits to the goal of securing world

peace, but hazily promises world citizenship without positing a

commitment to smaller communities such as the family and the

nation-state, long seen as the repositories for democracy.

Isaiah Berlin, like Russell before him, was also a leading liberal

thinker and active lecturer in the twentieth century committed to

the spread of individual liberty in Britain. An Oxford lecturer and

contributor to the BBC, Berlin penned “Two Concepts of Liberty”

and in it articulated and carried forward, nearly verbatim, Mill’s

harm principle. What Constant called “ancient” and “modern”

liberty, Berlin calls “positive” and “negative” liberty. “I am nor-

mally said to be free,” Berlin writes, “to the degree to which no man

or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this

sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed

by others.”

Like Mill, Berlin believed excellence is found when individuals

freely choose their own ends, using liberty as a means to these ends.

Exposing Mill’s view of the “ends of life,” Berlin pointed out that

Mill “believed that all human progress, all human greatness and

virtue and freedom, depended chiefly on the preservation of [men

of the Enlightenment] and the clearing of paths before them.”

Modern liberty is a prerequisite for justice, truth, and happiness

within a political community, and Berlin inherits directly from Mill.

Berlin lauds: “It may need elaboration or qualification, but [Mill’s

view] is still the clearest, most candid, persuasive, and moving expo-

sition of the point of view of those who desire an open and tolerant

society… [Mill] is saying something true and important about some

of the most fundamental characteristics and aspirations of human

beings.”

Long after Mill had passed, Berlin carried Mill’s harm principle

forward with accuracy and enthusiasm to both academics and polit-

ical leaders in Europe.

Moreover, committed to Mill’s view of liberty, political giants

such as Tony Blair have become an advocate of the European idea

of empire—a “kratos without

a demos.” Speaking to the

Economic Club in Chicago in

1999, Blair crafted the “doc-

trine of the international

community” and titled the

speech after the doctrine.

Prefiguring Barack Obama’s

“fellow citizen of the world”

speech to Berlin in 2008, Blair

urged America to become more international. Blair boldly stated:

“We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not. We can-

not refuse to participate in global markets if we want to prosper.

We cannot ignore new political ideas in other countries if we want

to innovate.” Though an occasionally ardent critic of the Euro-

pean Union, Blair’s view secures the EU’s position that, in the new

body politic, all decisions should be multilateral.

Perhaps a more vivid example of a European leader adopting

Mill is current President of the European Commission and former

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso. In a St.

Anthony’s College Lecture at Oxford in October of 2007, Barroso

said, “On Europe, [Mill] is spot on. Europe’s unique strength is its

ability to combine unity with diversity.” Barroso cautioned the

Oxford crowd not to view the EU as a political agency wired as a

super-state, but rather an institution securing Mill’s pluralism that

makes way for Europe’s “progressive and many-sided develop-

ment.” As Europe expands, Barroso explains, it expands in its

goodness because it expands in its diversity.

Ostensibily, the goal of European expansion is a Kantian “end

The Harm Principle: a person’s good is

found in his free ability to choose the path

he wills, uninhibited by coercion from the

state. The only legitimate grounds for

coercion is when freedoms overlap and a

citizen brings harm to his neighbor.

18 The Gadfly

of politics,” a hope that the political realm

will consist of common interests without

political ties. President of the European

Commission prior to Barroso, former Italian

Prime Minister Romano Prodi structured his

policies around this imminent end of politics.

Speaking in 2002 to the European Parlia-

ment, Prodi assured that the European

Union would succeed after taking its “share

of the responsibility for peace and develop-

ment in the world.” Prodi sees Europe as

“an increasingly advanced supranational

democracy” that shall integrate across

national borders to cope with world strug-

gles. In a speech to the Florence European

University Institute in 2001, Prodi claimed

Europe’s goal is to form “a radically novel

and completely unique form of Union in

which sovereign States pool their sovereignty

in order to promote their collective interests.”

Mere weeks after his speech to the Florence

European University Institute, Prodi said, “in

relations between European States, the rule

of law has replaced the crude interplay of

power. After so many bloody conflicts, the

Europeans have declared their ‘right to

peace.’” And with a view of liberty that has

its most committed eye on individual liberty,

a “radically novel” Europe emerges—one

that pools sovereignty but somehow repudi-

ates power.

Mill has left Europe in a state where de

Tocqueville could now observe in Europe

what he predicted of America in 1835.

Europe’s equality of conditions produces “an

innumerable crowd of like and equal men

who revolve on themselves without repose,

procuring the small and vulgar pleasures

with which they fill their souls. Each of

them, withdrawn and apart is like a stranger

to the destiny of all the others.” Mill’s prin-

ciple promotes such political detachment.

Mill’s principle, however, leaves European

nations inept at articulating a common good.

Commenting on potential “soft despotism”

in America, de Tocqueville claims that the

modern democratic man “exists only in him-

self and for himself alone, and if a family still

remains for him, one can at least say that he

no longer has a native country.” Men in

such a soft despotism become unaware of

the need for democratic education. As the

private sphere is divorced from the public

square, Europe’s democracy ceases aiming at

Aristotle’s “highest good.”

What Europe needs is the prescription

from Aristotle and Constant: a moral educa-

tion, ancient liberty. It must steer away from

its Kantian aim toward universal peace and

give citizens, couched within autonomous

nations, the ability to achieve common

goods. If Europe survives its skyrocketing

mortality rate and the influx of the Islamic

East into Western Europe, it can solve these

problems by reversing current trends and

neglecting its individualistic, hyper-tolerant,

open society. Society may remain open, tol-

erant, and respectful of individual rights

within the confines of a national identity

because, when smaller communities educate

their citizens for democracy, common goals

can be reached. If Europe preserves its

national identity, sobers up about peace

throughout the world, and reaches common

goods through nations, it can face the fore-

boding global challenges ahead and achieve

democratic excellence.

For Aristotle freedom is penultimate, nobility

and goodness ultimate.

A complete list of endnotes can be found online at www.gadflymag.com

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)

was a British political philosopher,

credited with the development of

Utilitarianism beyond its Ben-

thamian conception, and the first

broad expression of the harm princple.

A passionate advocate of

human rights, Mill was ahead of

his time in his abhorrence of slav-

ery and support of full

enfranchisement of women. Such

a position would be notable for

most figures of his era, but like

Mill's contributions to theoretical

philosophy, political economy, and

British politics, it has been largely

overshadowed by his far more con-

sequential work in the philosophy

of utilitarianism.

In his Utilitarianism, Mill dif-

fered markedly from Bentham.

While the latter advocated a rather

simplistic "greatest-happiness prin-

ciple" (the greatest good for the

greatest number), the former drew

an important distinction between

"happiness" and "contentment." It

is possible for an animal to be con-

tent; only a human being can truly

be happy. Mill died in 1873 in Avi-

gnon, France. He is buried there

alongside his wife.

"To be so subjective"

and if there is no reason to stay

then why do you linger

if there is nothing worth fighting for

then lower your arms

let nothing guide your nowhere journey

and think nothing of anything in particular ever

and if there is no reason to love

then let go and fade into the walls

if there is no reason to change

then do not search for its fingerprints

let nothing take

what as always is

and leave no make with voice or movement

- Amy Leigh Cutler

from orange juice and rooftops

December 2008 19

“Enough for Me that You

Within the dark, unexplored pages of the 2009 Interreg-

num packet lies a potent, even dangerous work of liter-

ature, a spiritual powderkeg whose fuse awaits only the

match of an unsuspecting reader. It is called “The Grand Inquisi-

tor,” an excerpt from a central chapter in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s

greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1880).

Left unread—as I suspect it has been by most of the student

body—this ditty of 19th-century fiction poses no threat. But even

a brief perusal of the opening lines of Ivan Karamazov’s prose

poem, with its “grand auto-da-fés” and the “fiery sparks” of the

Grand Inquisitor’s eyes, and at once the reader is pulled into a for-

eign, terrifying landscape, where characters confront the “eternal

questions” of God’s existence, sovreignty, justice, and love—not

obliquely, but head-on, and not in the safe confines of a Christian

classroom, but in the face of naked, real-world suffering. Sigmund

Freud accurately called The Brothers K “the most magnificent novel

ever written,” and Virginia Woolf said that “out of Shakespeare

there is no more exciting reading.” Pastors routinely quote from

both its saintly characters and its sinners in sermon illustrations, and

compare it to the Book

of Job and Gospel of

John.

So why would any

serious-minded King’s

student want to keep

such a work of litera-

ture untouched? I suspect, and hope, that the reason has mostly to

do with factors unrelated to the text itself. There is no test over the

Interregnum reading this year, and thus little “practical” incentive

to read the packet. The Brothers K excerpt is long, and paragraph

breaks are rare, giving it a more intimidating look than the pithy

sonnets of George Herbert or John Donne. And King’s students,

as we know, are constantly balancing dozens of priorities. Reading

a chapter from a dense Russian novel may have slipped, under-

standably, to the bottom of the to-do list.

An individual faculty member can do little to change these incon-

venient facts, of course. But perhaps there are other reasons for the

general sense of apathy toward Dostoevsky—reasons that are

related to the text itself, to the complexity of its language or themes.

To that end, I would like to offer a few brief suggestions and com-

mentary for those approaching his work for the first time.

To start, I would suggest finding a better translation of “The

Grand Inquisitor” than the one that appears in the packet. For

copyright reasons, we have used an 1881 translation by Helena

Blavatsky, which, though translated faithfully, employs a somewhat

stilted 19th-century English style. Constance Garnett’s 1912 trans-

lation is better known, but has similar problems. A much better

contemporary version, and the current scholarly standard, is

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation from 1990.

They stay just as close to the text, but allow the prose to flow as it

would in American English, capturing the madness and repetition

and informality of Dostoevsky’s prose. (A quick comparison: in

Blavatsky’s version, the Grand Inquisitor is “nearly four-score years

and ten”—in Pevear and Volokhonsky, “almost ninety.”) I will

quote exclusively from this edition in the discussion that follows.

My second piece of practical advice—though busy students may

not find it truly practical—is to read The Brothers Karamazov in its

entirety, not just one chapter in isolation. Context is always an

important consideration when analyzing an excerpt from a longer

work, and in this case, “The Grand Inquisitor” comes at the end of

a three-chapter conversation in a café between two of the Karama-

zov brothers, the agnostic Ivan and the novice monk Alyosha. In

the first two chapters, entitled “The Brothers Get Acquainted” and

“Rebellion,” Ivan presents a sustained objection to the concept of

an omnipotent, benevolent God. He also forcefully rejects the

prospect of eternal

harmony at the end of

history, claiming that

any such harmony

would come at the

expense of innocent

children whose suffer-

ing went unredeemed. Alyosha counters his brother’s “rebellion”

by pointing out that Christ willingly shed his own innocent blood,

and thus earned the power to forgive every sin, regardless of how

cruel or apparently “unredeemed.” After wondering why Alyosha

didn’t mention Christ earlier—“in discussions your people usually

trot him out first thing,” he says—Ivan remembers the poem he has

been composing, which features a Christ figure of its own, and asks

permission to recite it.

“The Grand Inquisitor” is thus the culmination of a long debate

about human suffering, with an emphasis on the torture of inno-

cent children. In the preceding chapter, Ivan tells several horrific

stories of child abuse—a girl whose parents lock her in an outhouse

to freeze to death, a boy whose master feeds him to a pack of hunt-

ing dogs, Turkish soldiers who impale and shoot babies, etc. With

these tales forming the backdrop of Ivan’s poem, Christ’s first mir-

acle of raising a little girl from the dead takes on an added

Why Everyone at TKC Should

By Ethan Campbell

“The most magnificent novel ever written”

- Sigmund Freud on The Brothers Karamazov

20 The Gadfly

significance, and the Grand Inquisitor’s talk

of the “terrible burden” of human freedom

becomes more than an abstract philosophi-

cal concept, informed as it is by tangible

horrors.

Placing the chapter in its full context also

serves to make its complex ideas more

accessible—or at least more inviting. For

instance, we are reminded in the opening

paragraphs of the first chapter that Ivan

Karamazov is 23 years old, and Alyosha is

20. In other words, the participants in this

high-minded conversation are not PhD-

level experts. Rather, to put things in

modern perspective, a recent college grad-

uate is talking to a sophomore. Alyosha

takes note of their youth from the start,

when he observes that Ivan is “just a young

man, exactly like all other young men of

twenty-three—yes, a young, very young,

fresh and nice boy, still green, in fact!” Of

course, Alyosha knows that he is even

greener himself. His ability to look at his

own young age with humility, and an acute

awareness of his limited experience, is an

attractive quality in his character—an atti-

tude our own college sophomores would do

well to emulate.

For the debate-loving King’s student,

Ivan’s response might also sound familiar:

“Some people need one thing, but we green

youths need another, we need first of all to

resolve the everlasting questions, this is what

concerns us. All of young Russia is talking

now only about the eternal questions . . . is

there a God, is there immortality?” “The

Grand Inquisitor” is an incredibly compli-

cated, even intimidating, work of

philosophical, theological, and political

speculation, but in the context of the story,

Dostoevsky presents it as something akin to

the rambling arguments of roommates who

stay up late discussing God and the mean-

ing of life.

Dostoevsky also continually reminds us,

in the opening chapters of the conversation,

just how ordinary the brothers’ surround-

ings are. They sit at a café table sipping tea,

with “beer bottles popping” and “billiard

balls clicking” in the background. Ivan

orders cherry preserve, since he remembers

Alyosha loved it as a boy, and in the middle

of making a serious philosophical point, he

says, “Here, they’ve brought your fish

soup—help yourself. It’s good fish soup,

they make it well.” Dostoevsky obviously

intends us to view their conversation as

more polished and significant than our

roommates’ midnight epiphanies, but he

also intentionally makes the setting feel

informal and familiar.

All of which leads into my third piece of

advice for the first-time Brothers K reader—

find a way to connect on a personal level

with the characters. Dostoevsky wrote

“novels of ideas,” and the ideas in this one

are his most mature. Ivan’s description of

the Grand Inquisitor, for example, is pow-

erfully ironic—he intends to present a

utopian vision in which the Church has

accepted the temptation of secular political

power and rules over the ignorant people

wisely and kindly, but the vision quickly

becomes a lesson in why benevolent dicta-

torships never stay benevolent for long. The

Inquisitor stays in power through violent

intimidation, as we see when he burns hun-

dreds of heretics in the “splendid

auto-da-fé,” and the crowd “bows to the

ground” before him. The priests who con-

trol every aspect of citizens’ private lives,

allowing and forbidding behavior “depend-

ing on their obedience,” start to look like

secret police, and the citizens who “submit

to us gladly and joyfully” like the dupes of

state propaganda. Worse yet, because the

whole system is built on a spiritual lie, a lit-

eral “deal with the devil,” spiritual death

awaits them all. Over a century later, Dos-

toevsky’s vision serves as a chilling prophecy

of the Communist regime that would arise

just a generation later, with its mass execu-

December 2008

Are Here Somewhere”: Read The Brothers Karamazov

21

tions, tightly controlled propaganda machine, and state-enforced

atheism.

At the end, Alyosha points out that Ivan’s story could actually be

used as a defense of Christianity and personal freedom, despite

Ivan’s best secular-utopian intentions. “Your poem praises Jesus,”

he shouts in triumph, “it doesn’t revile him as you meant it to!”

Ivan, like any village atheist (think Christopher Hitchens), finds it

easy to poke holes in the religious dogma of others, but much more

difficult to construct a workable belief system, or even a workable

social system, of his own—the Grand Inquisitor has no choice but

to build his utopia on a lie.

But the story isn’t entirely about these abstract concepts—in fact,

the concepts themselves won’t fully make sense until the characters

come to life on the page. Alyosha’s shout at the end, for instance,

is the realistic response of his personal emotional state, not just the

author’s way of flagging the story’s central irony. In the same way,

his feelings toward his older brother, with whom he has been

reunited after a long childhood separation, largely determine his

reaction to the arguments Ivan makes.

Alyosha is often the character that Christian readers feel most

drawn to, with his childlike faith and pleasant demeanor, even in

the midst of moral ugliness. It might be helpful, therefore, to start

a reading of “The Grand Inquisitor” with a focus on Alyosha’s

emotional reactions, and build an interpretation from there. We

may notice right away, for instance, that Alyosha’s dominant emo-

tional tone throughout the scene is sadness. Why is he sad? The

explanation comes from Ivan, who notes that he has been avoiding

Alyosha since their renewed acquaintance because “there was a cer-

tain ceaseless expectation in your eyes, and that is something I

cannot bear.” A short time later, Ivan correctly guesses why his little

brother looks so expectant: “In order to ask me: ‘And how believest

thou, if thou believest anything at all?’ That is what your three

months of looking come down

to, is it not, Alexei Fyodor-

ovich?” Alyosha, we thus

discover, has for months been

genuinely mourning his

brother’s unbelief. Now that

they are talking at length about

weighty spiritual topics,

Alyosha is wounded afresh by

Ivan’s skepticism. “You don’t

believe in God,” he says “with

great sorrow” at the end of Ivan’s story. He murmurs or sits in

silence when Ivan makes arguments he cannot counter (“I want to

suffer, too,” he says after the story of the frozen girl), and he blushes

and shouts “almost passionately” when he catches Ivan in logical

fallacies—not because he imagines an audience listening and eval-

uating their debate, but because his heart literally aches for his

brother’s salvation.

It is just as important to recognize, however, that Ivan loves

Alyosha, too, and is genuinely pained to see him in emotional tor-

ment. When Alyosha protests that it takes no special “intelligence”

or secret knowledge to deny Christ as the Grand Inquisitor does,

Ivan takes a step away from abstract speculation and describes the

Inquisitor as an individual, one quite similar to himself. The

Inquisitor, Ivan says, has lost his faith in God and transcendant

meaning, but “still has not been cured of his love for mankind.”

Ivan, too, feels an inexplicable bond of love with his family and fel-

low man—though without a genuine spiritual vision to impart to

them, he is left with only his utopian social ideas, built on lies.

The story in the Interregnum packet ends on a somewhat mis-

leading note, with Ivan laughing while Alyosha sits “despairingly.”

But this is not the end of the chapter—and Ivan’s laughter is not

necessarily directed at Alyosha’s misery, as the text’s cut-off sug-

gests. On the contrary, in the very next line, Ivan immediately

dismisses the entire story he has just told, in order to make his

brother feel better. “But it’s nonsense, Alyosha,” he says, “just the

muddled poem of a muddled student who never wrote two lines of

verse. Why are you taking it so seriously?” Ivan’s “incurable” love

for mankind extends first to his family, and his tenderness to

Alyosha demonstrates that he is not just mouthing the sentiment.

Alyosha’s and Ivan’s actions in the last two pages of the chapter

(again, unfortunately omitted from the packet) not only cast further

light on their relationship, but also prompt an interpretation of

“The Grand Inquisitor” that focuses not on the fantastical story

itself, but on Dostoevsky’s belief in the spiritual importance, even

necessity, of Christ-like personal relationships. Appropriately

enough for our Interregnum theme, the central character of Ivan’s

drama is Jesus—but he is a Jesus who speaks no more than two

words (“Talitha cumi”), and who performs only two significant

actions: raising the girl from the dead and kissing the Grand

Inquisitor “on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips.” Of this last

action, Ivan says cryptically, “That is the whole answer.” He is not

the Christ of the real world, this figure whose response to Satan’s

temptations is a melodramatic kiss, but rather the Christ of Ivan’s

To order Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov visit

www.gadflymag.com/BrothersK. A copy of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s

1990 translation, recommended by Professor Campbell, can be purchased for $15.

“So, Alyosha, if, indeed, i hold out for the sticky little leaves, i shall love them

only remembering you. it’s enough for me that you are here somewhere, and i

shall not stop wanting to live.” - Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov

The Gadfly22

imagination. But Alyosha pays close attention to him for that very

reason, and looks for an opportunity to demonstrate Christ-like love

in a manner that Ivan will understand.

Near the end of the chapter, when Ivan briefly panics at the

prospect that Alyosha will disown him for his unbelief, Alyosha rises

and gently kisses him “on the lips.” With this imitation of the fic-

tional Christ, Alyosha assures his brother that, like the real Christ,

he has not rejected him. Ivan, for his part, flies “into some kind of

rapture,” overcome with the familial love he cannot escape.

Ivan does not abandon his agnosticism in this scene. Far from

it—he will cling to his skepticism to the end, though it drives him

insane. But as the brothers leave the café, he makes a final state-

ment that expresses just how profoundly Alyosha has affected him.

“So, Alyosha,” Ivan says firmly, “if, indeed, I hold out for the sticky

little leaves”—his poetic metaphor for the joys of life—“I shall love

them only remembering you. It’s enough for me that you are here

somewhere, and I shall not stop wanting to live.”

Ivan’s deeply moving confession, that he will not lose all faith in

the world, or all hope for meaning in his life, because the brother

he loves exists in it with him, recalls one of Dostoevsky’s biblical

inspirations, I John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God, but if we love

one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Ivan cannot see God outside of his imagination, and even there his

vision is inaccurate, shot through with irony, perhaps blasphemous.

But he can see the actions of his brother, which provide him a more

tangible experience of God’s love than a philosophical argument

or literary representation ever could.

Many critics of the novel have observed that though Alyosha is

supposedly its “hero,” the sum total of his actions in the story is

slight. The novel opens and closes with him, just as this three-chap-

ter scene in the café does, but in both cases, he mainly listens to

other people talk. The few direct actions he takes are almost always

in response to actions or requests from other characters. In the

novel’s introduction, Dostoevsky himself anticipated a potentially

negative response for this reason: “I can foresee the inevitable ques-

tions . . . What is notable about your Alexei Fyodorovich that you

should choose him for your hero? What has he really done?” But

like the Christ in Ivan’s story, perhaps Alyosha’s inaction is precisely

the point.

The foundation of Alyosha’s personality can be traced in part to

his mentor, a monastic elder named Father Zosima. On his

deathbed, Zosima teaches that the antidote to spiritual doubt is not

more lessons or study or debate or penance, but rather an “active

love” that turns the soul’s relentless self-gaze outward, toward oth-

ers. Everyone else in the novel searches, argues, laments,

complains, and justifies their actions. But the saint is the young

man who is simply present in God’s world, who listens, obeys, and

mimics when necessary, all to keep others from losing hope. Philo-

sophical and political ideas are no doubt important—Alyosha does

study at his monastery, and Zosima makes an impassioned argu-

ment for biblical education—but more important than words are

the actions that demonstrate a loving concern for mankind.

A comforting thought, perhaps, for those of us who find Dosto-

evsky’s heady words a challenge in themselves.

December 2008 23

A. “I love ______________! He's so amazing! He makes me want to go to Israel and inspires

me every time he talks! And I love it when his voice cracks!!! Adorable!!”

B. “BEST PROFESSOR EVER!!! HE SHARES HIS LOVE OF FREEDOM AND THE

FREE MARKET. He came from ex-communist Bulgaria and gave a really awesome

perspective on the free market. I miss him. I think he is a professor at NYU now. By the

way, he truly idolizes Milton Friedman and battles the “dark arts” of liberalism in class.”

C. “His love for poetry spills over to class and puts me at ease whenever I'm stressed for class.”

d. “After sitting in his class for about ten minutes, you come to the conclusion that

_____________ is brilliant!”

e. “_____________ is very challenging, well-informed and helpful. I learned a lot. He's got a

lot of good things inside that Canadian/Scottish head of his.”

f. “I love his dry humor. He's nice to look at, easy on the eyes and the GPA…Hot! Just don’t

listen to him talk. =) Great arm trophy.”

Match the Professor to their review on RateMyProfessors.com

1. Dr. Corbin

2. Dr. Jackson

3. Dr. Kreeft

4. Dr. Tokarev

5. Dr. Rabinowitz

6. Dr. Innes

For answers, go to www.gadflymag.com

The year was 2006, and the theme, de jure and de facto, was "Difficulty." With Peter Wood in the

provost's office and Stan Oakes in the president's, we arrived in New York wide-eyed with wonder

at what lie ahead of us, consoled at each new challenge by one thought: our small Christian-

school-that-could had set its sights on the rarefied orbit of the elite colleges. Academic rigor was the engine

powering our heady ascent toward greatness, while rigid academic standards demarked our steady climb.

Today, the mission of The King's College is different, and so we must offer an awkward criticism to the

current administration. Awkward, for our criticism is that the administration responds too readily to stu-

dents' criticisms. King's students are a restive bunch, and it doesn't take much to provoke a petition

demanding the firing of this professor or reversal of that decision. Such protests once elicited a predictable,

maddening response: No. "No, you may not transfer Politics from a community college." "No, you must

re-take College Writing II just like everyone else who got a C-." "No, the professor's accent is not an excuse

for failing the course." Lately the response is, "Let's see what we can do for you," or, worse yet, "We don't

want your studies get in the way of your New York City experience." Business students may think this is

a great thing: customer service! We think it's more like the inmates running the asylum

The Death of Difficulty

24 The Gadfly

on the Fifteenth Floor. The reason? It is too long and difficult of

a read, and there’s a good chance students won’t read it.

Any of these examples taken individually would be scant evi-

dence of a general problem. Taken together, however, they

demonstrate a decline in standards matched by a decline in rigor

that is diminishing the value of a King's degree.

To some seniors who still remember King's before Difficulty,

and to some students who actually think our school should

be easier academically, our regression toward mediocrity

is a positive development. To the rest of us, those of us who came

to a no-name school hoping it would someday be more than that,

it is a betrayal. We are backsliding down the hill of difficulty we

once so arduously ascended.

King's ostensibly has a mission, although we don't talk much

about that these days. Remember the rhetoric about influencing

strategic institutions? Remember President Oakes saying, "We're

gonna kick Columbia's ‘you-know-what’"? Remember thinking this

tiny upstart school was really going places? Remember thinking that

our school would soon represent the pinnacle of Christian aca-

demic thought? What is becoming of that King's?

Undeniable excellence is the only way forward; anything less will

propound our tendency toward intellectual sloth. If we trade aca-

demic excellence for such illusory qualities as "leadership" or

"city-engagement," we will soon discover that we have forfeited

both. It is precisely the students who earn high marks in class who

manage their time and energy with sufficient discipline to work at

the best firms, acquire the most prestigious internships, and enjoy

the heights of New York's culture.

So here's a new petition for the provost, the president, and the

administration they direct: make our lives more difficult. Challenge

us. Cater to our best impulses, not our worst. Educate us. We, like

pilgrim Christian, will grit our teeth and muddle through for the

sake of our rich reward.

And someday, we'll thank you.

If you doubt that standards have declined, consider the evidence:

Senior theses are no longer a graduation requirement. For a

school that claims to emphasize written communication, we are

making students do less of it. Keep in mind that the "elite" colleges

we are trying to compete with almost universally require a senior

thesis.

The school has dropped GPA requirement for receiving intern-

ship credit from 3.0 to 2.7. While we understand the value of

internships, we think the school cheapens the value of its credit by

lowering this standard, especially since it's difficult to assess the

actual value of each individual internship and the student's per-

formance on the job.

We have removed math from the course map. It has long frus-

trated a small group of King's students that more math classes

weren't offered. Now even the paltry core math requirement is no

more. The ostensible (albeit shallow) reason for this is our emphasis

on the liberal arts as opposed to the hard sciences. Yet math has

been a part of a liberal arts education since the concept was con-

ceived—arithmetic and geometry represented half the classical

Quadrivium.

TKC has amended its graduation standards to require a 2.0

cumulative GPA, with the former 2.7 requirement for courses in

your major dropped altogether. Some hasten to explain that "even

the Ivy Leagues did not require such unrealistic expectations." We

are still working out how the Ivy League could "require" an "expec-

tation," but we suspect the editors wish to convey that the Ivy

League doesn't have such high graduation requirements. This is

true. But keep in mind that around 90% of Harvard students grad-

uate with honors, meaning they have a GPA of 3.5 or above. A

standard everyone meets is superfluous.

Even the attendance policy, once ironclad, has been bent on

behalf of several students (some of whom had gone over their allot-

ted absences in several classes), as if asking a student to show up to

75% of his or her classes is unrealistic.

Courses such as Senior Fellows and Intro to the City—which stu-

dents freely describe as "GPA boosters" and "fluff

courses"—represent grade inflation, something King's has always

been opposed to. There are students with As in Intro to the City

who are failing their other four courses. "Easy As" shouldn't be part

of a rigorous education.

Not one incident of plagiarism has been reported this semester.

Even allowing for the possibility that every King’s student is over-

coming the temptation to cheat, it seems unlikely that accidental

plagiarism, so harshly punished in the past, has disappeard entirely.

In 2006 students who failed the Interregnum exam were required

to memorize pages of Pilgrim's Progress for recitation before their

peers. Now the Interregnum exam is gone, and with it the key moti-

vation of students to read the assigned texts. This on the heels of

last year's exam, which no one failed, and for which few seriously

studied.

Recently, the House scholars and the majority of the King’s

Interregnum Committee recommended that Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s

classic The Brothers Karamazov be required for this year’s interregnum.

The Brothers K has been widely heralded as one of the pinnacles of

Western literature, and is important enough to a liberal arts educa-

tion that Prof. Ethan Campbell, one of the foremost experts on

literature in the King’s community, argues that every King’s student

should read the book (Page 20). The proposal died a quiet death

Love-Joy

AS on a window late I cast mine eye,

I saw a vine drop grapes with J and C

Anneal’d on every bunch. One standing by

Ask’d what it meant. I (who am never loth

To spend my judgement) said, It seem’d to me

To be the bodie and the letters both

Of Joy and Charitie ; Sir, you have not miss’d,

The man reply’d ; It figures JESUS CHRIST.

- George Herbert (1593-1633)

December 2008 25

Our reversion toward

mediocrity is a betrayal.

The Austrian Creed

We believe in one market,

Fair and just,

the creator and benefactor of all wealth;

maker of profits seen and unseen

We believe in the discipline of econometrics,

The holy Laffer curve,

and in the sacrament of deregulation.

We believe in the eternal price

which procedeth from the supply and demand

and together with the supply and demand is stressed over and manipulated.

It has been guided by the invisible hand and been spoken by the economists.

26 The Gadfly

Free Market Theology

Perfect freedom is not the exercise of choice, but the service

of a holy God. For thousands of years such an assertion

would be uncontroversial for Christians. Today, however,

American evangelicalism has developed a hybrid strand of Chris-

tian political thought.

Evangelicals have bred a pseudo-theology revolving around the

concept of “culture wars.” They seek to wed God to the state and

intertwine the beauty of grace with the bureaucracy of the nation

state. Certain political positions become an assumed part of ortho-

doxy. It seems as if these

Christians think that

belief in the market was

adopted into Nicene

dogma. Consequently,

the language used to

describe the market

increasingly is applied to

the divine.

This thinking has

infected The King’s Col-

lege. Economics has

come to inform our the-

ology. The theology

department is the weak-

est division of the school.

How many people do

you know in the theology

concentration? Theology

used to be called the

“queen of the sciences”

in medieval times

because it was under-

stood that no knowledge

could be more important

than knowledge about

God. We’ve slipped since

then, relegating theology to the trash heap of the impractical.

Consequently, the language we use to describe our religion

becomes increasingly economical. According to an article on the

school’s website, “When it comes to worship services, The King’s

College borrows a philosophy from famed economist Milton Fried-

man: Students are ‘free to choose’.” This language is inaccurate and

inappropriate. It leads our community into an idolatry of choice.

The article on the website glories about our “non-institutionalized”

spirituality. Without reflection, we simply assume that decentraliza-

tion must be a beneficial development in our spiritual life because

it has produced the vast economic wealth we now enjoy.

But the church isn’t the economy. The grammar that treats it as

such disintegrates under examination. What exactly are we “free to

choose?” Would the school administration support a Buddhist

prayer group? Or fund a trip for students to go on the Hajj?

What the article attempts to articulate, however incoherently, is

that students aren’t required to attend worship events. This philos-

ophy might indeed be the best way to handle worship at the school

because of logistical issues, but the suggestion that we should cele-

brate the right to choose is moronic.

The market is an efficient way of allocating resources, but it is

not an ethic. When we act as if morality and the market are inter-

changeable, we force ourselves into blind, sophistical defenses of

pure exploitation. Chris-

tians may harness the

power of the market to

benefit society, but fol-

lowers of Jesus must not

allow the scales we use in

the market place to

weigh justice.

The language of polit-

ical Liberalism doesn’t

reconcile with the New

Testament vision of the

church. Jesus never says,

“Believe in the Son of

Man…or not, I respect

your right to make

choices about your own

personal life.” As Chris-

tians, we aren’t entirely

free, nor should we desire

to be. Instead of being

slaves to sin, in our new

life we have become

slaves of Jesus. His yoke

is light, but that doesn’t

release us from obliga-

tion.

Liberalism is a viable option, but only if we speak from a humble

position and acknowledge that it is a compromise. In light of reli-

gious wars, it is plausible to argue that Liberalism is necessary to

prevent further bloodshed. However, one cannot argue for the tri-

umphant Liberalism of the Enlightenment (see After Virtue). We have

been voting for hundreds of years now and the panacea has not

occurred.

What is the way forward? At The King’s College, we can start by

increasing the nuance of our discussions. Third ways are not roads

to economic slavery; Marxism and socialism are two different eco-

nomic philosophies, and there is such a thing as market failures. We

would do well to realize that the dark art of centralization and our

comfortable Liberalism stem from the same branch of philosophy,

one that Christian thinkers from St. Jerome to Chesterton criticized.

December 2008 27

Did the 2008 elections show that America has become a cen-

ter-left country? The winners seem determined to govern

America as if it has. Meanwhile, Republican leaders remain

preoccupied with their red and blue maps, refining the tactics that so

richly earned their being chased into the wilderness yet again. The

American people, however, have no desire to be remade in the image

of Europe, according to the imagination of our haughty, self-serving,

incompetent ruling class. If conservative leaders worthy of the name

arise, they will not lack followers. What would it take to lead the Amer-

ican people out of the dark woods and take power from those who now

prepare to dictate our lives as no American ever imagined they had the

right to do? Whoever would lead us out of this mess had better be very

sure of how we got into it.

Wise hunters use landmarks to find their way out of the wilderness.

Wisdom comes from retracing, backward, the paths that led to error.

Our landmarks are written in victories that paved the way for defeats.

In our greatest victory, 28 years ago, Ronald Reagan overcame the “me-

too” crowd within his Party, took center stage, and made the love of

political, economic, and religious liberty popular again; he spoke Amer-

ican to Americans. Landslide elections followed. Unfortunately, Reagan

handed over the seemingly mundane task of governance to the best

connected in his Party—a group whose hearts were warmed by the fact

that his popularity increased their access to power, prestige, and wealth.

Bush I so squandered the Reagan legacy with tax increases and

granting the Left's premises—to him we owe environmentalism's choke-

hold on us—that he got only 38% of the vote in 1992 and gave us eight

years of Clinton. Then, in 1994, Americans signed up for another

American revolution. Republicans offered a “Contract With America”

and again spoke American to Americans. But they turned out to be

more concerned with who got the credit, got on “Meet the Press”, and

got on Air Force One. If one ever doubted how American Americans

are, note their patience with George Bush II, a leader who spoke Amer-

ican to Americans without understanding what he was saying. While

attempting to celebrate America's virtues, he misunderstood them and

handed America's business to the most incompetent administration in

recent history. To lead is to gain the trust of those whom you would lead.

Good credit in politics is built just like good credit in any other field. It

requires understanding the right thing to do and then making sure that

it is done. At minimum it means doing what you say you're going to do.

If you say you're going to cut taxes, regulation, and spending, then cut

taxes, regulation and spending. If you say you're going to leave Wash-

ington in 6 years, leave Washington in 6 years.

Even the most earnest and understanding American stops doing

business after the second or third bad check. Keeping hold of this ele-

mentary morality is difficult because, as the greatest wilderness survival

story of all time teaches us, it is all too human to fall for the temptation

to get something for nothing—to turn stones into bread. And for earthly

princes, it is even more tempting to pretend to God-like power, and to

want power to satisfy their limitless thirst for primacy.

Our first settlers rightly understood that the best way to turn a des-

olate wilderness into a promised land is to be mindful of these

temptations. Our Founders rightly understood that the best way to turn

a promised land into a Republic of Virtue was to do the same. Ever

since, America has been at its best when its people reject these tempta-

tions and demand its leaders do the same. Conservatives have recently

made the mistake of confusing support for Republican leaders who have

given themselves over to such temptation with what is right and good

for America. Today's Republican establishment is rotten. The way out

of the wilderness requires that we leave it to rot with its red, blue, and

purple election maps, and recognize that America is still made up of

Americans yearning to be spoken to and led in their mother tongue.

Out of the WildernessBy C. David Corbin

28 The Gadfly

With 145 Holocaust films made, what could the 146th,

Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a film that

judges the Holocaust through children’s eyes, conclude

that others have not? That even while standing amongst the terror

of Auschwitz, extraordinary evil is cognitively impenetrable to a

child’s mind.

In both narrative and ideology, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,

adapted from Irish writer John Boyne’s 2006 novel, finds motivation

in Rousseau’s assumption that evil is produced by defective educa-

tion and that children are born innocent. While Rousseau’s denial

of Original Sin is clearly at odds with orthodox Christianity, nearly

all Christians see children as most innocent. On this sentimental

level, the film finds tremendous success.

The story follows Bruno (played by Asa Butterfield), the eight

year old son of a high ranking S.S. Commander, affectionately

known as Father (David Thewlis). Both Bruno and Gretel, his older

sister enamored with maturity (Amber Beattie), are proud to dis-

cover that Father is being promoted. Unfortunately, the honor

comes with a family relocation to Father’s new command,

Auschwitz, where he will oversee the war’s most “vital” effort.

With the concentration camp cloaked from sight by dense woods,

Mother (Vera Farmiga) consoles Bruno, who immediately hates his

new home’s militaristic appearance—a far cry from his comfortable

childhood. The grounds are cordoned off to Bruno, especially the

wood, which only antagonizes his natural adventurousness. As

putrid smoke from the camp’s crematorium lingers above the man-

sion, the ruse quickly begins to break—Bruno spots the camp from

his bedroom and innocently assumes it is a “farm” worked by farm-

ers in “striped pajamas.” When Bruno asks Mother if he can play

with the farm children, he is saddened by her nervous, “No.”

When the children’s in-house tutor, Herr Liszt, begins teaching

“history”—at the expense of Bruno’s adventure books—the boy’s

restlessness is fully ignited As Gretel gives herself over to Herr

Liszt’s indoctrination, Bruno goes exploring, and heads for the mys-

terious farm. In a remote, temporarily unwatched corner, Bruno

finds Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy in “striped pajamas” whom he

immediately likes. When Shmuel reveals he is Jew, Bruno’s world

becomes insurmountably complicated. How can my friend Shmuel

be one of Herr Liszt’s “Jewish vermin”, and Father’s mortal enemy?

With food for starving Shmuel stuffed in his pockets, Bruno visits

the Jewish boy daily. These meetings quicken within Bruno a moral

uneasiness that calls everything into question, including Father’s

ethical character. “Dad’s a good man?” Bruno asks Gretel in one

of the film’s most poignant scenes. Her “Yes,” cannot placate

Bruno’s natural indignation.

Unfortunately, the film’s successes are at times undermined by

artistic shortcomings. Simply, the production’s greatest weakness is

in its English dialogue, rather than German, the Holocaust’s native

tongue. This regrettable choice diminishes the film’s authenticity

and forces the audience to “suspend their disbelief,” which moves

them one step away from enjoyment. As a result, moments of

potential pathos are reduced to bathos.

Fortunately, Mother tempers the film’s over-dependence on

Rousseau. She too becomes disenchanted with Father, making

goodness a human capacity. Her story mirrors Bruno’s, with one

vital difference: she understands Auschwitz. Without the capacity

to understand extraordinary evil, Bruno and Shmuel are excluded

from their one hope: a realization that Auschwitz is a death camp.

Innocently, the two fly headlong into one of film’s most devastating

conclusions.

In RevIeW: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

—Mike Toscano

December 2008 29

Photo courtesy of David Lukacs/Miramax Film Corp

Droves of people, piercing noises, and

a profusion of activity often compel me

to retreat from Midtown momentarily.

This escape well suits my nature to

explore parts of the city that I have yet

to see. My latest expeditions have taken

me outside of Manhattan, to the bor-

oughs. One afternoon in particular, I

hopped on the 7 train at Bryant Park

with no more knowledge than my stop:

46th Street/Bliss Street.

As I exited the train, I emerged onto

a busy street: Queens Boulevard. A large

arch hung to my left. The quaint, color-

ful neighborhood that lay beyond, I

learned, is Sunnyside. A few blocks

north, Turkish markets, Irish pubs, and

Greek cafés line the Skillman Avenue

strip. In walking the streets of Sunny-

side, I became intrigued by the strikingly

residential nature of the neighborhood.

In addition to being the most ethnically

diverse neighborhood in New York City,

Sunnyside is the location of one of

America’s first planned Utopian com-

munities.

A few spots in particular have com-

pelled me to return to Sunnyside. de

Mole (45-02 48th Avenue at 45th Street,

718-392-2161) serves a delicious and

authentic Mexican cuisine, rivaling that

which I used to enjoy in Southern Cali-

fornia. Following the very affordable

lunch at this small, cozy place, I walk a

few blocks to Aubergine Café (49-22

Skillman Ave at 49th St, 718-899-1735).

Taking a seat in the back corner, I order

a large iced coffee and a corn muffin.

The atmosphere of Aubergine is perfect

for studying.

At dusk, I return to Midtown. From

the train, which runs aboveground in

Queens, I can see the Empire State

Building, lit at a distance. Just before the

train submerges to travel through the

East River and back into Manhattan, I

look back at a neighborhood that,

though equally part of New York City,

feels strangely disconnected from the

rest of it.

“I would give the Devil the benefit of the

law, if only for my safety’s sake,” quips Sir

Thomas More (Frank Langella) in the

Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of

Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons. His

words challenge the Lutheran firebrand

Will Roper, flaming with zeal to banish all

evil—whether popish,

or secular—from the

realm. More insists,

“England is planted

thick with laws, cov-

ered in them from

coast to coast; if you

cut them all down, how

would you stand in the

winds that would blow

then? As for me, I will

hide myself in the

thickets of the law.”

The play follows the

career of More, a

British canon lawyer and

political philosopher (perhaps best known

for Utopia, an ironic narrative detailing an

idyllic polity), who eventually became Lord

Chancellor in the court of Henry VIII.

However, shortly after his appointment,

More fell into disfavor for his refusal to rec-

ognize Henry as the supreme head of the

Church of England (a controversy originat-

ing, of course, in his divorcing Catherine of

Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn).

Ultimately, he was executed for his stand,

transforming him into a symbol of the

Counter-Reformation, and resulting in his

1935 canonization as a Catholic saint.

This play is devastating tragedy, both for

More’s intense struggle to uphold his con-

science (“when a man takes an oath, he is

holding his soul in his

hands, and if he opens

them, and lets it slip

away, he will have no

hope of finding himself

again”), and for his

ceaseless faith in the

security of the law (“a

causeway upon which a

man may walk

unharmed, so long as

he keeps to it”), proven

illusory as the “investi-

gation” led by the

sinister Secretary

Cromwell quickly

devolves into an inquisition. Langella’s per-

formance, which alternates between

sonorous, deadpan irony, and thunderously

hoarse exclamations—“empty cupboards

to scare children!”—perfectly complements

Zach Grenier’s sinister Thomas Cromwell

(think Rahm Emanuel in a doublet), and

Patrick Page’s bombastic Henry VIII.

A MAn FOR All SeASOnS

—Brendan Case

Image courtesy of playbill.com

neighborhood Watch

Sunnyside, Queens

A Sonnet for the Teacher

At century’s close, as emperors failed to hold

the grip of Pax Romana in their vice,

a man who taught the craft, whose tongue was gold,

made Institutes a Western way precise.

Beginning with the nature of a child,

both capable and culpable at heart,

this master taught restraint upon the wild

animal that must be tamed by art.

Unlike the beast, whose instinct secures life,

man’s sole hope survives within the term

defined—precise and perspicacious knife

whose eloquence divides us from the worm.

Through imitation, noble and sublime,

Quintilian serves as Mentor for our time.

- R.L. Jackson

Associate Professor of Education and English—Nick Dunn

30 The Gadfly

The Gadfly: What inspires your work?

Zach Williams: Well, I write songs real quickly. I write them in

about five minutes, and when I’m done, they are whatever they

are. When I’m writing, colors are a big deal to me; I usually

bring emotions out in color. When I’m trying to explain to

the band what a song should sound like, I usually

use a color. You know, “This song is hunter

green.” My friends and enemies have a

big part in my music, and my wife,

Stacy… I don’t write songs all too

often, though. I write like one

song a month, maybe. They just

hit me: sometimes when I’m not

paying attention in church, and

the preacher’s speaking, or

sometimes I’ll wake up in the

middle of the night with an

idea, and just write it then.

GM: What’s the story behind

the song “Dirty Feet”?

ZW: I had just graduated college, and

my parents gave me one of those Apple

computers with GarageBand. I was on this two-

week tour with my band, and my drummer

started messing around with it while we were in

the band. He made this beat, he was all proud

of it, and I was like, “Man, I need to rap to this.”

We were driving to this little town in Georgia,

and I was just passing road signs, just writing

down whatever, so the first verse makes no sense

at all, it’s just whatever I saw on the road. I had all

the melodies from the new Gnarles Barkley album

in my head. As for the chorus, I think Brian’s feet

smelled really bad—we’d been making fun of

him—so that’s where “Dirty Feet” came from. So,

the second verse was after we had gotten to the

venue, and I was trying to make it make a little more

sense. That bridge, “barbecue stains”: Brian’s mom cooked out,

made a barbecue for us…That’s about it, I guess, it’s a dumb song.

GM: No, it’s really one of our favorites. What are some key themes

you explore in your music?

ZW: Well, the songs “Down to the Blood” and “The Names That

Anyone who hasn’t yet heard of Zach Williams likely will in coming months. This shaggy-haired singer-songwriter from Park Slope offers a soulful blend of

twangy folk strains and foot-tapping rhythms playfully named “Fotown.” He is infectious in concert— leaping before the microphone, occasionally deferring to Rob

Ritchie’s wailing slide guitar, or Zach Loper’s rollicking bass-line. He is currently working with Trinity Grace Church, as well as touring the country with To

Write Love on Her Arms, a non-profit organization. He recently sat down for a short conversation with Brendan Case from the Gadfly.

An Interview with

Fell” are all about shame and redemption, about not falling into the

sins of the generation that came before us. I write a lot of story

songs, like “James,” which I wrote for [my friend] Caleb

about a month after his father Jim passed away. He

was an alcoholic, but no one really knew it. One day,

while he was at church, he stood up real awkwardly,

and told everyone. He went home and wrote this

creed to the Lord, basically saying that he was free

from it now, and that God could take him home

whenever he wanted. He died just a few days later.

So, “James, James, get out of the water,” they’re

telling him to get out, but it’s probably too late.

Then, of course, “Hospital” is kind of a random

thought I had while Stacy in the hospital, and

I had to leave at 9 pm every night. So, I

got home one night, frustrated, and I

wrote those lyrics in my journal,

then I figured out how to play

the guitar and sing at the same

time, and it turned into that

song.

GM: What do you think the next year

holds for you? What do you hope your music will

accomplish?

ZW: Well, this year’s a big year, because we’re having a baby.

I guess I’d love to get to the place where Stacy didn’t have to

work, and we could pay our bills, but that would be hard to

do. I’d like to record a full length album this year. I want to do

a 10-12 track record. I’d love to tour with the band somehow,

and do more stuff with To Write Love on Her Arms. I mean,

the trust and the conversations that come out at these shows,

every show is just stuff that I know I’m going to remember forever.

This dad came up to me the other night and said he was there

with his son who tried to kill himself the week before. “We found

out about this, and we just came out, and I’m so glad we came.”

I would love to do more stuff with them this year. I want to

bring people together, and I think music is a very tangible way

to bring about community. I want to keep telling stories.

GM: What are some of your upcoming shows?

ZW: Well, January 11th I’ll be at the House of Blues in Florida,

with the lead singers from Bayside, the Almost, and Thrice. And,

January 30th, I’ll be in Ottawa, but I don’t think I’m at liberty yet

to tell you who might be there.

Zach Williams

December 2008 31

On the Sunday evening after the election, I went to a short

lecture by theologian Stanley Hauerwas. He spoke about

how the church can both welcome and learn from its

mentally or physically disabled members. There was a very tense

moment in the question-and-answer section when a woman in the

last few rows stood up and in a trembling voice described her frus-

tration with a nation that had just rejected a disabled veteran and

a mother of a child with Down syndrome. Angry murmers rippled

through the politically mixed audience. Hauerwas, notorious for his

forthrightness, actually had to struggle for a response. After an awk-

ward minute, he found it, and proclaimed that we should care more

about the church than we do about America.

Such an answer is a version of a maxim that has been a major

theme in everything I have ever read by Hauerwas: “the political

task of Christians is to be the church

rather than to transform the world.” To

understand this statement, it’s impor-

tant to note that it is meant as an

alternative, on the one hand to those

who would have Christians take over

secular society, and on the other to

those who would have Christians sim-

ply melt into it. Hauerwas’s vision of

what it means to “be the church,”

broadly speaking, is that Christians

have a primary allegiance to the com-

munity of the church, not to the

nation-state. This is why it is more

important to care about the church

than America.

During this year’s campaigns, I saw

a number of articles about the Evan-

gelical Left, as represented by writers

such as Jim Wallis and Donald Miller.

It might seem like common sense that

a religious left is the significant opposite

of a religious right. But I think that in the next few decades the

question will not be with which side of the political spectrum Chris-

tians identify themselves, but whether Christians should be

identifying themselves by the political spectrum at all. In other

words, expect to see more Christians looking for alternatives to the

idea of the United States as a “Christian nation.”

Take, for example, Rod Dreher, a former writer for the conser-

vative magazine National Review. On his blog and elsewhere, Dreher

often writes about what he calls “the Benedict Option”: the idea

that traditional communities can draw back from the compromises

of modern life and let the rest of society go its own way, in the same

way that St. Benedict’s communities drew back from the failing

Roman Empire in order to plant the seeds of a new culture. Dreher

believes the key to the Benedict Option is self-sufficiency, and he

often writes about the possibilities of family farms, local economies,

The exile:and homeschooling. The name of the idea comes from the stirring

(or histrionic, depending on your perspective) final pages of the

philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s 1981 book After Virtue, in which

MacIntyre proclaims that traditionalists are waiting for a new St.

Benedict to find a way forward through the coming dark ages.

A related impulse can be seen in the “New Monastic” move-

ment, which is usually associated with Shane Claiborne, but is

really in continuity with the many Christian communities that have

devoted themselves to fellowship with and in the marginal parts of

society. Claiborne and other practitioners of the New Monasticism

have drawn the ire of religious conservatives for their outspoken

criticism of the Bush administration’s policies, but to simply con-

flate the New Monastics with the religious left is, I think, a mistake.

Their criticism is very often meant to point out that the nation-state

is not and cannot be the church. To

point out the ways in which the nation-

state fails to live up to the standards of

the church is a way of witnessing to the

ways in which the church is different

from the world.

I am convinced that Christians will

have to consider this inclination to

draw back. Sometime in the second

half of the twentieth century—I can’t

pin down exactly when—mainline

Protestantism lost its privileged place in

American culture. Short of a massive

religious revival among cultural elites,

no religious group is going to get to

claim this place of privilege, and Chris-

tians are going to seek different ways of

coming to terms with this. The Bene-

dict Option and the New Monasticism

are fascinating responses, very much

worthy of consideration. It’s important

to see that both responses distinguish

“drawing back” from “withdrawing”: Christian communities are to

be marked by their hospitality toward the people around them, tak-

ing the early church as a model.

This won’t be the only side in the conversation. There are other

powerful and sophisticated expressions of Christian political theol-

ogy that don’t place such an emphasis on drawing back. I am

thinking especially of Abraham Kuyper’s elaboration of “sphere of

sovereignty,” as well as the traditional Lutheran two-kingdom dis-

tinction. And there are of course several rich streams of thought

about church and government in Catholic theology. But in the

United States the proponents of these views are having to adjust to

a nation in which Protestantism has very recently lost much of its

hold on culture. In this situation, we stand to learn a great deal from

those who have thought carefully about what it really means for the

church to be the church.

William Brafford on ‘The Benedict Option’

32 The Gadfly

Holy Sonnet XII

Why are we by all creatures waited on ?

Why do the prodigal elements supply

Life and food to me, being more pure than I,

Simpler and further from corruption ?

Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection ?

Why dost thou, bull and boar, so sillily

Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,

Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon ?

Weaker I am, woe's me, and worse than you ;

You have not sinn'd, nor need be timorous.

But wonder at a greater, for to us

Created nature doth these things subdue ;

But their Creator, whom sin, nor nature tied,

For us, His creatures, and His foes, hath died.

- John Donne (1633)

December 2008 33

34 The Gadfly