Kenneth Anderson, who happens share a name with a rogue prosecutor who made the news by getting sentenced to what amounted to one hour of jail time for every month served by a guy sent up the river by his willful prosecutorial misconduct, comments after having some fun with the name coincidence:
I agree with Glenn Reynolds, my colleague Angela Davis, and others who think not just that prosecutors are essentially unaccountable for violations of rights – we have gone much, much further than that. Criminalizing pretty much everything and practically everyone for something, however vague, while allowing unfettered prosecutorial discretion to prosecute, largely unsupervised forfeiture, and the coercive power of unsupervised plea bargains, criminal justice has been outsourced from judges to prosecutors, their discretion and their consciences. There are many fine and honest prosecutors, of course, but as a system of justice, we should not have to rely on their discretion.
(Emphasis added) On “criminalizing pretty much everything and practically everyone” (and that’s not an exaggeration), I’m driven back to what I think is the only quote from an Ayn Rand novel that ever stuck with me:
Did you really think that we want those laws observed? . . . We want them broken . . . . There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of lawbreakers — and then you cash in on guilt.
(Atlas Shrugged) His mastery of prosecutorial abuse, by the way, is my top reason why Eliot “Client–9” Spitzer should never ever hold public office again – far worse than the whoring around.
Pete Spiliakos notes that biracial marriages have become cool, a political asset – but that liberal media don’t acknowledge the “conservatives” in longstanding biracial marriages (I guess it doesn’t fit their story arc). The Liberal Media and the Limits of “Biracial Cool.”
When Peter Leithart starts talking in my earshot, I listen.
Had my wife and I remained in Dallas lo this almost 4 decades ago, we’d have been part of a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) congregation, as our oxymoronic “Independent Presbyterian Church” was about to lose it’s oxymoronicity by affiliating with the new PCA and shedding its independence. PCA is where Peter Leithart is a minister, and I suspect he’s been there almost since the beginning.
Of late, he seems to be struggling with the idea of catholicity, which isn’t easy or uncontroverted. Last Friday he averred that “Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism.”
The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.
When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t. What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.
Mainline churches are nearly bereft of “Protestants.” If you want to spot one these days, your best bet is to visit the local Baptist or Bible church, though you can find plenty of Protestants among conservative Presbyterians too.
Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.
Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism.
(Emphasis added) I started to blog briefly that he was being incoherent again, but then thought better of it. His comments needed more engagement than a flip comment.
Before I re-engaged, Robin Phillips did it:
In this post, Leithart contrasts modern Protestantism from the true, more authentic Protestantism of the magisterial reformers, which he calls ‘Reformational Catholicism.’ He shows just how far removed modern Protestantism has come from its historic roots – a point that should encourage deep self-reflection among modern Protestants.
…[W]hat I question is Leithart’s insistence that his position (that Rome is a true church) is truly authentic to the reformers’ vision. Leithart writes,Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.” To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family.
The above position would be unproblematic if Leithart had not spent his entire post trying to argue that ‘reformational catholicism’ is the most authentic to historic protestantism. Whatever our views on theology, we should all be able to recognize on purely historical grounds that Leithart’s position is a departure from historic Protestant roots ….
Peter Leithart wants to be catholic, or even Catholic. He’s been accused of being a closet Roman Catholic, as has his prosecutor in a PCA heresy trial (Leithart was acquitted). But he also wants to be a Protestant of the refined, Reformational Catholic kind: “I think Leithart is trying to have the best of both worlds: he adopts positions antithetical to historic Protestantism and then asserts that holding to such positions represents fidelity to historic Protestantism.” (Robin Phillips)
I don’t know where this story ends. Leithart certainly has pushed a lot of hot buttons in the PCA. His PCA prosecutor converted to Roman Catholicism. It sounds, from the retelling by an anti-Leithart, anti-Rome blogger – the sort that Leithart may have been referring to above as “plenty of Protestants among conservative Presbyterians” – as if his study of doctrine occasioned by the Leithart prosecution may been what did him in. (The Prosecutor’s conversion has been the basis of an effort to retry Leithart on the theory that a closet-Catholic prosector threw the case against the closet-Catholic defendant; this may be a good time to say “I really don’t know how long I could have stayed in the PCA.”)
I’ll say this, though: Peter Leithart seems very, very devoted to his ideas, even if those ideas are in considerable flux. If he were to consider Orthodoxy as an alternative to the PCA and Rome, and if his catechizers were like mine, he’d need to learn to let go of his opinions and to submit to what Orthodoxy teaches. Orthodoxy is surprisingly capacious, but it does have boundaries.
Giving up my opinions wasn’t too hard for me to do. I’d imagine it would be considerably harder for someone whose professional career has been devoted to pursuing his own quirky vision of Calvinism. But he seems to be on a trajectory that takes him out of the PCA orbit, and his talk of catholicity makes me think he’s going to end up swimming either the Tiber or the Bosphorus.
Writing the preceding item, with some “backgrounding” on Peter Leithart’s heresy trial, reminds me of the sad schisms of Christianity, and especially the Protestant sort.
The Presbyterian Church in America has a strong commitment to evangelism, missionary work at home and abroad, and to Christian education. From its inception, the church has determined its purpose to be “faithful to the Scriptures, true to the reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.”
Organized at a constitutional assembly in December 1973, this church was first known as the National Presbyterian Church but changed its name in 1974 to Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). It separated from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) in opposition to the long-developing theological liberalism which denied the deity of Jesus Christ and the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. Additionally, the PCA held to the traditional position on the role of women in church offices.
(Denominational website) Yup. The PCA, less than 40 years ago, “separated from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) in opposition to the long-developing theological liberalism.” Now it’s torn apart by accusations that one of it’s best-known Teaching Elders is a closet Catholic and not a true Protestant at all.
Truth be told, the proverbial fly on the wall of Church council meetings and deliberative assemblies, would find, I’m quite certain from experience, that despite the public smiley faces and “ecumenical” efforts like mutually supporting Billy Graham Crusades, the most serious lay members of denomination A are deep-down convinced that the members of denominations B though ZZZZZZZZZ would join denomination A if only they were honest and intelligent.
And every denomination eventually spawns a faction that sees the denomination “going liberal.”
Not terribly insightful, that, but even I am surprised to see the PCA in so much turmoil so soon.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 