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Rediscovering Athens and Jerusalem
The American Declaration of Independence is wise when it appeals both to the truths of nature and nature's God. Without a divine vision the people perish and without being able to count the cost, the vision can fail through folly. We need to know what should be, but also what is and can be. Too much vision and a nation cannot act, but too little and it cannot act well. The Founding Fathers of our nation were blessed to stand at the end of a long tradition which took both religion and reason seriously.
Today the United States faces two dysfunctional nations that are tyrannical as a result of forgetting this balance. One, North Korea, is hostile to religious faith and the other, Iran, is hostile to modernity. Perversely, North Korea, despite publicly lauding science and reason, has become an intellectual backwater while Iranian theocrats are wrecking the noble Persian culture. The BBC reports that North Korea has stepped up the public persecution and murder of Christians while the atrocities of the Iranian regime against reason rightly infuriate all good people.
It is no surprise that both nations are tyrannical because both refuse to acknowledge an important path to human enlightenment. North Korea will not acknowledge the morality and the law of God and Iran will not submit to the sweet moderation of reason in pursuing a vision of the godly life.
Christians know the need for balance all too well from our own history.
The Christian experience shows the importance of both reason and revelation to a good life and humane civilization. Philosophy and religion combined produced the glories of the Renaissance and the wonders of constitutional government. This fusion of the wisdom of Athens and the revelation of Jerusalem can be seen in the glorious architecture of Christian Florence and in Dante's divine poetry. It can be seen in the writings of John Locke who wrote Christian apologetics and produced many of the philosophical underpinnings for our government.
Of course, when Christians from Jerusalem met philosophers from Athens, they were not always wise enough to follow the example of Saint Paul and utilize the wisdom found in classical thinkers and poetry. When Jerusalem forgot Athens, Christianity was perfectly capable of turning love of God into the fires of persecution, tyranny, and irrationality. Passionate faith without calming reason is too hot blooded to be trusted with power.
The reaction of some in Christian lands seeking safety from pure secularism was understandable, but wrong headed. The millions who died in the twentieth century under secular regimes proved that Athens without Jerusalem is coldly cruel. The Soviet psychiatric wards where thousands were tortured and killed by calm and reasonable sounding men were no improvement on the stake. Humankind, it turns out, does not live on bread alone. Cold and sterile reason without revelation is too inhuman to be trusted with power and too sterile to long keep it.
Iran and North Korea will have to draw on their own traditions, find their own path to their own equivalents to Athens and Jerusalem, or they will perish as nations. Their pain should be a warning to Americans who take for granted the blend of religious fervor and hardheaded skepticism that has always been part of our tradition. Balancing the two is always hard and zealots are always trying to erase either the influence of Athens or Jerusalem on American life, but we are a nation whose very architecture in our national buildings, patriotic songs, and founding documents proclaims Washington a child of the marriage between Athens and Jerusalem.
Religion without the stability provided by reason is toxic, but so is reason without the information that only God can provide. Both the nation and many of us as individuals veer between sirens calling for irrational religiosity or God-blind secularism. I recently wrote When Athens Met Jerusalem to try to understand for myself the peculiarly powerful blend of reasonable faith and mystical skepticism that came out of the fusion of Athens and Jerusalem. Though it is a small contribution, I hope it is part of a great conversation of how we can avoid loss of faith and loss of wisdom.
John Mark Reynolds is the author of "When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought."
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John Mark Reynolds
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July 28, 2009; 4:48 PM ET
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Posted by: practica1 | August 14, 2009 9:19 AM
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This is a matter of unity and there's a right and a wrong way of doing it.
The wrong way of doing it is Iran's and NK's way which is to say "divided we fail, therefore we need weed out anyone who is not one of us and preserve our unity". The criteria for being "one of us" may vary, but it always comes down to "like me and the rest of us".
The result of all this is that the more they weed out, the smaller the group gets, and it has to rely more and more on possession of power to stay on top, which leads to efforts to acquire more of it.
Eventually the group fractures when the boundaries of "us" get smaller than the group. No group of people can be perfectly uniform, so the progressive reduction of the boundaries between "us" and "them" eventually puts those boundaries between the remaining members. "Us" becomes entirely "like me", and the group members progressively descend into psychopathy, paranoia, mutual suspicion and pretense. It's every man for himself and his personal interest and it becomes an evolutionary dead end.
The opposite of this kind of unity is, of course, the kind of unity where the group doesn't concern itself at the slightest who may be part of them or not. The people who are not like this would never really want to be part of it or will have to pretend that they are the same. And if the people who are not like this decide to exert influence which is contrary to this kind of unity - then they would expose themselves and loose all influence.
So it sorts itself out nicely, all by itself.
(the word "group" and the notion of being part of it, is, of course, misleading, as it has no boundaries by definition, in the latter context)
Posted by: A_V_G | August 14, 2009 4:55 AM
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Great article. Really drives home the importance and brilliance of our founding documents. We shouldn't ever be trying to give too much power to either group or they might erradicate the other. We certainly see that today.
Question: Where do you see our country going today? ( I think I can guess the anser.)
Posted by: kert1 | August 13, 2009 1:04 PM
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India under 'Watch List' on religious freedom
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has placed India on its "Watch List" for New Delhi's largely inadequate response in protecting its religious minorities.
In a statement, USCIRF said India earned the "Watch List" designation due to the "disturbing increase" in communal violence against religious minorities -- specifically Christians in Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 –-and the largely inadequate response from the Indian government to protect the rights of religious minorities.
"It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege," said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair.+++++++++++++++++++++
READ FULL STORY HINDUSTAN TIMES, AUG 13
Posted by: hsnkhwj | August 13, 2009 10:52 AM
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I have been reading your book 'When Athens Met Jerusalem' and I find it fascinating and thought-provoking. You mentioned in your article that Iran & North Korea will have to find their own equivalents of Athens & Jerusalem. Does the Eastern World have foundations like that? If so what are they? All I've ever heard about in school/from reading is the foundations of Western Thought not Eastern Thought (or do they overlap?). Do they even have Jerusalem at all?
Posted by: simivalleygirl93 | August 12, 2009 12:53 AM
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Protestants used the King James version of the Bible to intimidate Catholics and others out of the mainstream and into parochial identities for decades.
One woman's salvation history is another's heretical superstition. Even in Christianity, the American evangelicals care more for the old testament patriarchs than for Jesus's new testament liberality and moderation.
Leave it at 'we the people'