In response to some comments by Richard Neuhaus about immigration that I posted a few days ago, Jim Rogers of Texas A&M offers this alternative scenario: “My prediction is that within 20 years, if not sooner, the U.S. will be begging Mexicans, and others, to immigrate to the U.S., perhaps even using some of the incentives used during the 19th Century (e.g., allowing non-citizens to vote in elections & etc.). Increasing affluence and decreasing birthrates in Mexico, and elsewhere in... Read more
In Psalm 40, David says that Yahweh has “dug” or “pierced” or “opened” his ear. He is referring to the ritual for permanent slaves, according to which the slave’s ear is pierced at the doorway of the house to symbolize that his ear is open to one master. David is a permanent slave in the house of Yahweh. This forms the background for Jesus’ repeated exhortations “he who has an ear, let him hear,” and for the phrase repeated in... Read more
Some musings of mine on the dynamics and tensions of America’s role in the world was published this morning at http://www.firstthings.com/ . Read more
Near the beginning of The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism , George McKenna observes how the slavery issue put pressure on Southern evangelicals to adopt a more privatized piety: “Southern evangelical Protestantism had always been more personal and individualistic than that of the North. Salvation was something that was worked out in the individual’s soul. A reform in the individual’s moral behavior might be required, but there was little interest in the social implications of Christian reform. As the slavery... Read more
Wilson was the first sitting American President ever to venture out of the Western Hemisphere. He left the U.S. on December 4, 1918 to conclude the treaty that ended World War 1 in person. He got a hero’s welcome. Beinart writes: “When Wilson disembarked, Europe’s battered masses gave him a greeting that one journalist called ‘inhuman – or superhuman.’ At 3 A.M. that night, on the train carrying the American delegation to Paris, Wilson’s doctor looked outside and saw men,... Read more
In his The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris , Peter Beinart describes a Wilson-era American action that sounds vaguely familiar. Wilson was convinced that what Latin Americans wanted was identical to what he wanted for themselves, but he was happy to let them choose, so long as they followed his counsel: “I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men!” They didn’t listen and Wilson “convinced himself that the leaders he disliked didn’t represent... Read more
Isaiah 14:11 describes the king of Egypt descending to Sheol to speel on a bed of maggots and cover himself with worms. I’ve commented in a previous post on the connection of worms with ancient dyeing techniques, but there’s another aspect to this. Robes are a “Day 5” phenomenon. In the seven-speech sequence of Exodus 25-30, the priestly robes are in the fifth slot. Day 5 is about gathering the swarms around, in something like a robe. Yahweh is doing... Read more
Between Time Toward Home and his last book, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile , Neuhaus converted to Catholicism. Whether as cause or result or some of each, the latter book gives ecclesiology a much higher and more satisfying profile. Neuhaus’s final work is marked by a recurring concern over the American tendency to substitute America for the church. And along the way, he notes the advantage that Catholics have in resisting this temptation: “the fundamental complaint of anti-Catholics... Read more
God is a spring. So says Gregory of Nyssa: “As you came near the spring you would marvel, seeing that the water was endless, as it constantly gushed up and poured forth. Yet you could never say that you had seen all the water. How could you see what was still hidden in the bosom of the earth? Hence no matter how long you might stay at the spring you would always be beginning to see the water. For the... Read more
Neuhaus makes the cogent observation that American patriotism has been regularly refreshed by the influx of immigrants who find that the American dream is still realizable: “Perhaps taken-for-granted Americanism needs to be regularly refreshed by the Americanism of those who discover America all over again.” With the end of mass immigration in the 1920s, “the believability of American patriotism began to decline.” For several reasons, Neuhaus was skeptical that mass immigration would be renewed. The introduction of “some kind of... Read more
Leithart
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