How does the church navigate certain political issues? Because they do get involved still. I mean, just look at the Utah compromise several years ago and
and the RFMA just a couple of years ago where we sent church representatives 70s
to the steps of the capital for the signing. And what should the role of the members of the church be? How do you
live as a Christian as a Latter-day Saint within an increasingly secular world? And in the US, what is the role
of Christianity in our founding and in our founding documents? Why do we see so
many atheists today gravitating to that founding and its principles while trying
to dismiss the Christian underpinnings of its doctrine? Politics is oftentimes
about compromise. Where do we compromise as Latter-day Saints? Do we compromise on doctrine? There's some examples out
there. Living in the world but not being of the world can be very tricky. Ralph Hancock, professor of political science
at Brigham Y Young University, joins me in this episode to talk about these issues. Ralph is also the source of the
curriculum for the homeschooling program, Fathom the Good, and this episode is brought to you by them. In an
increasingly secular world, more courses, classes, curriculum need to be focused on these underlying Christian
principles. And Fathom the Good, which provides courses for high school-aged teenagers, does an incredible job of
addressing the question of the good. It is a piercing light in the midst of darkness that our education system has
become in the United States. Check out Fathom the Good. Go to fathomthegood.com
and get a free sample course and equip your kids with the tools necessary to
actually think. Here's the interview.
[Music]
All right, welcome to Quick Show. My name is Greg Matson and I am your host. In this episode, we bring back my good friend Ralph Hancock, BYU professor of
political philosophy. Ralph, I'm starting off with this question. What is the right or the best way for Christians
to live in a non-Christian world? All right. I like to say that's
obviously an essay question, not a short answer. And it's even a a booklength uh
question and books have been written on this question. Uh you could say
Augustine's uh monumental city of God is uh on this question of
Christianity standing in relation to the city of man to Rome and its empire and
so forth. But with those excuses um uh
how for to how might Christians rightly live in this world in our world uh in
the west today uh uh for many of us uh here in the United States of America
uh the question is complicated and many cited h how to live in the world and yet
not be of it. You have to take which is a paraphrase of uh something uh from one
of the letters of John I think to live in the world and not of it. You you have to take both halves of that uh seriously
don't you most obviously a Christian cannot be simply of the
world. Uh we have a destiny beyond beyond um this life beyond uh these
times beyond the powers and principalities that govern this world. We have an eternal destiny and that's uh
most important. Um but
uh at the same time uh we are here in our second estate as
we let a saint say to uh deal with the
material and social uh problems that confront us in this uh
temporal existence. And they're they're not irrelevant to our eternity.
Now, you had you had written, let me go on this. You had written a a a couple of articles, two-piece essay basically for
public discourse, and you talked about Jonathan Roush, and this is to me something where where he's
Jonathan Roush has been kind of dropped into the matrix here of Latter-day Saints, uh, the f, you know, looking at
points such as the founding of America, the US Constitution, freedom of religion, what place does Christianity
and religion as a whole have in the United States? Can they work together? Are they incompatible? There's all these
things and and you have a lot of Latter-day Saints at upper levels also
that are very interested in Jonathan Roush and and support what he's saying. he comes out with a book uh recently
that has a chapter that is filled with Latter-day Saints and how we're governing things in terms of uh I don't
know how else to say it but compromise uh with um things that we may not
believe in and how we work with that as opposed to for Jonathan Roush the evangelicals who are more stout on
holding their ground on on certain things such as traditional family, etc.
Um, so here here's my question then. Okay, Roush here in is urging Christians to
adopt kind of a um an ex Well, let me back up. I'm I'm
going to cut that piece out. Let me go to this one instead. In your article, Ralph, you describe Ralph's
vision as proposing a Christianity that contributes to liberalism's soul craft,
right? without interfering with its epistemology, its belief system.
Can Christianity be reduced to soulcraft without surrendering its truth claims?
No. Really, it doesn't take a moment's thought to see that this is true. And and and let me say at the outset that
Jonathan Roush uh not to belittle him or diminish his contributions. He's he's a
serious journalist who has done uh excellent work on an early book of his I read was called demosclerosis about how
our institutions are are gummed up and
impeded by uh interest group politics and so forth. Very good stuff.
uh he he wrote an important book uh making what he regarded as a kind of uh
conservative or let's say pro-f family case for gay marriage and you could say that he uh he won that battle. So he's a
thoughtful uh important journalist with whom one can reason. But this book of
his uh uh crossurposes about uh Christianity and democracy today is
really not very interesting from the standpoint of political
philosophy or for its serious propositions about how to live in the world as a Christian and not of it. It's
what's interesting about it is it's a seductive power for so many Christians who are weary of the culture wars
and who want to find some way to uh accommodate to settle in to get over
polarization. How often do we hear this argument there's polarization let's not be polarized.
He's so appealing to that uh sensibility and in a word he tries to make it much
too easy to be a Christian in our world. He practically answers the question how
to live in the world but not be of it by saying well actually you can be mostly of it. It's not to not to worry. So that
that's uh he he really doesn't um
g give any serious ground to a Christian or otherwise morally conservative
understanding of what life is about and that can't be irrelevant to our
political priorities. You know, it's interesting because you and I have friends that um are also weary of the
cultural war and yet when they see what Jonathan Rous is teaching and the embracing that the Latter-day Saints
certainly institutionally uh BYU as an example have embraced him and his
approach. Um it still it
it it for people like that that have are wary of the culture war and still are saying whoa wait is what is going on
here? The compromise is not what we're looking for. It just brings up a a question of what way do we go forward as
Latter-day Saints with these things. I mean, you talk about living of the in the world but not being of the world.
And yet, what is a compromise? It sounds to me more like something you would do in politics
and trying to get policy or law passed uh between two sides that are trying to duke it out and we compromise, we end up
with a bill. Is that really the way to handle things with Christianity and and religion?
Well, politics must uh uh politics in any degree uh democratic must always
involve compromise. But just where does Christianity, where does the restored
gospel, where do our fundamental moral beliefs and beliefs regarding the family
come into this? Uh that's the question. And Roush uh really sweeps all those uh
questions away. If you read him carefully, he's amazingly dismissive of any uh serious moral propositions
grounded in a Christian worldview. He does not care.
Uh so I don't know whether he's um deceptive or selfdeceptive
or uh just uh doesn't care to think very deeply about these things. But uh
ultimately he's just telling Christians uh just uh come over to our side in
terms of the fundamental moral political issues and uh we'll let you uh in
private or in the zone of of private action that is still left to you. We'll
let you uh willing to show signs of respect to your religious beliefs. Uh
but it won't matter. I mean, it's striking in this book how often he basically says uh uh you can't win. Uh
accept it. Uh just uh you can you can be part of us, but just uh be a good
Christian. Now, it must mean don't try to win. We're happy to have Christians involved in in uh democratic politics,
the politics of a liberal democracy, as long as you don't think uh you might try
to win as a Christian. Yeah. Well, he seems to think that look, I mean,
it's great that there's religion in America. He didn't used to think that. He did not even few years ago, he was not saying this. So, now he's saying,
okay, Christianity is necessary. Uh but just don't get dogmatic on on things and
and and and if you don't get dogmatic on certain issues that I believe in being Roush then then great that then you're
you're you're in a good place and we can really work together and this could be a great thing. Let me ask this in in his
book and in his BYU speech that that he gave a few months back, right? He admits
that liberalism is is incomplete without any moral support from religion. He he's
now turned the corner on that, right? But he insists still on a purely secular foundation, right? Is he asking
Christians to enter a marriage where they are always the junior partner? And
if so, why would they accept that deal? Well, yes.
Answering the first part of your question is easy. I mean, I I I frankly have to wonder. It seems um like a a
naughty suspicion of mine, but how many of those who are enthusiastic have actually read his book or read it with
any care? Uh because it's it's really fairly
transparent if you just track the reasoning with any degree of conscientiousness.
But look, it you're exactly right. He he used to be he's been an an atheist and a
homosexual marriage advocate for a long time. Probably the biggest voice there. Yeah. He used to be absolutely allergic
uh to Christianity. And by the way, it between the lines or I mean rather in
passing but explicitly in this book, he will say contemptuous things
about Christianity and especially about his moral teaching which he regards as
backward retro retrograde and he still regards uh traditionalist Christian
teachings as uh uh despicable. But you're right to say that he's he's
come to this realization that uh liberalism cannot supply its own uh
moral foundations. He's he's kind of strange and eccentric on this point too because he says he
doesn't need any foundations. I mean, he he's uh happy to look at humanity, a
human being, as a uh a clump of cells that are the accidental product of, I
don't know, billions of years of evolution or something. Uh he's happy to believe that, but he recognizes
for some people that just doesn't work. For some people, it's hard to draw a line between that sort of atheistic uh
metaphysics and anthropology. for uh it's hard to draw a line from
that to uh uh the moral foundations of a
democracy. So strangely he says uh I I'm kind of weird and I'm just an atheist
and it's uh it's fine with me. I don't believe in anything beyond this life. I don't believe in any reality beyond the
material which by the way even in scientific terms is not a coherent uh
position if it anymore if it ever if it ever was. Uh I don't need this but uh
I've come to see that Christian that that many people actually need some moral foundation. So why don't we reach
out to Christians uh and we'll see especially Latter-day Saints to provide these foundations. Um well, but as long
as these foundations don't interfere with my view
of liberalism, which is conceived on absolutely uh secular and atheistic foundations. So
you can be my friend. You can uh you Christians ought to support. Actually,
he waffles on the uh word support, but that's what he's saying. He he he goes
back to you you can align with. You can help us out by aligning with I don't
know how that doesn't add up to support. You can help us out you Christians without uh supporting but only by
aligning with uh liberalism but just don't uh but just keep any of your
non-liberal ideas uh to yourselves.
Uh so you say in your piece also you say that Roush urges Christians to adopt an
exilic posture right retreating from public influence. In your view is this a
noble calling to humility? I mean should we look at it this way like we are nice, we are kind, we are inclusive,
right? In in your view is this a noble calling or is it more of a calculated sidelining of a Christian moral witness?
It's a very devious rhetoric. Again, I only God can search hearts. I don't know how calculated this is on Roush's part.
If if it's not calculated, he's landed upon a uh marvelously effective
rhetorical strategy, however shallow it is philosophically
uh and uh theologically uh because he's basically saying um you
should support with your religion a a view of politics that is based upon
really a a metaphysical and moral foundation. that is uh alien to you to
your religion. Now, of course, he has to define an area of overlap
and and that's where the uh that's where uh
that's where his argument really uh kicks in. That's the essence of his argument. What is that?
What can one uh draw from Christianity? Or how might one characterize certain uh
Christian teachings and attitudes in such a way as lo and behold they perfectly complement or align with with
liberalism. But with that, let me let me go back because this goes back to I think it was your introductory question.
Uh when you talked I mean the general question of Christ Christians relating to the secular world today. Here's the
real here's where Roush really represents the fundamental
challenge and and complication in that scenario today. The problem is that in a
in a weird I would say even perverse kind of way uh democracy has come to uh
to imitate to uh secular democracy has come to imitate or to uh ape uh certain
Christians Christian teachings in a way that is very uh alluring and uh deceptive. My my
friend the French political philosopher Pierre Manant has pointed out that in some ways this will be paradoxical and
shocking but try this out. In some ways the problem with democracy is that it
become too too Christian in the sense of a soft in the sense of your uh uh teddy
bear Christianity or in the sense that the our academic religion of uh of
equity and diversity essentially a woke religion is uh in a
perverse way uh derived from uh aspects of Christianity that have been wrenched.
away from their foundations or from the the core propositions of Christianity.
But that's what's so alluring about his proposition. What if he proposes to us
Christians, especially Latter- Day Saints, Rous proposes, what if the um
the way to be the best Christian is exactly what it what we need uh in a
secular liberal and I'm going to say post Obergfell democracy because that
that's really what we're talking about. That's that's the broad context. That's the
Roush is kind of posturing himself as a moderate or a center left today because he's won
his big issue and now he's saying okay can we just agree on that this is the uh
a fed plea or this is the uh the baseline or the default of what we mean
by democracy now and can we can we not contest this and uh now he's proposing
that you Christians and Latter-day Saints understand your Christianity in
such a way as to uh support this uh post
Obergfell uh liberal uh scenario and do it in the
name of uh of uh imitating Jesus and in the name of um love and forgiveness.
Yes. Now he he does this thing kind of along the lines of what you're saying is he does this thing where he says look
again he's turned the corner on Christianity as part as far as we need Christianity in the United States and
for pluralism and and and for our republic to run the way that it should. Uh but he parses it out and says
Christianity is great for the country. We believe that just keep your Christian beliefs out of politics is basically to
me that's how I see it. Right. He's he's separating those two things. The the structure and the manifestation, the
practical uh um use for religion is great for America. Just keep it out of
politics is is what it seems like to me. Now, if that's the case, um what is the
risk to Christians and Latter-day Saints especially, right, in to to to
stay out of politics and especially in kind of in this moment of of where where
secular liberalism is defining the terms in our public morality,
to stay out of polit and to stay out of the especially out of the culture wars to avoid the most polarizing terms of
politics. Now that that is a great again the great temptation, but I thank Roush
for bringing uh to the four uh the uh what's really
at stake in this uh temptation of a kind
of uh liberal democratic reinterpretation of
Christianity. The the the problem with a complete u retreat or disavowel of of
what have been called culture wars is that we fail to see
that what is at stake morally and culturally in the political regime in
the political settlement uh in the more or less uh stable
compromise under which we are living. If we accept that uh as the default, then we are
actually uh forsaking our our our core beliefs on the matter of uh sexuality
and the family in particular. Uh Roush wants us to uh
sideline those to privatize them. And uh some uh Latter-day Saints of goodwill
end up in the same place by uh saying just using the language of uh of love
and uh peacemaking, you know, echoing a key
v key terms by uh President Nelson in the language of love and peacemaking. Uh
many latter-day saints find it convenient even exhilarating just to uh
embrace the terms of the compromise such as
Roush uh outlines it. But see there are two aspect one aspect is be nice and
compromise. But at a deeper level and this is the really seductive and
subversive part of the argument. At a deeper level, the argument is the truth of Christianity has nothing to do with
uh chastity or with the structure of the
family or with any uh stringent uh moral
demands. The truth of Christianity is all on the on your teddy bear Jesus
side, Greg. the truth of Christianity. Uh those other things uh our historical
inheritances and this is the the logic into which we slip. Those other things aren't
essential because to imitate Jesus. I mean Roush is an atheist and he has the gall to say uh you Christians haven't
been imitating Jesus in the right way. You know as if he really deeply cares or
invested in imitating Jesus. I mean it it it quenches indignation to quote Alan
Bloom. It quenches indignation. If you think about it, what he's really uh saying here,
please, please be wouldn't it be sweet for you to be like Jesus so that you would exile yourself? Because that's
what Christianity is about. Judeo-Christianity is about accepting exile from this life. And so can you
just let uh the liberal progressive project take control of this world and
accept your exile uh to a pilgrimage awaiting another
world. That's really the proposition here. Now talking about that where he's kind
of appropriating a a Christian perspective and then repackaging it. Uh
why do you think Roush singles out Latter-day Saint theology, particularly
its concept of agency, right, as uniquely useful for a liberal
democracy? And how does he use that? Why is he doing that?
Yeah. Well, there there's partly a historical explanation for this um love
fest between uh Roush and uh prominent Latter-day Saints. Uh I can't trace all
the history in detail but suffice it to say for many years Roush has kind of
appeared on the uh circuit of Latterday Saint discussions with um
moderate uh uh political voices in uh in
uh think tanks and in the political world. Rous has been part of those discussions and he's been uh he's
befriended leading Latter-day Saints and uh he's been happy to accept that that friendship and Latter-day Saints have
been maybe a little uh uh flattered even exhilarated by this prominent atheistic
uh political voice uh embracing a
Latter-day Saint vocabulary in some respects. So like a personal
uh Roush has has become part of the uh a sort of a Latter Day Saint
conversation in engagement with uh secular political thinkers and that's
all right all right up to a certain point. I'm not denying that Roush is an interesting interlocator that it
wouldn't be of interest to have him speak at BYU. We can come back to that uh if we wish.
Um but the key Yeah, you're right to mention that the but he he seizes upon
and obviously he didn't find this by himself. He had some Latter-day Saint help in finding this. he seizes upon the
concept of agency uh in order to argue that here's really
a fundamental theological principle that fits perfectly with liberalism. So your
your listeners have this pretty clear question before them that each has to decide. Is the use
of is the way we talk about agency in a Latter-day Saint theological context
equivalent to what uh liberals I mean especially secular progressive
contemporary liberals mean by freedom? Seems to me the answer clearly is one of
two letters. But uh let that be a matter of study for each of your uh listeners.
But he grabs this idea of agency and glosses it in a as if we were talking
about a secular doctrine of freedom to say that Latter-day Saints believe
effectively that more choice is always better. We don't want to uh constrain or
there's really no authoritative guidance for choice because the heart of the
gospel and the meaning of life is agency itself and a this agency has been uh uh
detached from abstracted from all moral framework or all u I would say how shall
we put it metaphysical or ontological framework the the meaning of choice is in choice itself.
and doesn't owe anything to the the relationship between agency and atonement or the plan of salvation or uh
the uh moral laws that sort of for us are built into the fabric of the
universe. All of that is cast aside by this sole focus on agency
reinterpreted as liberal freedom as the essence of the gospel. Yeah. I I just think that we need to be
very careful as Latter- Day Saints to have our theology repackaged, repurposed,
appropriated for political ends, right? Especially by someone who is openly rejecting the core
tenants of our faith. Yeah. At a certain Yeah, agree. At a certain level, uh, you know, I'm
I'm moved to say this doesn't even pass the straight face test. I mean, excuse
me, but I don't think we should be having this conversation. It's not a philosophically and theologically, it's
not a serious conversation. And anyone who reads his book with any
philosophical or theological background and with any degree of critical acumen
will see that the argument it's in itself does not pass the straight face test. So the real the really interesting
thing about this book is what makes it so uh seductively seductive uh socially,
psychologically and emotionally especially for some Latter-day Saints. Why why are we you
know you can put a good face on this? We want to be obliging. We want to reach out. We want to we are open to truths
that arise in all spheres of life from different kinds of words right virtue whatever is lovely.
Yeah we we we want to be open we want to uh extend a hand of fellowship uh to
non-members and non-believers. Uh that's all good but uh what
psychological rewards are we receiving by doing this? We're we get to play with
the big boys, you know, we get to be featured in a uh by a nationally prominent journalist as the best
Christian theology for uh dancing with liberalism. It's um
again I don't think the argument itself passes the straight face test, but the
the the social and emotional seductiveness is maybe all too easy to
understand. We want to be part we don't want to be compartmentalized especially we uh professionals we academics we who
have any pretensions to being successful as success is now defined in our
globalized economy and in our uh elite uh media and
academy and so forth. who want to be successful and here's a chance to to
play ball and to be taken as it were into a kind of inner circle by uh
somebody who's clearly uh made it in Washington DC.
Yeah. It just seems to me that that again he parses this out. It's it's it's kind of a a watered down theology is
what really works uh in America. if you're going to be involved with uh
politics, if you're going to um have a voice at all, you know, just make
sure that voice is watered down. Don't be dogmatic with your religion and and we can all get along in this way. It's
kind of like he's But the the problem is obviously the tension comes up I I see
as he's kind of giving us a a get out of jail free card, right? that allows us to
pass go don't go to jail and and but but you're allowed to go straight to moral
relativism, right? That's exact that's what he wants. He wants us to go straight to moral relativism and and
gives us this get out of jail card in order to do so. Uh
is that compromise? Is is that what the compromise is? Well, maybe we need to step back and say
in a way, you know, if if the sides are drawn in a way that is u let's say
polarizing from the outset and by definition, if the sides are drawn in a
way that says either Christians and Latter-day Saints u enter politics by
saying uh God says this, God is on my side and
therefore uh those who disagree with me are uh wrong and maybe evil. uh obviously uh
the right uh way for Christians to deal
with the world and that in for dealing with the world again back to your first question inevitably involves dealing
with the powers that be with the political world and the hierarchies the
elite uh sensibilities that are are attached to the uh political world.
But uh the answer uh uh the the way to
the alternative way to engage alternative to Roush's way of uh this uh
uh smooshy and deceptive compromise is not obviously to say uh because God says
so. It's not a like for example a scriptural fundamentalist approach. These things are wrong because
the Bible tells me so. No, politics is inherently
about reasoning together, always imperfectly, always with motivations of
uh interests and with power dynamics at work. But there's not politics without reasoning together ultimately
about our highest priorities and therefore about the human good about what a good flourishing existence
consists in. But uh contemporary
liberal politicians and political theorists, I mean I we could go back to uh John RS and his theory of justice
that was launched in the 1970s, but in general uh liberals have wanted to say,
you know, check all that uh let's make that private morality. you check that at
the door and then we will uh reason together on a supposedly neutral basis.
But allow me to announce there is no neutral basis. Every one of us,
Jonathan Roush included, is is starting from is basing his uh argument and his
political priorities upon some understanding or another, however diffuse, however implicit, but some
meaningful understanding of what it means to be a human being, of what it means to flourish, of what this
life is all about. And what we could get back to the clues that we pick up from Roush as to answers
to this question. Hint, they're not answers compatible with a Latter-day Saint understanding of agency and
atonement and the plan of salvation or anything else.
But um sorry, I have to resume my my thread of thought here. But
we all we have to reason together in the public
realm. But that doesn't mean to accept the supposedly speciously neutral
premises of the, if I may say, the liberal establishment because they're
not neutral. Okay? Everybody's coming with some view of humanity. Ours is
informed by uh our Latter-day Saint belief, but also by experience in life
and by observations around us, experiences as to what makes life good, what builds good character, what makes a
good citizen. Uh we we we have every bit as much right to uh draw upon our
experience which is an inextricable
mixture always of uh inherited beliefs
and uh religious doctrine and moral experience and just practical judgment.
We have as much right to draw upon our beliefs as anyone else. But Roush wants to uh truncate. He wants to cut off
every uh every premise of our political reasoning, every moral premise that is
in any way that can in any way be said to be tainted by Christianity or
biblical revelation or really anything uh that is not compatible with uh the
premises of his liberalism. What do you make of Rash's insistence
that uh that Christianity can help fill the God-shaped hole of liberalism of our
democracy? Right. While he's while denying the God who creates that very need. I mean, we've moved into a place
where secularism has really taken over a lot of our our policym of our laws of
our culture. Um what
Well, how can he see this in a way that says we're going to hold off on your faith
while you participate in your communities, but we're not going to accept the faith uh in into your
politics even though there is this as I see it a huge hole that is needs to be
filled with faith itself. Yeah. Well, but he wants to take your uh
wants to take your God and your religion, Christian Latter-day Saint, and uh sort of cramm it into
the the moral vacuum uh that
arises from liberalism in order to support liberalism. But what if it
doesn't what if it doesn't uh fit that hole? What if it doesn't serve that purpose? He he doesn't even want to
think about that. Again, that's uh you you've put your finger on the uh rather
obvious uh and major defect in the argument if you look at it at all
philosophically uh or theologically. So he wants uh
Christianity to support or align with the words don't make any difference
support or align with liberalism but without any uh residue without any
remainder without u uh without attaching any decisive
importance to those elements that uh don't fit with with his liberalism. And
again, I emphasize this would be a different discussion if we were talking about the the whole history of American
liberalism, but he he's a liberal in a post 2015
sense. And it's that uh settlement that uh he wants to
uh he wants you it's that settlement with which he wants to align your Christianity.
Now, Roush states and believes that secularism has
aggressively moved the Overton window. I mean, I don't know. I don't think it's pretty hard to say that's not true. It
has moved the Overton window, right? Do Do Latter- Day Saints and Christians as a whole have a moral obligation to
contest that movement rather than adjust to it?
Yeah. two two kinds of comments on that. First of all, I have to point out this comes
in and when he these are his he uses these terms he he refers you've rightly
noticed to the Overton window and there's a kind of moment in passing. is one of my favorite, in a way, the most
candid moment in the book, the most politically realistic moment in the book because he he pauses and says, "Now I
grant you that liberalism has massively moved the overton window to well to the
left in some sense." Uh, but this is really in the midst of an argument. The whole section he's writing in here is
meant to show that Christian Christians have nothing to fear because uh the law
in America is friendlier to Christians than in any other country and supposedly we have the Supreme Court on our side
and this and that. So at right in the middle of saying we have nothing to worry about and uh the fear is all just
stoked up for political reasons by uh by uh you know grouchy evangelicals who
support Donald Trump and so forth. Right in right in the middle of that argument he pauses to say well I acknowledge that
the over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O over O overton window has been massively moved but that's the whole point. I mean he he
wants to uh he wants to settle on the moment at
where we've reached in the Overton window now or let's say he wants to uh enable a ratchet effect to make sure
that we don't at least slip back behind where we've come. So if we agree with
him that the Overton window has been moved massively or that which is really
equivalent to saying we have been losing the culture war or maybe even that it's
uh lost in in decisive respects. Uh you know here's what I ask of those
who uh want Latter-day Saints to have nothing to do with culture war. And um
and uh on this point our friend uh uh
Paul Mero uh you know exhibits a cand which is unusual because Paul
essentially says let it go because we've lost.
All right, that's an arguable point. My point is don't say don't uh say let's
not let's not get involved in the culture wars. Let's just be nice and compromise.
Let's not say any of that. At least not before saying we've lost and it's a disaster.
If you if you take essential LDS teachings seriously if you take just
reread the family proclamation to the world. It's a proclamation to the world
and it warns against the fate that befalls peoples and nations who ignore
the fundamental truths of the family. See, if that's true, it's not just a matter of opinion, and it's not just a
it's not just a matter of religious salvation either. It's a matter that affects the sustainability of a
civilization and a nation. So, it's not just an like an irrational opinion or uh
a matter that we take on faith because we're a certain kind of Christian. it
the what the family proclamation says about the family is an anthropological
truth as well as a religious truth. It's a truth about human nature that cannot not
be relevant to politics. I would say yeah I will say Paul I don't think that
he would say uh compromise. He's not a big fan of Ralph either, but uh but I he
he he would say, you know, back away from the culture war, but I don't think he would say compromise on these issues. No, no, but I was praising him for
saying plainly, we've lost and so the question is uh say
we've lost or largely lost then what shall we do? And this again comes back
to what you raised at the beginning. Yeah. I would say that the culture war
is impinging on us all the time. And the most and this is Roush's great uh
blessing, great gift to us Latter-day Saints and other Christians that Roush
uh a careful consideration of Roush's proposition for a Christian liberal
alliance makes us realize that u the problem with the culture wars is that it
is already inside our religion. it already affects our very self-standing
and our very religious understanding. So it's it's not our it's not outside of
us. I wish it were. It's already part of the way we uh it's part of the
lens through which we see uh our religious
teachings. Just take the doct Raj gives us the perfect example in agency. Uh so
many Latter-day Saints uh could be on the abortion question or many others,
they revert to the principle of agency as as if that's a trump card that completely um shortcircuits every
serious moral, political and and religious question really. Uh well, abortion is
supposed to be wrong. Yeah. but agency. Uh so the great risk of uh
ignoring or proposing to striving to ignore the culture wars is that we will
ignore the fact that uh the culture is
changing our religious and moral beliefs from the inside. There's a tendency of
subversion. the there's a tendency of uh
of liberalism, secular liberalism, which is really a secularized and u
emasculated view of Christianity that will actually uh seep into how we
understand our own Christianity and and will yield a view in which uh
a Christian love is no more than niceness and compromise. I mean Roush
proposes that uh it's really quite amusing if you think about it that the the basic principles
of Christianity do not fear, imitate Jesus, forgive others. Well, if you look
at James Madison's uh classical liberal politics, and it's a very defective
presentation of James Madison, by the way, but if you look at James Madison, he's saying, "Ah, that's really the same
as Christianity." So, there's it's perfect. There's no uh there's no tension to be a Christian is to be a
nice liberal person. And then the other like backward beliefs you may hold. Well, if
you have to, but just don't don't presume to bring them into the public
sphere. Yeah. I He's very Madisonian and and and wants to fit a square peg into a round
hole, I think, here. Uh, in what way do you think that well-meaning Latter-day Saints are are
tempted by Roush's vision of this neutered Christianity that that that
basically is surviving to some degree and I'd say Christianity as a whole that is surviving by being agreeable.
Look, I think there is a massive
sociological element in the explanation of this. And uh
uh let me mention that uh many of these ideas of mine were crystallized with the
help of a an excellent book uh a few years old by uh a fellow who used to be
an editor at first things name uh named u botm
Joseph Botm isn't it? Yeah, he uh and I think his book is um the age of anxiety
or we can check that something along those lines. But he makes this argument with respect to uh
Protestants who was white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who
were you know from the beginning sort of the leading the core elite group uh in
American society, politics, education and everything. But uh for various
reasons uh they begin to lose their their hold uh in the 20th century
they're trying to uh find their relevance and they um increasingly
embrace a social gospel and then a gospel of uh of
liberalism which transposes the meaning of Christianity into an idea of uh of
progress and a sort of secularized fellow feeling. But anyway, why is this
so so tempting? It's the the uh the the virtuous leadership that
Protestant elites had exercised. And
let's grant that they did much good. I mean, they're they're worse countries than the United States of America, and
I'm talking about northern Protestant elite, so let's not blame them for slavery. Uh they're worse countries than
uh than Yankee, America from 1800 until 1950 or something. you
could do worse. But uh at a certain point uh they see
themselves becoming uh irrelevant as Christians and reshape their
Christianity to emphasize the social gospel and liberal progress. and the
same uh zeal but most importantly the same sense of elite
virtue the same sense of pride in leadership uh is channeled into progressive
politics. Uh now what struck me is how latter-day saints in uh in the present
generation let's say how vulnerable we are to that kind of
essentially a sociological temptation. Uh we
we uh Latter-day Saints have just sort of been uh
partly on the fringe, partly on the inside of uh upwardly
mobile and visibly successful Americans. I mean, you can go back to uh
the Mitt Romney or to the Osmans and and sort of trace the history of Americans
becoming mainstream. And I think we we crave so much to be mainstream and to be to be part of the
American liberal project. And now that this project in its global,
international, and increasingly woke version
takes on another whole dimension. Uh Latter-day Saints want to be
educated and successful with all that that means in our world. So just think about the Latter-day Saint emphasis upon
education. It's noble naturally. I'm in favor of education, including higher education. There's a good debate, a
useful debate about how necessary, yes, colleges are right now for everyone. But
I'm in favor of education and the church's uh embrace of education within a
perspective of the glory of God is intelligence and uh whatever principle of intelligence we attain to in this
life will rise with us in the resurrection. That's all fine and good. But our our um enthusiasm for education
also has a social dimension. The dimension frankly of social status.
Don't mix us up with the conservative Christians, evangelicals, and
fundamentalists. We are successful, upwardly mobile, globally invested,
a globally competent kinds of people. We're leadership material.
and uh and it and BYU is, you know, largely built for us, you know, putting
Latter-day Saints on a track to international
leadership. How can there not be a temptation to take on the values and sensibilities of
the global elite? I say global elite, it sounds conspiratorial, but there is a
thing. It is a real force. And I think when Latter-day Saints who are sort of
tenuously holding on to this dream of becoming part of a global elite, they wouldn't even put it that way. They'll
just in terms of being successful, helping to change the world, making a contribution. Yeah, they're all all
benign and largely admirable ways of expressing the same thing. But as we as
young Latter-day Saints especially uh conceive this possibility of being part
of a an an elite leadership class in
considered enlightened and successful. Along with that comes a great aversion
to anything that makes us seem u uh backward uh bigoted uh ignorant
uh even the word conservative uh can be a um can be deadly in the
circles in which we want to rise. So I think it's this allergy to anything
associated with conservative conservatism and especially religious conservatism that makes us so vulnerable
to this uh seductive appeal of Rouses. If that's the question you ask me and I
can't you seem I don't even know if it's just conservativism. I think it's just your your faith and your understanding
of the gospel and are you going to hang on to that or are you not? Now, some people today as the Overton window does
move say, "Well, the more you hold on to the gospel and its principles, you're the more conservative you are."
That's right. I I I I don't know that that is really I don't like that. I don't like that idea.
I understand that there is truth behind that, but it's it's a matter of if I'm going to be if BYU, for example, is
going to be teaching the the students there to go out into the world and to be leaders in the world. The leadership to
me there needs to be grounded in gospel principles and that everything else you can talk about what the perspective is,
if that's conservative, if that's more liberal, if that's whatever. To me, it's are you grounded in the principles or
are you watered down into a more of a secular approach that is going to be
more agreeable in those leadership positions? Well, I I agree with you, Greg, in the sense that I don't I'm I
don't want the church or BYU to the mission is not to uh align with
or promote something uh somebody else has conceived as conservative. But
here's the problem, Greg. We have to be frank about this.
And there now more than ever the very definition of conservatism or of the right is up
for grabs. That would be a topic for another sure discussion. But look
uh any politically relevant worldview
that we're remotely friendly or even respectful of open to the teaching of
the family proclamation. just to use this as a touchstone is going to be considered conservative.
I it's not it's it's not our choice to be conservative activists.
Um for that matter our in terms of our belief system the basic the way we
really understand agency as uh having to do with accountability
and uh responsibility and uh sustainability to use a word that Elder
Kristofferson uh used in the title of a recent conference address. Uh all these
are uh essentially uh
uh terms that now have right-wword accents, if I may put it that way. So I
I'm not in favor of the church or BYU in any way investing itself in conservative
activism. On the other hand, if we uh run away from anything that uh the world
or our enemies or our rivals or our critics would define conservatism
as conservatism, if we run away from that, then we're letting them set the agenda. I I just don't I don't think
conservatism should be our priority. You're right to put the emphasis upon
religious fundamentals, but on the other hand, we can't run away from the label
that others will inevitably apply to us. That would be my argument. Yeah. Oh, that that's a good point. It's
a good point. Um, all right. So, how do Latter- Day Saints then, given all this, how do Latter- Day Saints navigate this
tension between being peacemakers and being
I I it's funny. I'm even posing it this way, but being peacemakers and being faithful Latter-day Saints, right? And
and and standing for something, right? But but thinking in my mind as I'm reading this off on my little question
here, I'm thinking, okay, that's really interesting that those are juxtaposed here to some degree. But um all right,
and especially in our our our cultural environment, our church cultural environment, right, where where
conformity is rewarded and conviction is punished. Yeah. A short answer would be like one
argument or one discussion at a time. It's not as if I mean these are these
are things that in practice must be balanced u
reconciled and you know never completely the tension is never uh completely
resolved. uh we want to be uh respectful uh tolerant up to a point
good listeners open to other points of view but we want to stand for something
too. So uh this is it's not as if you can just uh highlight one end of the
spectrum and say that that's the right way to go. It's a it's a matter of practical judgment in every case. Just
in addressing our contemporary political situation, you have to deal with the the options that are on the table. But I I
would say this um not to deny that uh justified anger or
righteous indignation can have a place even for a person striving for
saintthood. still uh if you're acting out of anger, especially if you're constantly uh
angry, uh that's a bad sign. You you probably should be thinking about something else
or going to some other into some other business. uh people uh this shows up uh
neatly by the way in uh in the uh
eighth or ninth book of Plato's Republic when he's describing the various uh
transitions stages of decline of the philosophical or enlightened soul. Sorry for that
historical philosophical reference but Plato already saw this very clearly.
People who are angry are angry not because they're overconfident about their ideas, but because they're not
confident enough. We have foundations. We know they're true. We don't know
everything, but um we have firm beliefs
that are well grounded in experience and that we know from experience
are true, even if they're not always in every respect the whole truth. We have
certain truths in which we are confident. So speak speak from those. Uh
don't be afraid. Uh and don't be
angry. Um, in a way, Greg, I'm always impatient with these with these
discussions about u about tone and about
um language and all the discussions about
civility, for example. I'm a little impatient with them because, yeah, that's obviously true, but it's so it's
kind of uninteresting. We all we know that we're supposed to be decent people with uh civility and self-control,
but that has nothing to do with um that that by no means uh implies that
we should refrain from affirming the truths that we know. uh by no and and
and and here again we can't take our bearings by who might be offended or claim to be uh offended. We should
uh go out of our way not to give offense intentionally. But if we
are doing our best to reason uh wisely
and um uh and uh conscientiously, seriously, and
somebody takes offense and believes we are bigoted or haters. Well, that's
that's their problem. I think, you know, in most cases, they're the haters. I'm going to do my best not to hate them in
return. But, um, we we can't make uh peacemaking the enemy of standing for
something. There we sort of quote the mantras of two two
of our prophets of living uh living memory. And another maybe maybe you can
help me remember the there was a general authority talk that distinguished uh
uh contention or being contentious from contending for the truth. Yeah. There we
are called to contend uh wherever that may be useful and has
have any hope of being constructive not for the purpose of um triggering other
people but for the purpose of contributing to serious discussions about our common priorities
uh as a community. So yes, civility. Yes. Can we just all agree on being
civil? And uh and can we all agree that the the nastiness that we often see in
comments online is just u more than juvenile. It's uh absolutely
infantile and despicable. Can we just agree on that and then move on to
discuss the substance of the issues? Yeah. And Ralph, you this is all these
these topics and and this discussion within this matrix that uh Jonathan Ralph seems to be at the center of which
which provides such provocative really uh discussion on on several important
issues for the church. Um this is part of a series that you've got uh for us on our Substack on Alive and Intelligent
and uh that's going to be three four-week series that uh we're excited about and people ought to go over there to the Alive and Intelligent check that
out. The last thing I want to ask you is about you have a homeschool high school curriculum that is pulled from your
teachings on on these things uh called Fathom the Good that we have talked a
lot about here on this program. Looking at what we're t speaking about these topics that we're speaking of right now
in in this interview in this discussion. How does something like the curriculum
that you've provided for teenagers provide a a a compass to some degree of
how to walk through these issues even at a at a younger age? Yeah. Uh my teachings that struck me as
a little bit grandiose at first, but it's true. I I am the the main author of the ideas behind the curriculum
obviously. But I would say the uh what I think I have learned in uh many decades
of uh scholarship and teaching in the history of political philosophy and
especially let's say at the kind of interface of uh
religion, philosophy and politics. So that's what I've been doing all these decades. And a short answer to your
question of the relevance of the Fathom the Good curriculum to the questions we've been discussing
is really it turns out that one of our motto mantras at Fathom has been to be
in the world but not of it. We're it's really the curriculum is meant to help young people learn to deal with this
very challenge and learn to uh stand up for things uh reasonably and with
confidence. neither to cave in nor to become embittered and uh isolated and
let's say uh anti-intellectual but to have confidence that careful
reasoning can be on the side of faith and morality. That's really the whole
thing because modern secular rationalists want
us to believe that reason leads to
relativism and uh an undefined progress to some further
stage of humanity. But no, that's a that's a very tendentious and um
largely blind understanding of reason. very very partial and uh uh truncated
reason. You know the most rational question in the world is what does it
all mean? What is it good for? What m what what constitutes a flourishing
existence? And Fathom starts with and always returns to the question of the
good with the help of philosophers, you know, from Plato and Aristotle to uh
Madison and Touqueville. That's what Fathom is for. Yeah. And what I love about the curriculum, and it is incredible, is
it's it's just it does reduce down to that. It's it's do you want your kids
thinking about critically thinking about the good, right? How? Because the
clarity when you can study these things and go through these exercises, you you
get a better habit of actually choosing the good. It's not just the question of
the good. It's actually I can actually choose better for the good. And this can be in school. This could be in your in
your career. This could be with your family or whatever it is. Um it it's a way of learning how to think about the
good and and uh people ought to go and check that out. Ralph, thank you for your time very much for articulating
these positions. I have a feeling we're going to talk a little bit more about this. Yeah, I always have the sense that I I
could I could list a dozen things that I didn't really explain well enough and I already took too long. So, we'll talk
some more. Okay. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Greg.
