solzhenitzyn
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/william-barr-promotes-christian-tyranny-in-latest-speech/"><font size="4" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/william-barr-promotes-christian-tyranny-in-latest-speech/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>William Barr promotes Christian tyranny in latest speech</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Chrissy Stroop / Religion Dispatches February 29, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’ve said it before, and if you’re reading this, you’ve very likely heard the same thing darkly muttered among liberals and progressives if you haven’t said it yourself: I never thought anything could possibly make me miss Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. And yet, with his willingness to throw away our norms, checks, and balances, to politicize the Justice Department, to sacrifice the rule of law itself on the altar of Trump—current Attorney General William Barr has done it. As authoritarian as he was, invoking Romans 13 to defend the Trump administration’s indefensibly inhumane policy of caging children separated from their asylum-seeking parents, Sessions had at least enough genuine concern for the rule of law to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation, against the tweeter-in-chief’s explicit wishes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In other ways, however, Sessions and Barr are clearly cut from the same cloth. </b>Sessions, a Methodist, has asserted that without belief in God it is impossible to believe in truth, suggesting that non-believers are unfit to serve in government. In recent months, Barr, a Catholic, has expounded the same views much more forcefully and at much greater length, including in a speech he delivered Wednesday at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. NRB is an international evangelical organization whose board members include John Fuller of far-right powerhouse Focus on the Family and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated anti-LGBT hate group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Featuring predictable dog whistles about “federalism” (i.e., “states’ rights”) and “the corporate—or ‘mainstream’—press,</b>” Barr’s speech to NRB was divided into sections focusing on “religion, the decentralization of government power, and the free press,” all of which, Barr claims, have “have eroded in recent decades.” But today I’ll focus largely on <b>Barr’s view of religion and its ideal place in society and the public sphere.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barr’s exposition weaves together a variety of reactionary tropes, many of which have roots in the nineteenth century. (While it would be impossible to tease them apart and trace their relationships and genealogies in a short commentary, for those interested in an <b>academic unpacking of Barr’s rhetoric, “The Russian Origins of the So-Called Post-Secular Moment: Some Preliminary Observations,” which I wrote for State, Religion and Church, will provide a helpful overview.)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The attorney general’s speech was likewise full of so many tensions, contradictions, and weak arguments that it resembles the “Gish gallop” style of debate, making it difficult to believe that they were all offered in good faith. In typical Christian nationalist form, Barr quoted American Founding Father John Adams: “We have no government armed with the power which is capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked to comment, Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Andrew Seidel, author of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, maintained, “Barr is misreading Adams.” To substantiate the point, he observed, “Adams, like the other founders, thought religion and morality were two separate entities; Barr thinks they are one and the same. The founders thought religion could be a substitute for morality. We now know that they were wrong on this point.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What Seidel means here, as he details in his book, is that as Enlightenment elites, the Founding Fathers believed that they were educated and cultivated enough to be moral without religion, but that the masses were too uncultivated to do the same. The masses would therefore require religion. Seidel maintains that the founders were wrong on this point, and we can admit as much while still admiring their positive achievements.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Seidel adds, “If the founders believed that religion was important to ensure moral behavior for the masses but not for themselves, that means that the founders were moral without religion. It also means they founded the American government on their own morality, not religion,” concluding that “Barr is inadvertently refuting his entire argument by trying to co-opt Adams.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seidel’s work can also help us see that Barr is twisting Tocqueville in his attempt to marshal the nineteenth-century French observer of American democracy in support of his view that moral behavior is impossible without religion. A claim, by the way, that is entirely fact-free.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Seidel is certainly correct that Sessions and Barr go much further than the Founding Fathers in claiming, as Barr did in his NRB speech, that moral values “must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.” Despite Barr’s whiggish praise of “the Anglo-American political system” and his espoused disdain for Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his views on the necessity of an external, transcendent source of morals in order for humans to achieve virtue is much more prominent in Continental European thought than in the English-speaking world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Barr is a smooth gaslighter, and he represents his argument for theocratic authoritarianism as a defense of “liberal democracy.”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Barr’s European (and sometimes American) antecedents were often more honest, admitting that they viewed liberal democracy, due to its supposed godlessness and concomitant lack of truth, as a failure that would have to be replaced with either “totalitarianism” (the “ersatz religions” of fascism or Communism) or “a religious society.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, Barr’s claim that “the right way to transform the world is for each of us to focus on morally transforming ourselves” is almost a direct quote from the early twentieth-century anti-Communist Nikolai (Nicholas) Berdyaev, who might well have influenced the attorney general, if not directly, then through Berdyaev’s profound influence on late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom he cites. While Solzhenitsyn’s bravery in exposing the brutal Soviet GULAG system of prison camps should never be forgotten,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Solzhenitsyn </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">was no fan of the West.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1978, he gave a famous speech lambasting the West’s supposed decline in terms that would surely be congenial to Sessions and Barr. And later Solzhenitsyn, who had been expelled from the USSR, voted with his feet, </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">accepting Russian citizenship from Vladimir Putin’s government and returning to his homeland, pleased with the way that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Christian nationalist authoritarianism had replaced Communism as the Russian state’s guiding ideology. The closeness of Putinist Russians and American right-wingers that has come to light in recent years should not surprise us. But we should be very clear that what both parties want is neither democracy nor pluralism, however much Barr may claim to support both.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Barr claims he supports separation of church and state, but the claim is clearly disingenuous:</b> “While most everyone agrees that we must have separation of Church and State, this does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The tell here is that the attorney general conflates the idea of a religiously neutral public square with “using government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” The notion that there’s no religious neutrality, and that therefore,<b> if public institutions are not promoting religion, they are promoting secular humanist ideology by default,</b> is a hallmark of dominionist Christian thinking. His NRB audience would have no trouble getting the message.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Like authoritarians, narcissists, and abusers of all kinds, Christian extremists seek to paint themselves as victims, </b>and Barr’s speech is a prime example of this powerful rhetorical tactic. In it, the attorney general blames supposedly nefarious secularists for the contentious state of American politics when, in fact, data shows us that precisely the opposite is true—America’s polarization has been driven by our radicalized, mostly Christian, Right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s toady of an attorney general may wax poetic about his fear of the potential tyranny of a secular majority, but he is transparently trying to promote Christian tyranny, only in the guise of “liberal democracy.” It doesn’t take much digging beneath the surface to see that Barr’s authoritarian approach to religion derives from a very dark view of human nature. Authentic supporters of democracy, by contrast, understand that despite our human limitations—which are quite real but not nearly so severe as those posited by the toxic doctrine of “original sin”—it’s possible to build a society around a shared social contract grounded in the simple recognition of our shared human condition, and on that basis to foster functional institutions and a healthy respect for pluralism.</font></div></div><div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ref</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/5949640/The_Russian_Origins_of_the_So-Called_Post-Secular_Moment_Some_Preliminary_Observations"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.academia.edu/5949640/The_Russian_Origins_of_the_So-Called_Post-Secular_Moment_Some_Preliminary_Observations</font></a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Russian Origins of the So-CalledPost-Secular Moment: Some PreliminaryObservations</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christopher Stroop</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">—</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Lecturer at the Russian Presidential</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow,</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia). cstroop@gmail.com</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This piece argues that there are a number of paths through which we might investigate Russian connections to the emergence of post-secularism, with the collapse of the</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USSR</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> and the post-Soviet revival</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of Russian Orthodoxy representing only the most obvious. A thus far less developed but important approach involves unravelingan intellectual-historical trajectory by focusing on the influenceof anti-Bolshevik Russian religious philosophers in the West. The</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">article shows that after the founding of the Soviet Union, the anti-</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolshevik Russian emigration emerged as a signi?cant vehicle forthe transmission of Russian ideas in the West, contributing to the development of an anti-secular discourse with roots in the </font><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">20?th</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> century that was able to achieve some prominence thanks to theCold War. This discourse associated religiosity with freedom andatheism with unfreedom. Stroop argues that this discourse, in thedevelopment of which Russian intellectuals played an important role, emerged in reaction against the perceived cultural threat of</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nihilism, and he suggests that it is a similar concern over the possible</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consequences of nihilism that has led to the emergence of the post-secular moment.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Keywords:</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> religious, secular, post-secularism, nihilism, atheism,</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Communism, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian religious philosophy, Russia</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and the West, Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Lev Shestov, Russian emigration, Cold War, anti-secular discourse...</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/ag-barr-and-betsy-devos-rail-against-secularism-and-a-culture-of-disbelief-at-religious-broadcasters-convention/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/ag-barr-and-betsy-devos-rail-against-secularism-and-a-culture-of-disbelief-at-religious-broadcasters-convention/</font></a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AG Barr and Betsy DeVos rail against secularism and a ‘culture of disbelief’ at religious broadcasters convention</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson February 27, 2020...</font></div></div></div>