Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries from Friday, March 14, 2008

A large crowd packed into St. Cecilia Music Center in Grand Rapids yesterday to hear Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s presentation on “The Rise and Eventual Downfall of the Religious Left.” This is a political movement, he said, that “exalts social transformation over personal charity, and social activism above the need for evangelization of the human soul.” (He also took time to critique the Religious Right.)

An audio recording of Rev. Sirico’s Acton Lecture Series presentation is available on the Acton Web site here.

Rev. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, began by pointing to a “series of signs” that often characterize the Religious Left today:

1) A tendency to believe that the Kingdom of God is not something essentially eschatological; it is a state of being that can and should be achieved on earth through human effort.

2) A loathing of the economically successful rooted in the assumption that wealth is generally unjustly acquired even and especially if it has been accumulated through market means.

3) A conviction that the cause of material inequality is due to injustice that must be rectified, usually by a forced redistribution of the wealth.

4) A reliable bias against commerce and the merchant classes, their products, their marketing, and their cultural presence.

5) A fixation on government programs that purport to do good for others and a pronounced preference for public policy (that is political) solutions instead of voluntary individual or communal efforts.

6) A judgment that unless physical states of social well being are realized, issues such as faith and morals are somehow invalidated.

7) An attachment to the idea that the natural environment represents a source of moral light in the world that is darkened by the activities of human beings.

Rev. Sirico will be discussing the Religious Left on Friday, March 14, on Ave Maria Radio at 4 p.m. with host Al Kresta. (The originally scheduled debate with Jim Wallis is being rescheduled at Wallis’ request). Pick up a live stream for Ave Maria Radio here. (Update: Audio of this interview is available for download in .mp3 format here.)

In this week’s Acton commentary, Chris Banescu looks at a ruling by the Second District Court of Appeals for the state of California which declared that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.” The ruling effectively bans families from homeschooling their children and threatens parents with criminal penalties for daring to do so.

Chris Banescu was reminded of another sort of government control:

The totalitarian impulses of the court were further evidenced by the arguments it used to justify its decision: “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.” As someone who has lived and suffered under a communist regime (I grew up in Romania), the “good citizenship,” “patriotism,” and “loyalty to the state” justifications have struck a little too close to home. These were precisely the kinds of arguments the communist party used to broaden the power of the state, increase the leadership’s iron grip on the people, and justify just about every conceivable violation of human rights, restrictions on individual liberties, and abuses perpetrated by government officials.

Read the entire commentary here.