Rev. Robert A. Sirico is interviewed by James Freeman, assistant editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, about markets and morality and about the Acton Institute’s Call of the Entrepreneur documentary.
Malika Worrell’s review of The Call of the Entrepreneur is a perfect storm of distorting prejudice, muddle, and simple factual errors. First, she says, “Much of Call’s 58-minute runtime is taken up with talking heads, most of whom are affiliated with the Acton Institute, affirming the film’s ideology that unfettered capitalism is inherently righteous.”
This is incorrect, and I told her it was incorrect in our interview. The majority of interviewees in the film, from Brad Morgan to George Gilder, Michael Novak, Jimmy Lai, and Peter Boettke, are not affiliated with Acton. Moreover, her description of the film’s “ideology” (why not say “argument”?) seems to be describing some other film. What little was said about the free market and capitalism in our film focused on the importance not of “unfettered capitalism” but of private property and rule of law. Such government-enforced “fetters” are preconditions for a successful capitalism. These are the lessons of economic history, not the deliverances of some kind of irrational faith, which Worrell suggests.
She also comments, “The film’s single-minded focus on the virtues of the free market is accompanied by a Calvinist streak. The entrepreneurial impulse contains elements “of God’s original creative act.” This is a quote from the film by Samuel Gregg, a Roman Catholic. The film is based on a book by a Roman Catholic priest, Robert Sirico, which Worrell elsewhere notes. Catholics aren’t Calvinists. Moreover, the idea that human beings are created in God’s image to be creators is a broadly Judeo-Christian idea, one shared even by deists like Thomas Jefferson.
On several occasions, Worrell criticizes the film because, apparently, it isn’t the film she thought we should have made: “Viewers hoping to learn more about the businesses Call’s featured entrepreneurs created will come away frustrated; the film is more interested in ideology than the actual logistics of entrepreneurship.” Again, she prefers the prejudicial word “ideology” to describe a perspective she simply disagrees with. In any case, this isn’t a valid criticism. The film is a response to the ubiquitous stereotype of business entrepreneurs as greedy misers that persists in both the entertainment and news media. It’s not a training film for aspiring entrepreneurs.
One element that came out in the aftermath of “Romney’s religion speech,” an event highly touted in the run-up and in days following, was the charge that Mormonism is essentially a racist faith (or at least was until 1978), and that in unabashedly embracing the “faith of his fathers” so publicly (and uncritically), Mitt Romney did not distance himself from or express enough of a critical attitude toward the official LDS policy regarding membership by blacks before 1978.
One example of a person who raised this concern quite vociferously is political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell, who as a guest on the McLaughlin Group on the episode immediately following Romney’s speech, said this of Romney (among many other things):
Here’s the problem. He dare not discuss his religion. And he fools people like Pat Buchanan, who should know better. This was the worst speech, the worst political speech, of my lifetime, because this man stood there and said to you, “This is the faith of my fathers.” And you and none of these commentators who liked this speech realize that the faith of his father is a racist faith. As of 1978, it was an officially racist faith. And for political convenience, in 1978 it switched and it said, “Okay, black people can be in this church.”
Mitt Romney was 31 years-old in 1978 when the LDS church altered its policy toward “priesthood” membership for black males, citing a new revelation. You can check out the entire exchange between O’Donnell and the other members of the McLaughlin Group panel here:
It seems to me that Pat Buchanan misses O’Donnell’s point in the exchange. Buchanan cites scandalous examples from Christianity’s past, such as the condoning of slavery for 1,500 years, in effect to say that all religions have their problems, and that doesn’t mean that we associate every historical evil from a religion’s past with its contemporary adherents. But what O’Donnell’s charge is meant to show is that folks like Pat Buchanan and other Christians are inclined to judge their tradition’s own past, and pronounce that such and such a practice was an objective evil and upon reflection ex post facto, incompatible with the fundamental beliefs of their faith.
From O’Donnell’s perspective it’s precisely this criticism that is lacking in Romney. As Byron York puts it,
But now, Romney is faced with the simple question: Was the church policy before 1978 wrong? This morning, he wouldn’t say, and it might be difficult for him, as a former church leader, to get out in front of the LDS leadership on that. And he certainly can’t cite McConkie’s advice to forget everything that was said before 1978. Given all that, it’s an issue that’s likely to pop up over and over again.
It did pop up on Romney’s Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert the following Sunday morning:
Part of Romney’s defense is his claim that his family’s practices point to their beliefs about race in America: “My dad marched with MLK.” Now there’s controversy surrounding that claim. (more…)
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is spreading the Christmas cheer by posing as Santa Claus and handing out government programs to the taxpayer. Also, it looks like she is promising to deliver on the promised middle class tax cuts from the first Clinton administration. Universal health care and universal pre-K are part of her gift package. She’s certainly not a stingy Santa Claus.
The Drudge Report yesterday featured a screen shot of a new television ad that’s playing currently in Iowa for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Next to the image was this quote from primary opponent Ron Paul: “When fascism comes it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” Paul said the Huckabee ad reminded him of the quote, which he attributed to muckraking novelist Sinclair Lewis.
Huckabee’s television ad steps back from politics, reminding the voters that the birth of Christ is the meaning of Christmas. Some critics and talking heads have attacked Huckabee for pandering too much to evangelical voters. In addition, a mini controversy surrounding the ad has emerged over what some are calling a ‘subliminal cross’ that appears on a bookcase in the background. Huckabee has dismissed the controversy with humor saying, “I was also signaling evangelical voters with Morse code, with all the blinking I was doing.”
Paul addresses the controversy by saying he wasn’t quoted correctly, and linked the comment to the war issue, criticizing super patriotism. He criticized Christians for not following the Just War Theory. He did not seem to adequately address the implied link he made with Christianity and fascism, which of course are polar opposites.
To his credit, Paul did talk about the opposition to free markets in this country, and the danger it imposes. Paul spoke about a kind of economic fascism, which he called “corporatism to the extreme.”
“Also, economically speaking this country is moving rapidly towards fascism,” Paul said. “We’re not going to end up with socialism of the old fashioned type. Like in medicine today, we don’t have free market medicine. We don’t have government medicine, we have corporate medicine. That is fascism in the economic sense.”
Updated: Ron Paul Charges Huck Implies He’s The Only Christian
The two clips are provided below.
The price of freedom is $21.3 million, at least in a manner of speaking. The only domestically-held copy of the Magna Carta, first penned in 1215 (this copy dates from 1297), was sold tonight in a Sotheby’s auction for that princely sum to David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.
Sotheby’s vice chairman David Redden called the old but durable parchment “the most important document in the world, the birth certificate of freedom,” notable especially for its recognition of the rule of law and the transcendence of the moral order.
The document had been held by the Perot Foundation (created by H. Ross Perot) and was auctioned in order to raise funds to support the foundation’s charitable initiatives. The Perot Foundation had granted access to the copy to the National Archives, where it was on public display through September 20th of this year.
On the PowerBlog we previously noted the 790th anniversary of the Magna Carta, which was featured as the first in a series of essays in the history of liberty over the last millennium, “In the Meadow That Is Called Runnymede.”
Acton has been called upon from several different outlets to provide commentary and analysis on Mitt Romney’s December 6 “Faith in America” speech. Following is a quick list of links to our various responses (which we’ll keep updated):
Audio:
- Religion and Politics
- Romney and the Role of Religion in the Presidency
- Romney’s Faith and the Presidency
- Analyzing Mitt Romney’s Religion Speech
- Reflections on Romney’s Religion Speech
News:
- Rev. Sirico on the Romney Speech
- Did Romney pass faith test?
- UPDATED: Mitt Romney — Reassuring Evangelical Voters?
Background
For those of us who cherish liberty and the freedom we enjoy in the west to engage in spirited debate, stories like this are very disturbing:
Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s.
Here’s hoping that this one gets tossed out of court quickly. And remember – eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
The following is a statement by Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, on Mitt Romney’s Dec. 6 “Faith in America” speech:
Mitt Romney is right that religion and morality are core convictions in American society. Our freedom depends on this, I completely agree. Without the ability to manage our lives morally, the state steps into the vacuum, both in response to public demand and to serve the state’s own interests in expanding power.
But soon after spelling this out, in part, he makes this bold claim, which I believe repeats John F. Kennedy’s error: “Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”
So here we have an odd tension. Religion matters, he says. But religious authority does not and should not matter in the management of our public lives. If this proposition had been believed by the kings of Europe in the Middle Ages, freedom would never have been born, for it was precisely the jealousy of religious authority that led to limits on the state and kept that state at bay.
Similarly, it was the churches before and after the American Revolution which said no to the leviathan state, precisely because it had intruded into areas that more properly belong to religious authority. The churches didn’t merely mind their own business; they spoke to the whole of society, and we should be thankful for that.
Maybe we are not accustomed to thinking of religion as a limit on government. But this has largely been so and continues to be so. It was the Catholic Church that beat back communism in Eastern Europe and just last week prevented dictatorship in Venezuela. In our own country, the churches are the main protectors of religious liberty, for they tend to resist intrusion by the state at every level.
The idea of authority is inescapable. If public officeholders are not to obey religious authority, what authority do they submit to? Perhaps we can say the Constitution but the signers of that document too held fast to religious convictions. More likely the authority to which they submit is legislation and its enforcement arm, meaning that to the extent that they brush off their religious institutions, they will tend to become obsequious toward the state.
For my part, I find it strange that American culture should require someone running for president to make a break with his or own religious authority. This strikes me as an attack on the conscience. The right question we should be asking: What does the religious authority teach about the role of the state?
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is expected to address the topic of his Mormon faith in a speech at the George Bush Library in College Station, Texas, tomorrow. The obvious comparisons are being made to President John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, who gave a speech in 1960 to assuage the concerns of American protestants over papal influence in the White House.
Kennedy’s speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association can be found here. In addition, there is also a link for the question and answer portion of his speech found here.
How much does Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith play into his recent slip in Republican primary polls? Some polls have pointed to the fact that one in five of all voters would not support a Mormon candidate for president. But Romney has picked up the support of many evangelical leaders, including the very conservative Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University. For the record, Jones believes, like many conservative evangelicals, that Mormonism is a cult. While the cult language may be too strong, Mormonism certainly falls outside of Christian orthodoxy.
Theological differences aside, many evangelicals support Romney for his new found conservatism, and as the best conservative alternative to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Romney previously supported abortion as Governor of Massachusetts, and was once seen as a strong defender of gay rights. He has since altered his stances on those issues to better attract more conservative Republican primary voters.
In his speech Romney will probably avoid any serious theological discussion of the Mormon faith, while stressing the shared sense of moral and political values he shares with conservative Christians. It is obviously wise for voters to support the candidate who best fits their world view.
Understandably, conservative Methodists would not vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a United Methodist. The same thing could be said about left of center United Methodists and their unlikelihood to vote for another fellow Methodist, President Bush.
It’s a process that has continually played itself at the ballot box before. In 1980, evangelicals overwhelmingly supported President Reagan over confessed born again Christian, Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s brand of conservatism resonated powerfully with evangelical voters. While Reagan was also a Christian, he was not as outspoken in his Christianity as Carter. In addition, Reagan was also the first divorced man to be elected president.
Romney should be supported or opposed on the issues, and not for the simple fact that he is a Mormon. Romney can use the speech to highlight similarities with all traditional faith communities in America, and the shared American heritage of religious freedom.
For further information on this issue listen to the radio interview titled Romney, Giuliani, Faith & Politics . The interview is with Acton’s Education Director Michael Miller, who appeared on Mitch Henck’s radio show, Outside the Box. Miller also appeared on John Watson’s radio program to discuss “Romney’s Faith and the Presidency.”
Update: A link to the text of the speech can now be found on Mitt Romney’s campaign website. In addition, there is also a link to the video of the speech found here.
Quote from Romney’s speech today:
“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”
