Time magazine has
called Stanley Hauerwas “America’s Best Theologian” and The New York Times has called Noam Chomsky “the most important
intellectual alive.” Such well placed laurels, wreaths, and crowns should not
go unnoticed.
Some would argue, and legitimately so, that setting Hauerwas
and Chomsky side by side should not be done. Chomsky, after all, is a disciplined,
fastidious and committed student and disciple of the secular Enlightenment
project, worldview and model. Religion, within such a framework, might have
some social value (or not), but academic disciplines such as theology are
somewhat dated and beyond the ken of empirical and solid scientific knowledge.
Chomsky has little or no interest in the larger metaphysical questions that
Jewish or Christian theology deal with. Chomsky uses, in short, the hard and
verifiable facts of reality, and spirituality and theology tend not to work
well within this one-dimensional way of knowing. Stanley Hauerwas is, of
course, a Christian theologian, and he is also a controversial one. Hauerwas
takes seriously the role and calling of a theologian, and works well within its
broad and multilayered methodology. In fact, Hauerwas is quite critical of the
single vision methodology of science that Chomsky tends to hold near and dear.
So, why bother to compare and see affinities between “America’s Best Theologian”
and Noam Chomsky? Surely, they have little or nothing in common. There might be
more to the story than this, though.
Both Hauerwas and Chomsky share important anarchist
affinities. Those who spend much time amongst self styled Christian radicals
often hear the name of Stanley Hauerwas come up quite often. He is a more
sophisticated version of Tony Campolo. The name of Chomsky is often on the same
lips as those who adore Hauerwas. Hauerwas has walked the extra mile to align
himself with the Mennonite position. In fact, The Toronto Mennonite Theological
Centre sponsored a conference in the 19990s. The conference was called “Mennonites on Hauerwas: Hauerwas on
Mennonites”. Hauerwas let it be clearly known in his Gifford Lectures, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s
Witness and Natural Theology (2001), where he tipped his hat. Karl Barth
and John Howard Yoder are his teachers, guides and mentors. Barth and Yoder
are, of course, the gurus of a certain wing of the Christian Tradition. Both
Barth and Yoder often set their sights so high that they have little of
substance to say, in a creative and constructive way, to penultimate and
antepenultimate questions in the world of economics and politics. Criticisms
come quick and fast but constructive engagement with the complex world of time
and history tends to be in thin. In short, Barth and Yoder tend to lean in an
anarchist direction. Hauerwas, it can easily be argued, does much the same
thing. Mennonites, for the most part, do much the same thing, also. Such a tradition
is good on raising hard critical questions about the perennial gap between
ideal and reality, but when it comes to seriously articulating how a nation can
move from imperfect reality to a better place on the political spectrum, most
anarchists of the Barth, Yoder and Hauerwas variety have little to offer beyond
protest and advocacy work. A few principles and comments about character are
usually tossed in the suggestive pot, also.
Noam Chomsky has, since the 1960s, been the most rigorous,
unrelenting and vocal critical of American foreign policy. Chomsky draws forth
hard fact after hard fact that ably and nimbly demonstrates why and how the
American state works the way it does (regardless of whether the republicans or
democrats are in power). The state is a beast and monster that one and all must
be wary of. It serves the interests of the powerful, and thwarts the needs of
the people. This, of course, is a standard American argument by the anarchist
left. There is this truthful remnant that must band together against the
deceitful and oppressive nature of the state. We find the same argument, in
religious terms, when the radical reformation sects turned against the historic
church. Chomsky stands very much within an American anarchist tradition that
has deep roots in both the USA and the older protestant Western Tradition. The
anarchist position tends to be quite jittery and fretful around authority
(except their own authority), and the hyper individualism of the anarchist
position often means cells and anarchist groups split up and fragment over a
variety of personal and ideological reasons. But, the myth and legend lives
ever on. It is the anarchist who, so the tale goes, that is the real voice and
conscience in an evil and oppressive world, and those who see things in any
other way (either religious or political) are beholden to unjust power
structures. Chomsky has published most of his books through leading anarchist
presses, and he rarely writes much about or acts within formal political
parties; such parties are all too impure for his purist (puritan) heart, soul
and eyes.
Stanley Hauerwas and Noam Chomsky, interestingly enough, are
very American. Hauerwas is a Christian. Chomsky has strong Jewish roots. Both
men, though, hold high the importance of liberty and individuality, protest and
opposition. Hauerwas, of course, thinks it is the radical and renewed church
(usually a Mennonite peace activist model is held high) as the seed of reform.
Formal party politics can only be trusted in a limited way. Chomsky has made it
clear that he honours many religious groups when they have been at the
forefront of justice and peacemaking, but, beyond that, he has little serious
interest in religion.
Thomas More wrote a fine missive in the 16th
century. The tract for the times was called Utopia.
Book I of Utopia probes and questions
the nature of utopian idealism. The dialogue between More and Raphael is most
instructive in this regards. Raphael had been to the new world, and he had come
back with glowing reports. It was a paradise in which each and all shared the
goods of the land. All were justly and rightly cared for in a compassionate
political system. Raphael retuned from such an inspiring place to tell More of
his find. More was most impressed. More was, like Raphael, irritated and vexed
by all the injustices in England’s fair and pleasant land. More, unlike
Raphael, was the foreign minister and finance minister, so he was in a position
to bring some just changes. More was also a lawyer of some note and significance.
He was, in short, a man of conscience and ideals. He was often alone, though,
in his position. There were many who were quite eager and keen to remove More.
More asked Raphael if he would join him in reforming England, and making the
state serve as it ought to. It is at this point in the discussion that Raphael
begins to trot out all sorts of reasons and excuses for not getting involved in
the formal political process. Raphael was, in short, so cynical and skeptical
of the state and its ability to deliver that he turned his back on it. More,
unlike Raphael, realized much more than Raphael the imperfections of the state,
and yet he worked within it to bring about the common good.
More was a tamed cynic who believed the state could deliver
justice, and he worked within it. Raphael was cynical of the state and turned
his back on it. Both men were idealists and shared a vision of what might and
could be. More, unlike Raphael, realized that ideals and criticisms (whether in
the state or church) were not enough. In fact, such an approach can be quite
indulgent. It is much easier to protest and criticize than work through the
political process for the good of one and all. More argued that the state could
deliver imperfect justice, and he lived and committed himself to such an ideal.
Such a position might be called the Tory way. Raphael thought the state was
neither something he could trust nor commit himself to. Such a position might
be called the Anarchist way.
Stanley Hauerwas and Noam Chomsky tend to be fans of Raphael
and the anarchist way. So, do Karl Barth and John Yoder. Until such anarchists
can see the good in anarchism and its limitations, they will be both
reductionistic and reactionary. It is much more difficult to see the strength
and limitations of statism and anarchism then to idealize one and demonize the
other. Both are imperfect, and both, when dwelling in tension, are means to a
just and peaceable state and society. There is much more to Thomas More than
there is to Barth, Yoder, Hauerwas and Chomsky, and when Canadians turn to such
anarchist models, in an uncritical way, as their intellectual north star, they
deny much that is good in their much fuller theological and political heritage.
There is a direct line from Thomas More to Richard Hooker to
S.T. Coleridge to Stephen Leacock to George Grant that can, if ears are
attentive and alert, offer a very different political theology than that served
up by Barth, Yoder, Hauerwas and Chomsky. May such a way be heard and heeded. Those who can only do the anarchist thing
will forever hike the smallest circle turns, and, by doing so, contribute to
the injustices they claim to be so opposed to. In an age of globalization and
American imperialism, it is, at least in Canada, the state that can check such
evils. When we either ignore, demonize or have nothing to do with the crucial
role of the state, we, by our retreat from the fray, yet further the forces of
American imperialism and globalization.
Do we, as Canadians, want the High Toryism of More and Grant
or the Anarchism of Raphael, Barth, Yoder, Haerwas or Chomsky? There are
serious and debilitating consequences of choosing the latter.
rsd