Wells response

This is a commentary on the lecture given by E.J. Dionne Jr. written by Dr. Ronald A. Wells, a friend of Tom Bugenhagen's, a member of the Kiplinger Committee. Dr. Wells was not at the lecture but read a printed copy of it given to him by Tom. His comments are based on the written copy and are presented here in the hope that they will elicit other responses and commentary on the lecture. A short bio of Dr. Wells is given below.

Last November Cedar Lane Church had the honor of hosting E. J. Dionne, the award-winning columnist of The Washington Post. He gave an insightful address on the subject noted in the heading above. This is a short report on that address.

Dionne began by defending the word "liberal," while noting that to many, if not most, observers in America it had almost become a dirty word. He conceded that, in Europe and Mexico, historic liberalism had been anti-religious, and was a main force in secularization. But Dionne also insisted that in the American context people of a liberal religious persuasion had been in the forefront of progressive reform. Yet, even in the most divisive of American reform movements – the abolitionist crusade before the civil war – liberal Unitarians and conservative Evangelicals worked together in a way that would be unthinkable in today's time of polarization. Dionne returned to that theme at the end, when he charted some territory in which religious people, both conservatives and liberals, might find some basis for cooperation in progressive politics.

But the main challenge in Dionne's address was the re-arranging of our mental furniture in terms of the relationship of religious belief and political action. In our time of polarization, of "red and blue" states, there is a widespread acceptance of the following dichotomy: that conservative religion predisposes people to conservative politics and liberal religion predisposes people to liberal politics. Dionne challenged that thoroughly.

He introduced us to a person who many people believe is the most important theologian of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr. While Dionne did not label Niebuhr's theology, it is known as neo-orthodoxy. Niebuhr is credited with exposing the pitfalls of liberal theology, a project he thought had largely failed, in its belief in human capacity to change and the lack of awareness of the consequences of human sinfulness.

Dionne joined Niebuhr's neo-orthodoxy with his own tradition, Roman Catholicism, especially the long tradition of Catholic social and political teaching. The most challenging aspect of Dionne's talk was his belief that the best basis for a liberal politics was a conservative theology. He asserted this because he believes that a liberal political platform isn't going to get very far unless it acknowledges human sin, both in persons and in the social structures that humans make. Dionne gave examples of what he meant in terms of issues like abortion and the death penalty. But he could have used issues like environmental sustainability. In short, Dionne's message was this: unless we fully acknowledge the human capacity to do wrong – both in ourselves and in the structures of society – we will not be able to pursue that renewal we seek for ourselves and for our social order.

The Kiplinger Committee is to be thanked heartily for bringing E. J. Dionne to Cedar Lane Church. He and his remarks were both welcome and helpfully unsettling.

Ronald A. Wells, Director of The Maryville Symposium

Ronald A. Wells is a historian whose work has focused on peace and justice issues and on bringing “faith and learning” discourse into professional historical scholarship. He is author or editor of fourteen books, including People Behind the Peace: Community and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland, History and the Christian Historian, and History Through the Eyes of Faith. He taught for many years at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is on the editorial board of two magazines and was for fourteen years editor of Fides et Historia, the professional journal of The Conference on Faith and History, an affiliated society of the American Historical Association.

The idea of the Maryville Symposium arises from the daily discourse and experience of two essential qualities embedded in Maryville College’s identity: the spirit of the liberal arts and church-relatedness.

The liberal arts ideal invites critical inquiry into all aspects of life, and it puts no conditions on that pursuit of truth. At the same time, the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition of Christianity insists that all reality be held in relation to God, thus finding all academic subject matters worthy of study.

The Maryville Symposium, an annual gathering at Maryville College, will bring together the inquisitive minds and hearts of leading scholars to address the vitally important moral and ethical questions of our day.