Elliot Ritzema

Tag: ideology

  • The Idolatry of Ideology


    It was the spring of 2009, and I was visiting my friends Neal and Danielle in Massachusetts. They both had to work one day, so I decided to go to Cambridge on my own and take a look around Harvard. While I was there, I felt the irresistible pull of a used bookstore and found Political Visions & Ilusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by David T. Koyzis inside. I immediately snapped it up, but didn’t make time to read it until this month.

    What I found was an excellent overview of five popular political ideologies: liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democracy, and socialism. Koyzis, who teaches political science at Redeemer University College in Ontario, examines each of them from a Christian perspective and finds them to be incomplete understandings of the world God created. That is because “every ideology is based on taking something out of creation’s totality, raising it above that creation, and making the latter revolve around and serve it. It is further based on the assumption that this idol has the capacity to save us from some real or perceived evil in the world” (15). In other words, ideologies are modern idolatries.

    We commonly think of idolatry in terms of its ancient manifestations: worshiping a literal idol that represents a god who exerts control over some aspect of the physical world. But that is only the shape idolatry took in the ancient world; idolatry in its modern forms is still with us. Idolatry is taking a contingent thing and turning it into an ultimate thing. I’ve heard it attributed to Augustine that “Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.” This means that even nominal believers in God may be idolatrous, in the sense that while they profess to worship God, they may actually serve success, political power, or any number of other things.

    Ideologies tell their own stories of evil, salvation, and eschatology (even if they do not always use those words), and they locate all of these things within the created order. They begin with a fundamental problem and present a solution to that problem. They argue that if their solution is accepted and pursued on a broad scale in the way they endorse, it will lead to an ideal future. Here is a sketch of how each of the ideologies Koyzis writes about views the world:

    Liberalism:

    Source of evil: Any involuntary authority that can be imposed on an individual.
    What it makes a god: Individual freedom.
    Eschatology: A society where each individual pursues rational self-interest, and the only contracts we are obligated to are ones we enter voluntarily. Liberalism is by far the most popular ideology in the United States. Both the Right and the Left subscribe to different versions of it; they are just at different stages. “Conservatives” are conservative in that they want to return to an earlier form of liberalism. Those on the Right subscribe to classical liberalism, whereas those on the Left subscribe to what Koyzis calls “late liberalism.” Last year I often heard the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement insisting that they had nothing in common, but that’s not strictly true. They’re both liberals; they’re just at different stages of liberalism.

    Conservatism:

    Source of evil: Grand schemes for the betterment of society that ignore what the past has taught us.
    What it makes a god: Tradition. This means that conservatism varies from place to place. In the United States, as noted above, conservatism simply tries to preserve an earlier form of liberalism: the kind originally articulated by John Locke and others, and interpreted by the founding fathers of the United States.
    Eschatology: A society which looks to tradition as a source of norms, and in which we have respect for tradition, and humility regarding the effectiveness of new proposals. Unfortunately, conservatism as an ideology has no way of evaluating new proposals other than criticizing their novelty.

    Nationalism:

    Source of evil: Being ruled by someone unlike oneself. This applies to any kind of interference of one sovereign state by another, up to and including colonialism.
    What it makes a god: the nation, of course. Our nation.
    Eschatology: A world in which each nation commands the ultimate loyalty of its citizens, and each nation is able to be self-directed, without outside interference.

    Democracy:

    Source of evil: Being ruled by anyone else.
    What it makes a god: The voice of the people. But not all people; the majority of the people.
    Eschatology: A society in which those who have any authority on behalf of the people are in some sense following the will of the people. This includes not just government, but non-governmental institutions as well, like church and family. By the way, Koyzis draws a distinction between democracy as structure and democracy as creed. It is democracy as creed that is an ideology.

    Socialism:

    Source of evil: Inequality brought about by the division of labor.
    What it makes a god: Material equality.
    Eschatology: A society which embraces communal ownership of property by a class, leading to the elimination of the oppression of one class by another. This, according to Marx, will be the consummation of history.

    All of these ideologies get something right about the world; otherwise they would not have so many followers. But what they get wrong, according to Koyzis, is that they begin from the standpoint of human autonomy. They emphasize self-direction; governing yourself according to a law that you choose. This means that they are not just ideologies; they are idolatries. They take God out of the picture, or worse: they turn him into something that the sovereign individual can choose or not choose to worship. God is not the sovereign Lord of creation; he is just another option on the menu.

    But I would not go so far as to say that anyone who identifies herself as a liberal, or a conservative, or a socialist, or any of the other ideologies, is automatically an idolater. It is not common to find someone who follows any of these ideologies in its purest form. Most people realize, whether on a conscious or subconscious level, that an ideology cannot make complete sense of the world as they experience it. These ideologies do become idolatrous, however, when a person truly puts his hope in that ideology, rather than in God, to bring about justice in the world. And that varies from person to person.

    All this has been a rough sketch of the main part of Koyzis’ book, combined with my immediate reactions to it. For a more nuanced discussion, I highly recommend reading the book. I think it would be helpful to any Christian who is seeking to make sense of politics, especially in the North American context.

  • Review of The Battle, With Reference to WORLD Magazine’s Endorsement of It

    I am not a regular reader of WORLD magazine, but when I picked up a copy of it a few weeks ago and saw that it was their yearly “books issue,” I was curious to see what they had named as their Book of the Year. When I read that they had named as their book of the year The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future by Arthur C. Brooks, I was even more curious. WORLD is a Christian magazine, and The Battle is a book that deals primarily with politics and economics, but not from a distinctly Christian perspective.

    I was sufficiently curious after reading the article that I checked The Battle out of the library and read it.

    The book is made up of four chapters. In the first, Brooks uses polling data in order to neatly split America into the 70 percent who think that free enterprise is a good idea, and the 30 percent who think that government-sponsored redistribution of wealth is a good idea. Brooks calls them the “70 percent majority” and the “30 percent coalition,” and argues that the 30 percent coalition has wielded a disproportionately large amount of influence, especially over young people. In the second chapter, he gives an example of this influence by detailing the narrative about the 2008 financial crisis given by the 30 percent coalition, and Barack Obama in particular. Brooks argues that the claims made by this narrative are false.

    In the second half of the book, Brooks moves from directly criticizing the 30 percent coalition to making proposals for how the 70 percent majority can win the culture war. He argues that the 30 percent coalition has a worldview that is “fundamentally materialistic,” but the 70 percent majority has a worldview that is nonmaterialistic. Though they can sometimes have a reputation for only being concerned about money, they are really concerned with human flourishing. He argues that earned success, rather than money, is at the heart of free enterprise, and earned success is the key to happiness. In order to win the war, the 70 percent majority needs to “reclaim the morality of their worldview” (97). In addition to the claim that free enterprise is about human flourishing, four other principles he lists as central are 2) “We stand for equality of opportunity, not equality of income”, 3) “We seek to stimulate true prosperity, not treat poverty”, 4) “America can and should be a gift to the world”, 5) “What truly matters is principle, not political power” (103). He ends the book by calling for leaders who are committed to “expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and defending free enterprise” (126).

    The book is a quick read, an entertaining read, and in some places even an inspiring read. However, I still have many questions about why WORLD, as a Christian magazine, chose to endorse it as Book of the Year.

    The dichotomy that Brooks draws between the 70 percenters and the 30 percenters makes for an appealing argument and even better rallying cry, but ultimately I think that his dichotomy is a false one. While socialists and free enterprisers do seem to be the ideologies that draw the most supporters at the moment, Christians should not be made to feel as if they are forced to choose between one or the other. Brooks spends the early part of his book citing polling data to make the case that free enterprise is really what the majority of Americans want. To me, this indicates nothing more than the fact that the false dichotomy between free enterprise and socialism has thoroughly permeated our culture, including many Christians. Rather than listen to the people, like Brooks, who seek to get them to choose between socialism and free enterprise, Christians should seek to find a way of living and doing economics that is genuinely Christian. While the Bible is not an economics textbook, we can glean some insight from it regarding what Christians should prioritize economically. And the Bible does not appear to be completely friendly to either free enterprise or socialism.

    To be sure, there are some places where the Bible does seem to be friendly to free enterprise. Economist and theologian Johan Graafland, in his article, “Market operation and distributive justice: An evaluation of the ACCRA confession,” states,

    The Bible indeed mentions many texts that express the right to private property, condemns stealing (Ex. 20:15, Lev. 19:11, Prov. 23:10, Ef. 4:28), require compliance to contracts (Jer. 22:13) and demand rectification if the principle of justice in transfers is violated (Ex. 22:4-7, Lev. 5:14-16, 6:1-5, 22:14, Num. 5:5-8, Prov. 6: 30-31)… There are also many texts that support the capitalistic principle of moral desert. Trade should be honest. One should use true and honest weights and measures and not cheat the other trading partner (Deut. 25:13-16, Ezek. 45:10, Mic. 6:10, Amos 8:5, Prov. 20:10). So one should be rewarded in accordance to what one really brings to the market. Many texts in the Old Testament and New Testament support the idea that effort or productivity should be rewarded. Jesus applies this principle in the parable of the three servants (Matt. 25: 29) and the parable of the Gold Coins (Luke 19:26). Also in the Kingdom of God, everybody shall be rewarded in accordance to his or her deeds (Matt. 6:3, 19:29, Luke 6:38, 18:29-30). The apostle Paul defends a similar standard (1 Cor. 3: 8, 12-15, 1 Tim. 5:18, 2 Thess. 3:10).

    (Thanks to my friend Jeremy, by the way, for turning me on to Graafland’s work)

    On the other hand, there are biblical texts that are less friendly to the sort of free enterprise that Brooks argues for. According to Graafland,

    [T]he Bible commands several institutions that protect the poor, independently from the causes of their poverty…. For example, the poor received food during the sabbatical year (Ex. 23:10) and from what was passed over in the first harvest (Deut. 24:19-22). The hungry were to be allowed immediate consumption of food in the grain fields (Deut. 23:24) and farmers should not cut the corn at the edges of the fields, but leave them for the poor (Lev. 19:9-10). Other examples are the law of the tenth (Lev. 27:30, Num. 18:21, Deut. 12:6, Amos 4:4), the law to share with the poor food at the harvest festival (Deut. 16:11) and the prohibition on demanding interest from the poor (Ex. 22:25, Lev. 25: 36, Deut. 23:19, Prov. 28:8). Thus, aid to the suffering is not merely a matter of personal duty to be merciful.

    Num. 26:52-56 shows us that upon entering the promised land, Israel was commanded to divide it so that every tribe would have land proportionate to its size. All tribes, clans and families were assured that they would have enough land for their needs. Also, in Dt 15:12-15 we find that slaveholders were required not only to free their slaves in the Sabbatical year, but to provide them with means of subsistence. Of course there is debate regarding the extent to which these Old Testament laws should be normative for Christians, but it seems at the very least that Christians have a duty to fulfill the basic needs of the poor. This was not just a matter of personal giving in the Old Testament; it was a matter of law. It should also be pointed out that the poor were still responsible to build up the capital they were given, and in this I do agree with Brooks.

    By endorsing this book as Book of the Year, it seems to me that the editors of WORLD magazine have missed an opportunity. They could have used this book as a chance to talk openly as Christians about the best way to do economics. They could have praised The Battle for the ways in which it reflected a distinctly Christian view of economics, and critiqued the ways that it didn’t. Instead, there is only one criticism of Brooks’s book in WORLD’s review: “Brooks here should do more about the importance of biblical faith, since many people who have ‘earned success’ apart from a sense of God’s sovereignty and love hit a wall of meaninglessness as they age.” It seems to me that WORLD is wholeheartedly endorsing Brooks’s free enterprise worldview which claims that earned success is the key to happiness, but recommends he adds a little faith as a garnish. I don’t think this is an effective way to go about teaching and encouraging people to have a Christian worldview. Rather than starting with an unquestioned acceptance of free enterprise in forming our worldview, we should start with God’s story as it has played out primarily in the Bible and also in the history of the church. That should be our starting place, not adding faith to another worldview as if it were merely another ingredient. The Christian worldview centers on Jesus, and Jesus is not mentioned in The Battle. If nothing else, that ought to give us pause.

    The mistake that the folks at WORLD make in naming this book as their Book of the Year is that they believe both the free enterprisers and the socialists when they say that there are only two ways to live. They chose the less offensive of the two options (and yes, despite my criticism I do think free enterprise is the less offensive option of the two), but in doing so they have taken their cue from the world and lost an opportunity to discern how to do economics in a Christian way.