Gerson Makes Sense
Bobby Jindal’s Catholic apologetic article from ten years ago should make perfect sense to anyone with even a passing knowledge of Christian theology, history or the basic conflicts between Catholics and Protestants should have recognized Jindal’s apologetic as a rather standard expression of the Orthodox Catholic point of view. Henry Farrell does a good job of debunking Atrios, the Louisiana Demos and Kos’ complaints about the piece, and Michael Gerson, one of my favorite evangelicals, has a good bit on it:
This Democratic ad is not merely a tin-eared political blunder; it reveals a secular, liberal attitude: that strong religious beliefs are themselves a kind of scandal; that a vigorous defense of Roman Catholicism is somehow a gaffe.
This is a strange, distorted view of pluralism, which once meant civility, respect and common enterprise among people with strongly held and differing convictions. In the liberal view, pluralism means a public square purged of intolerance — defined as the belief in exclusive truth-claims and absolute right and wrong. And this view of pluralism can easily become oppressive, as the “intolerant” are expected to be silent.
On the receiving end of those expectations, Jindal has given these issues considerable thought. “This would be a poorer society,” he told me, “if pluralism meant the least common denominator, if we couldn’t hold a passionate, well-articulated belief system. If you enforce a liberalism devoid of content, you end up with the very violations of freedom you were trying to prevent in the first place.”
I don’t know if Gerson is right that denunciations of an orthodox point of view are fundamentally intolerant, but for Democrats to get all excited about Catholic orthodoxy as being a sign of intolerance is just silly — Bobby Jindal is just apologizing for his faith, not being a modern day Torquemada. Despite the philosophical questions about pluralism and orthodox religious belief, which I can’t address here, it shows a high level or ignorance of “people of faith” for the La dems to go after Jindal for being a strong believer. For the historical and theologically minded, the evangelical-Catholic alliance is odd – these people have been at eachother’s throats since the early 1600s, but if the only way Democrats can think of exploiting it is by attacking one side for having orthodox faith, then they might as well throw in the towel at trying to wedge religious conservatives from the GOP.
