Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies

(Downer's Grove, InterVarsity, 2003), David Koyzis

If I were to inform someone I know that I am a Rush Limbaugh fan, they most likely would immediately look for my lobotomy scars. Among friends and acquaintances, Limbaugh is akin to pariah, a blowhard only blind demented "Dittoheads" follow. Limbaugh's enemy is liberalism, a blend of hard-nosed individualism that spurns Christian ethics and social controls of deviancy. Under the umbrella of liberalism grow such annoyances as Feminazism and big government, two favorite whipping-boys of Limbaugh. On the other hand, conservativism, Limbaugh's political theory, boasts an allegiance to Christian morality and conventional ways of living. Limbaugh does not speak as a preacher adapting his conservativism to Christianity, or Christianity to conservativism. Rather, Limbaugh has an almost quaint conception of Christianity and sports its god as the origin for his genius. His talent, he says, is "on loan from God," meaning the Christian god who exists in the background to undergird his political philosophy.

Limbaugh's conception of liberalism is echoed by David Koyzis. Quick to note that the liberalism that so annoys Limbaugh is a recent invention, Koyzis traces liberalism through five stages, the fourth and fifth germinating the symptoms Limbaugh addresses. Liberalism is so highly focused on autonomous rights that it is hard pressed to be able to tell at what point the state can morally deny citizens their rights and attempt to limit the dangers of their choices. Koyzis uses divorce to illustrate the point he is making; easy divorce helps people escape from abusive marriages, but it also contributes to increased numbers of broken families. Liberals will continues to favor easy divorces because they cherish the freedom easy divorces give us, but liberals will not acknowledge the ill effects of such policies to the point of questioning their own ideology. Instead, liberals ask the state to fix the problems their liberalism creates. The autonomy of liberalism also has an anti-Christian element that creates a statist anti-Christian regime.

Conservatism, to my surprise, also fails as a political theory. Readers may want to read Koyzis' book carefully because the majority who read it will undoubtedly consider themselves conservatives, as I do. To conserve something is to preserve it from error or contamination. Koyzis finds that conservatives do not know what they should conserve although throughout the history of this political belief conservatives have preserved things that have nothing to do with a genuine political ideology: pre-modern music, church-controlled education, familial community structures, and so forth. "What conservativism as a whole seems unable to do is to formulate a generally accepted, transhistorical criterion by which to distinguish what in a tradition is worth saving and what ought to be discarded," Koyzis says, and I believe he is only partially right. What is worth conserving is certain family structures as well as a traditional pattern of less government, although one cannot always tell just how many changes to allow. True, conservatives seem to resist reform and change, but this is because they find many changes bad for society. But they do not resist change, all change. Conservatives are

guided by reason to determine what changes are best. Koyzis seems to ask more answers from the conservative ideology than any political ideology normally can answer, and his reasons for demanding that much reflect his desire to wipe the ideological slate clean and start from scratch by forming his own paradigm.

Koyzis also surveys democracy, socialism, and nationalism, and finds them wanting as well. This is really no surprise. In a fallen world, no political ideology can satisfy every criterion a Christian might seek in an ideology. However, one still seeks some way to relate to the body politic and after such debunking one might wonder what sort of political theory satisfies a Christian. The way to develop a political theory, if you are a Christian, is to start with God.

Koyzis offers us two possibilities for building a political theory around Christian principles. The first is a hierarchal model, much like a cone, that puts God at the apex, the church below God, the state below the Church, and then mediating institutions that support and reinforce the moral order. Each subunit operates within its own sphere to maintain the moral order and dare not cross over to another sphere although there is certainly much overlapping between the spheres. The second theory Koyzis offers is a cone-shaped model that has God at the apex and from him all other institutions follow (family, church, state). These models treat society as an aggregate of different institutions that reinforce each other, but allow room for various evolving social forms, what Koyzis calls "pluriformity." This has the potential for success and Koyzis gives us the impression melding and reinforcing the various subunits is all too easy.

A healthy society, one characterized by what the Bible calls shalom, is one in which the various spheres of human activity develop in balanced, proportionate fashion. Individuals act responsibly within their own recognized sphere of authority. Marriage and families are treated not simply as contractual relationships to be entered and quit at will by sovereign individuals, but as genuine communities building up their members, imposing mutual obligations on them and mandating the proper nurture of their young. Commercial enterprises act so as to fulfill genuine needs and, accordingly, use the earth's resources in stewardly rather than exploitive ways. Churches properly preach the gospel, administer the sacraments and facilitate members in living the Christian life. Schools rightly educate their minor students and prepare them to assume full adult responsibilities. Finally, a wide variety of voluntary associations exist for a multiplicity of purposes as determined by their members.

Oh if it weren't this easy. If the Church could contain its work to administering the sacraments while its parishoners treated their marriages as genuine mini-communities that contribute to social betterment, and the state could do only the minimum it must to ensure social stability, then very few political battles would be fought. But, in actual reality, there are bound to be questions that put Koyzis' ideology to the test to find whether it goes beyond the bumper-sticker ideologies that he earlier debunks. When, for instance, should the Church intervene when the state become too bloated and corrupt to administer the social order? Whose business is it if someone's daughter wishes to get an abortion? At what point should the state regulate pornography? To what point is gay marriage and adoption an example of pluriformity? These questions are bound to stretch Koyzis' theory to the limits and reveal that his theories create questions they cannot answer. If Koyzis' political theory cannot survive this type of scrutiny in the manner he reserves for conservativism, then what good is it?

Here, I think, lies the weakness in Koyzis' work. He pits conservativism, socialism, and other political theories against his theory when in fact finding the right political theory is not a game of winners and losers. Rather, they all share a partial view of the total truth. Conservativism is right, in a sense, because it values what is right in religion while acknowledging the priority of using mediating institutions over state control of its citizens. Liberalism is right, in a sense, in the same way democracy and socialism are right in a sense. I'm sure some conservatives think their political philosophies justify cherishing classical music over rap or home schooling over public schools, but that doesn't mean these considerations have anything to do with a genuine conservative political ideology. Conservativism already has many of the facets of Koyzis' political ideology and perhaps it only needs a minimum amount of tweaking to meet Koyzis' criteria of a proper ideology.

Thus I do not think Limbaugh is mistaken in his political ideology, and neither am I. Conservativism uses reason as its tool to form its ideology just as Koyzis uses reason to form his ideology, but the two are not incompatible. Rather, they speak the same language, that of getting back to God. If starting with God appeals to Koyzis, then conservativism will do as well as his ideology.

Jeffrey Stueber