Michael Gerson—compassionate conservative evangelical with a gun

The Christian faith teaches that our common humanity is more important than our nationality. That all of us, ultimately, are strangers in this world and brothers to the bone; and all in need of amnesty. This belief does not dictate certain policies in a piece of legislation, but it does forbid rage and national chauvinism.—Michael Gerson, “Letting Fear Rule,” Washington Post, May 25, 2007.

Since leaving his job as President Bush’s chief speechwriter, the evangelical global democratist Michael Gerson has come out as a major pest in his own right. First he got a regular column at the Washington Post, where he argued last spring that anyone who opposes open borders—including many long-time Bush supporters who were in favor of a very generous immigration policy but balked at the insane Bush-McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill—is a racist, a charge so outre that even Paul of Powerline, a loyal Bush devotee, got his dander up. Now Gerson has a book out with the alarming title Heroic Conservatism. The defining attribute of this “heroic conservatism,” George Will explains, is compassion. Will is troubled by Gerson’s mixture of sacrificial religion with national politics:

But compassion is a personal feeling, not a public agenda. To act compassionately is to act to prevent or ameliorate pain and distress. But if there is, as Gerson suggests, a categorical imperative to do so, two things follow. First, politics is reduced to right-mindedness—to having good intentions arising from noble sentiments—and has an attenuated connection with results. Second, limited government must be considered uncompassionate, because the ways to prevent or reduce stress are unlimited.

Gerson with his heroic compassion is, in short, a hard-core liberal Christian, restlessly seeking ever-new ways to sacrifice his fellow Americans for the sake of mankind. Yet so hopelessly askew is our politics today that the left will look at this open-borders, global-compassion fanatic and see … the Christian right.

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Justin T. writes:

Can somebody please tell me how Michael Gerson defines “heroic?” The dictionary uses such terms as “extraordinarily bold, altruistic, determined,” and when history speaks of heroes I cannot think how they apply either to Gerson or his ideas.

When I think of heroic, I think of American patriots hauling cannon across the Appalachian Mountains and building a fleet under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry to wrest Lake Erie from the British, or Colonel Hal Moore’s defiant counteroffensive after being pounded by numerous North Vietnamese attacks and friendly fire incidents near the end of the Battle of La Drang.

What is so heroic about the construction of an all-encompassing welfare state, especially one that will do nothing but sap away the very heroic tendencies that built and defended this great nation?

LA replies:

Traditionally heroism means expending, risking, or sacrificing oneself for something larger than oneself, one’s country, one’s family, one’s fellow citizens, one’s fellow soldiers, or for some higher ideal or cause to which one is devoted. The ultimate object of one’s efforts, risk, or sacrifice is not just anything, but the good of the larger whole to which one belongs or the higher ideal to which one is devoted. But according to Gerson, heroism means sacrificing ourselves for undeserving others who do not belong to a larger whole with us, nor are they devoted to the same ideal as we are. The only thing they have in common with us is that they are human. For example, he wants us to sacrifice our country for Mexicans, who not only do not share any common loyalties with us, but who are a different people from us who see themselves involved in a nationalist/racial movement to gain power over us. Gerson of course tries to redefine this suicidal “heroism” in traditional terms, by defining all of humanity as our family. But this is a rotten lie, because we are not achieving any larger good by sacrificing for them. We are only betraying our own country, our own people, to which we owe primary loyalty, in order to “help” people who do not share the same loyalties with us or even like us. Gerson’s idea of heroism is deeply immoral, because it means we are seeking to be heroic by sacrificing the goods of our fellow citizens, which we have no right to do. People can sacrifice their own goods; they do not have the right to sacrifice other people’s goods. But that is what Gerson’s politicized and collectivized sacrificial compassion means. And in this he is a pure left-liberal, meaning, a person who believes in unconditional openness to the Other.

Mark P. writes:

“Gerson with his heroic compassion is, in short, a hard-core liberal Christian, restlessly seeking ever-new ways to sacrifice his fellow Americans for the sake of mankind. Yet so hopelessly askew is our politics today that the left will look at this open-borders, global-compassion fanatic and see … the Christian right.”

Here’s the more relevant question. Will the left actually attack this form of liberal Christianity, therefore saving us the trouble of doing it?

Edward G. writes:

This is an amazing criticism of Gerson’s world view. What Mr. Auster fails to see is that Gerson’s ideas and liberalism are directly an outgrowth of Christianity. It embodies Christianity, the sacrifice of yourself (Jesus) for the benefit of all humanity, and especially for those who are the least worthy (in theological terms the worst sinners). Liberalism is a secular version of Christianity applied as a social and political policy. It is an act of suicide which is exactly what Jesus commits on the cross and what Western civilization is now doing to itself. Suicide is a symptom of mental illness.

LA replies:

Gosh, I guess Edward has found me out! Edward doesn’t seem to have read the numerous times that I (and numerous others) have said that liberalism is a secularized form of Christianity, a conservative truism.

Edward writes: “Liberalism is a secular version of Christianity applied as a social and political policy.”

It doesn’t seem to occur to Edward that “a secular version of Christianity applied as a social and political policy” is not Christianity but … liberalism.

By Edward’s thinking, if a man massacred his family and then committed suicide, because he had read that Christianity was about Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross, that man acts would be “directly an outgrowth of Christianity.”

N. writes:

Maybe it’s just my perspective, but Gerson’s misreading of the Christian Gospels looks a whole lot like the “liberation theology” that swept through parts of the Roman Catholic Church in the 70’s and 80’s, although some of the more obvious Marxist aspects are downplayed. It is somewhat ironic that “liberation theology” seems to be burning out among Catholics just as it is becoming more visible among some Protestants.

Certainly as we learn more about Gerson’s beliefs, some of the bad decisions made by the Bush administration become easier to understand. One can only wonder what those advisers who remain believe in?

Without reading Gerson’s book, but only a bit of his popular article output, it isn’t possible to really evaluate what he thinks. But based only on his journalistic efforts, Gerson does not seem to really be interested in humbling himself before timeless truth, but rather to bring God down into the world as a political ally. This is certainly not new. It also is certainly not right, nor good. Maybe I am missing something, though, in Gerson’s writings and thought.

LA replies:

“Gerson does not seem to really be interested in humbling himself before timeless truth, but rather to bring God down into the world as a political ally.”

Well put.

African Lady living in the West (who has told me in e-mails that she is who she says she is) wrote:

Michael Gerson writes:

“The Christian faith teaches that our common humanity is more important than our nationality.”

This is not liberalism folks, it’s pure Christianity cleansed of the stain of secular nationalism. You who are angered by his message are fighting the essence of your own beloved Judeo-Christian heritage. I almost feel sorry for you.

LA replied to her:

I love it when non-Christians tell Christians that their religion requires them to commit national and civilizational suicide. I almost feel sorry for you.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 25, 2007 11:31 PM | Send