Richard John Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus is apparently near death.   Most of what I know about the man comes from his starring role in Damon Linker’s 2006 book Theocons.  The rest is three or four encounters at conservative functions, when he seemed cordial enough.   I subscribed to First Things for a while when I was still a churchgoer, but never found much of interest in it and let the subscription lapse after a couple of years.  I do recall that famous 1991(?) essay arguing that an atheist couldn’t be a good citizen.  (Though IMS Neuhaus graciously allowed that we might go on being citizens anyway.)

Linker gives Neuhaus a bad press — anti-science, aggressive in arguing for religion in public life, and so on.  It’s unfair to judge from a single book, of course, especially a hostile book when the poor guy is on his deathbed, so I won’t say anything more.   Other contributors might have better-informed opinions.

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13 Responses to Richard John Neuhaus

  1. Damon Linker says:

    Derb,

    In the book I never say Neuhaus is anti-science. I say that he agrees with the efforts of Intelligent Design advocates to reconcile science (including evolution) with the Truth of Christianity (for Neuhaus, as that Truth is taught by the Catholic Church). That may ultimately be impossible (I think it is), but it can be construed as being (and Neuhaus understands it to be) pro-science, albeit science “rightly understood,” i.e., by the Vatican.

  2. Bradlaugh says:

    Thanks, Damon. I’m sorry if I misread your intent. What you actually say is (pp.185-6):

    Newly convinced of ID’s political and cultural potency, Neuhaus decided in the spring of 2005 to offer the antievolution movement his first unambiguous statement of support.

    Since evolution is about as basic as science gets, declaring “unambiguous support” of an antievolution program would be anti-science, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s how I read it.

    Later down p. 186 you say, of Neuhaus’ defense of the teaching of ID:

    It was a stunning example of sophistry — one in which the scientific method, peer review, standards of professionalism, and scholarly consensus counted for nothing against the objections of a handful of religious dissenters.

    Is it really too much of a stretch to interpret that as “Damon Linker thinks Richard John Neuhaus was anti-science”? You do, certainly, leave open the possibility that he didn’t think he was being anti-science, but there are objective standards we can call in here. I may think I’m the world’s best golfer, but my thinking so doesn’t make it so.

    I’m sorry if I missed a nuance. The Theocons is an important book, and beautifully done. It’s fairer to Neuhaus than I remembered, too, so perhaps “hostile” was not precisely the right word. “Unsympathetic,” perhaps.

  3. Jon Rowe says:

    I think he posits a lot of ideas with which I strongly disagree. From what I’ve seen and heard of him personally (I never met him but attended the symposium put on for his honor by Robbie George at Princeton; it featured good intellectual discussion) he seems like a generally nice guy.

    One thing I like about the “theocons” of the Roman Catholic variety is, through their appreciation of Aquinas, they realize “public” arguments have to take place on the grounds of “reason” not simple appeal to holy books.

    Of course, there may be problems with their very Roman Catholic appeal to reason that reaches all of the results that Pat Robertson would like. However, it’s still a step in the right direction as far as politics go.

  4. Damon Linker says:

    Thanks for the kind words, Derb/Bradlaugh–

    Neuhaus died this morning. I’ll have something about him soon on my new blog at the New Republic (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/default.aspx) and cross-posted at the National Catholic Reporter.

  5. Northerner says:

    Linker doesn’t seem like a trustworthy source. Sure, he was an insider, but he’s never even tried to explain, for example, why he would work at the magazine for several years AFTER the 1996 symposium on democracy that he now feigns to find so offensive. In other words, he must have undergone a pretty drastic, 180-degree shift in opinion about the dangerousness of Neuhaus to be able to write such a book about him. And that sort of shift demands an explanation.

  6. Caledonian says:

    There is little use to arguing with people who slap the label ‘reason’ on incoherence and expect it to be treated as such.

    People who praise Aquinas and similar theologians are attempting to argue from style, rather than content.

  7. Jeeves says:

    Caldonian: Thank you. If Neuhaus’s stuff isn’t enough, tune into to another Aquinas “rationalist” like Michael Novak. He gives incoherence a bad name.

    Northerner: So Linker is “untrustworthy” because…? He’s a hypocrite? Because he didn’t turn in his badge fast enough? That may go to Linker’s motives (not irrelevant), but not to the validity of his argument.

  8. Northerner says:

    Well, the argument of Linker’s book — that Neuhaus was a unique and theocratic danger to America, that he was just about singlehandedly able to put “secular America under siege” — is not only wildly overwrought, but is all the more peculiar coming from someone who can’t explain why most of his evidence (such as it is) predates his own choice to work for Neuhaus. Damned odd.

  9. wj says:

    Linker misrepresents the Church’s position on evolution and its relation to “Intelligent Design.” The Church has never officially supported ID and has recognized the truth of evolution. That Neuhaus foolishly signed on to the ID camp was one of his several lapses in judgment over the past two decades–the other major one being his blind support of Bush’s war-mongering. But the Catholic Church is not anti-evolution.

  10. Bill of MD says:

    Yuval Levin writes on NRO’s The Corner “…the terrible news of Neuhaus’s death sent me back to his extraordinary essay “Born toward Dying,” published about a decade ago, and that reading it again brought home all the more what a loss our public square has suffered by his passing.”

    The essay brought home to me how hopelessly flaccid and effeminate believers seem when they are trying to be profound. I am reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s remark about Shakespeare: “He understood human weakness without understanding human strength”.

  11. Caledonian says:

    “The Church has never officially supported ID and has recognized the truth of evolution.”

    Yes, but it also insists that God intervened to stick souls in there somewhere along the way.

    Modern biology does not recognize any difference in kind between humans and the rest of the animals, only differences of degree. The Church can’t bring itself to accept that; it’s completely contradictory to their basic message.

  12. Pingback: Secular Right » Richard John Neuhaus, cont’d

  13. Daniel Dare says:

    Also if there was no Adam and Eve, and Garden of Eden, talking serpent, etc, etc. Then there was no Fall of Man. It was at the Fall, after all, that sin and death came into the world.

    Evolution says: Not true, every ancient fossil is a dead organism.
    Death was here long before Man.

    But if there was no fall of Man, then why do we need Salvation?
    From what are we being redeemed? What is being atoned for?
    What exactly is the logic here?

    Are we to believe now that Jesus died on The Cross so that Man could evolve from an apelike ancestor?

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