One definition of “insane” is a person who keeps doing the same thing over and over and expects a different result. Conservative Christians, by and large, in this country miss the forest for the trees. The problem is the form of government which results in this type of society.

Allow me to introduce some new terminology into the discussion. Back when I was a political science student as an undergrad, in political science circles, Classical Conservative, Neo-Conservative, Classical Liberal and Neo-Liberal had a somewhat different meanings than they do today in the pop political culture.

Neo-Liberal was what are commonly referred to today as (progressive) liberals. Neo-Conservatives were the term we used for what today would simply be called “Conservative” or the Goldwater/Reagan strain of Conservatism. Nowadays, “neo-con” tends to refer to those conservatives who advocate an adventurous foreign policy to spread what John Kennedy famously called (and in a positive sense), “the disease of liberty”. The fact that in doing so, they not only destroy “despotic governments” but the traditional morality of the indigenous people seems to be lost on them.

Now, both Neo-liberalism and neo-Conservatism are derivatives of the classical varieties. Classical Conservatism came first. It was the norm in Christendom and, in my opinion, the reason Christendom endured. From the Edict of Milan to the “Enlightenment” it was the assumed background political philosophy. Many of you would call it “statist” with some degree of justification.

Classical Conservatism highly valued the Church, a strong central goverment, and traditional morality. It asserted that the state be necessarily tied to the Church and that the state had the right to tax to support the government as well as to redistribute a certain portion of the revenues to the less fortunate.

Classical Liberalism was a moderate form of what we would call today, “libertarianism”. It fundamentally distrusted the Church, especially any temporal ecclesiastical power or establishment of religion, it tended to reject traditional morality and substitute individual autonomy so long as it did not directly harm other individuals. It taught “limited government’ in the sense that government should be representative and have a libertarian bent. It loathed taxation and had a very rosy appreciation of human nature to the effect that it taught that all that was necessary for men to live in peace was for them to be unshackled by the government and conventionality.

Neo-Conservatism, in the sense I first learned it, is a hybrid of Classical Conservatism and Classical Liberalism. It takes the libertarian anti-tax, laissez-faire attitude of Classical Liberalism and combines it with the emphasis on traditional morality (although American Neo-Conservatism is still quite mistrustful of ecclesiastical hierarchical power or any establishment of religion).

Neo-Liberalism is also a hybrid. It took the mistrust of religion and traditional morality and the individual moral autonomy of Classical Liberalism and combined it with the strong central government and redistributive state mentality of Classical Conservatism. Also mixed into Neo-Liberalism since at least the 60’s has been a fair amount of socialist ideology.

The problem with modern American politics is that both Neo-Conservatism and Neo-Liberalism are inherently anti-Christian political philosophies. They cannot help but yield a pathetic, unchristian culture.

This is easy to see with Neo-Liberalism since it is openly anti-religion and anti-traditional morality. However, because Neo-Conservatism stresses representative government (the heart of which idea is that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”, which is a lie) and, in its American variety, is opposed to establisment of religion, it is inherently self defeating. A lip-service, and perhaps personal allegiance, to traditional morality is useless in combating the decay of the culture. In the end, the populism is limiting and the commitment to individual liberty assures that the impulses toward traditional morality can never prevail in society.

Hence we have the Manhattan Declaration. A number of clerics preaching to the choir while Rome burns. The only way to turn the culture around is for it to assume a different method of governance. That is really what Orthodox and Catholic leaders should be advocating. But, alas, those leaders who are even conservatives are of the Neo-Conservative variety. They cannot see the forest for the trees. What those who want traditional morality are really yearing for is Christendom. And Christendom was a Classical Conservative phenomenon.

Now, admittedly, Neo-Conservative is less offensive and more useful, by Classical Conservative standards, than Neo-Liberalism. The fact is that the difference between Neo-Liberals and Neo-Conservatives when it comes to government spending is the difference between generous people who would not hesitate to bankrupt the country and tax it into depression and generous people who want to avoid bankrupting the country and driving it into a depression. The redistribution impulse of Classical Conservative is more than satisfied with the more limited redistribution of Neo-Conservatives.

The problem is simply that Neo-Conservatism can’t win the culture war. All it can do is slowly lose. The fundamental problem is that humans are dominated by the passions unless they commit to some religious discipline to combat them. In a “free country”, because the passions are born again new and fresh in every generation, and because each generation is bountifully exposed to the “anything goes” rubric of individual liberty, the chance that self-discipline will determine policy through the electorate becomes increasingly less likely. It is no defense to say the some of the biggest decisions resulting in our moral destitution have come from unelected judges. The people could, if they wished, override any of these decisions by constitutional amendment or by consistently voting for conservative, and only conservative, Presidents and Senators. They have not and will not do either of those things.

Thus, under our present form of government, it cannot get markedly better and, over time, will continue to swirl down the toilet.

The real light of the end of the tunnel is what happens when the situation becomes unsustainable, either economically or morally. At that point, change to a different system will become possible and likely.

Like the new site format!

In answer to your question above, Metropolitan Jonah (OCA) comes to mind as well. For example, in his statement for Sanctity of Life Sunday, he writes:

Christian marriage and family are the sacred context not only for the rearing of children, but as the basic core of our identity and reference point of stability. The family is the place where we are nurtured and accepted, find solace and consolation, and thus the faithful family becomes the place where these very human emotions and feelings are filled with grace and sanctified. Whether we are very young or very old, the family is the context of our life, in which we work out our salvation. We experience God’s Fatherhood, and divine Motherhood; we experience the nurturing love which becomes a participation in divine communion. And as we breathe our last, should we not remember the image of the crucified Christ, carried in the arms of his mother, in her grief, the grief of every mother for her child?

Later in the same statement he writes:

These are desperate times. Our society is in despair. It is a despair that manifests itself in the breakdown of essential relationships, of marriage and family. Continued unemployment leads to hopelessness, and the breakdown of trust that one is able to provide; this leads to the breakdown of marriages, and the bitterness that goes with it. Returning soldiers, with posttraumatic stress just below the surface, enter into relationships that often turn brutal and abusive. Marriage, and the very family itself are in question, with the issue of homosexual unions. The majority of marriages end in divorce, and the majority of children grow up without fathers or mothers; and how many pregnancies end in abortion? Despair is the primary context which could make it even possible for a mother to destroy her unborn child.

Another example that you reported here is his letter in which he said that he would pull all the Orthodox military chaplains if the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell required chaplains to affirm homosexuality as morally licit. There’s also his (and your) involvement in the Manhattan Declaration.

I’m not sure any other Orthodox hiearchs in America have taken such explicit and public stands on contemporary moral issues.

In Christ,

Fr Gregory