Goethe and Getting Religion

For German writer, thinker and man of political affairs Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a correct philosophical outlook was something of a moving target. In his conception, for each age of man there is a different, appropriate, even a necessary philosophy. The child must be the realist as he first comes to terms with his environment. “He finds himself as much convinced of the existence of pears and apples as of his own.” The youth, on account of those inevitable emotional storms, and a burning need to examine the self, is drawn to idealism. In my own case I remember some sketchy ideas about signing on to world citizenship, perhaps under the United Nations. The man, now fully aware of the dangers of bad judgment, and the need to employ his intelligence to control his world as best he can, becomes the cautious, machinating skeptic. The old man, with a view toward the finite quality of life, at last discovers the utility of mysticism.

The post election hand wringing proceeds apace. We suppose it will only stop when knuckles are rubbed raw and fingers are bent and contorted in cramps. And the consensus of these hand wringers: the most important election of our lifetime was lost, at least in part, as a result of the GOP’s attachment to outmoded, off-putting, divisive social issues.

Who are these voices of skeptical conservatism? They are young but not so young, falling squarely in that third age of man. They are obscure. They are nationally known. They write, they blog, they tweet, they talk on television. We don’t need to name them. Well, just one: Gretchen Carlson on with Bill O’Reilly – “Stop talking about abortion!”

While the GOP standard bearer fixed the cause of his defeat on the president’s penchant for re-gifting the people’s money to his constituencies, numbers of full grown adults of conservative persuasion blamed the Republican Party for alienating whole segments of American society. A joyous free market capitalism message was lost in that confusing muddle of social issues. The social conservatives, in particular the religious right, were to blame.

We can only hear these skeptics with respect. It is, after all, they who in the coming decades will be asked to foot the bill for a profligate “Me Generation.” They advise that for the GOP to win it must mount an appeal to the young, to women, to minorities. It must bring a clean, pure message of economic freedom to the electorate. Economic determinism of the right-wing variety you say. But the retort is that now American society is so diverse that appeals to a culture that no longer exists are worse than wrongheaded, they consign us to perpetual electoral defeat and rule by manipulating socialists.

We are dealing with a new reality, a new people. We must take on a new attitude, cultivate our cool factor. We must be done with “family values” harping. We understand that Evangelical Christians have a tendency to “really freak out” some of their fellow Americans. Witness the Tim Tebow hysteria. We must stop the Bible thumping, the perpetual moralizing, and the incessant railing against a popular culture now a fait accompli. Give it up on the defense of marriage act, school prayer, Christian symbols in the public square. Stay out of people’s bedrooms. And that current gem, “Stay out of our lady parts!”

The skeptics have their points. Romney/Ryan took a beating among unmarried women and the young. But would it be preachy to call the skeptic’s rejection of social conservatism a “bread alone” approach? And, as we look back on the Romney campaign, was it not almost exclusively run on economic and competency grounds? Weren’t the candidates super quick to distance themselves from Richard Murdock and Todd Akin? Anyone looking at it would have to conclude that 2012 was the most “bread alone” Republican campaign in memory, and it still when down to defeat. An interesting question would be how many of the 3 million Republicans who stayed home on Election Day were made up of un-spoken-to social conservatives?

So, while being mindful of a need to avoid excessive preaching in times that will not abide it, we hope that a skeptical generation might consider the political wisdom found in Mark 8:36 “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?,” and then take comfort in knowing that winning truly is not everything.

The economic message of conservatism is not at odds with the social or spiritual message. The founders told us that they are dependent on each other – two sides of the same coin. And, as we digest the meaning of our recent defeat, we should remember with Goethe that in all our planning, adjusting and strategizing we ultimately, each of us, stand in relation to “him who is there, him who was there, and him who shale be there.”

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