I am glad that you like the blog, and I will keep up with yours as well. To be honest, I had too much time on my hands in Mexico and now that I am working on my thesis I do not have as much time for it as much.

Yes, your response about taxes is to be expected. Nevertheless, regardless of the biblical injunction you and I (just like many early Christians) are both tacitly supporting violence by funding the military with our taxes. I only mentioned taxes vis-a-vis voting because you rationale seemed to be that you did not want to comply with a system that constitutes a killing machine via the vote. Can the conscious though be eased simply because of a biblical injunction that notorisiously has been endorsed to support depostism? You and I are fortunate that we do not live in Australia where it is required by law to vote.

However, you and I do not have to pay taxes, and the classic rejoiner to Paul is Peter’s “it is better to obey God rather than man.” The example of the retired pacifist methodist minister and his wife here in Portland demonstrates this. Basically that have chosen, unless things have changed, to go to jail by refusing to pay their taxes. The rule of law does not mean that such laws are just and I think the history of slavery, the Suffrage Movement and the Civil Rights Movement all demonstrate this.

We must hangout and chat.

Have a Happy New Year,
Danny

Thanks for commenting. The reason that I put Paul’s name in quotes was to note that it was a guest post and not your own. Although I’ve not met Paul, I have heard of him through my friends April and Justin Haskell… April is Paul’s cousin.

Anyhow, just to clarify some points in your response:

I was not offering a wholesale endorsement of Habermas (and you are correct to presume that I have not read enough of his work), but rather, I was endorsing the thesis in his first book, which I believe was his dissertation: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. As I noted in the post, I am aware that he has distanced himself from the pessimism of this thesis (a thesis that was in line with the pessimistic spirit of the Frankfurt School of Marcuse, Horkeimer, and Adorno). So, I was not arguing for Habermas’ current position regarding democratic involvement through voting, but rather endorsing a thesis he developed early in his career and has then spent the reset of his career moving away from.

With regard to paying taxes, I do. I do this because I am compelled to, or rather, I am obligated to do it. The same is not true of voting. I respect people that abstain from paying taxes, and I could see how this might make my position more consistent, but being wholly consistent from the perspective of someone like yourself is not my intent. I see my obligation to pay taxes bound up with passages like Romans 13. Voting, on the other hand, I see no biblical or traditionally Christian precedent for.

Finally, I think you misread my comment about getting involved with local politics because of reading people like Hauerwas, Stout, Milbank, and Berry. I am not claiming that they have recommended this bifurcation between national and local politics. Rather, through reading their work I have come to rethink the potential of local and state politics. I just see that there is a difference between local and national politics. Thus to my knowledge Stout, Milbank, or Hauerwas have not written that we should forego national politics in favor of local political involvement.

I wanted to add that I have enjoyed reading your blog… it has been a great resource.

When you get back to Portland we’ll have to get together with Robb and get back into some of this stuff.

Cheers!

I serendipitiously stumbled across your blog via Halden’s and saw your comments regarding my friend Paul’s post about Halden’s perspective on voting.

I will direct Paul to your blog so that perhaps he might respond. “Paul” really exist and is a graduate student in theology at Tübingen. Soo since it is the holidays it might be difficult to track him down.

For the moment, however, let me say that I agree with the gist of your comments. There is nothing explicit in Hauerwas’s writing that would discourage voting. However, I think one can easily come away with this view by reading him, as you mention. As such, consider the following quote by something of a highly regarded theologian, Steven Webb, in his essay: “The Very American Stanley Hauerwas”:

“Perhaps the key to the reception of his (Hauerwas) work is his anti-Americanism. Hauerwas has given rise to a whole generation of theologians who make quick work of consumerism, patriotism, nationalism, and popular culture. Some of his students have told me that they are so alienated from American politics that they no longer vote.”

I quote this just to confirm an aspect of what you have said.

As I mentioned in my response to Halden’s post, I have never voted. However, it has little to do with theological reasons (more generally logistical issues often).

I have read most of Hauerwas’s writings and find them quite enjoyable. One enjoyable aspect of reading him is trying to figure out how to apply what he is saying. For instance, your quote , ” The primary task of the church is to be the church,” is not a call for withdrawal, but a call for us to attend carefully to our own identity in order that we may serve the world on the terms of Christianity rather than on the world’s own terms.” Hauerwas has applied this notion to whether Christian should involve themselves in politics or be in the military. His response is yes, but if they are true to their narrative identity they will be impeached within there first day of office or kicked out of the military for adhering to the gospel narrative of peace (see in particular his essay in the Hauerwas reader “Why Gays are Morally Superior to Christians as a Group”). Now I suppose this is not de facto sectarianism, but it certaintly can entail a possible disillusionment and eventual withdrawal from a culture which simply will not let you be your true Christian self without significant compromise.

The interesting feature of Halden’s contempt for democracy is that it sounds in part similiar to Carl Schmitt’s, the so called Crown Jurist of the Third Reich, argument against the effectiveness of representative democracy in his The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy.

I say this because it is remarkable that you endorse Habermas analysis of public space, possibly the person who has done more than anyone else to overcome Schmitt’s pessimism, only then to confer a judgement that he continues to this day to combat; namely disillusionment with democracy. I say this also because just as you assume sectarian critics have not read Hauerwas enough (the two biggest sectarian critics of Hauerwas, James Gustafson and Jeffrey Stout have have read plenty of Hauerwas. I even believe the former was his teacher at Yale) it appears evident that you have not read enough Habermas because clearly he would reject your position, especially with his recent endorsement of what he calls post-secular socities (he no doubt thinks democracy in danger but not to the point of giving up on democratic practices at any level).

I have one question. You state: “I can’t in good conscious endorse a system that leads to the violent death of thousands and the oppression of millions.”

Do you pay taxes? Because if you do you are funding a system that leads to the violent death of thousands and the oppression of millions. Actually, assuming that you pay taxes, you would, in my estimate of your arguement, be more culpable for not voting for say someone like Dennis Kucinich (who says he would end the war immediately) and nevertheless continue to pay taxes. I would be more impressed by a position that is more conspiciously consistent (actually more sacrifical).

Lastly, I would be interested in the place where Jeffrey Stout encourages involvement at the state and local level and not the national. This goes for the other two as well, but I cannot at all recollect or ever see Stout saying this, and it would be difficult how the other two could make this distinction without be inconsistent (of course I no Berry would wholeheartedly say this, and I believe Hauerwas has written about him).