Just to be clear -- the 'death of God for our times, for our culture, is liberalism' post is by Chris Burgwald; the latter three responses are by Chris Blosser . . . way too many Chris' in St. Blog's Parish. =)
I would like to see someone evaluate Voegelin's contributions to this general issue. It seems to me that liberalism in virtually any form ultimately boils down to gnosticism, and that gnosticism, in virtually all its forms, boils down to knowledge as power. I think an example is the way dissident Catholics elevate "conscience" above all else in a knee-jerk fashion, which is nothing less than the deconstruction of the Catholic Church into a loosely associated group of hothouse communes, karma tuning forks, and "green" parties.
I second Ralph R-D's call for a review of Voeglin's analysis of gnosticism in this connection. Brilliant treatment.
Michael Novak has a long meditation on Voeglin and gnosticism in his Confession of a Catholic.
By the way, Dr Blosser, did you ever get around to reading "The Case of the Muse of Madness"?
Here is a quote that I found rather interesting. Its author is Larry D Nichols, a Lutheran pastor from Rhode Island, who apparently has as much time on his hands as Fr Joe. I don't know anything about him; anyone who does, please enlighten. He seems to have read a great deal too much Harold Bloom.
The essay as a whole is a thoughtful attempt to associate certain flavors of American fundamentalism and pentecostalism with gnosticism. Its point, for me, is this: replace the first word of the paragraph with "Liberalism", and see where it takes you:
"Gnosticism has nearly come of age as its essence is the belief in the power of knowledge to transform reality. Technology provides the means for knowledge to increase and along with it, the power to discover more information and more knowledge. Christianity has no place in this new metaphysics. According to Eric Voegelin, Christianity has been displaced in two phases. It has been "despiritualized and respiritualized." For once positivism "destroyed" Judeo-Christian consciousness, individuals were now open to "respiritualization" from non-Christian sources. The new "spirituality" includes such ideologies as Humanism, Scientism, New Age spirituality, Multiculturalism, Neo-paganism, Biologism, Psychologism, spin politics and the like."
Excuse me, I somehow added a "D" to Pastor Nichols' name. On second reading, the essay seems better grounded than it did at first. For anyone interested, here is the link:
http://www.mtio.com/articles/ais...es/
aissar41.htm
"Gnosticism has nearly come of age as its essence is the belief in the power of knowledge to transform reality.
Liberalism needn't be like that. At least not according to Mario Vargas Llosa, and agnostic liberal himself:
Because liberalism is not an ideology, that is, a dogmatic lay religion, but rather an open, evolving doctrine that yields to reality instead of trying to force reality to do the yielding, there are diverse tendencies and profound discrepancies among liberals. With regard to religion, gay marriage, abortion and such, liberals like me, who are agnostics as well as supporters of the separation between church and state and defenders of the decriminalization of abortion and gay marriage, are sometimes harshly criticized by other liberals who have opposite views on these issues. These discrepancies are healthy and useful because they do not violate the basic precepts of liberalism, which are political democracy, the market economy and the defense of individual interests over those of the state.
http://www.aei.org/publications/.../
pub_detail.asp
The question often comes down to, as Christopher Blosser has said more than once: "What type of liberalism are you referring to?"
Chris Blosser is absolutely right that definitions are crucial in this matter. The whole exchange between the Chrises reminds me of similar exchanges that took place at the inception of the National Review. On the one hand were conservatives such as Russell Kirk; on the other, conservative internationalists such as Frank Meyer and James Burnham, whose "Suicide of the West" is crucial to this or any argument on liberalism. There is so much to this great book that transcends the cold war era in which it was written, but perhaps the most trenchant, and humorous, feature is the "Are You a Liberal?" checklist in chapter 2.
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