SWNID No Synchophant: Where We Split with Heroes

Lest gentle readers think that we think as think those whose thinking we think is right thinking, we offer the following to think about.

Awhile back, the Telegraph asked several British notables to assess the legacy of Tony Blair. One such was Bishop N. T. Wright, the living Neutestamentler whom SWNID judges most protean and admirable. Wright confessed to high hopes at the beginning of Blair's tenure as British PM, which hopes were dashed because of the Iraq War.

In this assessment, we sense what we ourselves have assessed about Wright in the past, namely, that what he recommends in his more homiletical works as the present ethical implication of his exegesis tends toward socialist and pacifist programs that embody the sentiment but offer nothing by way of results. Wright insists on a reversed notion of power because of the gospel. Indeed, he articulates such with acuity as has no other of our time. However, to say that such a reversal means that government must be involved in programs of redistribution negates the possibility that things like the development of markets and enterprise might serve the poor better.

Similar remarks could be offered for the pacifistic strain to Wright's politics, but gentle readers will get the picture.

So we thank Tom Wright for what he's shown us about Jesus and Paul, but we part company as to how that ought to direct our political thinking. We agree about the ends, but we disagree as to the means.

Likewise, we know of few who have assessed the real nature of the Islamic threat like Christopher Hitchens. Hitch, however, has made himself more rich and famous recently with the publication of his anti-theistic screed, God Is Not Great. For Hitchens, any form of theism is antithetical to the legacy of the Enlightenment, which for Hitchens is the source of all that is right with the world.

We, of course, object to the notion that rationality is the same thing as logical positivism, a distinction Hitchens doesn't seem to care to contemplate, as it would render the thesis of his book untenable.

So, our heroes have clay feet. Wright is cool for exegesis but not politics; Hitchens, for politics but not theology. Both are unaware of the disconnect between their views on the two, or at least of other possible connections.