"hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent"
Maybe incoherent to Ross, but not to those grounded in the Enlightenment and Age of Reason. Does he argue that the philosophy of John Locke is incoherent? Two quotes by Adam Smith directly refute Ross's claim:
1) Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
2) No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
I can buy the argument that most of the New Age crowd will tend to be on the left, but the demographic is so small as to be of no practical import. Sedona, Arizona might be ground zero for crystals, and vortices, and monism..... but Yavapai County, of which is part, votes 2 - 1 Republican.
"... because the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism."
Well, that's your OPINION, Ross, and by definition of you writing this column, you are entitled to it. But declaiming something doesn't make it so. Your arguments and thoughts would carry much more weight if you actually backed them up with data and references to scientific research.
Or, since I'm a humanitarian, am I not allowed to ask for materialistic data?
20
Great analysis Ross; Keep up the good work!
3
Liberals like Marianne Williamson promote the actual teachings of Jesus Christ unlike The Religious Right's whose main focus is ending Abortion. Jesus never mentions fetuses but they sure get people to vote Republican. The Book of Miracles defines the Ego as the enemy of a loving God. Trump is all Ego and the Christian Right love him. Their Spirituality is based in Ego not on God.
34
Many modern theological debates are built around a false dichotomy between 1) an atheism which asserts that the universe was created by purposeless mechanical processes and 2) acceptance of a religious system which requires both faith in the infallibility of sacred texts and belief in a supernatural God. I propose a form of naturalistic theism, which rejects sacred texts as unjustified, and supernaturalism as incoherent. I argue that rejecting these two elements of traditional organized religion would have a strongly positive impact on the beliefs and practices of religion, even though many religious people feel strongly attached to them. It is belief in sacred texts that is responsible for most of the evil done in the name of religion, not belief in God. Many of the strongest arguments for atheism work only against a supernatural God, and have no impact on the question of the existence of a natural God.
https://www.academia.edu/35251245/Naturalistic_Theism
4
The last paragraph smacks of what liberals AND conservatives said about Donald Trump in 2016. No one would vote for him, right?
Right...
When I heard that Marianne Williamson was running, I was thunderstruck. I had not thought of her in decades, but I immediately went to eBay and bought a copy of A Course in Miracles to replace my ancient copy which was who knows where.
Copies of it were going fast, I noticed.
I thought she was terrific during the debate. She spoke the truth. She was confident, informed and smart.
Will I vote for her? You bet. This country has been running on hate for way too long.
6
One of the best people I knew, a woman who followed the Golden Rule and saved many lives during the course of two wars--at the risk of her own--was a confirmed atheist. She didn't seek the spotlight. Even in old age, when she had terminal cancer, she found the strength to look after people more disabled than herself. Her name was Marion Youers, and she was my teacher.
I'm not interested in what religion or political philosophy you say you adhere to. I'm interested in what you do.
24
Douthat is becoming increasingly proficient at writing dense, buzzwordy, superficially smart sentences that, upon closer inspection, are just gobbledygook.
I mean, what exactly does this mean?
"The liberal intelligentsia has long prided itself on taking the side of reason and science against first religious conservatism and now right-wing populism — defending a particular version of the Enlightenment against televangelists and superstition and Fake News. But because man does not live by Neil deGrasse Tyson memes alone, and because the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent, the cult of reason necessarily shares space in liberal circles — especially liberal circles outside the innermost ring of the meritocracy — with other cults, other commitments, of the sort associated with “A Course in Miracles.”"
I mean, what "intelligensia"? How are they opposing religious conservatism ) and populism? How is that "mix" (whatever that "mix" is) incoherent? What is the "innermost ring of meritocracy"? What cults? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ROSS?!
26
"...There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy..." [op cit]
--
I agree. And for that matter, I can't imagine that anyone who attends synagogue, or church, or mosque would disagree.
--
I agree (again), that Ms. Williamson is indeed, "weirdly" [op cit] refreshing. She adds, "otherworldly zest," [my caption] to an otherwise pedestrian debate cycle. So God bless her for that.
--
By the way, it's also worth remembering that historically, America has been and still is, some would argue, intensely religious. It hasn't seemed to have hurt us in the past.
And for the present? I'll make sure and tune in for the next Democratic debate. Who knows? Maybe some of the other candidates will follow Ms. Williamson's lead.
6
Ross, some folks live it instead of babbling about it and churning up hate like so many right-wingers do.
Right wing self righteousness is getting rotten old. Your school has deregulated the 10 commandments in to 2:
1. Thou shalt honor money as thy god.
2. Thou shalt lie to get anything one wants.
21
Marianne Williamson is NOT "the Religious Left." She's the New Age Fuzzy Middle.
Take a look at the Rev. William Barber, Jim Wallis, Sister Joan Chittester, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and others less known.
THEY are the Religious Left. Instead of deifying the most regressive aspects of American culture and calling them "Christian," as the Religious Right does, they look at the actual teachings of the Bible, both the Jewish prophets and Jesus Christ, and find strong condemnations of greed, oppression, bigotry, and war, and no mentions of abortion or homosexuality.
32
From Douthat's column: " because the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent"
Maybe to you, Ross. Maybe to you.
15
Oh good grief. Williamson is a fraud and a grifter who has enriched herself on the accurate theory that here in the New Age there’s a Seeker born every minute. End of story.
14
In the Real World what the heck is my question. Just a goofy distraction on a major stage. Why give her this much ink?
1
My favorite moment of wierdness with Marianne Williamson was her naming at the end of the debate, her "most pressing concern". She said "Love with Iran". Her comment went perfectly with what I was snacking on: a bowl of fruit loops.
3
@SecondChance
I agree that it is very easy to judge much of this as craziness.
But here's the thing. At the end of the day, which way do we really want to orient ourselves and our world? Toward hatred and conflict or toward love and peace?
That's not a New Age idea. Every religion has as a basic tenet "do unto others as you would have done unto you."
That's pretty much all Williamson is saying in a nutshell.
12
Funny, I thought Ms. Williamson was just a pseudo-spiritual crank until I read Ross Douthat actually ask, "where is the religious left?” and then dismiss them all as crystal-gazers, Oprah nutters and the (and wow, Ross, this one's a true Douthat spitball) "the pantheistic-gnostic-occultish territory at the edges of American Christianity’s fraying map."
How far outside the real world is this smug boy that he understands so little of American culture, sees so little of what's changing, accepts so little of what he does see, and presumes so much authority to judge what he disdains?
Williamson isn't the deluded one here. The tedious grandiosity of Douthat's proclaiming yet again to read the mind of "the liberal intelligentsia" while he presumes to know better and be better than its "circles" and "cults" would be amusing were he not someone given so much real estate in this newspaper. I don't see a wise man in these lines. I see a pale replica of Buckley, another verbal trickster whose erudition was mostly fog.
31
Sir, if you want to meet the "religious left," here I am. You remember "liberation theology?" That's what inspired me to convert to Judaism. I have a bible that tells me over and over to be kind to the stranger, to pursue justice at all times. Instead of offering us a savior, Jewish theology tells us to do what we can to mend the world, With G*d as partner. That's how I try to live.
18
I think a record has been set for the most psycho babble in one column in the history of American journalism.
22
I agree! I listened to her; I'm a very fact and analysis oriented liberal, but I heard something from her ... and from Gabbard.
As an aside, Gabard is probably more moon-beam oriented than Williamson. There are TWO of them running for president!
The one thing that struck me hard is that they both have their finger on a key point that none of the other candidates do: What is America's fascination and acceptance of violence. What is that? What does it mean? How can we unravel that huge obvious flaw in our society?
These people are real contributors to the national scene, and moon-beam or not; I'm very pleased to see that our party has given them space. Good for us.
27
I needed a machete to hack through the jungle of reasoning presented in this column by Mons. Douthat. Even with that, I'm not sure I can pull all the threads (or vines) together. His point being...?
12
How does this woman even deserve the space on the “paper”? She’s just taking up space in the debates that we SHOULD take seriously but she keeps piping up some nonsense.
4
Marianne Williamson is just another flim flam thinking she has the experience and intelligence to run for President of the US.
But then I guess Trump has proven complete idiots can run and win.
3
Look out! What a load of nonsense. Is she the new improved version Jill Stein or Christine Le Pen or what? I'm not buying it.
1
Another opening, another show...More nattering, to no particular end, from Mr. Douthat, except for the opportunity it once again provides him to bash “liberal elites.” Ah well, it fills space - god (or God) forbid a columnist should do actual reporting.
8
Never mind Oprah, the future is Kim Kardashian…
What's wrong with being an atheist? It means your morality comes from inner conviction, not fear of hell, and it is thus much more admirable.
Only Ross Douthat, who still believes in something as unreal as god, would take the time to write about Williamson and her absurdities.
Just because she has a following doesn't make her worth listening to. After all, even Trump has a following.
9
"...the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent..."
How do you figure this, Douthat? Are you rejecting the positivist distinction between is and ought.
Read your Hume there. Then come back and defend this stupid statement.
6
Good lord...and trust me that expression is very much tongue in cheek. Ross, I'm not sure you realize this but most people who are not traditional Christians (athiests and agnostics and others) aren't endlessly pondering their choices, thoughts and beliefs. I know what I believe (there is no god) and I'm not spending a lifetime second guessing it. Nor am I supplanting my "missing" belief with some type of mysticism. I'm just doing what an enormous amount of people do every day. Planting myself in the here and now and enjoying it as best I can. It isn't a priority nor am I going to base my vote on who believes what about God, god's or no gods. I'm in my final stretch in life and I am not going to waste it dithering over burning in hell or not. I look at it this way, if I'm wrong then I'll get to spend a lot of time talking with trump in the hereafter. Which would be suitable punishment I guess.
4
Mr. Douthat, I don't think you know any Democrats who aren't in your coastal elite circle. This article is incoherent, and it has nothing to do with the Democrats I know. You need to get out more.
17
"refugees from contemporary progressivism"
Quillette publishes openly fascist articles that e.g. treat Victor Orban as a normal politician. These folks are part of an anti-intellectual tradition with a long history in the US, and it is foolish to describe them in the terms they use to describe themselves. They adopt the appearance of activities conventionally considered "intellectual" for the same reason they get nice haircuts now and wear nice vintage-y clothes: to make their authoritarian anti-reason and anti-history appear normal.
Where they are not actively promoting fascist views, the most frustrating thing about characters like Harris and Peterson is how straight-up dumb they are. I know it's not polite to say it, but it's just right there in your face when you listen to them talk. Anyone who's taught university courses is familiar with this type of guy (yes, it's almost always a guy), who doesn't understand that he's not one of the smart kids, and whose over-confident, unexamined observations make intellectually honest and rigorous discussion impossible. That's the reason they're excluded from the discussions they want to be a part of. They're just not good at what they think they're good at, which is a tragedy of sorts.
8
cc: Ayn Rand.
3
I subscribe to much of what Williamson believes but she has been a poor case - semi-coherent, pandering and weak. If she really wants the job she should differentiate herself from Warner, Harris, Biuden and consortes.... and stop playing the emotional harp.
2
Marianne Williamson is in it to increase her "brand" exposure. She's selling spiritualism. Very now. Very American. Very capitalist.
5
Clinical psychologist and stimulating former Harvard (now on sabbatical from Univ of Toronto) professor, Jordan Peterson is most popular intellectual in the West (#1 best seller 12 Rules for Life .. on nobody's radar until 2017); relegating him as a Dark Webber understates the value he brings to ANY analysis .. science, reason, faith, gender, research, humanities, personality...
He is anathema to the far Left, and ill-disposed to be identified with far Right. Traditionalist. He's common sense, incredibly articulate and humble ( yet refuses to cede individual freedoms to the politically correct demands of the tribes). His interpretation of the Biblical stories of Genesis, lectures on Piaget's developmental stages, interview with Kathy Newman on gender pay gap reasons, analysis of hate speech at Oxford Union .. are brilliant.
His evisceration of Jillian Johnson and the Durham NC City Council is a landmark analysis of why the faux kindness of the far Left is corrupt ... and is exactly why political moderates (incldg the 82% Christians in 2016 ... Left and Right?) will choose Trump in 2020.
Your "Enlightenment values .. Jungian wisdom .. biblical archetypes" description is correct, but Peterson's "live like I believe there is a God" is not "chasing religious ideas out .. ". His sine quo non is that Responsibilities trump Rights, bucko. Politics are not his "level of analysis". His life's journey started when he sought an answer to why the 20th century was so bloody.
1
Mr. Doubthat, its curious to me that you write so much about Democrats and the left, as a moderate right wing focused on religion and spirituality.
At the same time, we see mainstream evangelicalism in America embrace trump wholly on the right, and willfully choose heresy and apostasy to elevate trump over the actual teachings of one J.C. For example, hardline immigration and family separation, as well as the so-called 'religious freedom' argument to deny and refuse services to certain sinners both are apostasy to the core tenet of universal grace for all, and to the command to love sinners and wash their feet, not to ostracize them and hate them. Where have you published your Christian perspectives on these serious abominations going on in the name of your religion from your favored political party, the GOP?
6
The "ism" Douthat neglects to discuss is Humanism which does fill the void pure materialism leaves in the human psyche; or would fill if only the monotheists would stop stomping on it.
3
Thanks for the insult about how those of us who happen to think the universe is what there is, and it’s plenty enough, have “threadbare,” views of reality. One assumes we also suffer through paltry lives that may only be rectified and made whole by signing up with a sky-god.
I’d point out, Douthat, that plenty of sound philosophies teach in materialist terms, but I’d rather sympathize: it must be tough to get through these columns when you’re not allowed to shout, “heretic!” Or, “commie!” Or “Satanist!”
Oh, by the way...will we be getting a column on how, say, George Gilder’s wacko ideas insinuated themselves into the GOP any time soon? How about Kevin Swanson’s bland offers to wait and hang gay people until after the worldwide Church he plans to run? Anything coming on Sun Myung Moon and the “Washington Times?” How ‘bout, lessee, Pat Robertson’s nine mansions and Creflo Dollar’s adoption by a greedier and greedier cinservatism?
Not holding the ol’ breath on those.
3
...a yearning to fuse the political and mystical — what Tara Isabella Burton has described as the “progressive occultism” of astrological charts and anti-Kavanaugh séances and “Trump-era how-to spellbooks that blend folk magic with activist practice.”
The derogatory characterization in quotes above could equally be applied to the folk magic and mysticism of the Bible. Eat the body, drink the blood, pray the gay away.
So what government can decide, like a modern day Solomon, how to divide the child, how to decide which version of spirituality is the correct one?
7
I think this column makes a great deal of sense. I'm not sure, however, because I'm not up-to-date on all the in-crowd, brand-name, and code-word modifiers. Is there an English language translation available?
5
Mr. Douthat, have you never heard of Nuns on the Bus?
6
I have to confess that before reading this article I had no idea who Marianne Williamson is!
2
These topics stir the marrow of your metier. Given your spiritually backed stance implies that you are fuelled by a deep source, I wonder if you could write a column that, unlike large swathes of US Christianity, embraces the polarities of life/death, good/evil and what you go on about an awful lot left/right leaning peoples of all kinds and faiths? Have you ever written from the heart or is it largely analysis that you do? i like your analyses. Given you wade in these holy waters, could you write occasionally on how it touches you and presumably opens your aperture, normally set to zoom into our political fragmentation, to see how the encompassing whole integrates those poles at least spiritually.
2
Sure, she's an intellectual lightweight. But at least she doesn't spend her life defending a church that denies women's rights and defends pederasts.
So there's that, Ross. Get my point?
An awful lot of intellectualization is really just rationalization.
7
Where are the religious right? You know the religous right all upset about cages for children. The religious right who want to take healthcare away from the sick. Who want to warm the planet and give everyone guns. I know where my Christian, Muslim, Jewish left friends are but I haven't found any on the far right practicing anything that resembles the aforementioned religions. (BTW, I haven't found many new wave religious left friends either.)
6
Just a note on Waldorf schools which both of my children attended through the 8th grade and for which I will be eternally grateful. Waldorf schools are not anti technology. The philosophy simply states that children should not be exposed to television and computer/cell phone technology until they have reached puberty (I won't get into the reasoning for that). My children were raised this way, and, as productive adults (one is now a firefighter, the other an engineer), neither has suffered because of it.
5
“And while it is fun to scoff at her hokey spiritual woo and self-help bromides, it is easy to forget that hokey spiritual woo and self-help bromides are extremely powerful and popular among a massive subset of Americans, many of whom represent the exact sort of voters who decide Democratic primaries.” ~ And many more represent Evangelical Christian voters who decide the Republican primaries..
6
Give US a break Ross....those who follow Williamson are not really "low-on-information" if anything we have more information to look at when we look for a deeper meaning. And the "weirdness" you say she exhibited at the debate strikes a positive note among thoughtful people who are looking for an antidote to the trump disease.
11
I loved during the debates when she said something like, "we through out numbers of the sick to fight for health care, but we never stop and ask ourselves why are so many Americans so sick?"
6
What a great article!
I feel really I shouldn’t dabble in US politics (I’m British). But today I bought a Marrianne Williamson 2020 T-shirt.
4
Williamson was right that Trump did not win by “having a plan for that.” Actually I understand Hillary had many plans. Trump apparently made some people feel hopeful and strong. Maybe Obama did to, in a different way. As did many winning candidates. I suppose. One of our candidates could do the same this time around.
It won’t be the one whose plan is to pick a fight with another candidate.
4
One thing about this opinion piece by Ross Douthat that is clearly missing is even a cursory understanding of 'A Course in Miracles'. It isn't a New Age self-help book of woo woo. It doesn't prescribe any political philosophy. It doesn't give prescriptions on how to fix the world. It certainly is a lot less woo woo than believing in a virgin birth, creation in 6 days, Adam and Eve and the innumerable interpretations of the Book of Revelations, beliefs that millions of Americans hold as gospel truth.
'A Course in Miracles' is not a cult or a religion or a church. Nor is it a doctrinal belief system. It is a tool for examining the deeper meanings of who we are and how we relate to life. To that end it utilizes a poetic blending of the languages of Christianity and psychology differing with both as they are understood in today's world.
Marianne Williamson, at least in part due to her experience with the 'Course' is attempting, however poorly, to point to such deeper dynamics behind the political and relational dysfunction of our very polarized America. She needs to be applauded for that.
14
@5thring thank you! Finally someone who really understands what the "Course in Miracles" is about...and explained it correctly, without the "woo-woo"....
3
@5thring
You may have entirely missed the point that Ross respects Ms. Williamson and likes her injection of "woo" in the political debate.
I heard her speak in the ‘90s, and didn’t care for her. I went back, hoping again that I would be moved and uplifted. Alas, I had the same reaction the second time: I was surprised and impressed with her huckster’s ability to sell all those books and all those high-priced tickets to appearances. A true modern day Elmer Gantry.
4
@Franco51 That is your experience but not that of thousands upon thousands of people, worldwide, who have been "moved and uplifted" by her work. Your "Elmer Gantry" reference speaks volumes about your own cynicism. I do not think you can feel moved or uplifted by much..
3
@Franco51 She is good at gaslighting and she knows it.
Mr. Douthat is helpful in bringing formal religiosity into the national conversation without bashing any particular religious sector, as so often happens elsewhere.
However his analysis often oversimplifies based on a very narrow view of neoconservatives Roman Catholicism. The spiritist and neo-pagan movements cut through all political identities - left, right, libertarian, anarchist, etc. There is no distinct "liberal" side to New Age mysticism, rather there are some liberals who identify with it.
There are also many on the right who identify just as strongly with all kinds of spiritist groups. Recent tv series based on polling and test panels like Saving Grace show that quasi-Christian Spirituality with free love, alcohol abuse, violence, gun culture, and no reference to the Bible resonates with many Americans. The series Medium assumes conservative viewers will identify with someone who can see the future at every moment and speaks with friendly ghosts. Ghost Hunters is only decipherable if you are rural and conservative.
The bigger point isn't that there is a special brand of liberal mysticism, but that individually designed new age practice teaches across race, gender, and politics, so has a much broader appeal than many who aspire to liberal intellectualism might realize
1
So, why exactly can’t we live by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s memes?
7
America has been hag-ridden by Christianity since The First Great Awakening, much to its detriment.
6
Thanks Ross for getting this on the front page of the NY Times (online)! Whether you've read her or not, instigating the comments section is a huge service to the evolution of a culture of empowered empathy in America. Shout out to Oprah too for all the years she's used her platform to foster this dialogue. To echo several comments, it is far from woo woo...
10
Why do conservatives like Ross think there exists a liberal equivalent to Trump?
Trump exists, along with his enablers, in their own sorry universe.
18
Of course a "died in the wool Conservative" would see Marianne Williamson and her "mysticism" as the new "religious Left". But I am part of a religious Left that does not seek money, power or influence over the lives of others.The religious Left is made up of huge numbers of Catholics, many who have stopped giving their money to the Church, who have a relationship with their God regardless of the fact that their shepards have countenanced the sexual abuse of children ---and large numbers of religious Jews and Muslims who know the fear that religious hatred can breed in politics and government--and large numbers of Black church members for whom social justice equals a life exemplified by Jesus Christ---and those of us who are members of mainline protestant denominations who quietly do God's work--and see the role of religion in our wonderfully diverse nation as something we integrate into our communities where we work quietly and humbly for peace, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless----with no pats on the back; no promises of financial wealth; and no NY Times columnists to promote our political points of view. We are not a political movement. That's how God would probably want it.
16
"[The] mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent."
How so, Mr. Douthat? Is it not possible to believe in the power of science and yet also believe we can be humane, that we can be moral? Your sentence suggests one must be deduced from the other in order to provide "coherence." As most learned people know, you can't derive an 'out' from an 'is.'
7
Freedom of religion is a fundamental liberty in the US Constitution. But declaring someone crazy is a fundamental freedom protected by a different clause of the 1st Amendment.
She is taking valuable debate time from the many legitimate candidates for president.
5
@Mike Murray MD
Well, I see why you say that. But if she represents the worldview of 1% of Democrats, she should get her chance. Truth is, I'd vote for her over Trump. From what I read, her political views are all good, if not original. I think she'd have smart people in her cabinet, not astrologers.
7
"Thus any battle, present or future, between a secular left and a spiritual left will never end in victory for one side or the other; only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two."
Ok, on the first point, that's a big "duh". There will always be a range of more spiritual & more secular people on the left.
On the second point, where has there ever been a "synthesis btwn faith and reason" that ever *settled* anything? Isn't it more accurate to think of the two as perhaps overlapping in certain areas, becoming allies now & then against a common enemy, but not ever really fully compatible? (And by that I mean in each of our minds as well as in society as a whole!)
I can understand why for Ross, as a conservative, its so important to identify contradictions on the left.
But I'm guessing that he (wrongly) understands "the left" as having the ultimate goal of suppressing all spirituality--that they see the destiny of humankind like John Lennon described it in "Imagine".
But what if the left, as a whole, had NO ultimate goal regarding faith & reason? What if all they wanted was to peacefully co-exist w/their fellow Americans and human beings, rather than win the "battle of beliefs"?
To "imagine" them in that way, Ross would have to think of "the left" (the majority at least) as more along the lines of Paul McCartney advising us to "Let it Be"
Not very controversial or contradictory, I know, but what about it?
5
I wanted to comment on your comments about Waldorf education. The attitude toward teaching technology in those schools is based on introducing things at the appropriate stage of development of the child- so for parents of a pre-schooler, yes, it may seem severe. Yet, as a parent of a child who went to Waldorf school most of his k-12 education, graduated from college with a degree in physics (and will go on to graduate school in that discipline), I can say that students gain an understanding of how technology works, its role in life and respect for the knowledge it brings. Math is introduced early in the curriculum( first grade) and the theoretical basis of science is strongly taught. Yes, a holistic view is offered in science but the interconnectedness of life on earth is ecology not mysticism!
7
Ross, some of the religious left is in what remains of the Roman Catholic Church. Your church has done its best to silence and marginalize the nuns I grew up with who marched for peace in Viet Nam, integration in the south, and decency to the immigrant, legal or not. The Church's campaign to destroy American nuns has almost been successful but there a small number left who actually believe in Roman Catholicism and take seriously Jesus' admonition, "as you have done it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, so have you done it to me." You would be wise, if you care about the destination of your soul, to better heed their example.
7
Thank you, Ross, for giving Williamson some press space. The mainstream media dismisses her.
Yes, she is quirky but not more so than most of the rest of the candidates. She's nowhere near as weird as Mr. Pence or Trump.
Your understanding of 'new age' people, filtered through your white, male, educated "rational" framework, misses the point. BUT, some serious content in your column is better than none.
True mysticism, as found in every major religion, preaches one doctrine universally. In whatever form and with whatever label you use, "god" is love. The best message for humanity is summed up as "Love One Another." Whatever allows you to be more loving, in the broadest sense of the word, brings you closer to "god" and others. Those who equivocate this are asleep. Astrology, meditation, healing classes or a guru, if it makes you more loving, great.
It isn't rocket science (Dr. DeGrasse Tyson aside) to know that if everyone put down their weapons and refused to fight, there would be no war. If we fed, clothed and housed everyone, there would be no strife. If we gave each person freedom to be and express who they are without judgment the world would be dynamic and interesting, not chaotic. If we cared about our planet instead of money, we could focus on ..love.
Williamson wanted to bring love to government so she is mocked. Has anyone else got a better idea? Valid in ANY political party as long as it isn't misunderstood by the people who know "just a little."
7
"it is easy to forget that hokey spiritual woo and self-help bromides are extremely powerful and popular among a massive subset of Americans,"....Which is exactly why we are in trouble.
"The liberal intelligentsia has long prided itself on taking the side of reason and science against first religious conservatism and now right-wing populism".....No. It is the religious conservatives and now right-wing populists that have taken on science and reason. Thing is, science and reason solves problems, but requires commitment and effort. Adopting a mantra is much easier.
7
The nature of man to conservative from the school of Hobbes is base, cruel, and selfish. It needs institutions and strong leaders to keep communities from sinking into riot and anarchy. The nature of man to progressives from the school of Rousseau is of unselfishness, cooperation, and fairness leading to the conclusion that misguided social organization leads to poor and anti-social behaviors. The favorite swipe at liberals by conservatives is that they are naive about people and always respond to problems with unrealistic trust and kindness where firm measures to enforce law and order are appropriate. The favorite swipe of liberals towards conservatives are that they crave autocratic rule and restricted liberty in favor of law and order.
Williamson is just not a person who can lead because she is trying to make reality fit a set of preconceived ideas about what it should be rather than what it happens to be.
1
"A recurring question in American politics since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition has been where is the religious left?'”
We're right here, Ross, worshipping in our churches, praying with our families, caring for the sick, the poor, the disadvantaged, concerned about people different than ourselves, contributing to causes that don't enrich ourselves or our families, and being good Christians - without all the fanfare and fakery that is the stock in trade of the evangelicals of television fame.
We don't brag about our charity work - we just do what needs to be done without the need for contributing to some megachurch or enriching some preacher who tells us how evil we are. We don't support a "president" who pretends to be a Christian, a "president" whose three marriages, multiple affairs, daily - no, hourly - lies, cruelty toward migrants, and tax evasion bely his claims of being a good person. We don't hate people who come to our country looking for a better life, because WE came from migrant ancestry ourselves, and because we have been instructed by scripture to love one another. For the same reason, we support people of the same sex who love one another.
We're right here, Ross, quietly and passionately celebrating our faith in ways that people like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr cannot understand.
377
@Chris Wildman
I really wish this comment, and the one above it by Ladyrantsalot, would have appeared in this discussion sooner. Both deserved a frequency of reading and recommending that they won't get later in the day.
Well done to both of you.
35
@Chris Wildman Right there with you, Chris. My friends at our progressive reformed tradition church gave up a long time ago on the expectation that the press and general public would see us an alternative (but we hope more faithful) face of Christianity. We even hung a banner once to try to get the message out: "Not THAT kind of 'Christian' ". We accept everyone, try not to lecture anyone, take the Bible seriously but not literally, etc. We (and many others) are still here. Many of our members dabble in new age readings, Buddhist practice, Celtic spirituality, etc. People like Douthat might see it as an anti-traditional, a-historical mashup. We think it might be the stirrings of a new type of church emerging. After all, the practices Catholics like Douthat perform every week were new once, mashups from various traditions. In any case the core is the same as you note: love and compassion. As much as we can as long as we can.
35
@Chris Wildman
What would a Douthat column be without a logical fallacy around a liberal strawman?
39
I look at Marianne Williamson, and it may be my age but, I see a possible supporting character in the original Star Trek series. She would be one of the women who explain something about a strange earth like planet inhabited by people who bear exact resemblances to homo sapiens but have evil powers.
Her character is either victimized by these aliens are is rescued by one of the main male characters. So Marianne has been liberated from Star Trek I. Don't ask me about the subsequent Star Trek series, to me they are all Fake Star Trek.
But that is where I see the origins of Marianne Williamson. She is a Haight Ashbury age counterculture figure who has been transported to the year 2019 and is now campaigning for president on love vs. hate. It all makes sense to me.
24
@Yankelnevich DS9 was the best Startrek series. If you haven't seen it you are missing out.
@Yankelnevich
Yes, and Gene Roddenberry would want us to pay attention to her message. She speaks to larger themes than retail politics.
4
Well, we had Governor Moonbeam (Jerry Brown) in California.
Now we are being asked to consider President Moonbeam (Marianne Williamson) from Planet Woo Woo.
The so-called leaders of the Democratic Party, whoever they may be these days, have gone woo woo themselves. 24 candidates for President? You must be kidding!
All the Dem candidates are now promising “progressive” (socialists) goodies: Medicare for all, including illegal immigrants. Free college tuition. College loan forgiveness. Reparations for blacks and gays. Guaranteed basic income. Federal job guarantees. Federally mandated school busing to achieve integration. Open borders.
Medicare for illegal immigrants will immediately multiply several-fold the millions of poor people drawn to this country and trying to enter it illegally without going through the lawful application process.
All of the fabulously wealthy US individuals and corporations together do not have enough money to pay for these goodies year after year, and even Bernie Sanders has admitted that taxes would have to be raised on the middle class just to pay for Medicare for all, not even including illegal immigrants.
As Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. If all of these give-aways, especially Medicare for all, are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform, we are doomed to four more years of Trump as President.
2
Goodness, no one is "chasing religious ideas out the door" Ross. They just aren't demanding that the country use laws to demand we all follow one state approved orthodoxy like the religious right does. And plenty of scientists are believers. Dr Francis Collins of the NIH comes to mind as one who has spoken publicly of his belief and who is a world class scientist.
Why faith versus reason? Why isn't reason viewed as a gift from God? Isn't the brain that can distinguish a fact from a fantasy God given? Perhaps climate science is God fulfilling the promise made to Noah not to visit destruction upon humans again and we are in grave danger by not listening to this call to stewardship of the Earth.
3
To borrow an old analogy: Popular spirituality is to spirituality as popular music is to music.
Spiritual realization is not open to debate, as it happens in silence. It is demonstrated in our behavior, not in our cosmology.
4
I often state, only half-playfully, that "I don't believe in atheists." Without exception, I've yet to meet an atheist who doesn't adamantly believe in "fundamental human rights." This, of course, just another way to say "God given rights."
Without there being an Order, a Nature, an overarching Intention to this universe, some authority greater than humankind to point to, than such a claim of "fundamental human rights" can only be an opinion, no matter how strongly held. To claim that someone's fundamental human rights has been violated is to claim that something sacred - something which transcends the any human arrangement - was violated.
And therein lies the beating, spiritual heart of any modern liberal atheist descendant of the Enlightenment, who strives to perfect a form of secular government mean to protect these sacred rights. This is really, the heart of liberalism.
Yet sadly, in reaction to the right's often grotesque co-option of religion, and the abuses of religion itself, liberalism threatens to reject its spiritual tradition wholesale, to the ability to speak the sacred, to, as Robert Bly says, "lose the upward gaze."
2
Why do well meaning people fall for new age charlatans on the left and narcissistic amoral con man of the right? They're looking for easy answers in a complicated world. Reductive arts specialists like Trump and Williamson are opposite sides of the same coin. Both their businesses profit on the premise that the simpler and easier to digest your message the more people will buy your product. Trump and Williamson do this very well, they are masters at breaking down large constructs of reality into easily chewed baby food for the masses. Neither one is interested in knowledge, research, facts or finding solutions to complex issues that a world leader must have access to. Their uber egos, unconscious self-confidence and absolute audacity makes them both politically dangerous. This is why a well informed electorate must reject them. So, please stop apologizing and glad handling Williamson before it's too late and her vapid, meandering elixirs taints the promising wellspring of democratic candidates.
5
“....the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism.....”
I’m 64, and my mind has not yet rebelled.
It did leave Catholicism at the age of 10, and god at the age of 13.
6
Her “meaning” is simply as a celebrity left-wing evangelist, nothing more. It’s sad that both the left and the right conflate such celebrity with leadership or management expertise, or that someone unencumbered by any meaningful experience merits such extensive coverage.
4
"Where is the religious left?" We are working to increase tolerance for all, inside and outside of our own religious institutions. Some are not Christians, but follow other paths, such as Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and inner spirituality.
We have no need to gang together to push our beliefs on others, as the religious right attempts to do. That's the nature of being tolerant.
10
I wish more of the tolerant, accepting religious would be vocal in criticizing the sizeable faction of intolerant, fundamentalist religious. In reality, asserting something positive or negative based on faith or texts is equally baseless as each side interprets or cherry picks to their own ends. Still, having a prominent counter statement to the religious condemnation would help many people. Not least it would help those who can't escape a situation where there stuck in the midst of such condemnation and emotional (and possibly physical) violence justified by religion. It might also soften the view of religion in the eyes of many who are sick of its negative effects. For me, whether a person justifies being pro-gay or anti-gay, pro-choice or anti-choice, etc on their religious views is simply personal taste and opinion presented as authority. No argument from religious authority holds much water. That said, it would be helpful if the tolerant and less dogmatic would speak up more to publicly check the aggressive religious conservatism.
1
@Topher S
Many of us are vocal, but because we don't have a huge organization like the right wing, you might not hear us. Don't wait for someone else to do it; speak up yourself.
1
Well, I do live dangerously close to Boulder, but, I kinda like her. And I'm a very stuck-in-reality physicist, I got to also note.
10
I read her "Return to Love" years ago on the advice of a woman friend, and it was surprisingly good. But I doubt if she "represents" what Douthat surmises, since it's mostly women who read (and now write) books, and they have enriched the self-help book market. They are her primary followers.
1
"within the new progressive world there is a tension between a desire to claim the mantle of science and a yearning to fuse the political and mystical"
No, we progressives can live just fine without the mystical woo woo stuff, Ross.
3
I am an artist and scientist and have known of Marianne Williamson for almost 40 years. I have at different times relied on her advice about relationships. I have examined A Course in Miracles but found the language to be too Christian but the message behind the language is very appealing to anyone who thinks all the answers to humanities problems are not self-evident. It is more like Buddhism for Christians. I did not appreciate the (in my view) convoluted comparisons and philosophical examples in the articles. I felt the author was showing off not illuminating. It is very clear that change in politics is badly needed. I hope her campaign will open the door to other ways of thinking that lead to the ends which Ms. Williamson represents.
9
Hogwash, frankly.
I'm pushing 70 and have been extremely involved in church matters, and a pretty politically aware Democrat, all my life, and maybe it's because I live on the East Coast and my tribe are mainline Episcopalians, not woo-woo New Age, but I'd never heard of Marianne Williamson till she ran for president, and neither had anybody else I know.
If you had less contempt for what you call "the left," you'd have recognized a long time ago that plenty of seriously devout, doctrinally traditional Christians have inhabited that political space for decades, and continue to do so. For heaven's sake, one of them is Hillary Clinton, another is Elizabeth Warren, and another is Pete Buttigieg, just for starters.
Just please (you and David Brooks both), get over this intense need of yours to prove that somehow Real Faith is so incompatible with liberal political convictions, yet so essential to human thriving, that you have to condenscendingly prove to us that we're so desperate for spirituality that we're bound to go looking for it in meditation and aromatherapy and on Oprah.
Instead maybe you should drop in on one of Rev. William Barber's rallies, or read the statement about refugee detention camps published yesterday by the Episcopal bishops in the State of Texas. It might give your speculations a bracing dose of reality.
17
@herzliebster: Yes. And the only thing "woo woo" about ACIM is that it focuses on love without all the sin and condemnation many religions focus on. In ACIM, sin is simply a mistake due to lack of love. Apparently if you believe in love and forgiveness and 'miracles' (which as defined in the book as simply changing perspectives to be more loving) then you're woo-woo. If so, I am indeed woo woo. (Still voting for Warren though.)
5
The religious conservatives have openly retreated from spiritual and moral ground they once defended for the sake of Trump's nihilism and the realpolitik relativism that accompanies it. Do Republicans want more Christian Right judges? Then please keep silent about the wanton greed, hedonism, adultery, desecration, and the sexual assault allegations against Trump. It is a soul-crushing deal for all involved. At least the new age left has a message and a purpose that does not encumber its practitioners with rank hypocrisy and the perfumed and superficial pomposity of the current Republican leadership.
7
Been there, done that. "All you need is love." Ross would normally blame all problems on the sixties culture. So, why is he now praising it? Probably because it gave the US Nixon.
2
A Course in Miracles is not a religion. It doesn't have a church or a guru. Most people Study it quietly and independently. It advocates spiritual practices (literal practices) with the goal of being more loving and forgiving and open-hearted.
6
Samantha from Providence is right. In fact, those like the frightened Douthat are another source of the discord - always fearful of the intellectual challenge posed by the facts (science) that they fear crowd faith from the discussion. And so, the religious adherents attack science, which further alienates the agnostic thinker.
5
There's a lot of good spirituality going on in the country, from yoga and meditation practices to 12-Step programs of all kinds. Fundamentalist Christians decided their religion wasn't making enough converts or scaring enough sinners straight to "save America" so they made a deal with the devil to get more power in politics, that most unholy of realms. Instead of showing how powerful and transformative their God of the Bible is, it shows how weak he is without politicians and laws. Meanwhile, too many Americans lack any spiritual component in their lives at all and fill the void with shopping, work, alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, computer games and guns. All healthy, positive spirituality should be encouraged but never institutionalized in law.
2
I'm beginning to realize that Mr. Douthat is my favorite of the Times' regular essayists. Sometimes infuriating, usually enlightening, I find myself re-reading his columns just for the joy of the intellectual rigor. Today's was just wonderful; a real eye-opener.
Thanks.
2
@laurence
Really? He's my favorite for a different reason: it's so amusing to see him raise some bogus issue about what's wrong with the left and then twist and torture as many arcane issues and ten-dollars words together to ultimately come up with the same solution--stop having sex for fun!
3
I find it fascinating the reactions Williamson seems to stir up. I've noticed that whenever her name is brought up in a positive way in relation to her campaign, cynicism seems to rear its ugly head. That, to me, just reinforces her message: that to heal the country and our world, we have to cast out the ugliness and exhibit more positive intentions and behaviors.
6
@Sandra Keiter "her message: that to heal the country and our world, we have to cast out the ugliness and exhibit more positive intentions and behaviors."
But does her message contain woo-woo supernatural stuff? Because if it does, I don't want it.
Old white guy here, hopes, nay, prays for spiritual change in USA.
I have read her books.
Marianne's spirituality is real. As is mine.
Organized religion is a problem and has been since the Egyptian Dynasty began.
Politics, money and war is not the answer, ever.
We have not evolved for a long time, the next shift will surprise.
8
Williamson brought up the most telling point in the Democratic debate - why are so many people sick in America? It’s not health care, but “disease care”. The food industry gets people addicted to salt, sugar and fat so 30% of Americans are obese; the environment and food additives cause cancer, Big Pharma has everone addicted to drugs, and greed and hate are pervasive with little ethics or spirituality - especially amongst the religious right.
What a breath of fresh air! Of courase she will be mocked.
13
I particularly liked Williamson’s debate comment on Donald Trump tapping into a sort or spiritual energy that is dark. Part of Trump’s ‘success’ is, I believe, he has a natural ability to communicate an ethos (albeit essentially negative and fatalistic) that resonates with a large group of people who are attracted to that world-view. It is, in my opinion, how people became attracted to the hate-filled invectives if Hitler. Many of us who think poorly of Trump dismiss Trump’s charisma as a sideshow and cannot understand how any right-thinking person can find him appealing. I believe it is the ‘secret sauce’ of his candidacy and thank God that we are not in the Great Recession today or we might have a repeat of Weimar Germany all over again - but this time on our soil in the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’.
3
@Deborah Bershel " dismiss Trump’s charisma as a sideshow and cannot understand how any right-thinking person can find him appealing. "
Please say "any *otherwise* right-thinking person."
2
A very welcomed and and well crafted essay. Just pointing out that the generally agreeable tension between the materialists v spiritualists on the lef has significant historical precedence. The "back to nature" counter culturalists" of the 60's organized food co-ops to sell organic food, along with the Whole Earth Catalog, with spiritual ties back to Thoreau and Emerson, and other transcendentalists of the 19th century, while some also went "clean for Gene" and then went to Chicago with Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies. You get the point. Communes were a place to not only live off the land but also learn to mediate and do yoga. Unfortunately most of these perspectives died with Carterism and suffered significantly under Clintonism, the penultimate purveyor of technological materialism. I'm hoping that some of the wisdom of the progressive spirituality somehow makes it this time around. And love your comment about Warren's white papers. Spot on.
1
@Russ
Nothing died. The new spirituality is stronger than ever, so strong it drives both traditional religion and the skeptical worldview nuts. They don't come to grips with it at all. Here at the New York Times they are scrambling what to do about it, as suppression doesn't help (except for achieving to shake most of us out of their comment section), but they don't know how else to "help" themselves. Spiritual author Neale Donald Walsch is the only author in history who had seven consecutive non-fiction (sic!) books topping the NYT bestseller list (from 1996 to 2006, which was before the big publishers, in cooperation with Amazon, got a death knell on which titles they allow to get there), and all the Times crew took as cue from that was to completely turn its back on it in what might best be described as a panic reaction of denial. Walsch's avid 7 million readers and counting only dug in and dug deeper from there.
Others from Eckhart Tolle to Byron Katie are wildly popular and different languages have their own rock stars, like Robert Betz in Germany for example. Authentic, individually lived spirituality is the booming movement of our times. Actually, that's what makes both the Trump supporters and establishment Democrats so desperate.
Don't you worry bout a thing, the time is near for this huge subcurrent breaking through the thin surface of pretend denial that it's there and through the thick pretext and prejudice that it has no legitimacy to be there. Yee Hayw House!
2
I went through part of the Course in Miracles over a decade ago. It is a demanding spiritual and behavioral practice. Helen Shucman, according to the NY Times, did not as Douthat writes, "write" Course in Miracles, but rather wrote down for others to read, spiritual guidance provided to Shucman from elsewhere in the zeitgeist. There are many spiritual practices adhered to by liberals (and conservatives and those in between) which do not necessitate church attendance or self-labeling. Many liberals who would like to see some baseline level of healthcare for all see it as an outgrowth of "loaves and fishes" thinking. Many people seek vocations and not jobs. I myself would have liked to be a physician/healer but was stopped from volunteering to be a candy striper in high school because I had a bad reputation resulting from having been sexually assaulted and left permanently damaged before the age of 11 within the boundaries of my very Catholic neighborhood. Marianne Williamson's call to fight fear with love is the call of many great teachers. How love manifests in the socioeconomic realm is and has always been up for debate.
9
@Debra Merryweather
You were not stopped. You are unstoppable and your comment proves you uncovered and developed yourself and have in fact become a healer.
Love manifests itself in the socio-economic realm in the concepts and practices of generosity and sharing. There's no debating that.
3
There certainly will be an effort by the Democratic Party establishment to discredit and de-legitimize Marianne's candidacy and message, just as they have tried to do with Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich over the years. I take this as a sign that she is speaking truth to power and they are afraid of her message. This is the party that expected people would somehow drop all their preconceived notions about Hillary Clinton and vote for her just because her opponent was uniquely abhorrent. And by calling anyone who didn't support her a misogynist. Marianne holds the key to victory if you just open your mind to her message and tactics.
3
No mention of Buddhism, a spiritual practice perfectly compatible with atheism?
2
@Mercury S Williamson mentions Buddhism along will ALL religions in her lectures...She is a Jew who says "There is only ONE truth with many paths to get there. I tend to agree. No religion (or lack there of) has a monopoly on God!
3
One needs an instructor In Joyce novels to understand this mishmash maze of opinion, stream of conscious rambling and ellipsis abuse.
9
@Almighty Dollar Perhaps you should get an "instructor" to understand what was said. I just looked up a few words and got it!
You’re right, Ross. Oprah would have been a better candidate. Reportedly, Williamson “consulted” with Oprah before deciding to run. Maybe they flipped a coin.
Well, we had Governor Moonbeam (Jerry Brown) in California.
Now we are being asked to consider President Moonbeam (Marianne Williamson) from Planet Woo Woo.
The so-called leaders of the Democratic Party, whoever they may be these days, have gone woo woo themselves. 24 candidates for President? You must be kidding!
All the Dem candidates are now promising “progressive” (socialist) goodies: Medicare for all, including illegal immigrants. Free college tuition. College loan forgiveness. Reparations for blacks and gays. Guaranteed basic income. Federal job guarantees. Free child care. Federally mandated school busing to achieve integration. Open borders.
Medicare for illegal immigrants will immediately multiply several-fold the millions of poor people drawn to this country and trying to enter it illegally without going through the lawful application process.
All of the fabulously wealthy US individuals and corporations together do not have enough money to pay for these goodies year after year, and even Bernie Sanders has admitted that taxes would have to be raised on the middle class just to pay for Medicare for all, not even including illegal immigrants.
As Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.
If all or even a few of these give-aways are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform, we are doomed to four more years of Trump as President.
2
Please do not define democratic policies and beliefs with your jaundiced and defective outlook. You have the wrong narrative, not backed up by facts. You can try to diminish and demean other's beliefs when you do not have a clear picture yourself.
3
"....only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two."
Amen Brother, amen.
When you compare the Holy Ghost, the Virgin mother, the infallible pope and "miracles" to the worship of natural elements and growing things along with the resurgence of Druid and Wicca practices, I find the same reliance on faith in unprovable concepts. I like the loving spirituality of the pagans and buddhists more than I like the fear and hate coming from christians these days.
2
Who CARES!?! The best thing I read about this person, is that Republicans are donating to her so that she stays in these debates.
2
"... centers on her role as a popularizer for “A Course in Miracles,” a book that has long been ubiquitous in the borderlands between charismatic Christianity and New Age spirituality …"
Williamson - just yet another one of an extremely long line of cons with a religious veneer (think Coulter, Ingraham, ...) fleecing the rubes.
Asserting as fact, extraordinary claims that are not evidently true is the most dishonest position that it is possible to have.
Exhibit A: Nicene Creeds (there are many variations, they can't all be right):
"Faith is not wanting to know what is true" - Nietzsche
There is more to heaven and earth--but there is also good
behavior--read the article recently in the LA Times about her past run for office in CA and how she "managed" her staff (badly) then go back in time to how she treated staff (even worse)--she isn't the Messiah of Love. Opportunistic is a better word.
I wouldn't use that word re: Jordan Peterson. But here? You
bet.
Ross, a very interesting read and esoteric outlook and take on Marianne Williamson.
She has been known to me for decades. Her books and lectures have helped me in my own life. There has never been anything "woo-woo" about her. She is a serious person.
If people would take the time to read " A Return to Love", her first book, they would see what she talks about used to be called "common sense".
Things like love and forgiveness in our lives and not being ruled by fear (a trump hallmark) should be discussed.
Her lectures and good works at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, proved she walked the walk and put her money where her mouth was.
It is about time we elevate the conversation of compassion in our political discourse, for the good of all. Thanks to Williamson some of US will do just that.
5
As usual Ross is ignoring history. Liberal religious people were very apparent in the ranks of the civil rights movement, where you certainly didn't see many conservatives. Left wing and liberal pastors and congregations are supporters of human rights, were front and center in the peace movement, and have been central in the efforts to help immigrants both legal and illegal feel welcome in the US.
5
Ms. Williamson was neither interesting nor articulate. She should not have been in the debate. It is indictment on our country and culture that she was included and a reality tv star is our president. We, as a people, need to be more informed, driven politically less by emotion and more serious on how we run our government and country.
5
I suppose that I would qualify as one of Ross' atheist technocrats. I found Williamson interesting and enlightening in what Douthat calls her "weird" performance. Since as long as I can remember from my college days in the late sixties, the left has always had a contingent of spiritual outliers/experimenters from the Hare-Krishna, to John Lennon and the Maharishi Yogi, to Wells Spring, Wicca and the Elysian Institute, Timothy Leary and so on. I don't recall any of these movements imposing itself upon non believers and insisting that we all conform. We love Obama and alwys will. I think that we Dems are generally at peace with our own from the wacky and wild to the right of center Dems. One thing we all generally dhare is empathy for our fellow man.
This is not the same as the Republican party that had its elite necons of the GW Bush administration (Cheney, Rove, Rice ) that had little or no use for middle America or the poor. and the Tea Party comprised of angry right wing Christians who only succeeded at disrupting government but not in governing. Dems share one thing almost universally, empathy for our fellow man. Republicans share their anger and contempt.
8
Ms. Williamson will fade from the campaign trail. There are simply not enough people who will listen to her new age messaging. Now if she were to proffer the idea that an evangelical form of Christianity be dubbed the state religion in her administration, she might gain some traction.
1
I thought one of the weirdest things about her is that while she was on the debate stage speaking of love, her facial expressions and body language were all superiority and anger. No projection of love and peace at at all. Of course, her entrance into the political process is completely ludicrous. But I guess after Trump anything goes.
1
@Honeybluestar You are probably just projecting your own shortcomings....I did not read it that way at all! You should curb your dogma.
2
Ross, most liberals are leading the way towards religious toleration, not anti-religion, as you appear to believe. Just because someone believes in climate science and is an atheist or agnostic doesn't mean they are hostile towards the devout. Quite the opposite: liberals are at the vanguard of the fight for diversity. What they oppose is those who wish to impose their religious beliefs on others: such as insisting that evolution be taught alongside creationism as two equally credible theories, or that abortion is always wrong for religious reasons, or that climate science is a hoax, because God wouldn't allow climate change unless that was part of his master plan. Perhaps these kinds of liberal technocrats that you refer to exist, or more likely, they are straw men, part of the liberal enemy that exists within your own mind. Most liberals, given that the definition of a liberal means to be open to the truth, do not resemble the caricature of liberals you describe.
761
@Samantha I think it's a little more complicated. I agree that most liberals are against the imposition of religious beliefs, to the extent they understand what that means. But many also are blind to the...let's say "quasi-religious" underpinnings of their own belief and especially of enlightenment "rationalism." There is ample and highly sophisticated literature on this, from the Frankfurt School's social theory to Daniel Kanneman's work in psychology, but it doesn't make a dent in polite liberal society. This is part of what I think Ross was getting at. I do think you're right to a point, but maybe have a look at this aspect of his article again. I think he's on to something.
11
@Samantha
For the “non-believing atheists who scoff at Ross’ suggestion that there is a “contemplative” Left that might be worth investigating, try this:
Without knowing anything about you, here are some beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded.
Please tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else ‘’
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it.
How did I do?
7
@don salmon
Not too well. I'm a card carrying liberal and Atheist and you didn't get one right.
I will be interested to see what others say.
52
There is nothing anti-religion about adhering to the principle of the separation of church and state that is one of the pillars of our democratic republic. Railing against the left by calling them "technocrats" and implying that all are atheistic makes no more sense than railing against the right decrying the removal of prayer from schools when students can sit silently praying all they want. Madison wrote, "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." All would be wise to keep his counsel.
764
I am also wondering when atheist became a derogatory term. It’s very well possible to have a firm (!) belief system that is not based on what is essentially a cult.
73
@Didier
I often notice your comments with interest, but this time I have to wonder whether we read the same column. This is exactly not what Ross said—his thesis is that Williamson demonstrates that the left is NOT just a bunch of soulless technocrats. But I see that other top comments have reacted similarly. Puzzling.
8
@ C Wolfe
Contrary to you, Julia most certainly read this column form beginning to end.
You obviously did not read the last paragraph penned by Douthat, where he writes that
"She's [Williamson] right about one big thing: There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy.
No mention there of 'soulless' technocrats. And maybe you should also look up what'philosophy' means. Any word starting with "phil" means love of something, in the case of philosophy it means love of wisdom, while philanthropy is love for mankind, etc., etc,
8
Ross, if you understood your own religion better you would be in a better position to answer the question "where is the religious left?" The Catholic social justice tradition (also known as Christ's teaching) is alive and well and basically informs the vote of that 40% to 55% of Catholics who, depending on the election, lean Democratic. They are not Marianne Williamson. They are the nuns who march against unjust wars. They are the Jesuits who taught me that the scientific and Catholic spiritual traditions are compatible. They are the millions who take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. Caring for the sick, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed lies at the heart of Catholic social teaching, and liberal Democrats of all faiths are much more sympathetic to that teaching than conservatives ever will be.
15
First you say, “the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent[.]” But you end up saying “any battle, present or future, between a secular left and a spiritual left will never end in victory for one side or the other; only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two.”
Which is it?
6
@Richard is right. The only one around here who's "somewhat incoherent" is Mr. Douthat.
2
Mr. Douthat forgot to evoke the mythical "Alt-Left".
4
Nice way to call her a Socialist with out calling her a Socialist.
1
Trump did not speak to a behind-the-scenes underground of GOP voters. He spoke directly to a certain type of man, who would tell you what they thought about the recent gains made by women and minorities any time you asked them.
6
Of all Douthat's disingenuous garbage takes on the state of the American left, this one may be the worst (though it's possible I've said that before).
Don't hold your breath for Williamson or another hippie dippy crystal hugger to capture the imagination of the Democratic Party. Take a look at our current and past candidates -- we like intelligence, competence, and an attitude of service.
The crux of Douthat's argument here seems to be "the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent."
Er, no, not really. Science tells us what reality is, while humanism provides moral guidance for how to live, how to treat others, and how we can use technology to produce better social outcomes.
Put another way: my background in engineering and technology is a very good fit for humanism and a utilitarian moral philosophy (greatest good for the greatest number).
Instead of trying to map the illogic of a few straw men and women onto the Democratic Party, maybe Douthat should write a column that squares his and the Republican Party's aggressive Christianity with its cruelty, bigotry, and violence.
12
"...and because the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent..."
Huh? In what way, specifically, is it "incoherent" to base your perspective and your choices on this combination of fundamentally inarguable precepts? In what way are these concepts mutually exclusive or inconsistent, exactly? Opinion columnists so often make these kinds of leaps in laying the groundwork for their argument - i.e., because they say and believe it personally, it must be true. Logic foul, Mr. Douthat!
3
If you want to understand the spirituality of A Course in Miracles, which is animating Marianne's spirituality, (It should be noted there is no definitive political, social, or cultural constructs one can extrapolate from the Course; many of it's students hold conservative views in all these areas), a helpful hint to understanding is the traditional ideas of Monotheism; your source is your Creator who you will love and know again, when you are able to love and serve your neighbor as yourself. These constructs meet the test of both faith and reason, and will lead to knowledge. Within these traditions you are instructed to not gain through another's loss, but not because it is wrong, which it surely is, but because it is impossible. We go together or not at all. Reaching our hand to help another is how we remember what our purpose and identity is in this world, not because we are the better of the two, (when will progressives see that Trump's base is suffering as much and for the same reasons, as those who have been 'marginalized by their otherness'?) No one should have to suffer to live; this belief in the value of suffering is why we ignore solving problems that can be solved. This is the key to the deep spirituality that has always been at the heart of our traditions in the west, the way we set a loving example in a world driven by hate and fear. To the extent to which Marianne can articulate these ideas, will be the extent to how she could be helpful.
4
Marianne Williamson brings all the right topics to the table, the discussion she is leading is one that helps us understand what is at stake and how we can, as human beings, decide to bring a positive and lasting change to improve the life quality of all people, not just a few. This is the only way out of the disastrous state we are in.
Mr. Douthat, I would have preferred that you discuss some of these highly important and disruptive train of thoughts, rather than dwell on Marianne having a chance to become president or not, that is a boring conversation to say the least.
Please realize you have an incredible platform here, why not make it more valuable by deepening the conversation?
5
Any sane person would choose Williamson over Trump.
1
Where is the "religious left?" Probably with the liberal Republicans.
Sure, Ross – let's all waste time and media resources on the Greater Meaning of the Queen of Woo.
In fact Ms. Williamson has all the political relevance of Lyndon LaRouche. Isn't this merely Douthat's attempt at Shiny Object opinionating?
1
If you want the "religious left" you should look at the rest of the Democratic field.
Then, please reread the Gospels, and follow Jesus.
I am appalled that Joel Osteen has made it to network TV, since he is the embodiment of hypocritical greedy moneychangers in the temple, whited sepulchers, crossers of the road, and others who protect and promote wealth and privilege and ignore the less fortunate.
Those who support Trump ignore his lies and his style of rape and greed.
Jesus wept!
5
The battle between the secular left and the spiritual left hinges on the spiritual left's use "love" as the end-all-be-all in negotiation. One could see it in Williamson's debate performance, and to me it was cringe-worthy and dangerous, a sort of cult-like reliance on a "love conquers all meme." The secular left looks at this as hackneyed, lazy, unrealistic, manipulative. For the secular left, this reliance on the amorphous new-age love solution could look and feel Trumpian, in a way, his "we will see" non-plans, lacking concrete detail, passive in protest, enabling the status quo, red-meat for a lefty oligarchy.
1
If everyone thought pure, uplifting thoughts and only "did the right thing" (whatever you define that to be), we would need no laws, which are there to prevent bad acts.
Unfortunately, in the real world, real people do not always "do the right thing" and they think thoughts that are not always pure and uplifting.
So Williamson strikes out on that score.
She also strikes out on providing any specific programs with plans for their accomplishment, such as plans to solve some of society's problems, such as health matters, poverty, environmental issues, global warming, international relations, and many more.
She is going to sell a ton more self-help books and programs, but she has zero chance of effectively managing something as small as a community center providing day programs for the elderly, much less the United States.
1
Wow, great synthesis article. As one who has 2 Masters degrees from UH-Clear Lake, M.S. Studies of the Future, and M.A. Teaching Adult Learners, and as one who has tried to follow a sufi western female dominated path for 41 yrs, and as a fmr Army Air Defense Captain, plus decades in the trenches of Texas Democratic Party insider politics, I can safely say that I have some credentials to comment on Ross's article. Bravo. Kudos, I have not sent any letters to any editor either, in decades LOL, also. So ..... here's the deal, NYTimes needs more of these thoughtful pieces, send out the interns, set up a comments page, etc., etc., and listen to the left wing spirituality in this country and abroad, if you truly wish to "save the world" !! There is not much time left, IMHO Godd luck, keep it up, A longtime subscriber and hard copy reader since 1963 in Stony Brook, L.I/NY
The planet earth is the the insane asylum for numerous galaxies. I was sent here from the Abell 520 Cluster for blaspheming our gods. I repent bring me back home.
5
No one seems to remember how, for many years during the darkest hours of the AIDS crisis, she made millions upon millions peddling her Course in Miracles -- books, seminars, weekend retreats, a department store of collateral materials -- to dying AIDS patients who had no effective medical options, desperate and vulnerable to her messianic false promises of hope.
5
'A recurring question in American politics since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition has been “where is the religious left?”'
It is? I don't hear anyone asking that. What I am more likely to hear on the left is a celebration of the first sentence of the First Amendment of the American Constitution.
Mr. Douthat should have a look. It will explain why the left is leery of government's making moves toward establishment of religions. An insistence on bringing religion into our national discourse is a blatantly un-Constitutional idea. Shame on you, Mr. Douthat, for constantly trying to erode the power of the American article of faith that church and state shall remain separate.
3
Excellent article. One to be saved and read again. Its not entirely coherent, but that's a reflection of the subject matter - the secular left verses the spiritual left. Many of us in the left dont know where we are on that spectrum, either.
However, casting such work as Williamson's as "left" is rather narrow. Its "left" because mainstream religion is so dogmatic and reactionary and stuck in centuries old ideas. Read the Gnostic Gospels written 2000 years ago - you will not call the current movement "left" anymore. They are starkly radical - urging us to ignore authority among other things, left out of early Christianity because it was so perverse. The world was not ready for it 2000 years ago. Is it now?
So Williamson comes across as weird. Check out some of those strange old books, almost lost in time, or even the accepted Gospels. Now that is weird!
But what do you with it with a modern science based education? Einstein had a world of trouble with that, too.
1
I DOUBT THAT DOUTHAT IS CORRECT When he write that, There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy. There's also, There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the conservative drone's anencephalic philosophy.
Congatulations to Marianne Williamson for having the courage to run for President in this day and age. If there is anything we should know by now is that we have a crisis in spiritual and moral values highlighted by a person like Trump in office, the majority of his cabinet, and the Republcan Party.
Trump as president is a symbol of the quest for power, money, and control regardless of the consequences and methods. With a path towards nonstop warfare and killing of human beings in the Middle East for the past sixty years, this same mentality has moved onto American streets highlighted by police abuse, drugs, unlimited supply of guns, and killings in our schools and public places.
At the present rate, we are headed for a "Blade Runner" nation with separation of the majority from the wealthy one percent. It should be obvious to everyone that America is on the wrong track and it's time to look into another way of thinking and leading this country. Whatever we are doing is simply not working. A Department of Peace and required National Service could go a long way towards leading our nation out of the present chaos.
2
“Of course a pure mysticism needs the corrective of reasoned skepticism as much as a pure materialism needs the corrective of experience, philosophy and common sense. Thus any battle, present or future, between a secular left and a spiritual left will never end in victory for one side or the other; only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two.’
Perhaps the answer lies in re- discovering the all to frequently absent virtue of temperance.
There's a part of me that delights in Douthat's sneering contempt for cultural leftism. But it's counterbalanced by my own contempt for Douthat's absurdly reactionary biases for corrupt Catholic hieracrchy and priggish contempt for well-meaning soccer moms. Marianne Williamson is no one's idea of an intellectual, but she's considerably more palatable than the the ayatollahs of the Republican Party. Now, there's a subject our preening pundit should train his blinkered eyes on.
1
@Walter Hall. He had a deadline to meet.
Douthat columns are insightful, sometimes. Other times, like today, totally baffling.
1
What’s the meaning of Stephen Miller? What’s the meaning of Steve Bannon? What’s the meaning of Franklin Graham?
7
“The Earth will just stop to seem to be” ACIM
Correction for you Mr. Douthat:
Helen Schucman never took and never wanted credit as the "author" of ACIM. She was simply the scribe.
There is a long tradition of “progressive” nuttiness- from19th-century table-turning and spirit-communication to contemporary “wellness” retreats and crystal-healing. Painful as it is for me to agree with Mr.Douthat, he is right: this is an expression of a religious impulse that turns away from established churches, only to find itself in the morass of fake mediums, vaccine denial and communing with trees. Ms. Williamson on the Democratic debate stage was a reminder that the left is just as susceptible to woo as the right. It remains to those of us sane enough to recognize nonsense for what it is to defend the values of the Enlightenment, no matter where we stand on the political spectrum. But I would remind Mr. Douthat that what he calls “materialism” is nothing like the caricature he presents. It is a sober recognition of the vastness and beauty of the Universe and of our own insignificance within it. It is a stance of curiosity and courage that refuses to be consoled by simplistic tales but acknowledges that the human mind is capable of creating its own heaven and hell. Rejecting Mr. Douthat’s childish image of the celestial father does not necessarily mean embracing the equally childish image of the earth mother.
4
After wading through Ross Douthat's essay - not an easy slog - my conclusion was that politicalized religion has a long history of division and conflict. The Founders (the real "Originalists") were aware of this scourge and did well to emphasize the separation of Church and State in our Constitution. That a great many of our countrymen do not see it this way reflects on indoctrination and a captive educational system in certain regions of the US.
2
Mr Douthat ignores the Black Church and the left leaning denominations that tend to vote for the Dems when he claims there is a lack of faith based influence on the left. He likes to prop up Williamson because it allows him to ignore the fact that the Republicans have allowed the radical religous right to take over his party. Williamson will soon be gone for the race and she has little to no influence on the party. In contrast, Jerry Falwell Jr. and the anti-science, anti-choice religous right have a whip hand in the Republican party, If you don't get the approval of that party you have zero chance of gaining the republican nomination. That wing of the party drives legislation, sometimes help write it, and the Republican party is in debt to them. Williamson and those who practice her form of spirituality have almost zero influence on legislation and Ross's attempt to make an argument of "see you have some crazy's too" doesn't hold water. The fact that the Republican party leans on Jerry Falwell jr. and ignores Ross must be very frustrating to him and Williamson is not a comparable example to point to on the left.
6
There is a need for a new, or at least a rejuvenated central civic myth, a reconception of America (but not just America). Faith leaders, scientific, arts, and political leaders will need to forge it together.
While I find Ms Williamson a bit too woo for my personal tastes, woo is very powerful indeed, as Mr Douthat correctly states.
I am glad that she has shared the stage, and I hope that the nominee will be able to speak to what she has spoken to: the marvelous, transformative power of love to change the world for the better.
That’s argument is the yin to the “Donald Trump is an existential threat” yang.
We will need both to beat him.
Is Mr. Douthat arguing the anti-vax crowd has a valid argument, or just that somehow having anti-vaxers who also vote Democratic somehow weakens the argument that science is important? Is Mr. Douthat (or his close family) an anti-vaxer or just a sympathizer? Or is he just looking for conflict in the Democratic party in an effort to avoid the wholesale degeneration of intellectual credibility on his side of the political divide?
4
Douthat will be more instrumental in reelecting Trump than anyone like Steve Bannon. His false moral equivalencies give right wing Conservatives all the justification they need to vote for the current President. No other columnist has given me as much insight into how people who think of themselves as moral and reasonable and loving will continue to vote for the person who seem to embody the opposite of what they profess to stand for.
7
All You Need Is Love
--The Beatles
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
There's nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is…
6
Thank you!
1
The "cult of reason," Ross? Really? So those of us who think reason is a better way to discover truth than reading an ancient book or listening to supernatural voices in our head are cultists? Well, count me in. I only wish more people--and in particular, American voters--would join our "cult."
10
Mr. Douthat, speaking for myself, while watching the debate and seeing her for the first time, I did find myself wondering what she was doing there. Ms . Williamson may have something to say, but it isn’t germane to a presidential run, except for maybe in Erewhon.
There’s ample literature on racial superiority, extraterrestrial life, miraculous events from thousands of years ago, and so on. That it exists doesn’t necessarily make the subjects true.
Neither are people always religious because they say they are, hence “quasi religious” is useful in those cases, e.g. priests who are child molesters, presidents who are libertine and pander to Evangelical Christians, and so on.
On the other hand, those who do and those who don’t follow organized religion can be equally virtuous. I think that’s what a lot of us are trying to say.
I don’t understand the need to constantly make the claim there is a war on religion, where do you see secular people lined up to protest church attendance as if it were a womens health climic?
5
I'm thrilled to see Marianne gaining recognition from a wider audience. While Mr. Douthatt's article focused on her touching peoples' need for spirituality, he has missed her also meeting peoples' need for a return of ethics in our governing, as she outlined in her 4th of July speech in Concord, N.H. I was an early supporter with the hope that she would bring up these important issues and themes that no one else would and change the conversation from "what" to "why." In my opinion, she has already hit it out if the park.
4
Good read . I think we need her voice on the debate stage. Perhaps not a synthesis but an acceptance of the broad variety of spiritual and HUMANITARIAN impulses among us all which need cultivating and expression. If we listened to Ms. Williamson more often perhaps we wouldn't be putting children in cages for profit at the border. Thanks for thinking about her and writing about the impact of her ideas on politics.
4
I very much enjoyed both the article, and the linked story about a woman's surprising spiritual awakening and healing. I appreciate Ross's thoughts in general, and he is one of the few people I read whose views are much more conservative than my own - we all need to listen more to people different from us, but it can be hard, whether across a religious/spiritual or political dimension.
Marianne can be made fun of, but it is an essential message that we are being motivated/manipulated by fear, and that healthy spirituality is a crucial balancing force, of which we need much more. Thank you!
2
For the great majority of people who are open to critical thought and not closed-minded due to religious dogma, there is a point where a belief in the truths of science blends into a near-religious awe when faced with the Big Mysteries of the cosmos. Spend a minute contemplating Eternity and you will know what I mean. That science doesn't have all the answers is a truism most rational people can accept. The war that you, Ross, suggest could break out for the soul of the left actually is between camps on the extreme edges of the science/religion divide, the harshly materialist atheists versus the crystal gazers who believe in angels. It is highly unlikely that such a war will engulf the majority of us on the left whose skepticism is tempered by awe. We must and will stay united to defeat the forces of Trumpism and save the planet from the ravages of climate change.
2
Shorter Douthat : She’s a weird hippie, but what do you expect from the Left.
Sad.
2
Excellent article, well put!
Seeing Ms. Williamson on stage as part of the Democratic presidential debate was almost as surreal as seeing Donald Trump participate in his first debate of the last presidential cycle.
The major difference, of course, is that nearly every detractor from that event who is still a player in the Republican party is now at least a passive supporter of the Chaos President, posterity be damned. Every journalist and pundit (excluding Fox News) was remarkably wrong. And they have learned nothing from it.
Maryanne Williamson, on the other hand, is revitalizing her career and updating her relevance. Period. Democrats cannot deny a successful business woman/author who has been a cultural hero (for many) a spot on the dais. But they won't vote for her.
I very much appreciate Douthat's sentiments here, but I don't understand why he isn't more willing to implicate capitalism in his critique. Is it not the logic of neoliberal capitalism that has produced these conditions?
4
When I learned that Marianne Williamson had announced her candidacy my first thought was "she's just looking to boost her media profile after the fading of her old 'Course in Miracles' vogue." Maybe I'll be wrong but my experience has demonstrated that first thoughts are very often correct.
2
I believe that the reason a majority of the left, while sympathetic to Ms. Williamson's message, has not embraced her as a candidate is that, unlike the right, we choose to keep our spirituality to ourselves and out of other people's lives. I have no issue with what a person chooses to believe....until they are pushing it in my face, or worse, using it as a cudgel to force their own personal religious/spiritual choices onto me. Keep your religion/spirituality to yourself (where it belongs) and out of public life.
1
"There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy."
Yes indeed that is the case and precisely because the purpose of White House, our electoral politics and our Constitution is LIMITED; we very well should narrow expected solutions from politicians and limit the discourse to Technocratic approaches only. You need French style Secular Politics precisely because we need our Politics to be narrow in focus. In other words, we need to be Conservative in our approach to our Politics - we should expect it to address a small set of societal problems only. Hence fraud's like Williamson has no place in our political discourse who want to use Politics to talk about 'sprawling' aspects of our individual and collective existence.
I want to hear a candidate, who delineates the power and possibilities of WH occupancy. We do not need the canard-like Trump who trivializes the technocratic problems like Trade ('trade wars are easy to win'). At the same time, we want to hear from likes of Pete Buttigieg (and Warren) who have the decency not to burden our electoral politics with questions of Faith.
Sure, character of these politicians is important. But that is not something a candidate herself expected to dabble into. Let us trust Americans & Media to deliberate about candidates on the podium (even if sufficient Americans ignored 'red flags' with Trump; but then our democracy is rich to give us repeated chances).
1
The only New Age mystic I have ever known in the 60+ years I've considered myself a liberal and associated with them was raised as a Southern Baptist and supported Barry Goldwater. She was a thorough She went from Native American mysticism
2
Mr. Douthat is saying that there's a spiritual crisis simmering at the bottom of our political chaos and that Marianne Williamson is a symptom of that crisis. He also thinks that the ultimate resolution of the crisis lies not in rejecting reason or in rejecting spirituality but in a fruitful combination of the two. I agree. However, the author's ideas about what that combination looks like are untenable. He links to Thomas Aquinas, No, that won't do. Thomas created his synthesis before Biblical scholarship showed how fallible and human its authorship is and before modern science revealed a natural world very different from what Thomas knew. Williamson tries to offer new wisdom to her readers but what she offers is just nonsense. We need a new synthesis of faith and reason. Neither New Age silliness nor Catholicism are viable options for serious thinkers.
2
Whatever happened to the left's altruism when it comes to spirituality? Marianne Williamson has no qualifications to be president, and I don't think she comes across well on the debate stage, but at the heart of her campaign is a quest for a return to some sort of moral altruism wherein we recognize that we're all in this boat together and we better start rowing in the same direction. People think there's nothing to the woo--but studies have proven over and over again that mindset plays a role in everything we do. We need to cultivate better mindsets both for our children and about our future.
2
Marianne Williamson does not represent the religious left. The religious left is made up of conventional Christians who actually attempt to live the teachings of Christ but who have a mainstream belief in God as a separate being. These are the people who believe Jesus was the only son of God, and who also believe that every human being has dignity and worth and should be loved, respected, and cared for: in contrast with "Christians" who are fine with locking up children, tearing apart families, denying healthcare to their fellow citizens, etc. Marianne Williamson represents people who believe that God is not a separate being; God is the consciousness of life itself, from which all life is created and through which all life is sustained. In other words, the energy of "God" flows through each of us, all the time. To those who call these teachings pablum for the masses, have you ever actually tried to radically and unconditionally love every single being on this planet? That means accepting and forgiving the people you hate the most - acknowledging that they are from the same source as you and are as deserving of love as you, regardless of their behavior. It's hard. Think I'm kidding? Try imagining Jeffrey Epstein as a whole, perfect, and complete spiritual being who is currently having a flawed human experience. Not easy, is it? But it is this kind of radical love and forgiveness that is necessary to heal the sorry state of the world.
5
"...because the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanism has always been somewhat incoherent."
Mr. Douthat is such a fine writer that it can be easy to miss it when he completely begs the question. Is the mix of scientific materialism and liberal humanism incoherent? I'm not at all sure that it is, but Douthat assumes the incoherence as a premise. I'm not sure to what extent he's being playful when he does things like this (see: "I appreciate feminism precisely because of its puritanical streak"), but it can come across as though he's pulling a fast one on his readers.
4
@Nate Bilhartz. I saw that too. But my thought was "and why, Ross, should everything cohere?"
1
Her comments re the health care system were spot on although not easily translated into policy.
She talked re a wider view of health involving environmental concerns,chemical exposure etc.
She described the health care system as disease system rather than health related. .
3
Religion without church; Spirituality without religion; Politics without the prior three. There's a pulling away from one another using each to justify.
I prefer common decency and the ethic of reciprocity (aka golden rule). This demands a new way of seeing and engaging.
One problem we face is the common delusion so many hold that we are separate, disconnected beings.
Whatever leads to breaking through that delusion, whatever leads to a heart of compassion, kindness, and active service with and for one another -- I'll affirm and attend, happily.
5
Before you link Ms. Williamson and Mary Baker Eddy, I suggest you read "The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science", written by Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine.
It exposes Ms. Eddy as a somewhat fraudulent character who was neither Christian nor a Scientist. As for the fact that a cult started around her - well, it was part of the 18th century Great Awakening in the US that led to the start of a number of cults.
Cults are all around us.
5
None of this has any relevance whatsoever to the job she is pursuing. Her candidacy and supporters are frivolous and damaging.
6
The human mind doesn’t rebel against ideas as simple as materialism exactly. We organize around symbols. Nike, Adidas, Apple, these are symbols as “religious” in character as the Cross, only not as ancient. Buddha is not a god, yet Buddhism is religious. Buddhists are materialists, and there are millions of Buddhists all over the world. The idea that materialism is too simple for the human mind, suggests there is a naturalism to god based religion, but there isn’t. Religion is only necessary to the degree that human societies need organizing symbols in order to get massive amounts of people to cooperate with one another. That’s why we have Democracy, and the Flag, and The White House, the Donkey and the Elephant, etc
3
I believe the term you need here is, “granfalloon.”
Don't forget that Buttigieg is also progressive and unashamedly religious and says he is tired of the right wing claiming religion for itself. While religion is personal, about one's own minute-to-minute actions and connection to the divine, it is also collective in that it deals with the perplexing relationship of the individual to his fellow humans. "Am I my brother's keeper?" is one of the first questions in the Bible. Progressives say "Yes," and "He is my keeper as well"--that we were not put on earth merely for self-interest. Williamson (and Buttigieg too) understand that Trump and his cohorts represent the all-too-seductive appeal to our lower nature, validating selfishness, fear and hate, and that the way to win is to call up the better angels of our nature, making us all bigger. which is what a true leader does.
12
@Judith
I agree whole heartedly that our country is facing a grave moral crisis. But morality and values are not dependent upon religiosity to instill compassion, love and concern for one another. We have a separation of church and state for a reason; our country was founded by religious fanaticism which leads to intolerance.
The so called Evangelical following of Trump is the underbelly of pious, evil religiosity. All we see across the American landscape is a ravaged sense of “good” and “moral” and “caring” and “fair” lying in tatters and run by con men and women.
Give me a moral atheist or agnostic over an immoral religious despot any day; or a confused “spiritualist” who believes they are deserving of riches because of their “good energy.” Try selling that in the slums of Mumbai where good, decent people live in despicable deprivation, according to Oprah, because what they give out is not good enough to make them billionaires.
Oh that’s right, wait for the next life; karma.
2
@H.A. Hyde Yes, I agree with you entirely. I am not promoting religion in our politics, not at all-- just a less ego-based way of looking at the world. I don't care where it comes from - I welcome it from anywhere in any form, because, like you, I feel we are in dire straits.
2
Marianne is the real deal. I had never heard of her before last month, when I started earnestly checking out all of the candidates. I started with Kamala, then Pete B., Beto, Elizabeth Warren. Bernie I already knew. Jay Inslee was gonna be my next, but then I remembered Marianne. I'd heard she was on Oprah Super Soul Sunday Podcast, and I'm a fan of that, so I decided to check her out. And holy moly, it was an epiphany. I was exclaiming YES!!! out loud in the street listening to her announcement speech. I'd never felt so enlivened, except for listening recently to past speeches by RFK. Wow, is this possible? An RFK for our time? So I delved in deep, dropped by the local Davis book store and bought the only book they had for her - Tears to Triumph. They special ordered a Politics of Love, and I'm now onto that. This is the last thing in the book that I underlined two days ago, "When fear has coalesced into a terrible sickness, the medicine is love. A worldview centered on love is no less sophisticated or psychologically astute than any other - in fact, it is more sophisticated than any other. It is the only worldview that nurtures and sustains life." I challenge anyone who calls her a "fraud" or anything else as being afraid of her message. "Contempt prior to investigation" - a phrase I learned from her. We are all guilty of it. Let's not employ it when reviewing someone as heart-centered, intelligent, and committed to transforming our broken society as her.
2
"There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy."
Not quite. Religion doesn't offer more than liberal technocracy. It offers WAY more. Everything from astrology to Zoroastrianism. Innumerable doctrines, creation stories, explanations of disease, root causes of spiritual dysfunction, paths to salvation. Give up your possessions or pray for riches, engage in the community or withdraw from the community, comfort the dying or fly planes into buildings. Religion claims to offer guidance, but in its totality points in a thousand different directions.
It is a Babel. The most confused project humanity has ever embarked on. Grounded only in the mutating thoughts and fuzzy feelings of the billions of seekers of enlightenment who all proclaim universal truth but cannot agree with each other about anything.
Don't go in the swamp.
4
Talk about all over the place? This is piece is IT.
Where to start?
Trump was channeling George Wallace, NOT loonie Pat Robertson.
The left sees Buckminster Fuller's vision where technology can be transformative and redeeming, not the Luddites' worst fear.
The left is perfectly FINE with religion. It's not in the form of covens or whatever. There's space for everyone.
Just DO NOT try to force anyone to live by someone else's rules.
It's kind of like good old Yankee (New England) values.
They may judge you, even hate you, but as long as you don't bother anyone else, do whatever you like.
The religious right want to run everyone's lives by THEIR bible.
No thanks.
6
The premise of this column, that this woman is somehow the liberal equivalent of Donald Trump is absurd on the face of it. Mainly because there is no way a person could be "liberal" and at the same time a version of Donald Trump. To me, she simply comes across as another huckster, another snake-oil saleswoman, another self-promoting, money-grubbing celebrity. Her motives for "running" seem highly suspect. A slick motivational speaker, to be sure, she nonetheless manages to come off as totally phony. Having said all that, the only question remaining is: Is she dishonest enough to become president? Reserving judgement on that one.
3
Does anyone remember the 3-ring circus during the GOP debates of 2016? They had nothing but clowns.
3
Yet another fraudster.
4
I don't read Ross Douthat often because when I do my eyes roll or my blood pressure spikes. I wasn't disappointed by this piece as his very premise is misguided. There is no opposition between science and spirituality - rather perhaps the each one inspires the other. His idea that "scientific materialism" defines the left is just a tired, meaningless right wing talking point.
13
While there have been oddball candidates for the presidency in the past, Twittie seems to have opened the gates. The assumption is that if this totally unqualified guy can make it, why not . When *The Decline and Fall of the USA* is written, this era will figure prominently.
1
She's not going to be the nominee, but more to the point of crazy fanatics, Ross, how about this one:
Mike Pence.
16
@Jbugko
Absolutely right
1
This column gives Williamson too much legitimacy.
I had never heard of Williamson until the debate and had not heard of The Course of Miracles until reading this column.
Mr. Douthat, with all respect, you know that the Trump administration is a monumental disgrace for the Republicans, and that plutocrats wanting tax breaks could only get a government that serves the 1% by pandering to fact-free religious characters like Falwell--whose son, surprise surprise, is a Trump supporter. Because, sure, Jesus would vote for a racketeering fraudster who brags about his success in habitually sexually assaulting women, mocks the disabled, rates women on a scale of one to ten, calls the Klan and Neo-Nazis "fine people," attacks gold star families and deceased war heroes, and wants to date his own daughter--the one with the "great body," not the one he ignores. Sure, Jesus would vote for that guy--because, after all, Hillary's emails!! Yeah, Jesus would be too upset about Hillary's emails to not vote for Trump.
You want Democrats to be just as morally corrupt and cravenly debauched as the Trump Republican party, so you use your column to shine a light on Williamson, some obscure book, and the anti-vaccers.
But, sorry, what you are aptly mocking is completely obscure compared to the "Moral Majority" and the power of Evangelical so-called Christians. Remember Josh Duggar?
The Republicans are still the Party of Stupid even if one crazy lady appeared at one Democratic debate.
1
I met Ms. Williamson years ago when my aunt was an admirer and follower and The Course In Miracles became the new American obsession and the first “Book Club” for disaffected menopausal women.
Love is great. But throwing a childish fantasy crystal bomb in to the middle of the most important election in our lifetimes wreaks of selfishness. She wants to sell books, period. How very American of her. Now, with “grace,” go home.
5
More curious wanderings through the rhetorical weeds by Mr. Douthat, this time in search of a way to simultaneously respect while elegantly nurturing disrespect for a creature of the left.
3
"There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy." Or in the conservative evangelical Christian Right wingnut philosophy of self before other, fear before reason, isolation before participation, my rights before human rights....
2
One of those cases where the writer tells us far more about himself than his ostensible subject. A key point, referring to the supposed reason for “left-leaning” parents to choose Waldorf schools: their “anti-technological and frankly mystical approach to childhood.” But then he informs us that he sent his own kids to Waldorf schools. So are we to infer that Ross Douthat is covertly a left-leaning, mystical anti-technologist?
6
What is it about Americans and religion? Not to mention their eagerness to insert religion in the world of politics. Most if not all the rest of the western world pays pretty much no attention to religion in its political discourse and views it as a private thing. This American obsession with religion, while reflective of its origins, may well precipitate its downfall.
2
For a "pro-life" guy, Ross sure likes to create straw men to destroy.
The religious left exists in churches, mostly as those who are quick to forgive their misguided, conservative neighbors who decided some years ago to twist and trample scripture to make it align with conservative politics (maybe they're reading "shellfish" as "abortion"?). Cool of Ross not to mention that of course he meant the Christian religious left, as he would no doubt agree that followers of the other two Abrahamic traditions are more likely to be found on the side of the political aisle that wants to care for the sick, feed the poor, and comfort (rather than cage) the little children. Shocking, I know, that a person could both care about other humans and climate change, but there's really no irony here, unless we're talking about a very specific brand of a specific faith.
3
Given the amount of derision Ms. Williamson has received from the press, one would think she came to the debate advocating that all Americans enter an ashram and spend a solid month meditating before leaving their jobs to go forth and proclaim the good news. Instead, Marianne committed the mortal sin of asking that we make love a priority, not only in our own lives but also in the way our country is run. Douthat has labeled this weirdness, I would call it a pretty fine request, seeing what love's opposite in our government has brought us to these days. Hatred, greed and fear will never produce anything good.
Does Williamson have the skills and experience to become a good president, likely not, but I wouldn't mind someone like her advising the one we do elect.
3
Secular spirituality starts from the individual mystical experiences we all share but most of us overlook and consequently fail to integrate what these inform us about in our worldview: that we are all one and that love is all there is.
If events happen so quick that our mind can't respond in time, so the heart bypasses its conditioned, pre-judicial set and overtakes the lead of the immediate 'thoughtless' reaction, our response reflects that we know this very well: whoever it is who stumbles directly next to us, we reflexively reach out to try and catch and prevent him or her from harm, because we know it is us, in another body, grown up with another conditioning set of beliefs and experiences, who will hurt. When a car accident takes place before our nose, we empathize.
The mind takes experiences from the past and tries to capitalize on the wisdom it has enriched us with by preventing repetitions of those that brought pain and unhappiness (shield us from the coming winter in advance) and by recreating anew what made us happy. Yet in the new situation our spiritual wisdom might know better what is good for us here and now than our mind deducting from the past. It might send us out of our comfort zones. No cadaver of either religious prescriptions or mental deduction can outwit our individual wisdom and intuitive, immediate knowledge within.
Roughly 10% of the supporters of Warren and Sanders combined are probably closet Williamson supporters, not-so-humble me among them!
2
Mr Douthat
You are too kind. MW is a good person and Im glad she is running. She would be the opposite in many respects, of Trump. She would also share similarities, though- a complete lack of legislative experience - for one
2
My but this was a back-handed compliment of an opinion. As a scientist-mystic my cheek is still stinging. Mr. Douthat speaks of the us versus them in the Left with respect to materialism or mysticism as it applies to Marianne Williamson’s POTUS candidacy. It is good to recall that a branch of mysticism exists in Judaism (the Kabbalah), Christianity (e.g., St. John of the Cross, desert monastics, the Course in Miracles), and Islam (Sufism). But, why us and them anyway? Our brains are structured such that we are good at making choices between one thing and another, but choices that require integration of widely divergent sets of information before choice are very difficult. This doesn't work so well when you have to put together loads of disparate sets of information to decide if climate change is real, understand why many people live in despair and commit suicide, or vote DEM or GOP. Mystics don't ignore disparate sets of information and they can't easily state how they develop percepts that are integrations of huge amounts of data, percepts that don't lend themselves to easy either or decisions. Perhaps the mystics are more in touch with reality as it actually is than the rest of us and we should trust them to lead us past either/or and us versus them decisions to a more integrated way of being in the world (. Williamson is a mystic. We are hungry for that across the board. We need a GOP mystic too and it would be nice if the GOP and DEM mystics integrated with each other.
2
This article is strangely worded to both give credence to MW and also tear her down at the same time. How about just listening to her message and evaluating critically? She has an understanding of American history and values that sides with the abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights organizers and wants to be part of the next generation demanding moral evolution in our country. It's easy to ridicule, which this article does. Thankfully there are many who are listening to the message and deciding for themselves if it resonates.
3
@Seth
Well, many are listening to many candidates. And she may well have a message that resonates with some (as the article points out.) But just because the message resonates doesn't mean people think she is qualified to be President - and according to the polls few think she is.
National politics is bloodsport. Always has been. Will be for the foreseeable future. What the Democrats need more than anything else is someone that can go toe to toe with Trump. And she is one of several on stage that would just get chewed up and spit out.
You and Marianne are right that there is more to this existence than materialism. And you did leave out that she mostly talked about simple morality, which Republicans leave out and the green Left doesn't totally understand and often condescends about.
There are many of us Progressive voters who have a strong spiritual direction. That presents in many forms such as the ones you mentioned as well as variants of Eastern Teachings (Buddhist, Hindu) where the universe is purposeful, we are interrelated with all life, and human beings are on a spiritual journey.
I won’t for her, just as I didn’t vote for the Green Party candidate last time, because I saw the results. We all need to get behind whoever is nominated to change what’s happening in Washington.
I reject the notion that Waldorf and STEM are opposed. Our understanding the physics of a rainbow goes hand-in-hand with our appreciation of its beauty and its uplifting spiritual effect. Williamson often (not always) expresses her spirituality grounded in fact and logical reason. She may not make a good president, but she adds elements to the debate that the others need to hear and address.
3
Characterizing and stereotyping liberalism as a ‘cult of reason’ commits several logical fallacies. Belief in and cultivation of critical rational thinking no more leads to a technocratic, unidimensional worldview than religious belief and/or spirituality necessarily produces a humane moral vision or morally commendable actions. As philosophy instructs, religion is not a precondition for morality nor is God necessary for human good.
10
Ross writes “the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent.” Really? Thank god the founding fathers went this way and didn’t cling to god, Jesus, church, religion, spirituality in the creation of our country. They referred to god and a higher power, but they surely did come down on materialism and humanitarianism - yeah, Ross, the well-meaning kind - as they crafted the underpinnings of the United States. Let’s hope we are smart enough to keep all of it front and center.
4
Elisabeth warren’s take no prisoner approach may be a bit much for mr. Douthat but the Republican drive for privatization of every aspect of America is not going to be easy to undo. Spirituality or a belief in the heavens is not going to correct the political sins of the past or deal with climate change. Spiritually did not bring us electricity,indoor plumbing,or insulin. Human desire and hard work did. Warren’s White papers make a lot more sense than the mumbo jumbo we are getting from the conservative approach of the current administration.
5
I've always felt that after Trump there'd be a 21st century "Great Awakening". Never mind the rather flaky, Marianne Williamson. Read Marilynne Robinson's quite lengthy essay in The New York Review of Books( July 18th). She goes about destroying sacred cows with reference to the movers and shakers of the Puritan movements of England and the US- like gasp- Oliver Cromwell, John Brown and the abolitionists. Robinson makes nonsense of the current whipping terms of the left and right. She's my 21st century prophet. Whats more Robinson writes in a clear, literary English without cliche. One of her favorite concepts, "grace" is surely with her.
2
It used to be that “main line” churches could succeed without focusing on the “spiritual” side of things. Now our children are demanding it, actually leaving churches in droves to look for it elsewhere. In Yoga studios and activity-based groups. I think many successful mega and evangelical churches succeed by offering a thin version of it for extremely busy families. I think progressive churches are finding some of it by gathering around social justice.
What does “spiritual” mean to a caring, thoughtful searcher these days? I’m not sure there is a simple answer.
2
We are all entitled to practice religion in our own way, no matter what religion it is, and I respect that. During her debate, she made it very clear, if she was elected, our government would be ruled by religion. That’s the extreme opposite of what our forefathers intended by declaring separation of church and state. She had no policy, nothing she’d do with her term to make the country better, and absolutely doesn’t sound like she’d consider all religions, and Atheism. She’s going nowhere.
3
I would be more constructive to praise Marianne Williamson's contribution to the Democrats' campaign dialog without denigrating the hard-core virtues of Elizabeth's policy proposals. Why must it always be some zero sum calculus? Frankly, I was delighted to listen to Williamson alongside Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, Castro, and Yang,as well as Warren. These are fresh voices with, in most cases, a significant amount of substance. It's the tired ones of Sanders and Biden I don't care to hear right now.
9
Call me a weirdo. I liked what she said.
3
If the legion of Straw Men that live in Ross's head (how can they all happen to be "liberal intelligentsia"?...does he have a secret conduit to the underworld of fallen angels who, alas, took Jesus seriously and use the word "love" with humanitarian intent?) ever decide to finally escape en mass he will be left (sic) with nothing to write.
But one can assume with confidence that he will still find "liberal technocrats" running wild in the streets, ripe targets for incisive sophistry, false equivalencies and, yes, Straw Man-esque intellectual slight-of-hand.
3
A milestone? She’s crazy! It’s a milestone that the supposed most scientifically advanced country on the planet even contains a person with these “beliefs.”
3
Ross. GEEEEZ already. There is no war on Medicare for All. Warren's policy proposals help people. Using Williamson as a way to bash what you call liberal technocrat's philosophy is beneath you and very transparent. Why don't you propose something positive for the conservative side? Why don't you and your conservative supporters - who I respect - apply your brain power to coming up with a right of center alternative to Trump and leave the Democrats and all their liberal ideas that will actually improve peoples' lives alone. This is beneath you. Williamson? Democrats are lucky to have her? We are lucky to have Klobachar, Harris, Warren, AOC, Pelosi, and every other women who is running to improve the lives of American citizens, asylum seekers and all those who seek to return us to a nation of values. Do you think the best the Dems have to offer is Williamson and they are lucky to have her? Read your own words out loud. Listen to yourself please. Get an alternative to Trump on the conservative side. Then you can bash the liberal technocrats. Ross. Ross. C'mon.
11
I have no illusion's about Marianne's chances in the race, and I don't WANT her to win, but she's a valuable participant in the race. She very much is the embodiment of the crystal lady / new-age trope, but she raises a lot of very valid and relevant points as well. For instance at the debates she was raising issues about healthcare from the perspective of environmental justice. Like why do Americans get cancer at such high rates; why are we so unhealthy, etc. The health of our nation is about more than how insurance and care is paid for and distributed. It's about how people live, act, think, feel, etc. every day. This is one of those things that everyone "knows" but nobody ever actually talks about. She makes maybe 2 reasonable comments followed by 1 REALLY out-there weird one (the "politics of love" sounds like a cheesy gameshow).
The Marianne Mindset is clearly working for her. America is like the guy who started balding in high school and became severely arthritic by age 35, swearing that he could have gone pro if he didn't blow out his ACL long ago. Meanwhile, would you believe Marianne is 67!?
3
Amen, sir. :)
1
Where is the religious left? In the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Episcopal church, the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, the Baptist church, the Unitarian Universalist churches, the Quaker meetings, the synagogues, the mosques, the Hindu temples, the Sikh temples, the Buddhist temples ... everywhere. The religious left is everywhere and it outnumbers the religious right by half, at least.
Don’t bash Waldorf schools. They’re a refreshing place for children to learn without being bombarded by technology. Hotbeds of creativity, they’ve produced many innovative thinkers. Your children would be better off now had you allowed them to continue past preschool. They’d have given you a hard time on this essay, for sure.
Your use of the straw man argument never ceases to amaze. It’s lazy thinking, the kind of thing that would earn a freshman an F in a first year composition class.
Anti-vaxxers are everywhere, not just among the liberal elites. Remember the latest proponents of no vaccinations? The orthodox Jewish community in New York. Certainly not a bastion of liberal thinking.
4
Williamson is a fraud in my opinion. The article Douthat refers to quotes her as saying that people in poverty simply do not believe they deserve wealth.
She hangs out with rich celebrities. She has zero contact with working people who are doing their best to survive in our warped economy regardless of their desire to be more financially secure; black or white. Aside from writing books that have made her wealthy has she ever made any effort to reach ordinary Americans?
I know a few people who like Williamson's bid for the nomination. They deny she's a spoiler. Most progressive people I know, however, believe she would be an incompetent leader. Can you imagine a meeting between Williamson and Kim where she suggests to him that his country would be more successful if he loved his people more? Or, trying to convince Boris Johnson that the EU would be a success if its members just loved each other a bit more? Or that Britain would have a more stable economy if its leaders believed they deserved it?
161
@ E Miller
I agree with you. But the funny thing is that in a sense Williamson is absolutely right. Unfortunately she has absolutely no notion of how to move from these observations to effective action. Nor do I. But the prospect is tantalizing. And worth some reflection.
38
@EMiller
Fraud? I can see her doing so much more than Mr. Trump who is the womanizer, lies, and is immoral.
38
@EMiller It doesn't matter who she hangs with. If you listen to her speak you know she champions the values of the common person.
40
"A recurring question in American politics since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition has been “where is the religious left?”"
It's always puzzled me why Christians who demonstrate that they care about caring for others would somehow be perceived to be "liberal." Jesus commanded it and the Bible is clear that the early Christians lived it. Acts 4 says that "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had. ... There were no needy persons among them."
I don't know what the "religious left" is. I know what Christians are supposed to be. My question is "where are the real Christians?"
9
Though I appreciate Williamson’s work, I do not support non-politicians vying for the highest office in the land. In the presidential realm, we need a return of plutocratic expertise, or at least a nod to the value of governing and law-making experience.
3
Correct! Look what happened the last time a TV personality was awarded the office by a minority of voters with the help of gerrymandering and a very wacko distribution of electoral college votes.
1
Thank you. I am so sick of hearing people assume that Marianne Williamson is only doing this to sell books (what? she has already sold way more than any of the other candidates, and why isn't anyone suggesting same for any of the others?). I do not believe that is the reason. I agree that her presence on the platform will (hopefully) add a seed of consciousness to the evolving world-view of our country.
3
It all sounds like Voodoo to me. The occultism of the left is no more attractive than the end times of the right. Politics still has to have practical, pragmatic ends. Mysticism won't help.
1
I honestly don't understand where Ross Douthat is coming from when he seems compelled to pit faith-based progressives against other progressives (based, I guess, in a sense of justice, compassion, science, common sense. whatever).
I imagine Ross would call me a technocrat (although I don't really know what that means and that, like the term "elite," seems more a connotative catch-all label than an actual denotative term). I am agnostic, far left, live in a blue bubble (our nick name is the People's Republic of Rosendale) in a blue county. But when I first became engaged in progressive movements over 50 years ago, it was religious people of all faiths - the Berrigan brothers, Dorothy Day, Rev King, Roy Bourgeoise and on and on- and faith-based groups - Catholic Workers, Fellowship of Reconciliation and on and on - that grounded me, inspired me, and provided direct aid when I needed it. They still do and always will. Most progressives I know come from similar backgrounds. If anything, this agnostic is heartened by the increasing public awareness of the existence of a vibrant religious left. So I really don't get Douthat's Manichean view of things in this regard.
As far as Marianne Williamson is concerned, while she will not be my choice in the Democratic primary, and though I believe in separation of Church and State, I much prefer Marianne Williamson to take on the role of America's unofficial pastor than, say, Franklin Graham.
3
Hum. How interesting that you don't even mention Pete Buttigieg here. He is a faith based person on the Left and he's called the Right and their ill behavior out.
3
Another column of compulsive over-analysis by Douthat. Of course, his real mission here is to seize the opportunity of Williamson’s spirituality as a tiny crack through which to force his own ongoing obsession that “there’s more to heaven and earth…than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy.” And he wants to – again – plant the seed that his version of “more” is probably the correct one.
For Douthat everyone else’s version is just pathetic “woke covens and progressive pantheism,” or worse anti-Christ atheism. I’m waiting for Douthat to show that his vision is anything but an illusion that stands in the way of humans taking control of their lives and politics.
Or we could just continue to play games and argue about whose convoluted fantasy is the correct one instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and taking responsibility for ourselves. But it’s so much easier to give the responsibility to “something” else – something "greater" than ourselves.
2
@Andy - You said "There's no gap secular individuals feel compelled to fill."
Right. Except the gap they try to fill with drugs, pornography, sex, alcohol, shopping, Netflix binges and iPhone addiction.
1
The right has god on their side, the left has spirituality. When you believe that some other worldly entity will save you from all the scary things in life, then you get the government you deserve.
3
Religious right is a contradiction in terms. I have no idea how these people square their purported Christian values and beliefs with the selfishness, greed, xenophobia and ignorance of contemporary right wing politics in America. Do these people really think Jesus would be a Republican? Please.
3
She is a nut Bernie is a nut. Way left is unaffordable. We actually have to pay for things the government provides, with taxes on real people in the real world. I would love to see a Democrat who has a plan to actually lower the nation’s debt. I would like problems solved instead of nonsense. I do not want to tax America into the ground. Medicare for all would be a disaster, a public option would be sensible. Ideas matter, unfortunately that does not seem to be the case here.
1
@Kevin
Medicare for all would actually save us as a nation about 10 trillion dollars over 20 years. 10 trillion that could pay down the debt, build infrastructure, pay off student loans, buy houses...
2
@Kevin Let's start by recouping the trillion and a half dollars Trump and the Republicans just handed to the people and corporations who need it least, with near-zero benefit to everyone else.
https://budget.house.gov/publications/report/cbo-confirms-gop-tax-law-contributes-darkening-fiscal-future
1
Scientific inquiry is a sincere, humble prayer: to doubt oneself, never content in “knowing,” but always wondering, always desiring to understand, how Nature “works.”
Doubting is the growth plate of faith, faith that there is a real “there” there to be explored, and faith that our inquiry can get us closer, even if never fully, to an understanding of Nature.
Pure science is pure faith.
1
"Chase religious ideas out one door and they inevitably come in another", this is the best Ross quote in a while. (Whack-a-mole?) As a candidate or elected leader believe what you want, or not. I don't care just leave it at the door when working on policy or legislation that affects everyone. It is past time to absolutely enforce the separation of church and state in our governance. This means slamming shut all the doors once and for all on religious influence peddlers and their meddling.
1
"the cult of reason ... "
I always love it when someone disparages reason while using reason to do so.
1
The religious left still speaks with much more moral conviction, clarity about what ails America than the religious right, the likes of which Ross clings on to.
3
You go to work with your hands tied. Your editor allows you far too few lines to discuss such a subject. All you can hope to do is send your readers searching for more answers. I went chasing after Kierkegaard. That made reading this article worthwhile. I wonder how many readers read the article, thought more conflict, and went about their day. When you write something like this...give me somewhere to go!
You go to work with your hands tied!
By the way, I hope one of those girls you sent to the Waldorf school becomes a scientist...just think, Jung and Einstein...what a girl!!!!
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
1
What I've read recently is that Kamala Harris's view on how busing should work now is the same as Biden's was in the 1970s--that it should be a local decision. And in the '70s, most blacks also opposed busing (I've read that only 15% supported it). Biden was in step with black Americans at the time.
He worked for residential integration by opposing redlining and supporting the creation of low-income housing in prosperous neighborhoods. He is also is known for supporting voting rights and affirmative action.
Carol Moseley Braun defended Biden against Harris's criticism. And one would assume that President Obama vetted Biden with care before choosing him as his VP.
2
In reference to a speech made by Bernie Sanders, called to my attention by other posts, on religion in the 2016 election.
Looking back at the election of 2016 takes an open mind as you listen to the amazing words by Bernie at Liberty University. He really should have been the nominee. As you gaze at the faces when the camera pans these young right wing students, it reminds us why the great minds that formed this Democracy knew to educate us on the importance of separating church and state. Are these young minds so indoctrinated not to see that ''Freedom of Religion" applies to all in this country?
The progressive millennia youth have their work cut out for them in trying to teach the religious right what it means to live in a Democracy.
Especially since Trump has burned all the books.
1
The problem with Williamson isn't her woo. If those sorts of self-help / spirituality practices bring you comfort or joy, I have no problem with it. It just isn't my cup of tea (tho it has been in the past).
The problems with Williamson are twofold:
First, her unfounded critiques of vaccines and psychiatric meds -- both extremely dangerous positions in a time when contagious diseases are on making a comeback and suicide is a leading cause of death among working-age men.
Second, she is utterly lacking policy ideas. She couldn't even identify one priority in the first debate. Governing our country takes more than pep-talking, it takes strong ideas and the ability to implement them.
6
I have three degrees in science and have spent the last 38 years as a practicing researcher. In August, I start at theology school. I have another colleague in Engineering who did the same. The belief that the scientific method is an excellent way to discover how things work in nature is not, I think, unreasonable. But neither does it preclude a belief in God and, in my case, a sincere desire to explore how belief iin a supernatural deity fits into a life that has been devoted to science.
5
@Susan Thank you Susan. There does seem to be a belief that if some idea we don't like cannot be proven then we can cry out about how wrong it is. I submit, for example that there is no evidence that God, in some sense, does not exist, or that modern science is not part of a larger supernatural context. Really no evidence at all. Plenty of emotion though.
Ross,
Thanks for the article. It motivated me to go to her website and make a contribution.
9
For wanted of a story, always pick the outlier, the anecdote, and generalize their influence.
4
"...the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent"... and never more so than when Jefferson stepped away from his proto-racist natural philosophy to pen the words "All men are created equal."
We somehow built a remarkable country on that tension. Throughout that history, of course, some people have never bought it for a minute.
The southern Confederates, for example: read Confederate VP Alexander Stephens' notorious Cornerstone Speech. And Donald J. Trump, equally notorious for his views on who has good genes and which races can't help their laziness.
I agree that there's more in heaven and earth than policy papers can tell. But given the choice between navigating that tension vs. the alternative, I'll take the former.
1
No Williamson. And, definitely, no Oprah! Being a celebrity or a celebrity guru and self-help author is NOT what we need in a leader of this country. You want to read her books? Do they make you feel good? Great! But don't nominate this person to president. And, maybe cynically, am I the only one who feels like Marianne Williamson is running for president only to propel her name and sell more books?
6
Where is the religious right? I see a "religious right" content with children in cages, literal walls between people, taking money from the working classes and giving it to the rich, controlling the bodies of victims of sexual assault, denying housing and unemployment and services to sexual minorities, gutting social services for the most vulnerable, destroying the environment for the sake of profits, weaponizing healthcare against the neediest for political points with lobbyists, and itching to start a war just about anywhere with anyone a slightly different color or religion.
I don't think the right, despite the moniker, has any monopoly on morality.
3
Re "... Sam Harris, born again as an I.D.W. eminence and scourge of the progressive left."
One suspects Douthat has only been reading about Harris of late, rather than actually listening to his words.
Harris is bemused, at best, by the whole Intellectual Dark Web label. And it's simply incorrect to suggest he castigates "the progressive left." He constantly acknowledges his own liberal/progressive leanings on many issues, but *does* castigate what he refers to as the "regressive left."
The classic example of a "regressive left" paradox would be, say, an LGBT group on campus, in the name of diversity, vociferously supporting an Islamic scholar or group that holds anti-gay views.
Would she be any worse than Trump?
2
The only instance I can think of, of use of the word "love" in modern politics, is Trump's statement that he and Kim Jong Un are in love. Not a good recommendation in my book.
If you want to get into a serious discussion of the Christian left, you need to examine the writings and lives of Martin Luther King Jr., Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pope Francis, Liberation Theology, Dorthy Day, the Berrigan brothers, Archbishop (Saint) Romero, etc.
New Age religion isn't left wing. It's more like pop culture, occultist, hippie spiritualism. Besides, hippies never leaned left that much. They lean Libertarian if you're thinking of some kind of party affiliation. Williamson might have good advice for us about spiritual self-help and meditation. Frankly, I have a difficult time with self-help and spiritual wellness while children and adults are being treated so badly on our border with Mexico.
3
I recently saw Christiana Amanpour's interview with Marianne
Williamson. Marianne is remarkable. The interview gives a better picture of Williamson than did the debate. It should be available on YouTube.
5
"Chase religious ideas out one door and they inevitably come in another — because the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism." Which is utter absurdity as well as a great example of multiple false dichotomies that Ross is so fond of here.
1
It is sort of stunning that Douthat has entirely forgotten that a very large part of the Democratic Party's voters is made up of people who regularly go to church, consider themselves Christians, and take that identity very seriously. I know they only count three-fifths as much as white people, but perhaps they are worth a mention.
10
It's too bad spirituality has been co-opted by churches on the one side and people like Williamson on the other. Both are just money-making machines that don't even have a theoretical, let alone a practical approach to problems of the human spirit. And then there are "psychiatrists," who attempt a scientific approach to something science can neither measure nor identify -- another money-making machine. I wonder about the spiritual fitness of the people at the tops of these pyramids. Are they well people preying on the sick or are they sick themselves?
The liberal left, of which I am a proud member, repeats its mistakes of the last election if it dismisses Williamson as a kook. It's that same self-satisfied cynicism that has alienated so many of our fellow citizens. The essence of her message is we need to bring ethical considerations to bear on our politics. Try actually listening to her and see if she doesn't make sense. https://www.marianne2020.com/posts/marianne-williamson-4th-of-july-address
1
Young people today have to do several internships before they are even considered for a job. Marianne Williamson has nothing on her resume that qualifies her for a job in Washington. Not everyone in government is as immoral as the current occupant of the White House and his trail of grifters. But "god help us" if we don't put up a candidate who has experience and can run the country and knows politics. A preacher in the White House is not going to advance the policies that will help those who are being hurt by this government. Imagine the ?conversation? with Mitch McConnell.
1
I think Douthat and Brooks suffer from the same issue. They try so hard to simplify and reduce complex humans into tidy stereotypes. And they begin with liberal vs conservative, or Democrat vs Republican. This is such a simple view, and frankly a bit tiresome.
8
You can thank the cult of reason and science for many of the benefits you enjoy yet apparently take for granted. No one requires you to believe in a preposterous theological myth to enjoy community goods like municipal drinking water, public transport, etc. Interesting. Whereas in your Catholic "religion", which has mostly benefited a church elite at the expense of the believers, the emphasis is on accepting a Truth vouchsafed by that elite, so one might enjoy a cozy afterlife. Religion, in other words, is the old bait and switch game. Whereas the "cult" of reason and science deliver real benefits.
A gumbo of mumbo jumbo, Ross. Why not a black cat bone, or a mojo hand? How about some gris-gris? Any Mississippi or Louisiana bluesman worth his salt can vouch for their potency and validity.
1
Perhaps a better example of a fusion of liberal political and religious thought is the historic occasion when the President of the United States traveled into the political lion's den of my bright red state to pray and sing hymns of grace and love with the congregants of Emmanuel AME Church after nine of their members were slaughtered by a right-wing white nationalist named Dylann Roof. My brothers of the religious right steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that act of love and grace, however, choosing instead the way of darkness.
I wonder if the Jungian wisdom Ross refers to includes Jung's view that National Socialism was a healthy psychological integration with the collective unconscious and an undestandable response to the perceived "rootlessness" of the Jewish population.
Interesting to frame the self-help and New Age-y aspects of the left as religious. However, when you frame the left as an uneasy merger of Waldorfers and PBS atheists, you are leaving out a few things:
Biggest one would be a number of historically black protestant denominations. How you talk about the Democrats and religion while leaving out the AME or the National Baptists is beyond me. It seems like a quite a blind spot.
Then you've got a pretty large swath of liberal Catholics. Your own church, Ross, isn't all incense, old men, and authoritarianism. It also has liberation theology and people devoted to justice and compassion for the poor and the powerless.
Oh, and speaking of Catholics, your little binary leaves out most of the ones who are Latino. And Latino Evangelicals, too, who are not quite so aligned with the Republicans.
Then you have your old-school Mainline Protestants - your Congregationalists in New England and Lutherans in Minnesota and a lot of others. They like PBS and are not so impressed with Trump, believe me.
Do you want me to get into the resurgence of racially-inclusive Gospel-driven liberal churches after 2016?
Oh, and there might be a few Jewish Democrats. Some Muslim or Hindu or Sikh ones, even.
I'm sure I left out a few.
Yes, Republicans want to claim that all the religious people are on their side. That it's all devoted Catholics and Evangelical true believers vs liberal atheists and yoga nuts. Not true, though. Not even slightly.
6
Although nearly anyone would be an improvement over the current vacuous bombastic president, spirituality in the absence of technical knowledge is not the solution either.
Whether it was the former popes, the ayatollahs, or Mohamed, enough destruction has occurred in the name of someone’s god. The American separation of church and state is an essential value being trampled, particularly by the Christian Coalition and their support of their godless candidate.
Williamson is likely aware she won't become president. There's no shortage of candidates, some just to be known in a next election. Some annoying, giggly reactions to Williamson's presence show why we need her message in the midst of the chaos and damage 2016 brought. To continue major repair and rebuilding begun in 2018, we need to recapture sanity in the form of loving our beginnings and the basic standards we lost through corruption of both parties: checks and balances, church/state separation, a stable middle class, a citizen majority driving government. These standards made us valuable to the world, and Williamson comes cleaner to the stage as someone who not invested for years in a political career. (Shall we add shorter campaigns and term limits while we're at it?)
Too bad some of the best Dem presidential candidates aren't seeking run or remain in the Senate, but if the House 2018 results are any indication, we can look forward to electing smart, inspired new Senators of similar caliber.
1
In light of the looming global climate catastrophe, this does seem like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Despite our vaunted intelligence and spirituality, we are apparently no more able than the dinosaurs were to plan for the long term future of the species.
1
"the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism."
Pure materialism is, at best, an imprecise description meant to invoke a narrow ontological materialism that has little to do with the broader scientific materialism, or Physicalism, engendered by contemporary physics. True, this type of materialism remains monistic in practice, limited to quantifiable expression by disposition, as well as skeptical of any ontology, indeed of any metaphysics, beyond it’s reach. It is, however, the most enlightened and reasonable way to view the world in which we must act; it rightly holds the reigns of knowledge, and any alternative epistemology must reckon with its established tenets. To rebel against its incompleteness is neither natural nor inherently human, it’s folly born of willingness to abjure knowing for want of absolutes. And threadbare, how so? Science in all its materialism remains a tapestry of wonder, rich in scope and stirring to the imagination. I have no qualms with faith, religion, or New Age (New Left?) Mysticism; take solace where you will. But don’t confuse these, or for that matter the tattered remains of a warmed over Thomism or Cartesian Dualism, with an accurate and complete view of the world, but rather as the comforts that you choose to wear as you go out to into the elemental universe to take it’s measure.
2
Maybe I'm biased because I'm a progressive Christian minister, but I think the religious left looks more like Pete Buttigieg than Marianne Williamson.
14
I heard her speak twice in the ‘90s, hoping to be moved and thrilled. Large crowds, high ticket price. I went back the second time hoping my experience would be better than the first.
Instead of being inspired, I came away feeling in an unexpected way impressed, as though I had seen a masterful performance by a modern-day Elmer Gantry.
1
Mary Ann Williamson will be a force-function to inject important questions about morality and ethics into this election. People should actually read her new book, A Politics of Love, before drawing conclusions about the validly of her candidacy. For example, a quote from her book: "Government is here to serve its people, and people are not just job numbers or cogs in a corporate machine. We are living, breathing, divinely created beings on this earth for a high and mighty purpose. No politics, and no political establishment, that fails to see us that way or treat us that way is worthy." Let's debate that!
6
Douthat affirms that “The liberal intelligentsia has long prided itself on taking the side of reason and science… defending a particular version of the Enlightenment…” I wonder at the absence of scientific logic behind the defense of the right to abortion and LGBT issues. Is scientific logic useless in defending those views? I would welcome any enlightenment.
Science can provide relevant facts, but there will always be an is/ought gap when it comes to making moral choices.
@AlRo
Science does not provide a right or wrong. Science is the pursuit of knowledge. Fact versus truth. The moral imperative comes from its interpretation.
Science tells us the consequences of CFCs and excess carbon but not whether to stop producing them. Science tells us that homosexuality is pervasive in the animal kingdom and has been universal in human societies, but not whether marriage should be a right. Science can tell us about the auto-viability of a fetus at a certain week, and can even be used to decrease that number. Science leads us to nuclear weapons, but does not tell us when or where to use them (or not).
Smart people use facts to inform their ethics and morals. Others deny them and believe what they want to anyway.
1
There was nothing compelling about her debate performance, weirdly or otherwise.
These are profoundly serious times, and we need serious candidates who are equipped to handle our issues.
6
Marianne Williamson is just part of the Dems shotgun approach to this election. Their strategy reflects just how lacking in consensus the party is right now on how to move forward. They are hoping the voters will do their job for them and it ain’t going to happen.
1
Do not underestimate the number of moderate conservatives who understand and support Williamson's message, although not necessarily Williamson as a candidate. She is laying the foundation for more spiritual paths to be represented amoung the political parties.
As the book religions struggle to maintain their influence, many are looking elsewhere for spiritual support. It's all woo-woo to science-as-god types but history shows science and spirituality can co-exist. We need only look to the old Alchemysts - the real ones, not the lead into gold puffers so popular with hollywood - for our rule book. Chemistry sprouted from their 'scientific' approach to understanding the world around them but they undertook their endeavors only after improving themselves morally, spiritually and ethically with the assistance of Hermes. Today, 'science' has shown that the very presence of the experimenter in the room affects the outcome of the experiment.
2
Waldorf education is not "mystical" but practical, working through nature and the artistic impulse to teach subjects using physical movement and creativity as well as developing strong thinking skills, which is a hallmark of all of Rudolf Steiner's teaching and message to the world. In fact, his philosophy of Anthroposophy embodies the balance between science and spirituality ("spiritual science"). Some of Williamson's ideas come close and would be a welcome influence in the necessary awakening to our own cosmic origins, which would transform the consciousness that is slowly developing.
8
These are serious times. We already have a president who is ‘out of this world’. Marianne Williamson is not the person to defeat Trump. She is sucking air at the debates contributing nothing of value. She knows nothing of government or governing. We shouldn’t be wasting time with this distraction.
5
@Victoria Kessler while she is empty on policy, she is correct about embracing love and empathy. While I don't plan on voting for her, I don't think she's a waste. She brings interesting and needed ideas to the conversation.
15
In a snarky mood as a teenager in the Seventies, I made an acid comment about kitschy statuary in the Catholic Church. My journalist mother pounced. "If it helps people to pray," she challenged, "what harm does it do?"
So with Marianne Williamson. If she helps people to find goodness and peace in their hearts, what harm does it do? She seems to want to be a force for positive energy and to calm the trauma that awaits us daily in this hard-bitten America. She's not my cup of chai, but I don't begrudge her followers whatever serenity and optimism they find in her philosophy.
19
@Bohemian Sarah, That's all fine, but she has no business being on the debate stage with the other candidates. Her running for president is half vanity project, half building her brand. It's ridiculous that she qualified for the debate and Steve Bullock didn't.
3
I have a lot of respect for the Berrigans, Cornel West and others who could be described as "the religious left." Fine, we agree on the issue of morality. That said, I can't say we should follow anyone who traffics in superstition and dark-ages ignorance - i.e., any and all religions, including the hip, new-age nonsense. We need reality and a fight for truth in the world, not narratives. And for the record, in case anyone isn't paying attention, Trump is winning the narrative war.
5
An interesting take on her meaning. I have to disagree that she represents "progressive occultism" (whatever that is) or some other desperate attempts at balancing life through spirituality. I felt she was suggesting that Trump's election is a result of spiritual rot--throwing aside spiritual selves for his celebrity, performances and his promises of a "return" to another time. Whatever Williamson's own religious practice is, no one can deny that Christian ideals such as humility, uplifting the poor, etc have been subsumed by Republican attitudes about those issues. While I think her stage presence is not particularly winning, I hope she will continue to be a part of the debates and continue to talk about what it looks like when voters sell their souls.
17
Our country suffers from a spiritual malady. We are driven by fear and greed. We are separated by class, sex, race, religion and other distinctions. Instead of embracing our shared humanity, we focus on our differences. The “other” is the problem.
Spiritual problems require a spiritual answer. Tax cuts, gerrymandering and party politics are failing us all. Let’s embrace compassion, empathy, generosity and love of all beings. Williamson is a strong voice for spirituality. While her bid for the POTUS job is a long-shot, her ideas and beliefs should be taken seriously.
219
@Mark O RN Yeah but none of that makes her even remotely qualified to be president. Saying wise-sounding spiritual sound bites is not the same as the ability to get things done
27
Compassion, empathy, and the rest are not "spiritual"; they are human on the higher rung of the spectrum.
63
@Mark O RN As others have said, you are confusing spirituality with humanism. How are the platforms of the progressive candidates not a reflection of the traits you cite and of our shared humanity? There's nothing mystically or spiritual about treating human humanely.
44
Marianne Williamson brings morality into the political debate. One can call it mystical. But it's a simple calculus that begins with first do no harm. Unfortunately that's why she is dismissed by the main stream media.
Ironically every politician, especially those running for president are quick to tell you "how much their faith means to them."
But somehow journalists can't bring themselves to ask simple questions such as "how do your religious beliefs" affect your positions on poverty? Or homelessness?
What do our religious teachings tell us about our system of mass incarceration or our failure to provide clean water for vulnerable children?
At the very end of the debate Ms. Williamson raised a key issue. How can we talk about health care costs and ignore the corporations that are making us all sicker?
She rightfully pointed out that we all pay more when diseases like diabetes continue to be caused by the processed food industry.
There's nothing mystical about that. It's based on the simple moral principle that government should protect people from the harm caused by greedy corporations.
Even Douthat while writing a sympathetic piece omits this point. Our political economy is morally bankrupt. Money has become America's God and while everyone wants to talk about "faith" no one wants to examine what real faith in action looks like.
This isn't about "left wing" or "secular mysticism." It's about the role of government in a system of greed and plunder.
523
@Drspock - No one is objecting to bringing morality into the political debate. Nor is Williamson the first to do so. If anything, it's something that every Democratic candidate is discussing at length. Trump's actually notable for being so visibly amoral.
Williamson's real issue is that she's doing a lot of handwaving and rejecting a reasoned discussion on what should be done. The example you use is of her shutting down a needed discussion on health care in order to make a glib, meaningless jab at corporations.
Corporations don't "make us all sicker." Corporations that pollute do, of course, and more power to her if she wants to talk about pollution regulations, but don't make pointless over generalizations, and don't use slogans to derail important conversations.
34
@Drspock
She's being dismissed because... well frankly anyone who tells me her approach to running against Trump is to love him into submission just doesn't have both oars in the water... THAT is why she's being dismissed.
30
@Gus
Seems to me she is trying to bring a larger perspective to the conversation to enable deeper problem solving. How about warning labels on foods with added sugar: " known to cause cancer, obesity, and heart disease". That is one example of how her voice could lead to improved health, for example. I'm not sure but I think many food corporations would be resistant to this idea....
10
Ms. Williamson is not my choice for Democratic candidate. That said, she did bring up two points in the debate that get to the root of two crises that we face, and that no one else ever talks about.
The first is the CAUSE of poor health: addiction to fast food and junk food, dangerous toxins in the air, water and soil, stress and over-focus on unnecessary material goods.
The second is the CAUSE of the refugee crisis: why are these central American countries losing their governments to gangs that have taken over, and how has our country contributed to this situation?
20
Not only was it the faith, love, do no harm message presented by an assertive person in the spiritual business. Marianne Williamson is also unapologetically feminine. The message and the messenger are so foreign to our politics where the patriarchal voice is the norm. Without that affectation we are lost... laughing, embarrassed even horrified. An equally masculine caricature would be kind of unremarkable. She is like a romance novel.
67
@seaperl Unapologetically feminine. That's precisely why everything she said seemed utterly absurd in the context of a political debate. She deviated from the patriarchal politician script with her holistic assessment that gets to the root of problems we are accustomed to dealing with on a reactionary surface level.
8
Ross you are the last person on earth to speak with any authority on the spirituality of the American Left. That's been clear to me for years, having read several of your articles about how liberals think, what motivates them emotionally and how they shape their -- extremely diverse -- world view/s.
You have less authority to speak about Marianne Williamson, since it seems you've never read any of her books. Try doing a little honest research before you opine on a subject when you have a clear, personalized bias. Or read A Return to Love. Everyday Grace. Not a single crystal or a woo, let alone a woo woo in sight. Hard hitting practical perspective on the human condition, and the power of actual love (not its romantic or escapist derivatives) to confront it.
Marianne is intelligently and meaningfully engaged in the struggles of the people she knows, and she genuinely cares about suffering in the world at large. She's the only New Age author I've ever encountered to write, not once but twice, on the subject of politics from a spiritual *and* a politically grounded perspective. And she has a resume to back up her positions. She's never let the New Age movement off the hook when it comes to meeting the demands of human suffering head on.
Look into Healing the Soul of America. The Constitution of the United States is in its appendices. Read The Politics of Love before you speak about the perspective of someone you seem to know very little, and understand even less.
206
@Amylouise Donnelly
If she dabbles in anti-vaxerism then she is not "meeting the demands of human suffering head on." In this case she is potentially furthering human suffering.
10
@Tucson Geologist
You are right about this one point. I contacted her campaign directly and confronted them on this. Did not support them in saying a prominent Conservative TV personality treated her "rudely" for calling her to account for it. But I stand behind what I said about the general body of her work.
7
@Amylouise Donnelly
Had my only exposure been through a printed CV, I would’ve considered Marianne Williamson a write-off. But her debate performance moved me, and the blanket derision of her afterwards was knee-jerk and shallow.
Williamson was right to plead that democrats are wrong to run as technocrats alone. Americans, myself included, are sentimental people, and we need to be approached through our hearts as well as minds. Watch the debate again. It was Wlliamson’s plea for immigration reform that kicked discussion of the cruelty of Trump’s administration into higher gear. She’s not a fool, but Democrats are if they deride her message
20
As Joseph Campbell wrote, “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may very well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid.”
The rise of Marianne Williamson and what she represents in the culture has everything to do with the fact that the symbols of the old religions no longer provide meaning to many. No doubt they are neurotic, but at least there is a sincere search for meaning here; not simply a clinging to the old ways for fear of what a loss of spiritual certainties might bring.
2
What Ms. Williamson brings to the table is a maturity and insight that is rarely seen in politics. She often mentions the word 'love'. How often have we heard our hate mongering politicians utter that word over the past decades? Almost never, by design. They want people at each other throats, not loving each other. A hateful electorate is how they stay in power. Another item she mentions is that we need to get to the root of the problems facing the human race. Why are people suffering? Why do they have to escape their own countries and emigrate? Never do I hear politicians talking about this. Americans deal with problems as they become intolerable instead of dealing with issues before they metastasize. Ms Williamson understands the concept of preventative medicine. She doesn't have the experience to be a leading politician yet, but her heart is in the right place. Compassion is something the GOP and the so called religious right have been missing forever.
194
There is a religious left and it may include the coalition Douthat describes. But it also includes,among others, much more mainstream Christian denominations like much of the Presbyterian Church, USA; the ELCA, Disciples of Christ; a whole lot of United Methodists; the UCC and more.
These are Christians who support the LGBTQ movement, ordain women, vote Democratic..all the typical liberal things. And we go to church and are often surprisingly theologically orthodox.
And I could throw in a lot of Roman Catholics and, within Judaism, the Reform movement.
5
As left wing Presbyterian ministers, my husband and I are appalled when people decry the absence of a religious left in this country. Think William Barber, Jim Wallis, Martin Luther King. We are here, we are active and we are legion. What we need apparently is better PR. But we're too busy fighting for racial equality, gay rights, fair immigration policies, justice for the poor, and on and on. All Christian values.
619
@Rachel Thompson
And the NYTimes makes the problem worse by focusing on Catholics and evangelicals and ignoring the more liberal denominations. When is the last time you read about a "left wing Presbyterian minister" in the Times?
71
@Rachel Thompson
'A recurring question in American politics since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition has been “where is the religious left?” '
My thoughts on this were: They're right there, they just don't wear their religion on their sleeves and they don't try to legislate their beliefs onto others.
Also, I have very mixed feelings about a more political religious left. Yes, it has been the basis of many important movements in the US, such as the civil rights movement. But we should not let our political discussions devolve into debates on interpretation of Christian theology. This country was founded on secular values and that's where our focus should remain.
59
@Rachel Thompson
I would add Dan Berrigan and Dorothy Day to this list of those on the religious left.
29
Religious fanaticism, shamanism, superstition and intellectual rot should have no place in a functioning beneficent world. Note that I excluded greed, tribalism, and naked self-interest from the list since they seem far too deeply embedded in human nature.
Sadly this is not the world we inhabit.
1
Nothing else proves what a nest of lies the US really is more vividly than its neglect of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”.
Such a wry smile between the lines.
The subtext is bold-faced and underlined “rag on our literalist non-christian Christians all you want liberals, you have your own crazy wing of faux-zealotry weirdos rubbing crystals and offering “the work” to rationalize all manner of bad behavior with worse thinking...”
Having had my brush with A Course in Miracles and a doomsday cult in Montana too, I do get the hilarity of such a person on stage. Glad you noticed.
But, back to reality...Harris and Warren are drafting on Biden, by December they will both pass him on their way to Mason City.
4
I don't think I've seen a piece of writing that contained more labels! While couched in a light-hearted style, it is still clear the level of distain Ross Douthat has for anyone not of his particular tribe. Backhanded and underhanded swipes and slights are not enough to camouflage the typical divisive rhetoric common to the "conservative right."
2
To find a liberal Christian left, go to Monsignor John Ryan's book on the living wage or to Reinhold or H. Richard Niebuhr or to almost any minister at an AME Church. You need to face the intellectual poverty of so-called intellectual consevatism.
4
To me, "The Meaning of Marianne Williamson" is simple: Yet another millionaire seeking the democrat nomination. Anyone who votes for millionaires loses the right to whine about the government not understanding working people.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
3
This is spot on, Ross.
1
While "There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy..." there is certainly less than ever in the hypocritical immorality of evangelical Christians and the child-abusing Catholic Church and its damaged"faithful." Religious converts like Douthat have to supply condescension coupled to self-superiority to represent those captive of the superstitions of Bronze Age goat herders and defend their own relevance.
I’ll take Williamson’s creed any day of the week over the intolerant bigoted greed soaked Evangelicalism that Republicans practice.
11
With all due respect Mr. Douthat, this ranks among your most specious columns to date. “Cult of reason”? You got me - I’ve been brainwashed by rationality. Or this - “the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism.“ While I can’t speak for “the” human mind, I can affirm that this human mind naturally rebels against religionist screeds, thinly masked as political commentary, extolling fanatical, fact-free faith as a welcome alternative to logic. Thanks for the hot tip, I’ll take it under advisement.
4
If she got rich preaching she’s not to be trusted.
2
Is Marianne Williamson the left's Trump or a sign of a growing sector of Democrats as Ross Douthat claims?
>Marianne Williamson polling at less than 1%.
Well, I guess there's your answer, Ross. Honestly, what was the point of this analysis? "But what about all of this circumstantial reasoning i used to support my idea?" asks Ross.
Looks like you could have just used the empirical data and not wasted your time.
4
Ross Douthat wants to pick his opponent. Nixon did it better.
What would a left-wing religion look like? Er, a few possibilities, none of which are Marianne Willamson.
Rev. Jessie Jackson
Jesus himself
The sharing traditions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, and half a dozen more, all tolerating their differences and competing toward a goal of judging and being judged by their fruits.
Douthat picks an easy target and tries to turn her into his leftist opposite. He should pay more attention to the right-wingers in his own Roman Catholic Church. They recognize that their left wing opposites are Jesuits, including the current pope, whose resignation they demand for sins the right-wingers who preceded him started, particularly John Paul II, but from whom they would never demand resignation but instead, defend.
The right wants to define the left as pro-abortion atheists. He picks Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson (hereinafter, "NDT") as the symbol of leftist atheism. The guy is even Black! Perfect! Yet the only government job NDT has ever held is on the Board of Directors of NASA, and he was appointed by Bush43.
Douthat realizes that Williamson's place on the stage makes an easy target but calls out that lie that all leftists are atheists, so he seeks to create another lie. After all, conservatives rely on lies, because without them, they have no argument at all.
3
So many false equivalences I hardly know where to start.
Yes, the Left has always had its anti-reason fringe, the crystal healing types. The difference is, it’s the fringe, not the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Well before Trump managed to secure the Republican nomination, Bobby Jindal was acknowledging that the party had a “party of stupid” problem. By which he meant the wholesale Republican disdain for science.
Williamson a Trump figure? Really? Has she established a reputation for casually lying, even when it made no sense to do so? Of being entirely about self-enrichment, a throughly corrupt figure? Does she campaign on stirring up hatred? Has she bragged about casual sexual assault?
About the only thing she has in common with Trump is a disinterest in thinking things through and actually making plans rather than offering platitudes.
1
It's not surprising that Douthat would find common ground with another purveyor of superstition. Arbitrary beliefs unsupported by evidence and magical thinking are simply irresistible for many, perhaps most, of us.
2
"...left-wing vaccine skepticism..."? Uh, no.
1
"There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy." No, there isn't.
1
This kind of claptrap has no more place in politics than Catholic dogma or Evangelical zeal.
The running of a country should be thoughtful, rational, and unbiased.
4
Actually, Pete Buttigieg and Corey Booker are self-described members of the Christian Left, which been around for a long time. Since Martin Luther King. Since Jesus.
To learn more about how the Christian Left is far from a frivolous, new, or crackpot movement, go to https://sojo.net/.
2
The meaning of Marianne Williamson? I'll have to stroke my crystals and consult the Book of Insipid Wisdom.
It's been surprising to me how journalists lashed out at Williamson, calling her a kook etc. Is she any bigger of a kook than the current president? The one idea of hers I love is establishing a Department of Peace.
2
Marianne Williamson should not be President - she is not remotely qualified - but to categorize what she is saying as "hokey spiritual woo," as Alex Pareene did, is like calling gravity "hokey pseudoscience."
That so many of us want to ridicule the fact that love is the ultimate reality of this universe, the nature of consciousness itself, is the best explanation we will ever find as to how Trump was elected in the first place.
It's also worth noting that what is going on on the left these days - the attempts to ram equality and inclusion down people's throats while simultaneously disenfranchising, and often promoting blatant discrimination against, whites, males, and the rich - is exactly what one would expect to get when you try to promote what are actually spiritual values through the toxic filter of ego, fear, victimhood and resentment.
In other words, the left is already on board with what Marianne Williamson is saying, but they've mangled it so badly it's now unrecognizable.
1
“...only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two.” The exact position the Catholic Church tries to impose, believing crazy things on one side, claiming that reason should be use as a kind of check machine. The retired pose should be happy to read that.
1
There is such thing as the religious left: yoga-inspired spiritualists who alienate moderates.
How to avoid liberal on liberal fights?
Convince Oprah Winfrey to run for President.
2
If the anti-vaxxers of Marin County rally behind Williamson, then we will know that Mr Douthat’s analysis is correct and that the Democratic Party - and Democracy - are doomed.
1
@MikeG
Agree, but by year's end, Williamson will be back to selling her self-help books and flogging them on cable shows.
1
"Where is the religious left?" Douthat asks (a question one of his conservatively Catholic bent might wonder, given that he rarely exchanges the sign of peace with any of us in our congregations. In answer, let me encourage him to venture from the confines of his confessional to attend a UU (Unitarian Universalist) service some Sunday. There they (the admittedly not many enough) are! The last UU service I attended in Portland, Oregon was led by a scholarly, elderly black man who took for his text Tina Turner's famous anthem (and challenge-overcoming life with Ike), What's Love Got to Do With It? A musical conundrum he proceeded to ably answer before we all joined our voices in that "hymn" as the recessional.
However, the UU's are never going to form politically active mega-churches under the banner of the Immoral Majority or some such bunk. And as for their main line denomination kindred spirits who are religious left, they have. Left, that is.
3
Ross, your column was interesting. After reading the column I concluded that the right, the Pat Robertson/Falwell/Graham Christian crowd, is based on Old Testament principles of an angry God who requires his children to be angry, deferential, and compliant. While the left, consisting of "crazies" that don't align with your narrow view of matters supernatural, is more aligned with the teachings of Christ that demand only love because love itself will provide guidance for making decisions and policy.
3
The left believes in humans.
The right dehumanizes.
Looking for the left wing Trump is going to be a long, lonely, search.
Perhaps Ross could find a tech wiz building a left wing robot? I just don’t know how we are going to find this mythical beast in the realm of humanity.
2
The lack of a healthy, sustaining "myth" in America means other narratives fill the void: ranging from evangelical Christianity to scientific rationality. By myth is meant some deep, core "story" about where we come from, why we're here, where we're going.
The gurus noted in this article are successful in part because they tell their story effectively, in ways their public find enticing. Trump's MAGA myth is leading us to a near-fascist state. Jordan Peterson's shotgun approach to 'truth' contains not-so-hidden biases and stereotypes. And Marianne Williamson? Still early to tell how her narrative will shake out.
One unfortunate global victim of many of the narratives we're seeing now: the nationalist, isolationist, racist stance that makes the immigrant a threat, the bad guy, the wolf at the door, the witch in the forest. Sad.
1
I would agree with Mr. Douthat's observation that what he calls "pure materialism" needs the "corrective of experience, philosophy, and common sense." But neither experience, nor philosophy, nor whatever one takes to be "common" sense requires supernaturalism.
Trump said, "I love the uneducated!" Williamson seems to be saying, I love the gullible insecure.
1
@akrupat
Great last line analysis.
I lived in L.A. for 20 years from the 70s to the 90s.
You couldn't toss a bad zucchini without hitting desperate people who renounced their childhood religion to find bliss within their hearts in the New Age.
So people jumped from the likes of Tony Robbins to Williamson and others promising THE answer of spiritual truth and also making more money along the way like through flipping tax-stressed real estate with a smile.
Wealth = Bliss on Earth.
Total nonsense and a waste of money.
1
"because the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism."
Isn't this Douthout's prejudice showing? The problem with pure materialists isn't the threadbareness of the philosophy, but the tendency to want to use the doctrine to censure humanity. Need materialists be hostile to religion? Surely a materialist's main insight should be that reason is an incident in nature and not it's driving principle. A sane politics needs to deal with people as they are. A materialist may believe that all religious dogma is false, but still have no desire to eradicate faith from the world.
3
You have just become my columnist of the day, Ross. I emailed your column to my daughter, my therapist and that's about the extent of my evangelism. Plus I have an appointment to keep.
You have explained Ms. Williamson (It's still OK to use "Ms."?) so interestingly and so warmly that my initial feelings about her having a vulnerability that verges on the missionary is not so crazy. INSTEAD, I would bet that she is regularly empathic and not reluctantly. Keep following her campaign, please. I'll be looking for your stuff for a while at least. Thanks.
3
There is no mysticism in western culture stronger than the belief in the divinity of Jesus. Born of a virgin, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven in sight of his followers? That is true mysticism. The fusion of Catholics and born again Evangelicals is a synthesis of absolute faith over reason, authority over hope and charity. A complete victory of the Pharisees and Sadducees over the covenant of love proclaimed in the three years of Jesus' teaching.
Official Christianity has backed the Divine Right of Kings, the Spanish inquisition, the Salem witch hunts and found justification for slavery in the pages of the Bible.
Is it any wonder that in a world in which science has revealed the incredible intricacy of the universe, the cell and the atom that a more mature vision of divinity has begun to emerge?
4
@Maureen Steffek
Stop equating actual Catholicism with Ross's Catholicism.
The Counter-Reformation pushed scientific and philosophic learning to the forefront of the religion, many times ahead of secular colleagues.
There are 197 Catholic Colleges in the U.S., with a number of them in the ranks of World Class Universities that teach the sciences equally as well as secular institutions.
The Observatory at U. of Arizona, was run by two Jesuits with PhDs. One retired and the other went on to head the internationally respected Vatican Observatory.
Mainstream Catholicism is light years away from "Know Nothing" Evangelicals who believe in Arks, and equally absurd biblical myths taken as truth.
3
@East Coaster in the Heartland I spent 12 years plus some college in Catholic schools. I am very aware that myth and suppression of women is a major tenet of the religion.
1
For the “non-believing atheists who scoff at Ross’ suggestion that there is a “contemplative” Left that might be worth investigating, try this:
Without knowing anything about you, Here’ are some beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded. Please tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else ‘’
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. "Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it."
How did I do?
1
Not that well. You attempt precision, but set forth a muddle. To start with, I know the definition of an atheist, but what’s a non-believing atheist anyway?
1
Love is lost when people who pay taxes are chumps, when people who work for a living deserve to have their pay and benefits cut to the bone, when the word "deserving" refers to the rich - who took the risks and won.
Woo woo won't bring back the firmaments on which community love is possible, but we absolutely need someone who will bring those things back.
1
The schism that needs to be healed is between the new atheists who are enthralled with the latest scientific miracles (the material world only,) the fundamentalist Christians who stick to the Bible (also a source of truth but including Heaven and a higher realm, as do Muslims and other religionists,) and those who try to change this material world into a kind of Heaven on earth where we all treat our neighbors on the planet as we wish to be treated.
Marianne is for Heaven, but vote for Bernie or Elizabeth--they have a better chance of winning and (hopefully) taking the senate.
That would be a giant step toward Heaven on earth.
2
The sheer number of people responding to this column is an indication of the dying popularity of organized religions. There is no "religious left," that concept is just part of Douthat's straw man (woman?) argument centered around Marianne Williamson in this column.
The idea that Williamson is the Trump of the left is an interesting analogy but fails on one basic ground: Almost none of us on the left are going to abandon our values, including science and reason, to Williamson or to anyone else.
Contrast that with the wholesale abandonment of any form of intellectual or moral integrity by conservatives in favor if the gut instincts of a single strange man living in his own world.
2
Mr. Douthat never misses a chance to skewer public figures who care more about evidence, reason, and logic than, to use his term,"mysticism." It's amusing to watch him figure out new ways to accomplish this peculiar mission.
It's no accident that Mr. Douthat and his fellow "conservatives" are enamored, in their own cynical way, with Ms. Williamson.
2
I am tired of hearing “where’s the religious left?” It’s right in front of you. It’s ordinary people who go to mainline churches and do their best to love their neighbor every day. The reason the press can’t see us and the right can’t hear us is that we live easily with the uncertainty of our faith. Am I saved? Not sure— saved from what? Did Jesus really physically rise? Maybe. We can live with science answering the “how” questions and faith answering the “why” questions. We are not dogmatic enough to make many fiery statements that generate controversy about our beliefs. When we learn new information our beliefs may change. We find revelation in other faiths as well as our own. So we don’t make many good headlines. But if you look at places where the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given water, the prisoner is visited, the stranger is welcomed— you’ll find us there.
13
Great attempt and subject. If only he could get away from polarizing and searching for “wars” ( his own word) where there might not be any.
1
“...the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent...”
This is absolute nonsense, as much as I may agree that the tendency on the part of the political left to proselytize against religion is ultimately self-sabotaging.
René Descartes was a believer. Baruch Spinoza was a believer. William James was a believer. There is nothing about belief, in and of itself, that is contradicted by “hard scientific materialism.” That’s where actual Skepticism enters the picture.
To paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson, “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.”
A good bit of what Mr. Douthat describes sounds as thought it fits within the long-running fights for authority between science and religion. This is hardly new: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393292435 ("The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority," by Robert Crease, 2019).
That is just one recent publication on the subject. Another, issued by the Johns Hopkins Univ. Press in 2010, is by Steven Shapin: "Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority."
These tug-of-wars will not disappear anytime soon. I do not know how Ms. Williamson feels about modern science. She does not appear as consciously and cynically dismissive as our current president--no matter how shallow some of her presentations may seem to some of us.
From what Douthat describes as the "eternal pundit's quest'" for the left-wing Donald Trump, meaning *his* quest to dismiss liberal policy positions with an imputed personality cult, to the supposed "tension between a desire to claim the mantle of science and a yearning to fuse the political and mystical" he creates out of thin air for imaginary "progressives", apparently as a means for him to diminish the claims of science (you know, like, climate global warming, which your party denies?), one can only ask: in what world does this guy live?
But of course we already have the answer: he believes in the vast supernatural. What a strange way to sneer at Oprah and Marianne Williamson..... My fantasies are better than yours?
Ross, I'm not looking for a Christian Left, much as I don't want a Christian Right - or a Muslim Left or Right or a Jewish Left or Right or ... I want everyone - and I mean Everyone - to keep his or her religion (or lack of belief) out of politics and out of my government. Fifty years ago I had a history professor note that almost every war ever fought was over God. A Christian god? A Muslim god? A Jewish god? A Buddhist god? Your pick. Has anything changed in 50 years? No. Please keep your god (or your no-god) in the confines of your place of worship, whether that is a church, a mosque, a synagogue or your living room - and out of politics and my government.
5
"There’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy."
Well, duh.
But I don't want it defining our politics. The "more" is personal. It can inflect politicians' actions, but keep religion/spirituality/woo-woo out of the administrative state. Our Founders knew this; look at the England/Europe they came from. You can believe whatever you want to believe, but we are tinkering with religions/beliefs of all kinds in public life in a dangerous way.
2
Fascinating speculations, though I cringe at the “religion is the root of all evil” comments you’re likely to incite.
The “Christian Right” and the (exaggerated) materialism of Democratic voters are political, not spiritual, manifestations, born 50 years ago, when politicians discovered that “cultural” issues could be used as political strategy by parties who were turning the economy over to moneyed interests.
The appropriate response to the “Christian Right” is neither New Age nor Christian, but that of the Founders: religion is too important to be sacrificed to political manipulation, and Democracy too important to sacrifice to religious manipulation. But that would mean actually trying to make government work, instead of making politics profitable.
2
Wouldn't she make a great Secretary of Health and Human Services?
4
@Mo HHS has a $2 Billion budget and close to 80K employees. Do you still think she's qualified to lead HHS or are you basing this assessment on the sore lack of qualification for a number of the current Cabinet members?
2
Marianne Williamson's selection to be included in the Democrat debates, for even the first time, much less the second, is indicative of the dysfunctionality of so much surrounding the political climate of our country today.
She is a member of a religious cult, created by a woman who believes she was visited by Jesus Christ and told to go forth and profess that love will conquer all.
She provides "a moment when an important cultural reality enters into politics" Important? Reality? Come on.....
"Democrats as well as curious onlookers should be glad to have Williamson onstage for at least one more round of weirdness" Mr. Douthat, our country is in the gravest crisis of its existence. We have a mentally ill president, incapable of serious thought about any topic, supported by 85% of registered Republicans and you believe we should all be glad a candidate totally unqualified for the office of President will make a good choice for the debates because she will add some weirdness.
The fact that this article was written, submitted, and printed is an excellent example of weirdness.
"her warnings of spiritual crisis are at least as relevant to an America beset by addiction, suicide and atomization as any of Elizabeth Warren’s white papers". And this is simply, totally, absurd.
4
"Chase religious ideas out one door and they inevitably come in another — because the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism.
Well said Ross. I often scratch my head when liberal progressives cheer science and trash religion without seeming to realize that some of that "science" undercuts the foundations of the political and social beliefs of liberals.
A small point, but if Ross wonders where the left wing Christians are, he need only look to those who leave water and provisions to help immigrants in the desert. Or those who protest when a catholic diocese fires a married gay teacher or choir director.
Unlike the Christianity of the right which looks to ferret out evil doers, the Christianity of the left seeks to follow Jesus' words.
4
You are certainly thoughtful. I'd choose a lunch with you and very few others. I do not always agree with your posture but appreciate your studied prose.
“Trump-era how-to spellbooks". Based on the president's tweets, I think this phrase could do with another hyphen and a space, to wit: Trump-era how-to-spell books.
3
If I thought eye of newt and toe of frog would rid us of the current devilish regime, I’d be setting the cauldron to boil and heading out to the pet shop.
It’s unfortunate the only cure for bad wizardry is good witchery. Would that it were common sense for the common good.
3
I have no opinion about your characterization of Marianne Williamson, about whom I know little.
I do however find your your characterization of American theology grossly distorted to the point of laughable caricature.
You set up the standard conservative dichotomy: it is EITHER some form of conservative/fundamentalist form of Christianity on the right OR it is secularity on the left. With the hazy possibility of some form of bizarre pseudo-Christian gnostic myth lurking out in the far margins of the leftist netherworld.
What you ignore—deliberately or not is for you to say, not me—is mainstream ecumenical Christianity, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox.
We are still here. We still affirm the Creed, and read our Bibles. We still vote, and do our best to live out our faith in daily life and public witness.
We are not as loud as the religious right. But nor are we detached from traditional teaching as your bizarre version of the religious left would suggest. Quite the opposite. On issues such as immigration we believe the Scriptures and the ecumenical tradition of the church speak clearly and forcefully AGAINST the hideous policies of the Trump administration.
Indeed, I think most mainstream Christians thoroughly reject dividing up our faith into “right” and “left”. These are boundaries. God’s grace has no boundaries. We learn that every week in church.
9
The author admits that 'candidate moonbeam' has no traction with the public. Her polls show her with a firm grip of 1%. So why write a column explaining how she is 'the answer' to Trump? Who is going to pick up the mysticism banner when Williamson eventually pulls out of the race? Deepak Chopra? Joel Osteen? Why is she in the race in the first place---to sell books?
The important Democratic candidates are the traditional pro labor, pro choice, egalitarians---Biden and Warren with Harris thrown into the mix. Most people would pass by Williamson in the Whole Foods aisle and not recognize her--deservedly.
Americans are not rediscovering Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
3
If only Williamson were given a chance at the debates to actually talk about her values and how they’d inform her presidency, but first Americans need to learn how to communicate. Because “dialogue” and “conversation” in the corporate media landscape means who is more effective at talking over each other, interrupting, and reducing complicated issues to soundbites. This kind of column about the theological underpinnings of the Left’s technocratic and mystical wings has a special place for nerds in a society where most people do their heavy thinking through memes.
2
I confess it was hard for me to make sense of your political fantasy about the arc of liberalism. I bogged down along the way in all the vague and demeaning conservative tropes, labels, and categories. But aside from its incoherence, your column seemed very condescending to those whose religious beliefs may differ from your own. I would commend to you the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, Luke 18: 9-14.
4
Interesting aside on Waldorf education.
We sent out two kids to one of their schools.
I found the petty, bad hippy commune politics to be disappointing but had no idea it was presaging a future of circular firing squads for the left.
1
Ross, an observation.
Those who know, most often, do not say.
Those who say, most often, do not know.
1
Which is worse: liberal technocracy or left wing advocacy for workers, consumers, families, and communities to have more say in our politics and economy? The latter requires placing much more accountability and many more checks and balances on the so-called “private” decisions of large corporations whether their ownership structure is “public” or “private”?
Or . . . Which is BETTER?
1
Oh. My. God. Much as I like reading Mr. Douthat, I hope, like I do with many of his most incisive writing, that he is wrong.
The basic teachings of Ms. Williamson and “A Course in Miracles” are pretty close to the teachings of Christ but more aligned to modern science, specifically Psychology. New Age is an ignorant label used by Old Age fundamentalist leaders to demonize anything that challenges their old dogmas and most importantly their religious kingdom of money and power. Their kingdom is maintained by fear and obedience while Marianne’s teachings (and Christ’s Kingdom) is based on love and freedom. Christ was mocked, laughed at and hated by the religious/political power structure.
1
There are no longer "normal" politicians.
They have each and all become truly abnormal. They have not yet changed heaven, but they certainly have changed our lives on this earth.
Politicians no longer serve the people. They serve themselves and their continued tenure while they promise another dole to those who really don't need it.
We all need to "get a life." Politicians, too.
1
Marianne Williamson could actually- save the planet. And mankind from it's own capitolistic suicidal tendencies. People sneered at all types of figures throughout history who ended up denting the Universe.
I have followed Marianne since 1992? She has literally changed tens of thousands of people's lives, brought healing, hope, serenity through a very simple powerful force she has harnessed.
Its called the power of love.
Try it sometime in your politics, you might like it.
2
The religious left is Rev. William Barber and his poor people's campaign. It was his Moral Monday movement that is almost completely ignored by the mainstream media.
1
She's mad, but good. New age spiritualism is kind of a long-running joke, but so so is the president. At least Ms Williamson has courage and a heart. The wicked [man] witch of the west wing has none of them.
6
I have been reading religion, theology and spiritual writings for 40 years. I was Catholic and now Episcopalian. Of course I have heard and read Marianne Williamson! She is a great soul. We do not have to think alike to love alike. That is a problem with so called mainstream thinking---it is stuck in its dying world. Thank you Marianne for sticking your neck out there while so many sit on their behinds and complain.
6
The debate was my first exposure to Williamson. She's a new-age spiritualist guru, obviously not qualified to be president. (What's she going to do, give Kim Jong-un a hug?)
She's a fringe candidate with a big following. America leans religious, but fortunately is becoming more secular.
The sooner she (and about 15 other) candidates drop out of the race, the better.
God and heaven do not exist. I do not want religion to interfere with government. Last time that happened we got George W. Bush and the Iraq war. Now we have a president who pretends to be religious to get the very hypocritical evangelical vote.
The religious right has done much damage to to America and the world. The religious left is infinitely better, not least because it recognizes science and supports separation of church and state.
4
There are many liberal Christians. Perhaps we are not significant to Douthat because we do not not seek to impose our faith on others, especially through political or authoritarian power.
6
Finally something interesting has been written about Marianne Williamson's candidacy. To re-phrase how she put it during that first debate, our insistence on political "experience" has led us nowhere but further and further into an apocalyptic materialism -- a mindless consumerism where ultimately what gets consumed is our chance to lead dignified, sane, and yes spiritually enriching lives.
Obviously the word "love" itself is not the answer. But a deep and honest look at how far we find ourselves from a life lived from that perspective is not only valuable, it may be our only real chance to escape the madness we've brought upon ourselves. I say let's listen to Marianne. She's not perfect but then who among us is?
1
One of the best sets of reader comments I’ve seen in a long time. Imagine—a discussion of morality and government. Although the link in Douthart’s piece to the blending of faith and reasons leads to an esoteric Thomas Aquinas paper, it begs an important question that could spark a whole topic for national discussion during this time when the moral fabric of our nation seems to be unwinding.
Douthat continues to ignore the increasing numbers of US citizens who claim to be secular and hopes against hope that there is a groundswell among the "Left" of spirituality devoid of reason similar to the Evangelicals that form Trump's hard core of support.
There is not a shred of evidence for that excepting the fringe anti vaccination left who shun science and the crystal gazers who believe in magic.
Seculars know that this life is all there is and that hoping you will find in the afterlife perfect golf swing or marital bliss is a myth and whatever you have lacked here is not going to be made up for when you are dead so concentrate on daily life here..
9
It is said in the Buddhist teachings that the foundation of all good qualities is morality, a word or idea that seems cliche, but in my view encompasses all that we need to know about human conducts that do not harm ourselves and others.
Ultimately, is that not the crux of any questions, policy positions, political ideology, philosophies, etc., whether we or others are being harmed, or being helped to be healthier and happier?
4
The us-vs.-them political divide is tearing the country apart, and it can be argued that it's an artificial overlay, contrived by politicians and fostered by the media. The fact is, we ARE all in it together, despite our ultimately petty differences, and unless we can grasp that before too long, we are doomed to dissolution. Marianne Williamson is the only candidate out there speaking to this truth. Whether or not she is likely to become President, we should all be heeding her message.
5
Admittedly, I have not followed Marianne Williamson closely, but based upon her comments in an NPR interview and on the debate stage, I did not get the impression that she is pushing religious beliefs, but rather urging us to think more deeply about the issues that confront us and what we value as a country. A perfect example was her comment about health care - we are focused on the cost of treatment, but largely ignoring prevention. I appreciated her comments about values, and don’t see them as “religious” (how many corporations develop a “values statement”?). I agree with her that love and fear are both key human motivators, and that our current administration is fear-based. The idea of shaping policy with love brought to mind something I read about Bhutan using Gross National Happiness as a measure. While that may sound “hippy dippy” on the surface, when you think more deeply about it, what better measure is there of a country’s success - in the economy, in health, in human rights or anything else? I doubt that Ms. Williamson will last long in the presidential race, but she’d be a terrific advisor in identifying the root cause of some of our most pressing issues and encouraging visionary thinking about how to address them.
14
@Bootstown ignoring prevention? Tired of this line of thinking. I know way too many healthy people cut down in their prime from cancer . Yea prevention . Please .
"Man does not live by Neil deGrasse Tyson memes alone." Certainly not. That's why we have Ira Flatow's "Science Friday." Maybe Jad Abumrad's and Robert Krulwich's "Radiolab" for the more philosophical mind.
In any event, secularism certainly isn't defined by a yearning for spirituality. There's no gap secular individuals feel compelled to fill. That's the entire point. Secular people don't need to replace spirituality with anything. Not STEM, not Neil deGrasse Tyson, and not Marianne Williamson. They aren't missing anything that needs replacing. You can exist happily in a world where faith is irrelevant.
That doesn't make someone an atheist either. Atheism possesses it's own kind of faith. No. Secularism is something different. You can experience wonder and mystery while acknowledging some questions aren't worth asking. If you could prove there was a higher power, would you want to know?
10
I remember when quantum physics seemed like fringe "woo woo." Just because science cannot yet explain so much of how our hearts and minds participate in the creation of the current reality in which we live doesn't mean it is not based on principles that will some day be explained by "science." Just because we are not yet evolved enough to understand something does not mean it is not so.
11
Ross has pointed out that screwballs have a following across the political spectrum, and as George Bush remarked, and Trump has proven, anyone can become President.
4
He gives an interesting insight into where the crutch of superstitions like religion come from when he sees only materialism as the alternative. All snake is sold for what it supposedly is an alternative too, a straw man of some sort.
7
One can have wonder, deep feelings and a connection with others and the world around us without spiritualism or religion. I have been an atheist since the age of 15 (over half a century), and I have not needed religion or spiritualism to help me connect with others, or weather the vicissitudes of life. There have easily been times I could of turned that direction (the murder of my sister, or when 17 of my fellow airmen and friends died when their helicopter was shot down), but my hold on straight rationality got me through it. The knowledge of how a rainbow is formed does not exclude my being able to see the beauty in one. Nor does my rationality prevent me from seeing the logic and worth of many progressive ideas.
When it comes to politics and power, I prefer people who are not lost in their own spirituality or idealism. They are the ones that can more easily sacrifice others, without too much thought, in their quest for the “good”.
39
@AS Pruyn
If scientists/secularists/STEM-progressives generally embraced “not knowing,” that would be one thing. But many scientists – and secularists – hold the following beliefs, none of which have any scientific evidence but are taken by many to be scientifically proven. Did I correctly describe any of yours?
***
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else.
3. "Laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it.
How did I do?
@don salmon
Much of what you ask is tied up with what philosophers call the mind-body question, and the free will/determination question, which, in part, depends on an answer to the first. Having studied these while getting my degree in Philosophy, and looking into the literature every so often since then, my take is that we do not have a sufficiently strong definition of what the mind is to be able to resolve the mind-body question. I know what I feel is my mind, but I have no real method of knowing what someone else does.
On a gross level, the universe seems to be very deterministic, however, it gets a lot fuzzier when quantum physics gets involved. It may be that there will be sufficient understanding of the substructure of quantum effects to render them deterministic, but it also might be the case that there never will.
As far as evolution, purpose can play a role. For instance, looking just at humans and what is considered attractive in a mate, we can see times in history when what a “good looking woman” looked like was not what we think of today. In part, this was due to the diet available and likelihood of surviving childbirth. As the Agricultural Revolution progressed, and the likelihood of periods of starvation were reduced, the concept of what a “good looking woman” changed. But a large part of evolution is the slow change, as most large mutations are not viable so many small changes add up to a big difference.
1
I will speak up for the secular "rational left".
New age woo woo shouldn't be the basis of government any more than Christianity should be. Separation of church and state is a founding tenet of the United States, though we often fail to live up to it. Love is great but it is not a plan, it's a slogan. Cory Booker is also preaching about this "love" as the founding principle of his candidacy, and it is equally inane when he says it. We don't need woo woo right now.
The candidate who best lives up to my ideal of a smart politician with solid plans is Elizabeth Warren.
85
@Kate I suspect you're drinking the Kool-Aid about Marianne Williamson's supposed Woo-Aid. Go to your library or bookstore and read one of her books and hunt down the "woo." I suspect that you will be stunned to not find any.
This column is not one of your best, Mr. Douthat. Repeatedly asserting that "it's not just a coincidence" then listing two disparate facts does not make a convincing argument. Sometimes it is just a coincidence without causation, or even correlation.
9
@Bob.
...but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a tangible effect!
I work for a church library for a mainstream denomination. I never heard of Marianne Williamson, Helen Shucman, or "A Course in Miracles". I did, however read several years ago a theologian writing on the implications of dwelling on miracles: contempt of science ( why study the way nature works when "God" can override it at any point?) and a refusal to take crises like climate change seriously ( if you pray enough, "God" will solve the problem with His magic wand). And, by the way, "mysticism" does not mean fuzzy talk about miracles. It means meditation.
33
Interesting article on Williamson. But I’m growing tired of analyses that presume that the American left and right are perfectly symmetrical, with opposing takes on the same root issues (in such a world, a Trump of the Left would be possible, and Oprah and Williamson could be reasonably compared in some substantive way to Trump).
It’s a fun thought experiment but has nothing to do with reality. Left and right (and a few other sides) are no longer two sides of one coin. They are fundamentally non-commensurate philosophies about how things are and should be, with leadership to match.
25
@SI Well said. It’s probably overly simplistic and unfair, but I believe the right is now defined by bad faith. Where we used to have two competing visions of how to achieve roughly similar results, we now have a party of bad faith and a party of everything else. How the bad faith side is winning is beyond me.
Hey just spot-on with this one. I absolutely agree with the woo/Williamson/Course in Miracles as the equivalent of the religious right. Terrific insight.
4
Nice discussion. But we need a candidate who can beat Trump. She ain't the one.
8
I applaud Mr. Douthat's efforts here. As someone floating in the middle of this and other political spectrum I want to add that we will never make sense of Secular Humanism until we understand it to be yet another Evangelical Religion, by that I mean one that in debate acts without reason or empathy. For me all of these poisonous ideological debates boil down to our multifaceted universe of culture wars and are fundamentally turf battles fought by those seeking to gain the greatest spoils. Follow the self interest and ye shall find.
4
@Stephen Pollitt. It shows a low level of self awareness and a propensity for low-effort thought when religionists try to insult fact-based people by insisting that science is a religion and, therefore, silly.
Miracles to get Ms. Williamson into the White House? Perhaps. But then again, one could posit that it similarly took miracles to get Mr. Trump there as well. Though many, no doubt feel that the latter is more the fruit of some Faustian deal with the Devil, rather than a blessing from the Divine. It is a clash of visions of the world and our role/place in it that makes the political circus worth watching. Pass the popcorn, it's starting to get interesting.
4
I enjoyed Ms. Williamson’s comments in the debates. She raised issues of universal goods- fairness, empathy, caring for all and not just the few. How refreshing in our dog-eat-dog nation!
19
Although being completely unqualified to be president, she did have a very insightful comment during the debate. "No one is elected president because of their detailed policy statements... Trump was elected because he said Make American Great Again" As I thought about it, as far back as I can remember, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, all were elected because they personally resonated with the American people, not because voters pored over detailed policy proposals and decided a 37% marginal tax rate was better then 34%. People react to broad themes and " Brand Identity" . Important things to consider for 2020. What is the candidate's basic identity and how well does that fit with the voters.
21
The one thing both Ross & liberals seem to get wrong about Williamson is that neuroscience is not in conflict with the ideas she puts out. A message of love is not as wacky as we'd like to believe - we have cultural assumptions that love and strength or love and confrontation are in conflict (they are not).
I have not read "Course in Miracles," but what I've heard so far sounds like it touts a gross simplification about positive thinking because that needs to occur in a specific context which includes being able to see ourselves more objectively. Nevertheless, developing a capacity to think more positively, feel more compassionately and express gratitude does have a spiritual benefit, and is backed by science as having a positive effect on our nervous systems.
Personally, I'd like to see Williamson end up as Secretary for Education. Her brand of progressive views and her capacity for persuasiveness could really be a game-changer in that area.
14
@Barbara
Williamson as Secretary for Education. No, thanks! DeVos is bad enough.
@Fran
DeVos is an advocate for mindlessness in education. Her viewpoint is narrow-minded.
I am guessing that MW is onto mindfulness in education, which is proving to be extremely effective. Imagine producing a generation of more open-minded people with a higher capacity for creative thinking.... We need this to survive what we've done to the planet.
I don't think there will ever be a synthesis between faith and reason. I read the tarot. And I talk to God through the tarot. What happens when I do this involves a great Mystery. I need great faith to do what I do and the fruit of this labor helps people. They have to follow me with faith, and then they are rewarded. The God I talk to is invisible! Let that sink in. Science can't know Him, only remotely guess at Him. He loves to communicate, and He will communicate through the five senses, but to reach an epiphany, faith has to lead reason. I frequently think of the skeptics I meet that if I should show them their cards, they might be hurt. Skeptics won't give permission to read their cards and this is self preservation. They don't have enough faith. To understand God there has to be an imbalance where more weight is given to faith. That is just how the universe was set up.
2
Williamson's theories are based on a new age philosophy but she proclaims a love for others that is quite Christian. What a novel thought: caring about others.
16
Camus said the only serious philosophical question is suicide.
Ultimately it becomes problematic in a post-religious age to sustain the will to live. The Human Condition requires a deeper kind of meaning than the political. Everyone may already know this somewhere in the back of their minds.
2
As someone firmly on the Science and Reason wing of the Democratic party, what I take away from Williamson is her key insight that people vote for today’s GOP out of a visceral sense of fear. We will not reach them with a set of rational policies that will help them to no matter how well thought out. Many GOP voters are in a place where rational thought is not really possible. The Dems will need to address their fear at the emotional level, the “love” that Williamson is talking about.
87
Admittedly, Marianne Williamson is probably the first person to make a jump from being a New Age thinker to national politics but it would be wrong to say that all politicians on the left are uncomfortable talking about spirituality.
There have been a few predecessors, Jimmy Carter most definitely. Jerry Brown merged the political and the spiritual from a liberal Catholic perspective with a healthy dash of zen thrown in.
Another liberal politician who seems quite comfortable talking about faith has to be the last guy you’d expect. Bernie Sanders may not be a member of any congregation and may very well be an agnostic if not an atheist, but the years he spent in Hebrew school were not wasted. Check out his speech at an Evangilical College, I believe it was Liberty University but I could be wrong. Quite remarkable in my opinion.
Many liberals have been quite taken with Pete Buttigieg in part because of his ability to speak the language of faith, a liberal Christianity if you will, though I doubt if some Evangelicals see Episcopalians as fully Christian.
Both Sanders and Buttigieg are both coming from well established western religious traditions but I could certainly see someone from an eastern spiritual tradition or a New Age mix of eastern and western beliefs and practices or perhaps, someday, a Native American politician who follows the traditional beliefs of his or her ancestors.
Why not? This is America.
26
@Brooklyncowgirl
Great. liberty university Bernie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=p5ZB8Lg1tcA
1
@s.whether
Thanks for posting the link. I was writing on my phone and didn’t want to leave the page.
Do not have enough room to elaborate on Mr. Douthat's mischaracterization of the goals and values of liberal humanism---the false dualism of reason vs. faith, etc.---leaving his conservative faith alone as the home of communitarian values. What is always left out of attempts to describe or denigrate liberal humanism is the central tenet of liberals, which is to reduce cruelty in our world--using tools of reason as well as politics. Conservatives, however, have no humanism in their political faith---in fact quite the opposite, they see value in cruelty (i.e. caging children)----it acts as a deterrent and is character building.
70
@Amanda Jones
It starts with the unfortunate distortion from Augustine that children are born with original sin. Did you ever look at a baby and judge them to be sinful? It's a negative view that affects people for life and makes them more cruel and judgmental.
2
Ross repeatedly uses mysticism and leftism as he does, and would use, any condescending adjective or adverb that might present itself to a critical thinker, especially one who we expect to keep a skeptical eye on religious trends. It immediately reminded me of when I did the same while taking religion survey courses in college, a phase i hope I've completely left behind. He leaves out the caveats that any religionist or fair minded writer should briefly mention which is that 'mysticism' is often a hammer used to enforce orthodoxy, often a politically powerful orthodoxy. Not-mystical Ross believes that wine taken in communion literally becomes THE blood of Christ Jesus. Not-mystical Mitt Romney believes that entire planets of their own await he and his family upon their passing. Why be condescending towards those who hold unconventional views while keeping hid the pretty wierd teachings of any and religions, particularly ones own? Be real, Ross.
44
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this thoughtful piece on Williamson's candidacy, Mr. Douthat. You correctly identify the inadequacy of standard liberal atheism. Even as a non-religious person, I would find it refreshing to hear our nation's leader use her pulpit to talk about the power of love to heal our nation, if not the world. After four years of Trump, this would not even seem weird.
11
@kate jones
I would say there is not a "standard liberal atheism", but rather a common liberal agnosticism.
1
"In this trajectory you can see one potential arc for proudly secular liberals, if the left’s future belongs to woke covens and progressive pantheism …"
Mr. Douthat, I found this article interesting until you reversed to your standard labeling of "proudly secular liberals" as if the whole bunch of us were cut from the same cloth.
I hate it when you do that because you never seem to acknowledge that a bona fide liberal can be privately quite religious but be a fervent supporter of keeping religion out of the public square. This liberal is one of them, and we share the same religion (although I don't see the political world in the US through its lens like you seem to do).
In any event, I found Williamson a tad whacky as I expected but also very compelling in an unexpected way. She's bright, articulate, and seemed to return the conversation back to what ails America--which I thought was terrific.
Of course, she's not qualified to be president even if the bar for that has been lowered to the floor by the current one. But she does add to the understanding of the malaise so many Americans are going through.
225
@ChristineMcM
Much as I tend to agree with about 99.99991% of your comments in response to Ross, and much as I wince even through much of this column of his, I think he's touched on something which is a profound weakness of the mainstream (ie moderately Left-of_center) Left, and also of the old fashioned Marxist/socialist Left.
There is a truly unique "American" religion, which in the eyes of most religious people is not a religion at all. Inspired a great deal by the contact of German and American philosophers with the philosophies of ancient and medieval India, perhaps the birth period of this 'religion" was the late 19th century, with transcendentalists such as Emerson and Whitman (and one of my favorite composers, Charles Ives).
Father Martin Laird captures it remarkably well in his book on contemplation, "Into the Silent Land." Californian/Tibetan Buddhist teacher Alan Wallace refers to Laird's book as "the greatest Christian book ever written on Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practice."
Laird tells us to forget everything we've ever thought about "God," or any traditional religious idea. Just notice the background of open, calm awareness which enfolds all of our experience, all of the time (even, the scientists now tell us, in sleep), but which we mostly ignore.
That, Laird writes, can lead us to see that "there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of" in our critiques of religion or our secular politics.
18
@ChristineMcM
Actually, with all due respect, Williamson is far more qualified to be President than Trump.
For instance, Williamson has built her audience by writing multiple books (in which she actually writes the words, and doesn't need a ghostwriter!). There was a time when demonstrating some command of the English language was a prerequisite for high political office.
Being a card-carrying spiritual realist (yeah, there are such things...), Williamson would never be high on my list of candidates for 2020; but she's a heck of a lot more qualified to be President than the mean-spirited, bigoted, barely-literate 'businessman' that we have today.
30
@ChristineMcM Over the years I've enjoyed reading the works of Loren Eiseley. Eiseley was an anthropologist, paleontologist, biologist, science historian, professor, author and poet. For many years he roamed the plains, forests, mountains and seacoasts of America - observing, understanding, perceiving. Recently, I came across this insightful quote of his: "At the core of the universe the face of God wears a smile."
Liberal Christians certainly understand this.
11
I think Ross is onto something here. He clearly goes too far in using the term "technocratic" in describing the liberal mindset, but there is a distinct disinclination on the part of progressives to speak of things spiritual, those kinds of things from which spring our humanistic values. Williamson may have her excesses, but she speaks a language that in many ways evinces a bedrock understanding of how human life can prosper.
15
@Jeffrey Waingrow She's charismatic and that's it.
What constantly amazes me about Russ is that, as a thoughtful writer on Christianity and its many voices, he completely ignores the larger voices of what he calls the Christian Left - Bork, Brueggemann, , etc. whose theology are heard and integrated into progressive Christian communities. It must be easier to argue against New Age "woo-ism" than to confrint the best minds of the progressive church. Russ, you need to get out more into where the action is.
67
@Tom
He doesn’t Want to address these minds. He’d rather use Williamson as an example of liberalism so he can devalue liberals and any spiritual ideas they have.
I heard Williamson speak twice in the ‘90s. I wanted to be moved by her, but found her message to be a bunch of mumbo jumbo. She was also rather overtly sexist in her treatment of men.
She did have a LOT of folks paying a lot of money to hear her, though, so one must admire her ability to cash in.
3
Were you referring to Marcus Borg?
@Steve Foley
Yeah, probably, and not the best choice, since he's mostly an intellectual writing about how to read scripture as a post-modern intelligent reader, not an advocate on how to live as a follower of Christ in the world. There are plenty of better examples.
Ross is delighted to have an example of a loopy Democratic spiritual-lite politician to say, "see? Anti-science exists on both sides. Both sides do it "
The two problems are that one, Williamson is a rarer bird than the religious extremists who populate the Republican party, who want to take away reproductive rights and a whole host of others in the name of religious freedom. second, Democrats usually employ science and reason to make decisions, not the unseen and unprovable tenets of religion. For the twin goals of human comfort and cultural advancement, Democrats are the way to go. Williamson is not the Democrats' Trump, and I believe we will never produce one.
74
@Clearheaded
Also, most of what MW teaches is backed by neuroscience and attachment theory. She is not really wacky at all.
I remember, some 30 years ago, a psychologist who was part of a yoga organization giving a talk in which she presented a political/spiritual spectrum - with fundamentalism on the Right and contemplative (or "yogic") awareness on the Left.
I realize that a majority of NY Times commenters think that sensible naturalism (ie atheism) should properly inhabit the left, but people who identify as "I don't have any beliefs I just don't have a belief in God" atheists have rarely given more than a scintilla of thought to what their beliefs are.
Fundamentalism is quite close to what the Buddhist philosophers refer to as "eternalism" - taking a "thing" (the 'soul," a conceptual image of a (generally sadistic, psychopathic) "God") as unchangeable, lasting forever (which, by the way, is not what "eternal" means).
The true underlying beliefs of atheists (the physical universe just "emerges," patterns we call law just "emerge," elements from chaos?? they "emerge;" life - which despite the desperate claims of materialists biologists increasingly find they cannot define - it emerged too; and don't get us started on mind and consciousness! - the essential underlying belief here is what Buddhists refer to as nihilism - exemplified in Steven Weinberg's comment that "The more we learn about the universe the more we see it is pointless, meaningless"
Until you have a better explanation for virtually anything in the universe than "it emerge," please have an iota of humility about Williamson.
5
@don salmon
I am an atheist who concedes possessing not a scintilla of an idea of how things came to be. Religion would do nothing to fill those gaps in my understanding. The difference between me and thoughtful believers is that I am totally honest with myself about my ignorance. I don’t need Oprah’s reading list to know what cannot be known.
32
@don salmon
"Until you have a better explanation for virtually anything in the universe than "it emerge," please have an iota of humility about Williamson."
That's not how understanding works. "I don't know yet" is the reasonable and correct answer much of the time.
The problem with humans is that they want answers so badly that they'll make up answers and then believe in them. Which is bad enough, but for many, once they've settled on a fictional answer as the solution, they stop looking for the real one.
There's a great video of Neil DeGrasse Tyson laying out how great minds through history have made ground breaking discoveries, and then stopped as soon as they decided to ascribe anything further to "god did it."
23
@Eric
Eric,
How's this? Without knowing anything about you, I'm going to write an extensive list of beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded. Tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are essentially bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that fundamentally, we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" or simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the infinitesimal fraction of the universe which is made up of living beings on the earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. it is impossible for someone to be aware of the images in another person's mind.
5. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
****
Eric, I grew up (a few miles from where you live) a devout atheist. I still don't believe in the God you don't believe in. I think the best thing that could happen to the world is for all religions to go away.
A number of commenters have suggested there are vast realms which neither fundamentalist religionists or fundamaterialists have even heard of.
It would be worth exploring them.
6
It may well be that "there’s more to heaven and earth, and even to national politics, than is dreamed of in the liberal technocrat’s philosophy", but that doesn't mean that these spiritual concerns are not ascertainable eventually by that philosophy.
I like to go with Clarke's Third Law on this: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". So the things we ascribe to the metaphysical are not necessarily divorced from the physical.
And, it is possible to discuss ethics and metaphysics, which in the end are what religious or spiritual ruminations are all about, without defaulting to an intelligent deity or design, whether one perceives that as a divine earth mother or a vengeful hairy thunderer. Members of organized faiths, and even unorganized faiths, have no monopoly here; the athiest and the agnostic can discuss the nature and responsibility of living as well as anyone who sits in a house of worship poring over an ancient text.
So I take the Williamsons, and the Douthats, with a grain of salt; they're certainly allowed their ruminations as long as they don't insist I partake of the exact same ruminations. I do like to point out, though, that my scientism and their spiritualism seem to all come down, in the end, to the motions of fundamental particles and the behavior of forces, which seem to occur whether or not we think there's an anthropomorphic guidance behind them.
17
Well said.
In a tweets and memes culture, the ideas of a Marianne Williamson do not compete (or even compute to most) for they require an investment in ones own beliefs and our connection to, not our separation from others. Unfortunately, Williamson’s message is best understood and valued where the objective is self growth, not winning or losing based on who can make the more convincing, but always unfulfilled promises. Oprah, on the other hand, has taken much of what Marianne professes and made it real for millions simply by presenting it through practical examples and action steps for living life while enduring the chaos and confusion of today. Someday, in some distance future perhaps, but we are not ready for the kinder, gentler concept of loving ourselves and each other yet.
9
If I decided to make a choice between Williamson's Spiritualism and Evangelicals or Roman Catholics fake beliefs in how one should conduct themselves on this Universe, hands down it would be more likely to choose Spiritualism.
Spiritualism is not about taking away critical thinking or freedoms of choice.
When Evangelicals and Roman Catholics or any religion for that matter tells us we are all sinners because we choose another path or question their dogma then there is something missing in their beliefs.
Spirituality does not try to prevent you from questioning, It does not try to prevent you from making choices for yourself.
And, most importantly, it does not interfere with Separation of Church and State.
83
@Jean I do object to the overly simple same paint brush method of referring to Evangelicals and RCs in the same breath. Catholicism is a history of questions as well as answers: Augustine, Aquinas, Edith Stein, Newman, Rahner all questioned things. Aquinas' method was to state all the questions first and then answer them according to his principles.
2
@Snip
I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. I am well aware of all of the teachings and the the theology as well. My experience is that there were very few principles that were really lived by those in charge. Just a way to keep the rest of us in line.
2
@Jean
I was taught by the priest in my Catholic catechism class in the 1950s that all Protestants went to hell and that if I were sexually attracted to a woman and died before confessing that “sin” that I would go to hell as well. How about all the help that the RC church gave to the Nazis during and after the war; about the laundering of Mafia drug money through the Vatican bank. An honorable intellectual history and numerous saints in the Church: is that sufficient compensation for the wrongs?
2
......scrolling through the posts, I saw that someone said to "get out" in nature if you want to experience spirituality - so true.
Trippy dippy has a place - maybe even the White House, given the choice between it or the ignorance, racism, greed, and narcissism we are currently experiencing.
I'm registered as a Democrat, and in general, am usually only frustrated at the party for the lack of a backbone, the lack of courage on dealing with the issues we actual are facing, and the lack of talent in speaking to regular citizens honestly and bluntly.
Nuclear weapons across the planet must be dismantled - not just the 11 or so that North Korea has.
Climate Change is a global emergency, and every current country must work with every other current country to reduce our green house gas emissions, now.
The choice between authoritarian leadership and democratic leadership is the choice between fear and freedom, between violence and peace - and the trend is tilting hard towards authoritarian rulers, including here in the United States of America.
We are well past a time where racism of any kind can be tolerated. We are well past a time where religious choice should lead to violence. We are well past a time where women should be treated differently than men. We are well past a time where the 7th generation shouldn't be as important as our own.
The stakes are high in this election; if freedom, individual rights, and the future of our planet matter.
99
@David Roy "...the future of our planet..."...at one time I thought that the photos taken by the astronauts from the moon of our beautiful, fragile, serene looking (but violent) home hanging in the blackness of space would be the symbol of a new type of deep, spiritual understanding of our shared place in the cosmos...oops, I was wrong...
2
Ross, to my mind, one of the best pieces you have written for the Times. Thanks for throwing some light on Williamson - she's not catching much from other sources.
6
It's kind of funny that Mr. Douthat left out Catholic liberation theology from his list of liberal religious impulses. It had a big impact on Central American politics, the church itself and to some degree American policy. Plus the Catholic church has always had a certain left wing radical streak in priests and nuns who opposed war in vocal and public ways.
It's also likely a current of liberalism within Christianity more broadly enabled the rather rapid turnaround and near universal acceptance of gay marriage.
Williamson is certainly a charismatic personality, but her fringe mix of feel-good psychology and spiritualism is likely no more influential than Wiccans and the other left-leaning fringe spirtual/religious movements, other than Williamson looking and feeling at home in upper income neighborhoods.
17
I think the Left, which in the age of Trump is the Center AND the Left, is more interested in the concrete life-changing programs Warren is offering than any Book of Miracles. Douthat can do his usual pretending that there is a Democratic equivalent to the lunacy of Pat Robertson, Wayne La Pierre, or Sean Hannity, but the Center-left does not include a "coven" bloc. The next Democratic president will NOT be taking advice from Williamson on whether to bomb Iran...we will have seen the last of government by TV wackjobs when the Apprentice exits stage right, hopefully into the waiting arms of prosecutors....
45
I disagree that materialism and humanitarianism are incoherent. To the contrary, humanitarianism is a natural outgrowth of materialism because materialism teaches that there is no afterlife, so we have to improve our world and be attuned to the suffering of others, knowing that they will not get another chance at a good life. On the other hand, while there are many saintly religious figures, religion for the average person is a psychological escape valve that allows them to tolerate and justify the world’s injustices because they were part of some god’s plan and the downtrodden will be rewarded in some afterlife.
9
@Aoy
For the non-believing atheists who scoff at Ross’ suggestion that there is a “contemplative” Left that might be worth investigating, try this:
Without knowing anything about you, here are some beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded. Please tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else ‘’
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. "Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it."
How did I do?
FWIW: i don't believe in the same god you don't believe in.
1
I am not a fan of Douthart because, as in this case, he blathers on from only his republican viewpoint, conjuring up mystical solutions to unsolvable problems.
Williamson has absolutely no experience in government. Empathy, love and kindness do not pave the roads. heal the sick, or make treaties with other countries. Does a smile, however, soften the blow when action hurts some of the populace?
When Obama sang ''Amazing Grace'', he truly understood and meant the words. Aside from Carter he is undoubtedly the most empathetic, compassionate and decent human to occupy the White House in decades. He made long lasting contributions for the benefit of society which Trump, one by one, is destroying. Would Ms. Williamson be able to restore our democracy, respect and functioning merely by praying for it? I don't think so.
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"A recurring question in American politics since the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition has been “where is the religious left?”"
Thank goodness there is no official 'religious left'. The Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition have shown that they have no 'morals' and the 'coalition' is no more than a group of hard right conservative political operatives for Republicans and Trump. I'll take Williamson over what Falwell, jr, Robertson, Graham, Reed (and maybe Ross) and others of their ilk are selling. And I do mean selling in a material sense.
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Kind of a brilliant piece. I give Douthat much credit for intellectual consistency (and that’s not a dig at “small minds...”). I used to think he was just fueled by some personal animosity against the sexual liberalism of the 60’s and 70’s, but the more I read him the more I see the rigor of his analytic framework. I’m not religious myself, but his point about the unstable bond between secular reason and liberal humanitarianism is a good one. God help us if we are condemned to a choice between an all-STEM world and an all-Waldorf one.
8
The relationship of the human, collectively or individually to the universe is really not what organized religion/spirituality is about. Organized religion is political in nature, generally requires belief in structured, random, artificial dogma- and that frequently OBSCURES a search for that relationship.
But I have never seen any conflict between such a search with the pursuit of science - because there is none. That exists only in the mind of the writer of this piece. The only thing that I can say that is universal about religion/philosophy cross- culturally is this : 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' The Golden Rule shows up as the basic guideline equation for human behavior in almost every religion. Science is a search for verifiable universal truths about the nature of the universe on which to better base our understanding of our relationship with the cosmos.
This article is based on a false premise - that there is a conflict between a genuine search for our relationship to the universe and an understanding of science. One has never cancelled out the other. They are essentially the same thing.
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Mr Douthat seems to fear reason, and therefore refers to it as a “cult.”
The great failure of conservative Christianity has long been its inability to reconcile faith with modernity. Thus it fears and demonizes what it does not understand, and drives away millions who want to believe but simply cannot when the vehicle for faith denies the obvious. Conservative Christians become more and more defensive, and turn to what Reinhold Niebuhr termed “bad religion” — religion that reserves the ultimate sanction for itself. The consequences of that are obvious: bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, and the conviction that liberalism — which represents pluralism and modernity — stands in opposition to God and must be crushed by whatever means, democratic or not.
Mr Douthat says that reason is a cult. The real cult is an angry and embattled sect that dehumanizes and wages war against its fellow man. Would that Mr Douthat would look to his own house. It needs troubling.
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Few will catch the Hamlet reference in your final
sentence, but I will share with my students come fall!
2
@Walker
Oh, I imagine lots readers got it. And groaned. Douthat throws everything in the pot.
What he won't do is justify his own curious set of beliefs and his unaccountable party affiliation -- those circumstances we call the real world.
Did he pull the lever for Cadet Bone Spur? We'll never know, will we?
During Civil War times Abraham Lincoln and his wife embraced spiritualism. During our current retreat to a "grey & blue" over race relations & an ongoing inner Civil War of the Dark Web vs. who knows what, a new consciousness arises. As the sordid past of slavery is revealed & the new one of human trafficking is uncovered what is the next revelation? Human sacrifice a la the Aztecs? In the past thousands filled auditoriums at spiritualist meccas. For awhile after an HBO docu film crowds descended upon Lily dale, New York. The "for awhile" dispersed but annotated editions of Madam Blavatsky reveal her relevance. Traditional religions perhaps need to generate new permutations & be stretched like ectoplasm to accommodate our zeitgeist. "Advanced Catholics" is the credo of The Playwrights Sanctuary--a tri coastal theater foundation informed by St Theresa, Kahil Gibran, St Vincent de Paul. Blavatsky, Steiner, Cayce. Theater can be created in cafes, churchs, colleges or in found spaces. Dr. Larry Myers (recently retired from St. John's University) offers an informed perspective on faith, politics of emotion & perception of multidimensional atectonic reality. Crises can be met with "creative disaster" while retaining the core of the traditional sacred. We must evoke the devout within recognizing our place within & without a cosmic collage.
3
Douthat errs when he suggests that the Religious Left is comprised primarily of New Age mystics. There is a thriving (and steadily growing) movement in liberal Christianity, particularly liberal Protestantism, which offers answers to the deeper questions of life. Unlike Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, liberal Christians happily accept the findings of history and science. They strive for a faith and practice that is more rather than less inclusive, and they emphasize compassion over self-interest. Another notable difference between the Religious Left and the Religious Right is that the former do not demand legislation forcing everyone else to abide by the dictates of their beliefs.
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@Old Soul:
Another way of saying “an inclusive faith” is “a watered-down faith.”
“Striving for a more inclusive faith” is precisely what would have caused Christianity to evaporate into the fog of late Roman religiosity if it hadn’t been for the orthodox councils and their insistence on strictly exclusive definitions. The “Nicene” and “Apostles’” Creeds, professed by all mainline churches, consist principally in implicit exclusions.
2
@Old Soul
I would add American Buddhists to the large left contingency of religious folks.
@PL
What you're calling "watered down" seems to me to be closer to the roots of mystical Christianity, which in turn seems to be closer to the words of Christ and his underlying message of unity. The mainline churches primarily created divisions and went on to mandate them, moving further away from what Jesus taught, IMO.
12
@PL Huh?
Watered down faith is a vast improvement, although just plain water will do me just fine.
3
Ross, I vividly remember when the 'Reverend' Al Sharpton ran for President. He appeared in at least several early debates during the 2004 campaign and gave a respectable account of himself, despite arriving at his podium with a checkered past. And yet everyone knew that he had zero chance of either getting the nomination or being elected President at either that moment.
I also remember when 'colorful' conservative Christian figures such as Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer ran for President.
As I mentioned when commenting on Friday's column, I have once or twice picked up The Course in Miracles, at the recommendation of people who found it useful. I found it not to my taste. But years later I remain fascinated by the story of how it was created - and how important that story is for our understanding of the commonality of 'revelation' to all spiritual traditions, including Christianity and Islam.
The major difference between the Course and these mainstream revelation-based traditions is that no one that I know of as yet taken to murder or mayhem in an effort to make "The Course" the ecclesiastical law of the land.
No one that I know of has yet proposed making its pronouncements the tenets of a government or putting to the sword or (burning at the stake) anyone who refuses to acknowledge its authority, especially in the modern era.
The Course may put me to sleep - but better is it to be put to sleep than to death at the hands of establishment religious zealots.
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It was never in doubt that leftists are just as vulnerable to superstition and unreason as right-wingers, only on different topics. One side denies climate change against all evidence, the other believes vaccines cause autism against all evidence. One side believe they regularly eat the flesh and drink the blood of a guy who died two thousand years ago, the other believes in ghosts or the god inside of everyone or something.
The vast majority of people have always been drawn to that kind of nonsense, throughout history. Progress has always come from a very small minority of scientists and inventors. And even those more often than not have a compartmentalized mind, where they are reasonable in some areas and irrational in others.
So I don't see that anything has changed. Anyone can run for president, and this year it seems that everyone does. As long as that Williamson person is not registering in the polls, I see no reason to worry.
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@GS - bad example. Anti-vaxxers aren't partisan, they come from both the right and the left. The liberal ones are just a bit more visible because they're sometimes people who otherwise trumpet rationality, like Bill Maher.
It's really not a case of "both sides are equally bad." You can find people on the fringe on the left, but the Democrats haven't made a rejection of reason and facts a mainstream part of their campaigning, and the Republicans have.
4
@Gus
In case you didn't see this question:
For the “non-believing atheists who scoff at Ross’ suggestion that there is a “contemplative” Left that might be worth investigating, try this:
Without knowing anything about you, Here’ are some beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded. Please tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else ‘’
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. "Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it."
How did I do?
1
As a member of the religious left, I can attest that we haven’t been hiding. We’ve been in plain sight all along, working diligently at fulfilling the obligations in Matthew 25:31-46. By and large, we don’t have to reconcile our religion with our politics the same way evangelicals do (as explored ad nauseam by the media), so we’re just not that interesting. No inner demons to wrestle, no moral conflict to parse. I don’t know anyone who takes Marianne Williamson seriously, as a religious or a political guide. That said, “Love one another” is the basis of Christ’s teaching — and not a bad thing to interject into public debate right now. It’s completely counter to what’s coming out of the mouths of Trump supporters at the appalling rallies and in Congress.
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Isn't it about time Christianity got a new addition to its antique canon?
The reality is that no spiritual belief is more true or false than any other. They are all just stories that humans make up to make sense of their lives, something that science by its nature not only cannot do, but undermines: science teaches us about the objective world, including ourselves, which sees us as physical objects following the laws of physics, known and unknown. The Enlightenment is as much a human story, an ideology offering meaning, as is Christianity, communism, Hinduism, fascism, Islam, humanism, and all the rest.
Some stories succeed in enabling groups to form and act to further their memes that help genes to replicate. At root, that's it. It's hard to accept, but free will, is as unsubstantiated as your average god. This is something that we will have to come to terms with, with stronger stories than survived in the past when so little was truly known about the world our actual connections to it as physical objects moving through space and time.
Perhaps
9
@Felix Qui
The problem is that we don't tell the honest story of The Enlightenment.
For instance, where would the American Revolution be without the influence of Freemasons - a group that held some extremely nonstandard beliefs (including, in least in that period through the late 19th century, the acceptance of astrology - see the astrological glyphs incorporated into the memorial to the assassinated President Garfield, in Washington, DC).
Locke, who is the father of liberal democracy in England and the US, is undoubtedly a Christian, as witnessed by his close friendship with one of the most iconoclastic (and intolerant) Christians of that or any era, Issac Newton.
I could go on.
We have airbrushed the Enlightenment to fit the materialist prejudices of our time - and that not only does an injustice to the thinkers of that heroic period, but also leads posterity down an erroneous, intellectually dishonest path.
3
@Matthew Carnicelli
All good points worth noting. A lot of our cherished myths could do with more critical investigation.
1
Thank you Ross. I had no idea what Ms. Williamson was babbling about on the debate stage. Love is a fine and noble goal for politics, but human beings are more easily motivated by fear, and fear metastasizes into hate. Love emerges from peace and security, for only when one feels safe and secure can they risk the vulnerability that love requires. In short, she has no idea what she is talking about, because she has not provided the bridge to bringing about peace and security. Starting with love, puts the psychological cart before the horse and it doesn't work so well as Jesus discovered. If I need to find the Christian Left, I will go down to my local Episcopal Church. If I want new age leftist spirituality, I will head out in search of the vortex at the airport mesa in Sedona, Arizona. Three pops at the airport's restaurant and I will be sure to find it.
7
Thank you, this is a very nice piece. Really thoughtful and helping to bring important themes out of the shadows. I'm struck by how many commenters here don't get, or would prefer to snipe than consider the actual substance.
I especially appreciate this: "Chase religious ideas out one door and they inevitably come in another — because the human mind naturally rebels against a worldview as incomplete, as manifestly threadbare, as pure materialism." Exactly. If you did deep enough and check your preconceived categories at the door, we are all religious and there is always some mixing of the empirical with the mystical.
13
Yes but we all don't need to form an organized religion around this spiritualism.
@ScaredyCat Yes, I think that's right. But we do form other sorts of institutions around them that in many ways are just as faith-based and much more slippery than religions. At least a religion calls itself a religion and we know it is that. Many of our secular institutions have a quasi-religious (faith-based) ideological grounding, which we don't even notice because they are not "religions."
3
By over-analyzing (and/or over-critiquing) Williamson's candidacy and -- more importantly -- her message, you'll miss the point. She's talking about empathy, compassion and valuing the common good -- all things sorely lacking among Trump and his supporters.
Williamson is framing the 2020 election in a fundamental, incisive and powerful way. Do you want a government that acts based on empathy, compassion and valuing the common good or a government that acts based on bias, prejudice and hate; that purposefully furthers the interests of the already well-off at the expense of average Americans and the already less-fortunate; and, that essentially couldn't care less about ethics, morals, respect or the value of human dignity?
In the general election for president, I will enthusiastically support whomever ends up being the Democratic nominee. While that probably won't be Williamson, let's appreciate, embrace and project her message. In the end, what she's talking about is spot on -- and, is what this next election really comes down to.
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@fact or friction wrote: "She's talking about empathy, compassion and valuing the common good -- all things sorely lacking among Trump and his supporters."
LOL. What are they? Subhuman, unfeeling "others"?
Non-college educated folks in Trump country have been dying from suicide, overdose and liver damage are such high rates, the life expectancy of the entire US is going down for the first time in a century.
So far, 500,000 corpses according to Princeton researchers - as many as from AIDS.
From the NYTimes:
“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,” wrote two Dartmouth economists, Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner, in a commentary to the Deaton-Case analysis to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Wow,” said Samuel Preston, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on mortality trends and the health of populations, who was not involved in the research. “This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.”
Dr. Deaton had but one parallel. “Only H.I.V./AIDS in contemporary times has done anything like this,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html
2
@Tim
Perhaps we should stop insisting they are being cheated and the entire world is out to get them.
Trump followers who have a median income of 70K a year operate on their grievance and sense of missed entitlement because their cherished news network, Fox, tells them so.
How about a little experiment: rather than tell them how much they've been cheated by EVERYONE, let's tell them how lucky they are(which is more inline with the truth) and see how they do. Bet they are more productive, happier and live longer healthier lives. Also bet they stop voting Republican.
13
Personally, I will vote for Elizabeth Warren's briefcase full of white papers over Marianne Williamson's loopy, love-filled prophecies. But Ross Douthat right when he points out that many Americans believe that there is more to this world and to humanity than scientific rationalism can ever encompass. And so I find myself in agreement with Douthat (this happens once or twice every few years or so), and I confess that I found something strangely compelling about Williamson's closing statement during the debate. It wasn't exactly a political statement, but it spoke to many voters' yearning for a president who can urge Americans to set aside some of their differences, care for their fellow citizens, and work together for a change.
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@Chris Rasmussen Every one of the Democratic candidates is denouncing divisiveness in the public forum today.
@Snip Yes, and so did Obama '08...a campaign I supported enthusiastically. I hate to quote Sarah Palin, but "How's that hopey changey thing workin' our for ya?" The parties, and Americans generally, are more deeply divided than they have been for decades.
1
I'm way out there on the weird spectrum but I want my politicians firmly rooted in secular, science-based Maya...
14
"Certainly within the new progressive world there is a tension between a desire to claim the mantle of science and a yearning to fuse the political and mystical..."
For the sake of argument, let's just assume this is correct (and I'm not convinced that it is -- I, for one, prefer my politics mysticism-free). Is Marianne Williamson's running for president the next logical step? I have to think not.
Her willingness to seek the nation's top spot before ever having held elected office at any other level is nothing short of Trumpian. She said one thing in the debate (the connections between healthcare, the sorry state of the environment, toxins in our food supply, etc.) that I appreciated because no other candidates tend to link those things, but (granted the format didn't allow for elaboration) stated no policy to improve the status quo.
Also, with no political résumé to her credit, she has no alliances in either chamber of Congress to help enact an agenda. She may be "the kind of thing you like, if you like that kind of thing" but imho her presence suggests nothing bigger than the fact that Trump's ascent to the White House has made other political outsiders believe the door is open for them to attempt the same.
23
@D Price. It’s a publicity stunt to raise her profile and sell more books, speaking fees, etc. How anyone can continue to fall for her is beyond me.
3
Interesting article.
My suggestion, Mr. Douthat, to those who want to blend science and the spirit:
Study some ecology. Then get outside and enjoy it in one of our national parks. Or some astronomy then go and observe the heavens. etc.
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@Marc McDermott
And read the works of Loren Eiseley, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and May Sarton, just for starters.
6
@Marc McDermott
Great ideas, but very difficult to do from modern urban areas. You'd agree, I'm sure, that National Parks are not readily accessible to most of us. And astronomy? Speaking as a long time amateur astronomer, urban skies would have turned Copernicus into a pavement artist.
I think what you're saying is to simply be aware of the connection and perfection in everything.
4
I myself believe that the fundamental problem is a lack of clarity, exemplified by doing things like capitalizing the first letter of the word spiritual, and in obfuscating the meaning of the words faith and reason into a short-hand for religion, and letting it drift without examination into assumptions about Christianity as the only possible manifestation of the impossible improbability of our existence on this single planet. If God were a Christian, he would not be God. The very definition of God is of a being/entity/thing/whatever that escapes all definition. Until that is limpid in every mind, we will create gods and religions in our image. I prefer Williamson's soft focus to the current strand of hard core right wing evangelism, but I do not believe either does much to show us with any clarity how we should act. Perhaps "love your neighbor as yourself" says it all. We could spool that onto consequences and actions.
18
Perceiving the spiritual crises of others (and nations), is an easy call which should be turned back to the caller. Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) wrote “Grist for the Mill”, pointing out that for individuals, any of the nonsense we’re seeing (debates of twenty-plus, Trump “foreign policy”, etc.) can be a reminder to work on our own cases.
2
I was unaware that Sam Harris is, as Douhat alleges, the "scourge of the progressive left".
From my exposure to Harris' message, he is a progressive with NONE of the 'political correctness'; an excellent presentation.
12
Mr. Douthat posits, "the mix of hard scientific materialism and well-meaning liberal humanitarianism has always been somewhat incoherent." I disagree and wonder is it his mysticism-shadowed middle age that allows him to argue without reason or even sense. Actually, as Hagglund has argued. secular faith and humaneness are the only coherent combination.
27
@Paul
For the scientific materialists who scoff at Ross’ suggestion that there is a “contemplative” Left that might be worth investigating, try this:
Without knowing anything about you, here are some beliefs you hold that do not have any scientific evidence, but which you believe are scientifically grounded.
Please tell me if I get any of them correct:
1. We are bound by the material make up of our brain. This means that we do not have any free will, as "mind" or "consciousness" are simply complex configurations of matter.
2. Apart from the tiny fraction of the universe which consists of living beings on earth (and possibly an infinitesimally small number of other locations) there is no mind, no consciousness, no intentionality, no sentience, no intelligence, anywhere else ‘’
3. "laws of nature" arose 13.7 billion years ago without any intention or intelligence and have been sustained similarly.
4. It is impossible, beyond a few inconsequential mind-body interactions, for "mind" or "consciousness" to have more than a marginal impact on the body.
5. "Evolutionary processes can be explained wholly by the combination of natural selection and random mutation. Though we are perfectly happy to admit there is infinitely more we don't know about evolution than we do know the one thing we do know is that intention, purpose, direction, sentience, awareness, has absolutely nothing to do with it."
How did I do?
2
I am surprised that Ross failed to reflect on the spiritual void and absence of any substantive moral code which cuts across our national consciousness. It is partially a result of the rejection of religious traditions and the emergence of unchecked materialism and individualism.
16
@Hpower You fail to consider the unchecked materialism of the Megachurch preachers, and the moral collapse of a religious right that supports Trump. Up here, where I live, the morality of my atheist friends, and their leanings towards philanthropy, is far greater than what I see from the religious right. I am fortunate to not have a spiritual void, as you put it. What you call spiritual is superstition and unsubstantiated dogma. No thank you.
5
A well-articulated analysis. I especially appreciated the portrait of the fraying edges of American religiosity re-knitting themselves in new combinations and sparking new conflicts and alliances.
6
Mr. Douthat mentions the "normal, official media". What, if anything, does that mean?
"Official" means "relating to an authority or public body and its duties, actions, and responsibilities". The word usually applies to governmental functions.
In this country, the "normal" media are privately owned.
So it seems to me that the "normal, official media" do not exist.
Is this just an indication that, once again, Mr. Douthat has written without thinking?
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@Dan Styer
I don't believe in this situation the term "official" needs to be overthought. Unless of course you make pocket change blogging your views and package them as news; where I then could see your objecting it out of hand as being snobbery on his part.
...only a synthesis of faith and reason can settle things between the two. Well in. And i agree with Marianne when she says that the problem is Spiritual, Not only in America but in other parts of the world.
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