Marquette Theologian Mark Johnson on Terrorism

Professor Mark Johnson blogs infrequently, but when he does he’s worth reading.  Most recently, he’s posted his thoughts on ISIS terrorism.

Here is just a piece of his most recent post, which might well provoke you to read the entire thing. Speaking of the beheadings that ISIS has committed, Johnson observes:

The President has spoken of them as appalling and barbaric, while others say that those who took these four lives—there will be more—are brutal and savage.

But these descriptions both mislead and fail to get to the heart of the matter. . . . Brutal things are done by brutes—lions, bears, snakes, sharks—which are animals devoid of reason. Our human reason or intelligence is the cause and hallmark of our dignity. Brute animals, by contrast, operate in the physical world of nature, red in tooth and claw, where they must kill or be killed. So they attack and kill without thinking, acting instead on the instincts given them by nature, and nature’s God. This is why we don’t put animals on trial when they kill a human being.

So also, savage things are done by savages—humans in pre-civilized cultures, we might say—who indeed are humans possessing reason, but who have not yet had the range of corrective experiences from history and religion that lift cultures to a point of fuller human living and interaction: no belief yet in individual human dignity and worth, and no system of the rule of man-made law with a right participate in their own governance, and to appeal to impartial judges.

Thus the striking thing about the behavior is ISIS is its anachronistic nature. People with access to 21st century social media, 21st century travel and 21st century weapons show a primitive worldview.

Anybody reading (say) the Book of Judges might well be appalled by the bloodshed it contains, but it recounts events over 3,000 years ago. What excuse does ISIS have?

Johnson’s conclusion is that the terrorists have simply chosen not to think. That’s a choice for which they can, and should, be held morally responsible.

A Catholic Theologian Not Enamored of Obama

While left-leaning “Catholic” theologians have signed on to support the Obama reelection campaign, other voices in the profession are not so taken with our incumbent president.

One of those is Marquette theologian Mark Johnson, who has posted a detailed deconstruction of Obama’s Democratic Convention speech.

One particularly cogent passage:

Charity, in the Catholic context in particular, is the love we have directly for God first and foremost, and for his Images (i.e., us humans) precisely in our likeness, our family resemblance, to him. It is this devotion towards God’s human creatures that commands us care for their basic needs: whatsoever you do...

But this vocabulary and these virtues I learned in church and through the myriad ​rivulets of my Catholic religion. It is not the task of government to instruct me on the proper love of God, or of God’s people. My priest does that, your rabbi or imam does that.

The President is not my pastor.​

My ultimate concern is that, in President Obama’s take on things, nothing seems to lay outside the scope and possible command of the federal government​. The federal government is in charge of protecting the American personality, of protecting “who we are” (the President’s trump card when he is at a loss in arguing for why we should not allow something: “it’s not who we are”). The federal government is the protector of charity and love. What’s left for those of us who aren’t in the government?

As Johnson is aware, Obama is guilty of the same misbegotten notion that the leftist theologians now getting signatures for a letter attacking Paul Ryan are: the notion that charity is the purview solely of the Federal government, and not other levels of government, nor the Church, nor families, nor neighborhoods nor friendship groups.

It’s a notion that embodies the “one-sided centralization” that Catholic Social Thought has always condemned.

It’s a misbegotten notion typical of secular leftists, which is what the anti-Ryan theologians are, notwithstanding any religious rhetoric they may spout.