On Sentimentality

Here is a very good account of sentimentality as a vice, from Edward Feser:

“In The Aesthetics of Music, Roger Scruton (building on some ideas of Michael Tanner) puts forward a brief but illuminating account of sentimentality. A sentimental person, according to Scruton, tends to be quick to respond emotionally to a stimulus, will appear to be pained but will enjoy his pangs, will respond with equal violence to a variety of stimuli in succession, will nevertheless avoid following his emotional responses up with appropriate actions, and will respond more readily to strangers and to abstract issues than to persons known to him or to concrete circumstances requiring time, energy, or personal sacrifice. In short, a sentimental person is one whose emotional life becomes an end in itself and loses its connection both to the external circumstances that would normally shape it and to the behavior that it ought to generate. Feelings of moral outrage, romantic passion, and other emotional states become valued for their own sake to such an extent that the actual moral facts, the well-being of the beloved, etc. fade into the background. Sentimentality thus involves having one’s emotions ‘on the cheap’ – enjoying them, as it were, without paying the costs they entail. For that reason, Scruton says, it is a vice.”

The Unlikely Disciple

Liberty University

Books & Culture has posted a book review of Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. The review is insightful, and the book seems to be very fascinating. Roose is a student at Brown, who decided to spend a semester at Liberty, the Baptist university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell. Coming from a run-of-the-mill liberal Northeast household, Roose was curious to understand the “other side.” Thankfully, he is generous, open-minded, and objective (something that typically eludes the average “liberal” inquirer into evangelical faith and culture). Check out his YouTube trailer for the book.

The greatest testament to Liberty is his overwhelmingly positive impression of the students, their embodiment of the love of Christ. I’m not too surprised. I was raised in a Baptist church and school that was pretty much Liberty University in microcosm. The students from my school that went to Liberty, or similar colleges, were among the most devoted to Christ, insofar as these things can be surmised. We can, and should, criticize continuing remnants of fundamentalism at Liberty, but the most important thing — as God will judge us — is our faith in Christ, our trust in Him, and the love from this fount that extends to our neighbor. Higher education, typically, knows nothing of holiness as an academic telos.

Accountability and Apologetics

I occasionally engage in discussions on various intra-Christian blogs related to ecclesial apologetics. I have no problem with such apologetics. It is necessary that Catholics, Orthodox, and the varied Protestants defend their ecclesial stance and relate it to the average layperson. The problem is when the apologetic claims are untethered from what is known (or the related probabilities), which necessarily requires the work of scholars. If a Catholic claims that the “early Church” was under the juridical authority of the See of Rome, then something is wrong. That is akin to a Protestant claiming that scripture as canon and authority developed apart from a Church, with bishops, and an assumed tradition or rule of faith. That sort of ahistorical presentation may win converts to your church, but under a guise of misinformation (illusion).

The apologist, thus, must be held accountable to scholarship, as the scholars are held accountable by peer review (imperfect, to be sure). The apologist is, thus, a mediator between the scholar and the layperson. The typical layperson does not have the time or skill to engage with upper-level theology and historical research — nor should they, when responsibilities lay elsewhere. The apologist, however, must. If the apologist cannot or refuses to do so, he or she should not be an apologist. The average, inquiring layperson is, to some degree, at the mercy of the person mediating the information. We cannot expect the inquirer to fully adjudicate the information given, but we can expect the apologist to come under judgment from fellow apologists and scholars.

We cannot escape this need for the apologist nor the need for accountability. All truth is ultimately tested in the court of our subjectivity, but all truth inheres in reality — the real world “out there.” Attending to this reality is the only remedy for solipsism.

“The Jesus Project” and American education

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

There’s a new group of biblical scholars setting to determine points of consensus on the historical Jesus. They’re calling themselves, “The Jesus Project,” as the Christian Post reports. The CP quotes a former professor of mine at UNC Charlotte, James Tabor (author, The Jesus Dynasty): “the Jesus Project repudiates any theological agendas, special pleading, or dogmatic presuppositions.” That certainly sounds like Professor Tabor, who taught my New Testament course wherein he assured us that Jesus was just another failed apocalyptic messiah, whose corpse rotted long ago. Among his extensive work on NT origins, Tabor has been in the process of doing a new translation of the Bible because, as he told us, the NRSV and all other translations are too Christian, i.e., tainted by “theological agendas, special pleading, or dogmatic presuppositions.” I have to grant Professor Tabor one thing: he taught me that the Bible was a theological text, created by (broadly speaking) theologians. As a committed agnostic, his task is to simply recognize the theological intent as it shapes the history. Belief shapes facts; reverse this belief-shaped construction and discover the fact. Tabor, being a very smart man, is quite confident in his ability to discover the fact, with the help of his fellow scholars.

All of this leads to the interesting question of whether a secular university can have theologians on staff, which, given a broader definition, would include historians, literary critics, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, etc. who believe in a Christian interpretation of reality. Religious Studies departments in America have, with very few exceptions, rejected theology as a legitimate discipline in the public university, and, thus, they do not hire scholars engaged in constructive Christian dogmatics. Most other departments (history, philosophy, psychology, etc.) would likewise reject a candidate who explicitly claims Christian faith as integral to their hermeneutic. In order to be counted among the true scholars, you have to claim an agnostic/secular hermeneutic (i.e., a hermeneutic without God) tethered to a logical positivism of universally-accessible material. Christian scholars are caught in a predicament because they believe in a God known according to faith in a moral regeneration. As such, it is the “will” that determines truth for the Christian — at least, that is how our secular counterparts will interpret it, and they are right insofar as the will must change in order to recognize truth. But, the whole modern secular university is built upon the principle that the mind alone — reason alone — is the only legitimate faculty for claiming knowledge. Thus, only that which can be logically demonstrated is appropriate in the public university.

That is what virtually all of my professors believed, and, thus, we are in an odd predicament in America in that our tax dollars support educational institutions with a decidedly anti-Christian modus operandi. We have bought the lie that “secular objectivity” is a value-free and religiously-neutral concept. I will, as with most things, blame my parents’ generation. Thanks a lot, baby boomers! Idiots.