By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
The
Enlightenment of the 17th century was a major turning point in the
evolution of religion, politics and law in the Western world. It was initiated by advances in knowledge and
reason, and it transformed a politics based on the sovereignty of God and the
divine right to rule into a politics based on the sovereignty of man and
governed by the libertarian concepts of democracy and human rights.
The
Roman Catholic Church was the source of political legitimacy in the Western
world until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century opened
the door to change. The seemingly
endless medieval religious wars were testimony to the dominance of religion in politics until the Treaty of
Westphalia of 1648 superseded the sovereignty
of God with Hugo
Grotius’ concept of national sovereignty
that paved the way for international law, democracy and human rights.
Martin
Luther was the most influential theologian of the Reformation. He was a “Renaissance-era disruptor” whose
subversive ideas were given wide-spread coverage through a new means of social
media (the printing press). Alec Ryrie
has compared Luther with Donald Trump. It
is a useful, if far-fetched, comparison of two men of power who shared egocentric
and authoritarian personality traits, and who were hostile to those who
criticized them.
Like
Trump, Luther was audacious enough to challenge the dominant power structure of
his day, the Roman Catholic Church, and he did so using vulgar language and
crude tactics. And like Trump, Luther demanded
unquestioned loyalty. He used political
alliances with secular rulers to deny any Protestants who questioned his rigid
Lutheran doctrines the same freedom to dissent that he had demanded for himself
when he challenged rigid Catholic doctrines.
Ryrie
noted that Luther would not likely have identified himself with Trump, but instead
identified Trump with Henry VIII, a contemporary secular despot who, like
Trump, used religion to promote his personal ambitions:
Henry VIII was a
man who combined narcissistic self-importance, bearish charisma, intellectual
laziness, a throwaway attitude toward women, a degree of real shrewdness that
he himself persistently overestimated, and a lack of any sustained interest in
the nitty-gritty of government. A man who first struck a very public pose
against the Lutheran cause when it suited him politically and who performed a
180-degree turn a few years later. His new Protestant allies never quite
trusted him, but they couldn’t resist the opportunities he offered them. Only a
handful of lonely figures in England, bolstered from afar by Luther himself,
stayed true to their Never Henry principles.
Luther,
Henry VIII and Trump mixed religion and politics to promote their power and
then used their power to oppress dissidents.
In Luther’s day, religious and political power were virtually
indistinguishable. In our day, Trump and
his Christian evangelical supporters have sought to replicate that volatile mix
of religious and political power. In so
doing they may have unintentionally initiated a new Reformation—or revolution—in
both religion and politics.
Could Trump—or any populist despot
for that matter—take America back to the
future? Ryrie suggests that’s
possible if the populist despot can find a person “…like a Cardinal Wolsey or Thomas Cromwell…who can be left alone to manage the business of
government capably while his boss looks after the show business and takes the
credit. That has happened in U.S. politics at the state and local
level, so it’s not hard to imagine at the national level.
The
Enlightenment changed the trajectory of history in the Western world with the
libertarian concepts of democracy and human rights. But democracy is not enough. Liberty and justice for all depends on human
rights to protect minorities from a tyranny of the majority. Our Founding Fathers knew that, but recent
presidents have been ambiguous in promoting human rights, and President Trump has
been even more inconsistent than his predecessors.
Fared
Zakaria has characterized Trump’s refusal to promote human rights as “a step
back to a not-so-liberal world order.” It is little consolation that Nikki Haley, U.S.
ambassador to the UN, has railed against nations on the UN Human Rights Council
for ignoring human rights when the U.S. no longer promotes them. Until the priority of human rights is
restored in U.S. foreign policy, the evolution of religion, politics and law could
well move back to the future.
Notes
and related commentary:
The
seminal work of Hugo Grotius On the Law of War and Peace (1625) set the
stage for the sovereignty of man to replace the sovereignty of God following
the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). Grotius
introduced the concept of national sovereignty governed by international law.
On Alec Ryrie’s comparison of the
attributes of Martin Luther, Henry VIII and Donald Trump, see http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/23/martin-luther-was-the-donald-trump-of-1517/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Flashpoints%205-23&utm_term=Flashpoints.
On Fareed Zakaria’s views on how Trump could spur the rise of a new,
not-so-liberal world order, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-could-spur-the-rise-of-a-new-not-so-liberal-world-order/2017/06/01/1e9aeff2-4707-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
On Ambassador Haley’s condemnation
of the UN Human Rights Council, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-warns-it-may-pull-out-of-un-human-rights-body-over-abuses-treatment-of-israel/2017/06/06/3a42b78e-4a9b-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1.
On Lawrence Summers’ view that the
U.S. has experienced “a hinge in history,” moving from 75 years of progress in
human betterment to a period of regression based on the inept and
counterproductive actions of a post-rational, unpredictable and unreliable
president. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-75-years-of-progress-was-last-week-a-hinge-in-history/2017/06/04/2085b91e-47cf-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
On President Trump’s foreign policy as
a regression that has made the Middle East worse, see http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/making-the-middle-east-worse-trump-style-saudi-arabia-qatar-iran-israel/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FP%206-9&utm_term=Flashpoints.
On freedom and human rights as an
integral component of U.S. foreign policy, and comparing the record of
President Reagan on freedom in foreign policy with that of President Trump, see
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/06/08/the-unbridgeable-difference-between-trump-and-reagan/?wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1.
On the inconsistency of Trump’s selective focus on human rights,
see http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/politics/trump-human-rights-cuba/index.html.
On religion and reason, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2014/12/religion-and-reason.html.
On God and country: resolving conflicting concepts of sovereignty,
see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/03/god-and-country-resolving-conflicting.html.
On religion, human rights and national security, see
On liberty in law: a matter of man’s law not God’s law, see
On the evolution of religion and politics from oppression to freedom,
see
On religion, liberty and justice at home and abroad, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-liberty-and-justice-at-home.html.
On irreconcilable differences and the demise of democracy, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/irreconcilable-differences-and-demise.html.
On the need for a revolution in religion and politics, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/02/the-need-for-revolution-in-religion-and.html.
On human rights, freedom and national security, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/04/human-rights-freedom-and-national.html
No comments:
Post a Comment