A preacher of my acquaintance was recently asked whether Islam is evil. Being a blunt-spoken sort and not one for pulling his punches, he said, “Yes.” I can’t help thinking that it wasn’t a very helpful answer, in part because it isn’t a very helpful question; it can mean several different things, covering multiple areas of interest and concern.For instance, one might consider this question theologically: is Islam, considered as a body of beliefs about God, evil? As a Christian, I would say that Islam is a religion which preaches a form of works righteousness, thus encouraging people to put their faith in their own efforts rather than in Jesus Christ; as such, it’s as evil as any other such religion, including a number of things which generally pass themselves off as forms of Christianity. This is not to say that there’s no real difference between a given stream of Islam and your typical American church preaching “moralistic therapeutic deism,” but the core theological issue would seem to be the same in both cases. One may call specific versions of Islam evil—the jihadists who plan terrorist attacks and preach suicide bombing as a form of religious martyrdom are clearly teaching something evil—but it seems to me that you can’t call Islam as a whole evil, on a theological level, without saying the same about some ostensibly Christian preachers. (To some, that might be a deterrent to calling Islam evil; to others, it might prompt a re-evaluation of some American religious leaders.)That said, I’m pretty sure that the person who asked that question didn’t have that concern in mind; I suspect that their interest was less theological than political. We might therefore ask, Is Islam necessarily the cause of political evil? I know there are those who are pessimistic and would say “yes” to this because they believe that Islam naturally tends to despotism; but I believe this question is properly answered in the negative. One, even if one agrees that there can be no such thing as a healthy Islamic democracy, modern Western democracy isn’t the only good way to run a country; Morocco, as a constitutional monarchy that has seen significant positive developments over the last couple decades, offers another possible way forward. Two, there are Muslim thinkers at work developing a particular Muslim theological and philosophical groundwork for democracy, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to declare their work a failure before it even has the chance to bear fruit. This is especially true given that we have in Iraq a potential cradle for Islamic democracy, and early signs of its success are encouraging.At this point, someone might object by pointing to evil Islamic governments and leaders, and certainly I have no great opinion of any of the rulers of Iran; but to say that there are evil people who carry the label “Muslim” is not to say even that all Muslims are evil, let alone that Islam itself is evil. After all, there are evil people who claim to be Christian, too; the first person who comes to my mind isn’t a political figure, but Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, who was an elder in his Lutheran church in Wichita. It’s a severe logical stretch at best to assume that because a person who professes a given faith is evil, that faith must be the cause of their evil.The bottom line: I believe Christianity is true, which logically entails the belief that Islam is false. I think it’s perfectly fair to say that there are streams of Islamic tradition, such as Wahhabism, which are bad news. A sizeable percentage of the world’s terrorists are Muslim, and while I suspect a lot of them (perhaps most of them) would still be pretty malignant people if they’d been raised as Buddhists or Baptists, the fact remains that they both justify and promote their terrorist activity on the grounds of their Muslim beliefs; I think it’s foolish in the extreme to pretend not to see that. But all of that said, it seems to me that treating Islam (and Muslims in general) as if the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al’Zawahiri are representative of what it necessarily means to be Muslim is like holding up Fred Phelps and saying, “This is what a Christian looks like.” A more nuanced evaluation, I think, would be preferable.
Category Archives: Faith and politics
Being inconvenient is a capital offense
Such, at least, is the logic of abortion; such is the logic of euthanasia. Such is the logic of the culture of death, which we might also call the culture of “might makes right.” And don’t let talk of “death with dignity” misdirect you; though there are certainly those who are suicidal because of illness or injury, those who advocate euthanasia have far broader concerns. As Dr. Bob of The Doctor Is In writes,
While invariably promoted as a merciful means of terminating suffering, the suffering relieved is far more that of the enabling society than of its victims. “Death with dignity” is the gleaming white shroud on the rotting corpse of societal fear, self-interest and ruthless self-preservation.
This is where we end up when our only concern is what is reasonable in our own eyes, and our only standard for reasonability is our own self-interest: with
a philosophy where the Useful is the Good, whose victims are the children whom Reason scorned.Euthanasia is the quick fix to man’s ageless struggle with suffering and disease. The Hippocratic Oath—taken in widely varying forms by most physicians at graduation—was originally administered to a minority of physicians in ancient Greece, who swore to prescribe neither euthanasia nor abortion—both common recommendations by healers of the age. The rapid and widespread acceptance of euthanasia in pre-Nazi Germany occurred because it was eminently reasonable and rational. Beaten down by war, economic hardship, and limited resources, logic dictated that those who could not contribute to the betterment of society cease being a drain on its lifeblood. Long before its application to ethnic groups and enemies of the State, it was administered to those who made us most uncomfortable: the mentally ill, the deformed, the retarded, the social misfit.
The immediate material benefits of such a policy are easy to articulate. The hidden long-term costs, material, cultural, and spiritual, are equally easy to overlook through deliberate short-sightedness, yet they are in the end far greater:
The benefits of suffering, subtle though they may be, can be discerned in many instances even by the unskilled eye. What are the chances that Dutch doctors will find a cure for the late stage cancer or early childhood disease, when they now so quickly and “compassionately” dispense of their sufferers with a lethal injection? Who will teach us patience, compassion, unselfish love, endurance, tenderness, and tolerance, if not those who provide us with the opportunity through their suffering, or mental or physical disability? These are character traits not easily learned, though enormously beneficial to society as well as individuals. How will we learn them if we liquidate our teachers?Higher moral principles position roadblocks to our behavior, warning us that grave danger lies beyond. When in our hubris and unenlightened reason we crash through them, we do so at great peril, for we do not know what evil lies beyond.
As Dr. Bob notes, the truth of that is clearly illustrated by the German history with euthanasia. Here’s hoping we will ultimately show ourselves willing to learn from their experience, rather than condemning ourselves to relive it.HT: Gerald Vanderleun, with special thanks to the Anchoress.
The evangelical temptation to the political heresy
The thing I appreciate most about Phil Johnson’s post on that subject over at Pyromaniacs is that he keeps the lines clear:
My main point is about how the church corporately should be spending her time and resources, not about what an individual who is vocationally (or avocationally) involved in politics should do.
That’s a critically important distinction; losing it renders the whole conversation unintelligible. There is no question that Christians should be politically aware and engaged; the question is what the mission of the church should be. I do believe, obviously, that Christian theology applies to politics, and so I don’t think political quietism is a wise or appropriate Christian stance; that said, as Johnson argues at some length, the preaching of the gospel and the teaching of Scripture must lie at the center of our ministry and must be the core of our testimony at every point. We should apply that to politics as to every other part of life, but our politics—like our behavior in every other part of life—should always flow out of our faith, rather than the other way around. If it’s the other way around, we have a problem. The job of the leaders of the church, in this respect, is to make sure that it isn’t and we don’t.
HT: Bob
Reader’s guide: posts on the nexus of religion and politics
The developing center of this blog, I think, is a core of reflections on the interrelationship between Christian theology and praxis and American politics. As such, I wanted to post this as the first part of an orientation to this blog, and what it’s all about (updated through 5/31/09).
Barack Obama and the case for faith in the public square
This is the first post I ever put up about Sen. Obama; while he hasn’t lived up to my hopes, I still appreciate the call he put forward in his address to the Building a Covenant for a New America conference for “a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country.”
The idolatry of American politics
One of my recurring themes: “When our politics shapes our faith rather than the other way around—when our identity is defined even in part by a political party or a political cause—then our political commitments have claimed a place that belongs only to God, and we are guilty of idolatry.”
Moral arguments and the political process
Returning to the theme of “the case for faith in the public square,” and why secularism should not be privileged above other faiths.
Politics in a state of grace
Thoughts on a properly Christian approach and attitude to politics.
Memo to the movement: be careful
On Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and avoiding the temptation to messianic politics.
Moral psychology and voting right (or left)
On understanding the reasons why people disagree with us (and why that’s more of a problem for liberals than for conservatives).
Put not your trust in princes
On the proper limits of political convictions and commitments.
Keeping perspective on the election
The key is to remember who holds our first allegiance.
Thoughts on the humility proper to politics
On being aware of our own imperfection, and especially with respect to our political positions.
What has Christ to do with politics?
What is the proper connection between the life of faith and political life?
The temptation and peril of theologized politics
The dangers of letting our politics drive our faith.
Using faith for political ends
On the importance of ending the political subservience of religion.
Thoughts on the humility proper to politics
I’ve argued before that there’s an idolatrous spirit about American politics these days, and that we as Christians need to reexamine our attitude and approach to politics and the political arena. There are various reasons why this is a significant problem; one that I don’t think I’ve written about to this point is that it leads us to overidentify our cause with God’s, and thus to conclude that our opponents are necessarily God’s enemies.
To be sure, there are real evils in this world, and thus in our politics, and some of them have powerful political constituencies and advocates; we as Christians have the responsibility to identify those evils and oppose them to the best of our ability. However, we have to be very careful as we do so, because there are traps for the unwary that go along with that, and if we aren’t wise we could easily fall into them. One is the trap of assuming that those who disagree with us must necessarily do so out of evil motives; there are no doubt those for whom this is true, but there are many others who are seeking to do what’s best, to the best of their ability and understanding. The correctness of our own positions is by no means as self-evident as we too often assume it is. We need to give people who hold opposing positions the benefit of the doubt unless and until they give us strong, certain reason to do otherwise. The other is the trap of assuming the purity of our own motives—that because we are in the right, it makes us better people with purer hearts. If we look at ourselves honestly, we have to admit that our motives are just as mixed as anyone else’s, and our understanding just as flawed; if on any given point, we believe what is right and true, that doesn’t mean it’s right and true because we believe it, it simply means that God has given us the grace to perceive the truth. It’s a gift, no credit to us, and we need to see ourselves accordingly.
The truth is—and we must never forget this—we’re all sinners. Some of us sin less, some of us sin more, we’re at different levels of spiritual maturity and going different directions, but even the most godly people among us are still sinners saved by grace. We have died with Christ, we have been raised with Christ, we have been given new life in Christ—but in the same old flesh, well-practiced in all the same old sins. We are justified, we are saved, we are being transformed into the image of Christ, but we’re still in process. That’s just how it is in this world, and we need to keep that in our minds. In our disputes and disagreements, in our wants and desires, in the issues we face and the decisions we must consider, we must always remember that we too are sinners, and take that fact into consideration. No matter who we are, our positions, our preferences, our ideas, our desires, our plans, are all tainted by sin, and we have no right to pretend otherwise.
Keeping perspective on the election
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
—Colossians 3:1-4 (ESV)
Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
—Philippians 3:20-21 (ESV)
Citizenship, for all that Americans tend to be pretty blasé about it, is a profoundly important thing. It’s all about where we belong, and to whom, and where our allegiance lies; it’s about our identity in this world. As such, it means a great deal, whether we ever think about it or not.
It certainly was something the apostle Paul took very seriously, in a couple ways. In the first place, he was a Roman citizen—remember, under the Roman empire, not everyone was, by any means; there were a great many people, including most Jews, who weren’t citizens and thus didn’t have full legal or civil rights. Paul, however, was, and he used that to his advantage on more than one occasion. At a practical, concrete level, he knew just how much citizenship meant. In the second place, though, he also understood that his earthly citizenship had limits, because he owed God a higher allegiance. He understood that this world is no longer our primary allegiance, because this world is no longer where our true life is. We have a new and very different life, the life of Christ.
This is important for several reasons.
One, this tells us something important about salvation. In Colossians 2:20, Paul says, “If you died with Christ”; he begins chapter 3 with “If you have been raised with Christ.” Our salvation, as we usually understand it, isn’t just about a decision we made or an action we took or even the actions we take now; it’s about death and resurrection. It’s about a living God raising dead people. It’s about our old selves being crucified with Christ, nailed to the cross with him with all our sin and all our guilt and all our shame, and us dying with him and being raised to new life in his resurrection. It’s about a cataclysmic change in us, a change worked by the will of God in the power of his Holy Spirit through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ, that makes us all new people. Our salvation is not merely a reversible act of our fickle human wills, it’s the irreversible act of God’s unchanging will.
Two, this tells us something equally important about the implications of our salvation: namely, being saved isn’t just about going to heaven. It isn’t even just about going to church and supporting the church. Both of these things are part of the picture, but only part. It’s about a complete transfer of allegiance that comes from a complete change of identity: we no longer belong to this world, and we’re no longer primarily identified with it. Our true life is elsewhere.
Does this mean we’re supposed to withdraw from the world? With a few exceptions, no; God has placed us in this world to live in it for him. What it means is that, to borrow language Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 5, we should regard ourselves as his ambassadors—we live here, but not because this is our home; rather, we live here as his representatives, in order to serve him and carry out his ministry in the community and country in which he has placed us. From the point of view of this nation, we’re citizens here and owe it our allegiance, but from God’s point of view—which should be ours as well—our allegiance to this nation is and must be secondary, and our primary citizenship is not on earth at all, but in heaven. Our focus should be not on the things of this earth, but on the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; the goods we seek should be the goods of heaven, and the goals on which we set our minds and hearts should be the goals Christ has set for us.
None of this is to say that we should ignore the things of this world, or that there’s something wrong with them; God created them too, and he created earthly pleasures, and he wants us to enjoy them. But we should see them in their proper light, not as goals in themselves but as things to enjoy along the way; we should remember that they come to us as blessings from God’s hand, and that they’re not what life is about, or what we’re supposed to be living for. We need to keep our priorities straight.
This is of course particularly important to remember on the threshold of a presidential election. As John Piper writes in the piece I linked to last Thursday,
Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. . . .
But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.
So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.
As Christians, as the ambassadors of the kingdom of God on earth, we have the responsibility to work for the good of our community, of the nation in which we live, and of this world; God told his people through the prophet Jeremiah, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf,” and that command applies to us as well. We need to use the minds he’s given us to come to the best conclusions we can about what this country needs and what ought to happen, and then we need to act on that; which means, at the very least, voting. But having done that, we need to be careful not to put too much weight on it, or to get too tied up in it; we need to leave the results in God’s hands, for whatever his purposes may be.
Of the options we have, there’s no doubt in my mind who would make the best president—but that doesn’t mean I know whom God intends to set in that position, or what his reasons and plans are, or to what purpose; and so on Tuesday, I’m going to do my part, and trust God forhis, remembering that “no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls,” it remains true that “Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy”—and that my life, our life, is not in a political party but in Christ. Our salvation is not in this election, or any election, but in Christ; for we are citizens of another city, the city of God, and it is from that city that we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our life.
As though not voting
This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
—1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (ESV)
John Piper’s election message on this text, “Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting,” has been cited all over the blogosphere this last week, and rightly so; if you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend you go and do so, because what he has to say is both true and important. It’s also worth reading his sermon from this time twenty years ago on “Believing God on Election Day,” because while the names have changed, the truth of his points in that sermon hasn’t.
To this, I would only add a point that my wife has been talking about quite a bit lately (I thought she’d blogged on it, but I haven’t found the post): we as Christians are called to do things for the value of the thing itself, not in the expectation of results. Thus, for instance, we are called to evangelism, not in order to improve the attendance and giving numbers at our church, buteven if we don’t, simply because telling people about Jesus is a good thing and one of the tasks to which he calls us as his disciples. Similarly, we are called to vote, but if the candidates for whom we vote lose—if we don’t get the desired results—that doesn’t mean that our votes are “wasted.” God has commanded us to seek the welfare of the communities in which he has placed us, and that gives us the responsibility to vote, as wisely as we can; the results of that, however, are not in our hands, but God’s. We need to do our part, not to try to do his.
Put not your trust in princes
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
—Psalm 146:3-7a (ESV)
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
—Psalm 131 (ESV)
The tendency to put one’s trust in rulers and other political figures is, of course, a universal one, a temptation to which we’re all prone; it’s not just a problem in American politics, by any means. This is not a respect in which America is exceptional. I do think, though, that we’ve been taking it to unusual heights of late, and especially during this election season—and this isn’t just a problem for one side, either. Certainly a number of conservative pundits grumbled about the response to Sarah Palin, calling it nothing more than a bad case of celebrity worship, and I can’t count the number of e-mails I’ve received with subject lines like “We MUST Win!” Well, no, sorry, we mustn’t. I firmly agree it would be better if we did and that bad things will happen if we don’t, but what of that? Even if we’re right, it might very well be better for the long term that the Democrats have their day to do whatever they want. And of course, one must always be humbly aware that one could easily be wrong.
That said, trust in princes is a greater problem on the Democratic side of the aisle, at least this time around; the Obama campaign was built on it right from the beginning—not just in the messianic language about epiphanies and “this is the moment the planet started to heal,” but in the whole theme of his campaign. The basic appeal has been, from day one, “Put your hope in Obama.” When you do that, this kind of thing is the logical consequence (HT: Bill):
To that I say, no; even if I were voting for the guy, I wouldn’t do that. The man is a politician, and a Chicago politician, no less. Anyone who puts their trust in politicians—any politicians—is a fool in the full biblical sense, and I use the term completely advisedly.
Put not your trust in politicians, for in them there is no salvation. Vote, yes; vote wisely, yes; understand the issues and decide carefully, yes, yes, yes. And then leave the results to God. Do what you consider he leads you to do, but don’t presume to judge what MUST happen, or to conclude that if the results don’t go your way that God must somehow have failed. To know the future and what must be is too great and too marvelous for us. Calm and quiet your soul in the presence of God, and rest lightly in him; pray for the winners, and for the losers, and for all of us, and put your trust and your hope in the only one worthy of them: in the Lord. Put your hope in him alone for this troubled time, and for the time to come, and you will be blessed, for your help and your hope will be the one who “who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.” He takes care of his people, even when he leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, and he will take care of you.
Barack Obama: pro-abortion extremist
Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress. . . .Before proving my claims about Obama’s abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ”pro-abortion” rather than ”pro-choice.” . . .Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people—Thomas Jefferson was one—reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn’t think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ”pro-choice”? Of course we would not. It wouldn’t matter to us that they were ”personally opposed” to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ”unnecessary,” or that they wouldn’t dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ”Against slavery? Don’t own one.” We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ”pro-abortion” and being ”pro-choice.” Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in.
HT: Bill
The order of decrees
For those who aren’t theology wonks, “the order of decrees” is a theological catchphrase dealing with a disagreement among Calvinist theologians. The phrase relates to the order in which God decided to decree, or determine, certain things; the dispute relates to the question of whether God decided to create people, then decided to permit the fall into sin, and then set the plan of salvation in motion, or whether he decided to create human beings in order to save some and not others. (That’s a very rough sketch of the difference between the positions, and not really fair to either of them, but I think it’s the best way to capture their difference for those who aren’t familiar with this discussion. If you are, my apologies, and I’ll be happy to have a serious conversation on the subject with you at some other point. If you aren’t but would like to be, go read the chapter for Boettner linked above.)It seems to me, though, that this is a concept and a question which is of value beyond simply the Reformed understanding of the Christian doctrine of salvation by grace. In particular, I think this is valuable in evaluating our political positions and our political philosophy if we apply it to ourselves: what is our own “order of decrees” with regard to the positions we choose to take and defend?What got me thinking about this was Chris Matthews (he of the tingly leg), and specifically his comparison of the first presidential debate and the VP debate: as Mary Katherine Ham pointed out, he argued that the Democrat won both—for mutually contradictory reasons. Had he been consistent, he would have had to score one of them as a win for the GOP ticket; so he scrapped consistency for the sake of ideology.Now, Matthews’ performance here is easy to mock, as a particularly blatant (and particularly ludicrous) example of bias trumping logic; but it’s also, I think, a valuable pointer to an approach to politics that we see all over the place. To borrow the “order of decrees” language, his decree of support for the Democratic Party and its candidates is prior to all his other decrees in this instance, and controls them. Therefore, his chain of reasoning and consequent analysis of the situation in front of him (the debates, in this case) is not independent, but is dictated by his a priori commitment to do what is best for the Democratic candidate; what matters is not that what he says is logically coherent or represents a rationally consistent position, but that it serves his agenda.As I say, though this is an especially obvious and risible example, I believe it’s something most of us do: we put our decree of which side we’re on ahead of our evaluations of people, positions, and situations. Rather than putting our governing principles first and trying to reason independently from them in each instance to determine what we think of this candidate or that, of this position or that, of this bill or that (and, yes, of this debate or that), we have the tendency to decide who we’re rooting for and who we’re rooting against and let that shape, or even determine, what we think about all those other matters. Chris Matthews did it in his debate analysis. More than a few people on both sides of the political aisle have done it with respect to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin—we’ve seen some of the arguments over Sen. Clinton reprised over Gov. Palin, only with the sides switched. Scads and scads of folks did it over the Paulson plan, because they’d already decided they were against “Wall Street fat cats.” It’s certainly a faster and more efficient way to come to conclusions, because it cuts out the need for all that time-consuming thought; that’s an especially strong temptation given the speed with which our world moves these days. What it isn’t, however, is a good way to build politics with integrity—or indeed, to build integrity in any area of life.