If the mayor Carmel said nothing about global warming other than "the kinds of things we are doing with traffic in Carmel will be helpful" would he be in danger of not being re-elected? It sounds like his list of accomplishments is too long for that. I don't see the need for a mayor to make any pronouncements about the degree to which global warming is anthropogenic, which is simply unknown at present.
Do the GOP voters in Carmel really need such public statements, in your assessment?
I don't think he needed to make public statements. But he's making clear that he doesn't think climate change is a "hoax" - which is the mainstream Republican position on it.
Not necessarily since the straight and left turn lanes are merged into one, however, improvements are more for wider streets than narrower ones. Narrow streets that lack left turn lanes if they have lights don't get smaller.
Father Neuhaus became a public intellectual figure in the wake of Planned Parenthood v. Casey whose critics pounced on the Court’s infamous “mystery clause” to thwart the will of the states to place reasonable limitations on abortion, such as parental consent and waiting periods. First Things’s archives have this all available for free if you are interested. The irony is that the Left outflanked the Right and co-opted the “democratic rule” platitude to score major political victories. He also downplayed the scale of child abuse in the Catholic Church, which blemished his reputation.
I have no special insight on Neuhaus, except that he seems to firmly belong to that era (i.e. Neutral World?) when most conservative Christians firmly believed that the GOP + American conservatism + American democracy + Evangelicalism + institutional Catholicism could all be fit together in a relatively harmonious fashion.
Whereas in Negative World, and the rise of postliberalism, most commentators seem to begin from a perspective of worry or doubt about the health and prospects of some or all of these things, so RJN's optimism seems less relevant.
Appreciate the mention of Adolph von Harnack and his assertion that aristocratic women were prominent in the spread of Christianity. One of his theories was that Priscilla of the book of Acts was aristocratic and the author of the book of Hebrews. It was on that premise that I wrote an award-winning (and practically unknown :) novel, A Conspiracy of Breath. Can send you an electronic copy if you have any interest.
I don't know enough about Neuhaus to know why he has faded from popularity (I was too young for his heyday), but I strongly recommend his book "Death on a Friday Afternoon." It makes for a great Lenten read.
And I can't miss an opportunity to plug another great book, "Children of Men" by P.D. James (very different than the movie). She presciently predicted people anthropomorphizing their pets in a world without children, to the point of putting them in strollers.
Several people beat me to the punch, but Father Neuhaus very publicly defended Fr. Maciel Marciel from accusations of child abuse and rape. Marciel was charismatic and he fooled a lot of people, but he ended up being undeniably guilty.
If you were to cite an article from Neuhaus condemning abortion for example, a pro choicer could just snark back "that man was a pedophile who protected other pedophiles". Trying to explain that Neuhaus was innocent but he made a mistake defending an evil man is a big hassle, so it's more trouble than it's worth to cite him on anything controversial.
The recently dead occupy a bit of a strange place in modern discourse. We are accustomed to using both the long since passed and the still living as exemplars, but they often leave smaller successors, and controversy certainly is of no help as people grapple with why. The degree of scandal here is enormous. Had Neuhaus instead made a public declaration entirely neutral, or even insufficiently accusatory, he would not be received well in 2024.
Protestant leaders with scandals (Hillsong, LU, and RZM to include both living and dead) had their reach dramatically shunted, too, but look at it from this comparatively benign example: James Wood produced a level critique of Tim Keller’s ministry in 2022, and the fallout from that has been the most that non-academic people have heard of the man in the past couple years sans news and tributes after his death.
Neuhaus was one of the wittiest men alive and an extraordinary writer with great breadth and depth (read a sample of his Public Square and While We're At It columns over the years for a taste of this). Unfortunately, I think his reputation suffered immensely because he seemed to overly politicize First Things after 9-11 and go all-in on the Iraq war. The intellectual cover for pre-emptive war was a low point of the magazine that hasn't aged well and it was an unfortunate mistake which he never seemed to recover from, IMO, dying in 2009 near the height of the Iraq war pushback. Rod Dreher also tells of how Neuhaus was upset about him writing about the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal, thinking that it was better to be silent on such matters. That's the second big issue that he seems to have taken a tragically wrong approach to. Lastly, after he died the magazine never regained its former stature. Much of it was very Neuhaus-centric, as he was extraordinarily well connected and could bring in high quality writers from diverse backgrounds. It is still a good read, but it isn't as good as it was.
Maybe there is more to it than that, but that is my assessment of why Neuhaus seems to have faded
immensely after death.
For all his faults, Neuhaus was an extraordinary, larger-than-life figure, an amazing writer, and a brilliant thinker. He left a very large imprint in the world and especially in the lives of those who knew him, most of it quite positive. The vast majority of those who knew him well seemed to love him and speak fondly of him, and that was a very wide swath of influential people. Even among people who didn't know him, he had an outsized influence. Protestant radio personality and author Brant Hansen, for instance, has called him one his greatest influences. Like many people, Neuhaus' faults were typical of men of his age, but his positive qualities far surpassed those of his peers.
Fr Neuhaus was certainly a brilliant man and an excellent writer. But he seems slightly ... naive now. I came across him at a time when Catholic dogma seemed safe in the hands of Pope John Paul II, and many conservatives thought a Western invasion of Iraq was a great idea. Since then, conservative Catholics have become much more cynical about both the man in Rome, and the wisdom of trying to impose democracy on a country with no democratic traditions. Erudite, witty, cheerfully optimistic Neuhaus seems ill-suited to that mood.
A concrete example of something that really did damage his reputation was his public defence of the disgraced Fr Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. To be sure: Neuhaus was getting on in years, and the allegations against Maciel perhaps seemed too ludicrous to be true at first. But true they proved to be, and, sadly, Neuhaus was left looking rather foolish. I'm pretty sure that his article defending Maciel can still be found online.
Neuhaus: You really should get a stack of his old First Things. Calvinist as my family was, we had subscriptions to First Things, Christianity Today, and Prism back in the 1990s, and my dad would print off Colson's Breakpoint. Neuhaus had a cutting wit, his little blurbs at the end of First Things were twitter-esque hot takes before twitter was invented. He worked with Colson to form Evangelicals and Catholics together (this might be why he faded, as neither evangelicals or Catholics seem too keen on keeping that project going these days.) He was sidelined by the press and even the Catholic press for his initial denial of the sex abuse scandal among the Catholic priesthood and then when it could no longer be denied, he insisted that it was directly connected to homosexual priests. Holding that opinion does not get one very many friends. At his request, all of his unpublished work was destroyed shortly after his death. A biographer will now have to rely on the Neuhaus of what Neuhaus wanted printed, rather than a bigger picture of his less developed thoughts.
"then when it could no longer be denied, he insisted that it was directly connected to homosexual priests. Holding that opinion does not get one very many friends."
I would rephrase the second sentence, "stating that obvious fact doesn't get one very many friends." but the overall point holds true. Dreher has written extensively about this aspect of the abuse crisis. The Lavender Mafia is real and still exists within the Catholic hierarchy.
If the mayor Carmel said nothing about global warming other than "the kinds of things we are doing with traffic in Carmel will be helpful" would he be in danger of not being re-elected? It sounds like his list of accomplishments is too long for that. I don't see the need for a mayor to make any pronouncements about the degree to which global warming is anthropogenic, which is simply unknown at present.
Do the GOP voters in Carmel really need such public statements, in your assessment?
I don't think he needed to make public statements. But he's making clear that he doesn't think climate change is a "hoax" - which is the mainstream Republican position on it.
Roundabouts are great, tho a bit more expensive in terms of land at intersections.
Not necessarily since the straight and left turn lanes are merged into one, however, improvements are more for wider streets than narrower ones. Narrow streets that lack left turn lanes if they have lights don't get smaller.
After dog strollers come women carrying dogs in slings. it's horrifying.
Ask Rod Dreher about Neuhaus
Father Neuhaus became a public intellectual figure in the wake of Planned Parenthood v. Casey whose critics pounced on the Court’s infamous “mystery clause” to thwart the will of the states to place reasonable limitations on abortion, such as parental consent and waiting periods. First Things’s archives have this all available for free if you are interested. The irony is that the Left outflanked the Right and co-opted the “democratic rule” platitude to score major political victories. He also downplayed the scale of child abuse in the Catholic Church, which blemished his reputation.
I have no special insight on Neuhaus, except that he seems to firmly belong to that era (i.e. Neutral World?) when most conservative Christians firmly believed that the GOP + American conservatism + American democracy + Evangelicalism + institutional Catholicism could all be fit together in a relatively harmonious fashion.
Whereas in Negative World, and the rise of postliberalism, most commentators seem to begin from a perspective of worry or doubt about the health and prospects of some or all of these things, so RJN's optimism seems less relevant.
Appreciate the mention of Adolph von Harnack and his assertion that aristocratic women were prominent in the spread of Christianity. One of his theories was that Priscilla of the book of Acts was aristocratic and the author of the book of Hebrews. It was on that premise that I wrote an award-winning (and practically unknown :) novel, A Conspiracy of Breath. Can send you an electronic copy if you have any interest.
Interesting!
I don't know enough about Neuhaus to know why he has faded from popularity (I was too young for his heyday), but I strongly recommend his book "Death on a Friday Afternoon." It makes for a great Lenten read.
And I can't miss an opportunity to plug another great book, "Children of Men" by P.D. James (very different than the movie). She presciently predicted people anthropomorphizing their pets in a world without children, to the point of putting them in strollers.
Several people beat me to the punch, but Father Neuhaus very publicly defended Fr. Maciel Marciel from accusations of child abuse and rape. Marciel was charismatic and he fooled a lot of people, but he ended up being undeniably guilty.
If you were to cite an article from Neuhaus condemning abortion for example, a pro choicer could just snark back "that man was a pedophile who protected other pedophiles". Trying to explain that Neuhaus was innocent but he made a mistake defending an evil man is a big hassle, so it's more trouble than it's worth to cite him on anything controversial.
The recently dead occupy a bit of a strange place in modern discourse. We are accustomed to using both the long since passed and the still living as exemplars, but they often leave smaller successors, and controversy certainly is of no help as people grapple with why. The degree of scandal here is enormous. Had Neuhaus instead made a public declaration entirely neutral, or even insufficiently accusatory, he would not be received well in 2024.
Protestant leaders with scandals (Hillsong, LU, and RZM to include both living and dead) had their reach dramatically shunted, too, but look at it from this comparatively benign example: James Wood produced a level critique of Tim Keller’s ministry in 2022, and the fallout from that has been the most that non-academic people have heard of the man in the past couple years sans news and tributes after his death.
Neuhaus was one of the wittiest men alive and an extraordinary writer with great breadth and depth (read a sample of his Public Square and While We're At It columns over the years for a taste of this). Unfortunately, I think his reputation suffered immensely because he seemed to overly politicize First Things after 9-11 and go all-in on the Iraq war. The intellectual cover for pre-emptive war was a low point of the magazine that hasn't aged well and it was an unfortunate mistake which he never seemed to recover from, IMO, dying in 2009 near the height of the Iraq war pushback. Rod Dreher also tells of how Neuhaus was upset about him writing about the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal, thinking that it was better to be silent on such matters. That's the second big issue that he seems to have taken a tragically wrong approach to. Lastly, after he died the magazine never regained its former stature. Much of it was very Neuhaus-centric, as he was extraordinarily well connected and could bring in high quality writers from diverse backgrounds. It is still a good read, but it isn't as good as it was.
Maybe there is more to it than that, but that is my assessment of why Neuhaus seems to have faded
immensely after death.
For all his faults, Neuhaus was an extraordinary, larger-than-life figure, an amazing writer, and a brilliant thinker. He left a very large imprint in the world and especially in the lives of those who knew him, most of it quite positive. The vast majority of those who knew him well seemed to love him and speak fondly of him, and that was a very wide swath of influential people. Even among people who didn't know him, he had an outsized influence. Protestant radio personality and author Brant Hansen, for instance, has called him one his greatest influences. Like many people, Neuhaus' faults were typical of men of his age, but his positive qualities far surpassed those of his peers.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/01_02/2009_01_08_Dreher_RichardJohn.htm
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/01/002-while-were-at-it
Thanks!
Fr Neuhaus was certainly a brilliant man and an excellent writer. But he seems slightly ... naive now. I came across him at a time when Catholic dogma seemed safe in the hands of Pope John Paul II, and many conservatives thought a Western invasion of Iraq was a great idea. Since then, conservative Catholics have become much more cynical about both the man in Rome, and the wisdom of trying to impose democracy on a country with no democratic traditions. Erudite, witty, cheerfully optimistic Neuhaus seems ill-suited to that mood.
A concrete example of something that really did damage his reputation was his public defence of the disgraced Fr Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. To be sure: Neuhaus was getting on in years, and the allegations against Maciel perhaps seemed too ludicrous to be true at first. But true they proved to be, and, sadly, Neuhaus was left looking rather foolish. I'm pretty sure that his article defending Maciel can still be found online.
Interesting!
Neuhaus: You really should get a stack of his old First Things. Calvinist as my family was, we had subscriptions to First Things, Christianity Today, and Prism back in the 1990s, and my dad would print off Colson's Breakpoint. Neuhaus had a cutting wit, his little blurbs at the end of First Things were twitter-esque hot takes before twitter was invented. He worked with Colson to form Evangelicals and Catholics together (this might be why he faded, as neither evangelicals or Catholics seem too keen on keeping that project going these days.) He was sidelined by the press and even the Catholic press for his initial denial of the sex abuse scandal among the Catholic priesthood and then when it could no longer be denied, he insisted that it was directly connected to homosexual priests. Holding that opinion does not get one very many friends. At his request, all of his unpublished work was destroyed shortly after his death. A biographer will now have to rely on the Neuhaus of what Neuhaus wanted printed, rather than a bigger picture of his less developed thoughts.
"then when it could no longer be denied, he insisted that it was directly connected to homosexual priests. Holding that opinion does not get one very many friends."
I would rephrase the second sentence, "stating that obvious fact doesn't get one very many friends." but the overall point holds true. Dreher has written extensively about this aspect of the abuse crisis. The Lavender Mafia is real and still exists within the Catholic hierarchy.
Interesting!