Rooted in the Christian Tradition

by Anthony Esolen of Touchstone Magazine

That's how Mr. Obama, quoted by one of our bloggers the other day, has described himself. And I confess I do not know what he can mean by it. If he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, who died for our sins, and by whom alone we can be saved (even supposing that those who do not know how to pronounce His name may be saved in ways we cannot fathom), then he is a Christian -- which does not mean that he will be one of those seated at Christ's right hand in the end. That will depend upon whether his faith is alive or locked in death. Same for all the rest of us. The devils believe, and are damned.

Now if you are a Christian, you should say so. Indeed, you must say so, for "he who denies me before men, him also I will deny before my Father." To say, instead, that you are "rooted in the Christian tradition" is rather like Georgetown's saying that they are a "school in the Jesuit tradition." The irony is, of course, that Georgetown is certainly not a school in the Jesuit tradition, if that tradition includes the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius of Loyola, and the next three to four centuries of Jesuits who spread the Christian faith across the world. Georgetown is really a school in the Jesuit revolt from Jesuit tradition, a revolt of less than a century's age. It's an odd thing, but nowadays people often invoke the word "tradition" to distance themselves from the reality that gave rise to the tradition in the first place.

The Christian tradition, as everyone here knows, condemns in the strongest possible terms the killing of children in the womb. "Whatsoever you do to the least of these," says Mr. Obama, quoting Jesus, "that you do unto me." Yes, precisely; and what definition of "the least of these," to anyone really rooted in the Christian tradition, rather than rooted in secularism and tinted with the wash of Christian lingo, will not include unborn babies, is hard for me to see. Especially since, according to that same old Christian tradition, our Savior was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin, when Mary said, "Be it done unto me according to thy word." He was not made flesh on the night when he came forth from that womb. That is why that Christian tradition held that John the Baptist leapt in the womb of Elizabeth, as recognizing his Savior -- though Mary could not have been far on in her pregnancy. That is why that Christian tradition assigned its New Year's Day as the day of the Annunciation.

That Christian tradition -- and the explicit instructions of Scripture -- holds that sexual relations are for men and women in marriage, without exceptions. The overturning of that understanding bids fair to destroy the west; I am not talking about sexual sins, but about the refusal to confess that sexual sins even exist. Mr. Obama's own community has been devastated by the sexual revolution. Yet he and his wife have blamed the racism of America, and the stinginess of the federal government, and the greed of the rich, rather than the betrayal of the word of God (and of simple common sense) that is now common to us all, whatever our race or class. Again, I do not know what he can mean by "rooted in the Christian tradition," since the sexual revolution has done all the demons can to tear that tradition up by the roots.

Perhaps "the Christian tradition" means little more than a generalized benevolence, demanded and directed by a vast, mighty, and intrusive central power. Yet I find that vision of the human good (if it be a human good, and not a ghastly parody of it) nowhere in Scripture, nowhere among the writings of the Fathers, nowhere in the lives of the saints.

I do know that the Christian tradition sees patriotism as a form of piety, and as falling under the commandment to honor our father and our mother. That tradition would look with suspicion upon someone who could not bring himself to utter words that place his country under the protection and supervision of God. I wonder, too, what tradition smiles upon seeking patronage from the vilest despisers of one's country. What genuine member of the Jewish faith would seek patronage from an unrepentant Joseph Mengele? But William Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn never did anything as vile as Mengele did. No, probably not. But I will have to let God or Dante judge among the relative vileness of experimenting upon human beings and murdering one's countrymen in an attempt to foment revolution. And as for experimenting upon human beings, the evil Doctor Mengele must be pleased to learn that we will now be creating human life precisely for that purpose.

The last words I will spend on this election are these. That Christian tradition commonly saw Satan's pride as an expression of ingratitude. You see that sin at the heart of Satan's rebellion in Paradise Lost. It is there in the Divine Comedy. Thomas Aquinas talks about it. Now we have two candidates, one of whom I find quite personable on an ordinary and trivial human level (Mr. Obama), and the other of whom seems to me, in his personality, as cuddly as a porcupine. But Mr. McCain was willing to give his life, and came near enough to doing so, to a country that mismanaged the war he fought, and perhaps did not deserve his devotion. Yet he gave that devotion, and he has never had an unkind word to say about America. He loves the country which took so much from him. Mr. Obama, by contrast, has nothing but unkind things to say about the America from which he has received so much. Mr. McCain speaks and acts as if he were in his country's debt. Mr. Obama speaks and acts as if his country were in his debt. There is a name for that attitude, as all children know.