Joseph Loconte
Columns and blog posts from Senior Fellow Joe Loconte
New Approach to Muslim States?
Tue 30 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
Last week a diverse group of political, business, military, academic, and religious leaders released a report, Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations With the Muslim World. Convened by the Search for Common Ground and the Consensus Building Institute, the group issued several recommendations, including the promotion of economic growth and good governance in Muslim states.
They summarized their work thus:
A Faith-based Prime Minister
Mon 29 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
Last week former British Prime Minister Tony Blair began his stint as a Yale professor. His course, “Faith and Globalization,” grows out of his effort since leaving political office to assert a constructive role for religious belief in democratic society. Earlier this year, Blair launched a new organization devoted to this purpose, the London-based Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Here’s what Blair had to say at a Westminster Cathedral event announcing his new venture:
Conservatism and Individualism
Thu 18 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
In a recent New York Times column entitled “The Social Animal,” David Brooks took the Republican Party to task for touting policies that cater single-mindedly to individuals and their solitary choices. He cited the work of cognitive scientists, sociologists, and geneticists, whose research suggests the importance of social networks and institutions to human flourishing:
“What emerges is not a picture of self-creating individuals gloriously free from one another, but of autonomous creatures deeply interconnected with one another. Recent Republican Party doctrine has emphasized the power of the individual, but underestimates the importance of connections, relationships, institutions and social filaments that organize personal choices and make individuals what they are.”
Religion, Elections, and Foreign Affairs
Wed 10 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
The policy journal Faith and International Affairs continues to impress. Its fall issue, “Faith and Foreign Policy: Recommendations for the Next President,” offers articles ranging from faith-based reconciliation efforts in Iraq to the role of religious organizations in delivering U.S. foreign aid. Editor Dennis Hoover summarizes media treatment of religion and foreign affairs this way:
“For those who were hoping that religion would be taken seriously during presidential campaign season, the good news is that media coverage and candidate rhetoric have been chock full of religious references. The bad news is that this public discourse has often lacked policy relevance—especially when it comes to the intersection of religion and foreign policy.”
Redefining Democracy, Ethics, and Evangelicalism
Thu 04 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
In the current issue of The New Yorker, Peter Boyer wonders whether Barack Obama and the Democratic Party can capture the votes of supposedly disaffected conservative Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. Political strategists, of course, are wondering the same. Yet the article, “Party Faithful: Can the Democrats Get a Foothold on the Religious Vote?” treats recent political history as clumsily as it does Christian eschatology. It seems to be an essay on an eager, yet ultimately fruitless quest for a thesis.
A New Kind of Culture War
Wed 03 Sep 2008 by Joseph Loconte
Last year National Review published an article called, “A Farewell to Culture Wars.” That editorial decision, to borrow a line from Ronald Reagan, must now be consigned to the ash heap of history. The moral arguments about the dignity of the unborn and the nature of the family, which have helped inflame our national politics for over three decades, could never be glossed over by happy talk. Exhibit A: The choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a conservative Christian, as the Republican nominee for vice president.
A European Challenge to Anti-Americanism
Mon 01 Sep 2008 • Responses: 1 • by Joseph Loconte
For the better part of a decade, pollsters, pundits, and politicians have beaten the drums of anti-Americanism with a flamboyance that would rival Big Band legends Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. Last week, however, America’s friends from across the Atlantic announced an initiative to pound back.
A group of British conservatives has launched America in the World, a London-based international alliance to combat anti-Americanism. Armed with briefings, polling data, policy analysis, and high-level political endorsements, America in the World seeks to become the most important fact-driven resource for people willing to entertain the case against anti-Americanism. The effort is the brainchild of Tim Montgomerie, founder and editor of the influential political website ConservativeHome, and Stephan Shakespeare, the founder of YouGov, a prestigious opinion-polling company in Britain.
Religion, Politics, and Public Opinion
Fri 29 Aug 2008 by Joseph Loconte
A recent public opinion poll shows that a narrow majority of Americans do not want churches and other houses of worship to speak out on social and political matters—a reversal of previous surveys showing majority support for church engagement. Conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the survey suggests that the souring mood can mostly be attributed to conservatives. Four years ago, according to Pew, just 30 percent of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50 percent of conservatives express this view. Pew pollsters then go on to make this brazen claim: “The sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared.
The X-Files and the Enlightenment Myth
Tue 26 Aug 2008 by Joseph Loconte
If there is one notion that has catapulted into popularity in the post-9/11 era, it is that religious belief is the iniquitous inspiration for the world’s repression and violence. The unexamined assumption is that reason, human rights, and democracy are the ripened fruit of secularism and the Enlightenment. This is what animates authors such as Christopher Hitchens when he claims “religion poisons everything.” It has become a best-selling theme.
A shorthand version of this idea goes like this: the decline of revealed religion leads to human freedom that leads to human flourishing. End of story. How can a viewpoint so manifestly at odds with history be held so passionately, so reflexively, by so many?
Humanitarian ‘Impulses’ vs. Convictions
Wed 20 Aug 2008 by Joseph Loconte
Writing in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Princeton professor Gary Bass observes that despite the ongoing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan and the difficulties in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, “the idea of humanitarian intervention remains intact.”
In his essay, “Humanitarian Impulses: Why Interventions Aren’t Going Away,” Mr. Bass argues that the concept of military intervention to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide is as much a European idea as an American one:
