Coffee this Friday, December 15, at the usual time and place.
(1) Whiggish optimism: The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s president Mark Tooley was on the Philos Project’s Deep Map podcast last week talking about a future for Protestantism. (Among my favorite lines was host Robert Nicholson calling Tooley a “notorious Methodist,” as indeed he is.) At the end of the discussion, Tooley highlights an IRD initiative called “The New Whiggery.”
The New Whiggery (TNW) promotes the best of the Anglo-American tradition of ordered liberty, limited government, rule of law, free speech, respect for minority opinions, religious liberty, social harmony, reform, historical patience, multigenerational institution building, and optimism about the future, rooted ultimately in biblical anthropology and natural law. Whiggery emerged from Dutch-Anglo-American Protestantism but its principles are for all people who want order, liberty and justice. Special landmarks for TNW include the Glorious Revolution of 1688 resulting in Britain’s Bill of Rights and Toleration Act, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the U.S. Constitution of 1789, and the Gettysburg Address of 1863.
In a 2021 article for Providence, Tooley elaborates these principles further:
Partly, Whiggery is Anglo Protestantism politically applied. But its antecedents are Hebraic. Its Puritan forbearers rejoiced in the Jewish scripture. And it is rooted in Catholicism….
Unlike today’s fast-talking heads and snarky social media mavens, Whigs don’t claim certainty for themselves. They look to wisdom from past civilizations to aid in sustaining and improving our own civilization. They appreciate that the struggle for justice and liberty is arduous and sometimes has many adversaries. But they aren’t anxious to tag all opponents as enemies. They don’t search through history or present times to separate sheep from goats. The Anglo-American tradition is the story of Whiggery, and its battles within that tradition are often family debates, however fierce. An impartial overview sees the wider mosaic and hears the symphony of liberty across centuries.
(2) A Declaration of Dependence: Tooley’s New Whiggery reminds me of Yoram Hazony’s manifesto-level project in Conservatism: A Rediscovery, which I wrote about here, here, here, here, and here. In my latest reflection on the book, I posed a what-if: How might the Declaration of Independence have read “if the drafting desk had been manned, not by an Enlightenment rationalist like Jefferson, but by a serious biblical thinker” like John Jay or (ahistorically) John Quincy Adams or Lincoln? “They may have drafted a Great Charter more firmly rooted in the Bible, one that honestly acknowledged its dependence upon biblical ideas about covenant and moral responsibility.” Thus submitted for consideration are the following emendations:
We hold these Truths to be revealed in Holy Scripture, accessible by reason, and confirmed in the history and traditions of our people: that all persons, male and female, are created in the Image of God; that each is endowed by Him with a dignity rooted in moral responsibility; that from this dignity flow moral and civic obligations to God, family, and community, as well as certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the freedom to pursue our individual and collective good; and that to fulfill these obligations and secure these rights, a people may covenant and combine themselves into a civil body politic, grounding the exercise of government power in the people’s consent and embodying their firm commitment to these Truths, without which their mutual covenant could not endure.
Community Haps:
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 6:00 pm MT: Advent Evensong at St. George’s Anglican (yours truly will be there).
Thursday, Dec. 12, 5:00-7:00 pm MT: Hanukkah celebration and dinner hosted by Chabad, featuring freshly friend donuts, falafel balls, and a full Israeli salad bar (yours truly will be there).
Send your lectures, speeches, podcasts, and events to be listed here.