Randy Christians
by Gregory Talipson, a.k.a. Snark
a.k.a. Jim Truxell
NOTE: This first appeared in the run-up to the 2012 Presidential election. Then it was Paul Ryan. Now it's Rand Paul. In addition to the same name, "Paul," they share a libertarian perspective. This article is a reflection on that perspective.
Sincere apologies are hereby offered to you because this isn't actually a piece about sexually eager or lustful Christians; nor is it about reckless members of the faith who are lacking in any sense of propriety . . . although it does come close to that in a rather dreary sort of way. A proper essay bearing this title (if "proper" is the right word in this context) would deal with such things and be a lot more titillating (definitely the right word) to read than this is going to be . . . and also a lot more fun to write.
But if this were titled "Ayn Rand Christianity," would you be reading this sentence? I didn't think so. So consider yourself snookered. More about such snookering later.
Mitt Romney's pick of Paul Ryan to be his vice presidential running mate has inspired me to become an Ayn Rand Christian. I've been applying myself with great diligence in this endeavor since Romney made public his choice, but must report that thus far I have realized only a minimal amount of success.
For those of you who are blessed by not living as close to Capitol Hill as I do, you should know that, for many years, Congressman Paul Ryan has been so taken with the philosophy of Ayn Rand that he even assigned the mandatory reading of her most famous book to all of his congressional staff members, Atlas Shrugged. In 2005 he even addressed the Atlas Society (a group devoted to spreading Ayn Rand's philosophy) saying that "the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand."
Even though he is now attempting to distance himself from Rand's philosophy . . . since she was passionately in favor of some things and just as passionately against others that are entirely incompatible with current Republican orthodoxy . . . we can be fairly certain that this distancing is simply what Ryan feels he must do in order to curry sufficient favor with the electorate so that he might become the next Vice President of the United States. In his heart, he almost certainly still salutes Ayn Rand.
From a purist's point of view this can be seen as quite craven on his part, but it is no more so than my reciting the Nicene Creed in worship services while crossing my fingers . . . as indeed many of you also do. (C'mon, fess up!) Well, maybe it's a bit more craven . . . but I recognize the bind he and I are in. Sometimes you do what you need to do.
In order for you to understand my relative lack of success so far at becoming an Ayn Rand Christian, here's a bit about Ayn Rand's philosophy . . . in case you're not familiar with it. (Skip this if you are.) Ayn Rand, whose first name is pronounced like the German "ein," was born in Russia in 1905 and came to the United States when she was twenty. Her "objectivist" philosophy considers reason the highest good and maintains that following reason's lead, one comes inevitably to, among other things, her ethics of rational self-interest or "rational egoism." In a book by that title, she called this "the virtue of selfishness." She wrote that the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself". She was a philosophical realist who, therefore, loved Aristotle but not Plato; and opposed anything that smacked of mysticism, supernaturalism, and religion. Her family lost much when the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 and Rand constantly and passionately defended individual freedom over against the tyranny of "the collective." She believed that force and mind were opposites, and that evil happened when one took the initiative to use force rather than persuasion to get what one wanted. Today, thirty years after her death, she is generally considered one of the darlings of libertarian political philosophy and is certainly held in high regard by the Tea Party . . . since both want government to be extremely small and not to be in the business of telling others what they have to do.
There are definitely some things to like in her philosophy. For instance, Jesus himself was an exceedingly brave individual who stood up against the collective (viz. community) wisdom of his time, calling it back to its roots. In truth, Christianity would do well to raise up more persons who have the courage to challenge institutional (collective) orthodoxy. That is, after all, the Protestant Principle. "Question Authority?" You bet! It's at least as orthodox a part of Christianity as Luther protesting the Church's selling indulgences in the 16th century. It's a deep tragedy that too many churches . . . Protestant and Catholic alike . . . teach, as a necessity of faith, a (servile) obedience to what the church's leader's say.
Then there is Rand's insistence that each individual should see to their own welfare. This calls to my mind the time when Jesus confronted a paralyzed fellow who had been at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem for thirty-eight years waiting to be healed. The story was that every once in awhile an angel would disturb the surface of that spring-fed pool, and that the first one who got into the water at that moment would be healed of their ailments. So this fellow kvetched, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus asked him sharply, "Do you want to be healed?" Certainly there are those who do not or will not lift a finger to better their own condition, and neither Rand nor Jesus had much patience with that. Neither do I.
Then there is Rand's assertion that the abandonment of reason and the initiation of the use of force to get what one wants is not only irrational, but evil. Well. So much for America's new doctrine of "Pre-emptive War." I can't imagine Jesus liking that doctrine either, as he himself coached his disciples to resist evil and injustice through non-violent means. Far from Jesus' teaching about "turning the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39) being a counsel to doormat-like acquiescence in the face of unjust behavior, it is a quite specific teaching of Jesus to his disciples about how to non-violently resist that behavior by shaming the one who hits you with the back of their hand . . . a sign of contempt toward the one who is struck . . . by requiring that, should they choose to strike you again, they must do so with their fist . . . as one would do in "legitimate" battle . . . therefore making the contemptuous behavior less likely. (This borrows from the insightful interpretations of the late Walter Wink.)
As for Rand's rejection of religion, it appears to me this was her (rather common) rejection of any religion that serves a god understood as a Supreme Being who exercises domination over humans, thereby stripping them of their freedom, and to whose will one must submit lest that god use force to punish or compel such submissive obedience. Nietzsche also didn't care much for that notion of God and religion. I don't either.
Liking some of the things that Ayn Rand said, I've been trying ever so diligently to become . . . as I assume the youthful, attractive, smart, and energetic Roman Catholic Paul Ryan is . . . an Ayn Rand Christian. But I'm having a devil of a time doing so, no possible pun intended.
I don't know why this is so . . . perhaps there's just something wrong with me that hinders my having greater success in this project. Maybe I'm just too hung-up on this compassion and justice thing that I continue to see as being the essence of Jesus' teachings. Of course, for that matter, it's also the essential teaching of every major world religion. 1 Every last one of them is filled with teachings about the importance of going beyond one's own ego and its necessary and legitimate concern for "me and mine." Each of the world's major faith traditions warns its adherents about the trap of being locked within the narrow confines of the ego's concerns while ignoring the poor, the widow and her orphans, the dispossessed, the diseased, and the strangers in their midst. Further, while each advises, and even commands, its followers to extend compassionate hospitality toward these sorts of people, Christianity places a unique emphasis upon doing so if one is to follow Jesus, the Christ of God. It even teaches that our enemies are to be lovingly treated . . . not liked, but loved. It acknowledges the sacrifice that this may involve on the part of the Christian and therefore gives the Christian reassurances that, in spite of the cost of doing so, such acts of compassionate hospitality are what heaven . . . understood as the rule of God here and now . . . is all about.
Call me crazy . . . many understandably do . . . but it seems to me that the sacrifice that Christianity insists upon as being absolutely central is for each of us to sacrifice the preeminent place of privilege that our egos are always trying to usurp, and thus be more able to function as persons made in the image of God whose very name is Compassion. It is as though Jesus threw his lot with the 99% and took on the arrogance of the 1% that insist upon enjoying a hugely disproportionate share of every good thing there is.
Ayn Rand's philosophy could not be more intolerant of such an idea! Her philosophy is, in fact, arrayed against it. No wonder then, that it appeals to the otherwise quite likeable Paul Ryan. For Ryan, with his "Path to Prosperity" budget proposal which was adopted by the mainly Republican House of Representatives at the end of March, would further impoverish the middle and lower socioeconomic classes while giving tax breaks to the 1% so that the likes of Mitt Romney might enjoy a tax rate on the order of . . . oddly enough . . . as little as 1%.
Like most folks, I really want to be a success at everything I attempt. So I hope you'll move some compassion toward me when I confess to you that I am an utter, and abject failure at becoming an Ayn Rand Christian. Try as I might, I just can't do it.
As you are now aware, you've been snookered once already. Don't let it happen a second time.
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1 See The Charter for Compassion, a project initiated by one of our era's keenest students of world religions, Karen Armstrong. Read the Charter for Compassion and consider signing it! From its site:
"The Charter for Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems." http://www.charterforcompassion.org/
See also, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Karen Armstrong (Knopf, 2010). "The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with 'Learn About Compassion' and close with 'Love Your Enemies.' In between, she takes up 'compassion for yourself,' mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and 'concern for everybody.' She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to 'hear one another's narratives.' Throughout, Armstrong makes clear that a compassionate life is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two."
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