Social Conservatism for the Common Good E-Book

Andrew Walker

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Carl R. Trueman and Other Christian Evangelical Scholars Examine the Life and Work of Renowned Catholic, Social Conservative Thinker Robert P. George Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, is one of the most influential conservative intellectuals of his generation. Among many honors and accolades, George received the US Presidential Citizens Medal from President George W. Bush and served as chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Though a Catholic himself, George's influence has transcended traditional religious categories to shape evangelical discourse on politics, ethics, and political philosophy throughout his career.  In this thorough introduction and careful analysis of George's work for Protestant audiences, editor Andrew T. Walker gathers essays from high profile evangelical writers and academics—including Carl R. Trueman, Hunter Baker, Jennifer Marshall Patterson, and Scott Klusendorf—to explore subjects such as faith and reason, George's New Natural Law theory, and how to collaborate across ideological lines. Social Conservatism for the Common Good helps Christian evangelicals understand George's philosophy and apply it to their own cultural engagement and public witness. - Biography of Influential Conservative Scholar Robert P. George: Explores the breadth of his political philosophy and activism, as well as his relevance to the evangelical community - Engaging Political Analysis from a Biblical Perspective: With a foreword by US Senator Ben Sasse, this book covers important cultural and academic topics including human rights, social and public ethics, and pro-life issues - Ideal Resource for Evangelical Scholars and Thinkers: Written for pastors, students, and those interested in politics, this robust book appeals to readers of Carl R. Trueman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

“Everything about this book is wonderful: the contributors, the essays they’ve written, the topics they address, and their main subject, Robert P. George. Social Conservatism for the Common Good is a must-read for any believing Christian interested in bringing faith and reason together to advance human dignity, human flourishing, and human rights.”

Ryan T. Anderson, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

“Robert P. George is not only, as he is often called, one of today’s leading public intellectuals; he is also a devout Catholic who has much to teach the whole body of Christ, including evangelical Protestants, as these splendid essays attest. In the best tradition of Chuck Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, Robby George helps us, Catholics and evangelicals alike, live faithfully on our difficult journey toward a common mission.”

Timothy George, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

“The pro-life movement in America today has rarely had an advocate as articulate and intellectually commanding as Robert P. George. A professor of law at Princeton and a constitutional scholar, George has collaborated closely with a number of evangelical thinkers, including my late friend Chuck Colson. Even more, he’s a true role model of how we can treat those who oppose us in the culture with civility while defending our most cherished and sacred beliefs.”

Jim Daly, President and CEO, Focus on the Family

“This volume is not just a celebration of and deep engagement with Robert P. George’s work; it is also worthy of that work. Which is to say that it is rigorous, illuminating, and concerned, above all, with discerning the truth. It is an important contribution to the essential project of sustaining a Christian morality in the public square.”

Rich Lowry, Editor in Chief, National Review

“Few thinkers of any age have been as influential in as many ways as Robert P. George. On paper, George is something of an enigma: an Ivy League professor who has not only remained a faithful Catholic but has become one of America’s foremost intellectual leaders on the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom. Remaining a member in good standing in the academy and the church is unusual today, but George has managed to do that, which likely explains his ability to appeal across many would-be divides. The Protestant contributors to this volume effectively engage with George’s moral, political, and legal philosophy and make a case for why it must be taken seriously in the public square. George’s work, undaunted courage, charitable heart, and energetic willingness to do the right things, even if hard, offer the next generation hope and a model to influence the culture for good while faithfully bearing witness to Christ.”

Kristen Waggoner, CEO, President, and General Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom

“It’s no easy task to assemble a collection of essays on important topics that are serious, informed, and fair, but Andrew Walker has accomplished this in Social Conservatism for the Common Good. While my own conclusions about natural law and political theory have sometimes differed from Robert P. George’s, reading his work has always stretched me intellectually and inspired me to think better about whatever subject was at stake. Evangelicals wishing to think sharply and be good citizens do well to grapple with George’s work, and those looking for an appreciative analysis of it have picked up the right book.”

David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, Westminster Seminary California

“In Social Conservatism for the Common Good, readers will find not only a well-deserved homage to Robert P. George, one of the greatest political theorists of our time, but also a compendium on how to understand liberalism and social conservatism in an age diametrically opposed to all we hold dear.”

Alexandra DeSanctis, fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center; coauthor, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing

“What an incredible resource! Not only does this book provide the best summary of Robert P. George’s significant contributions to Christian conservative thought (as if that would not be enough), it also offers an incredible collection of scholars engaging, rejoining, critiquing, and clarifying his ideas. Andrew Walker has given us all quite a gift.”

John Stonestreet, President, Colson Center; Host, Breakpoint podcast

“Andrew Walker has assembled a brilliant collection of essays that engage fruitfully with the pioneering and courageous work of Robert P. George. This is the rare multicontributor book in which every chapter shimmers with insight and wisdom.”

Trevin Wax, Vice President of Research and Resource Development, North American Mission Board; author, The Thrill of Orthodoxy and This Is Our Time

Social Conservatism for the Common Good

Social Conservatism for the Common Good

A Protestant Engagement with Robert P. George

Edited by Andrew T. Walker

Foreword by Ben Sasse

Social Conservatism for the Common Good: A Protestant Engagement with Robert P. George

Copyright © 2023 by Andrew T. Walker

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates.

Cover design: Spencer Fuller, Faceout Studios

Cover image: Shutterstock, Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-8063-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8066-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8064-2 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-8065-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Walker, Andrew T., 1985– editor.

Title: Social conservatism for the common good : a protestant engagement with Robert P. George / edited by Andrew T. Walker.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022006800 (print) | LCCN 2022006801 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433580635 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433580642 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433580659 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433580666 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Conservatism—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Conservatism—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. | Common good—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Common good—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. | George, Robert P.

Classification: LCC BR115.C66 S63 2023 (print) | LCC BR115.C66 (ebook) | DDC 320.52—dc23/eng/20220907

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006800

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006801

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To my friend, mentor, fellow protégé of Robert P. George,

and colaborer in defense of “the permanent things,”

Ryan T. Anderson

Contents

Foreword

Senator Ben Sasse

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Tenacious Civility

The Spirit of Robert P. George for Contemporary Times

Andrew T. Walker

1  A Socrates for Our Athenian Age

A Short Life of Robert P. George

John D. Wilsey

2  From Separatism to Cobelligerency

Evangelicals, Other Christian Traditions, and the Common Good

David S. Dockery

3  Son of Thomas, Heir of Theoden

Faith and Reason in the Work of Robert P. George

Carl R. Trueman

4  Robert P. George and (New) Natural Law Ethics

Philosophical and Biblical Considerations

Andrew T. Walker

5  Making Men Moral

Government, Public Morality, and Moral Ecology

Micah J. Watson

6  Robert P. George versus John Rawls

On Public Reason and Political Liberalism

Hunter Baker

7  Human Dignity and Natural Rights

Robert P. George’s Work and Virtue

Adeline A. Allen

8  Bringing Body and Soul Together (Again)

Robert P. George, Oliver O’Donovan, and the Place of Resurrection in Body Ethics

Matthew Lee Anderson

9  A Person Is a Person, No Matter How Small

Robert P. George and the Pro-Life Movement

Scott Klusendorf

10  Taking Courage in the Truth about Marriage

Robert P. George and the Defense of the Family

Jennifer Marshall Patterson

11  For Such a Time as This

Robert P. George on Religious Freedom

J. Daryl Charles

12  Robert P. George on Justice and Democracy

Natural Law, Classical Liberalism, and Prospects for a Protestant Political Theory

Mark Tooley

13  To Caesar (Only) What Is Caesar’s

The Jurisprudence of Robert P. George

Adam J. MacLeod

14  Partners in Truth Seeking

Robert P. George and Cornel West

Paul D. Miller

Afterword: Seeking the Truth, Speaking the Truth

A Dialogue between Robert P. George and Andrew T. Walker

Robert P. George Selected Bibliography

Contributors

General Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

Robert P. George—or Robby, as he is known—is the most influential banjo player in the conservative movement. Throughout his life, this great West Virginian has dedicated himself to what James Madison called “the sacred rights of conscience.”1 He is a patriot and a great thinker, and for that reason, he deserves a place in the conservative canon.

For Christians, the two greatest commandments are to love our God with all our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Robby’s work in defense of liberalism—both in interpersonal relations on campus and in our constitutional settlement—is persuasive precisely because it makes this command of love a political principle. Robby George’s liberalism is the kind of political witness Christians need to bring to the forefront of our civic discourse.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington told the American people that the Constitution is the “palladium” of our liberty and that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” of the Constitution.2 In other words, the Constitution supposes that limited government can protect the people when their leaders lack what Federalist Papers no. 51 refers to as “better motives,” but free government cannot long endure if a people lacks those better motives altogether.3

For Robby, as for the founders, the word freedom does not merely signify a release from tyrannical restraint. In the highest sense, rather, freedom is the free pursuit of the good. The good is the source of our “better motives.”

Throughout his work, Robby has frequently cited an aphorism of James Madison: “A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”4 We need to know what good we should pursue, and for that we rely on wise instructors—teachers like Robby—to show us the way we should go.

In a meaningful way, Robby’s work has served as more than a defense of “the sacred rights of conscience”—he has acted as a voice of conscience itself. On issues from abortion to religious liberty, Robby has been a fearless truth teller even in a culture that would rather be told lies.

Robby’s ideas aren’t the only way he teaches us to live up to the promise of the American founding though. His way of life is a model of the kind of virtue he believes our republic needs. His students, both at Princeton and among his wider readership, are inspired to live better lives thanks to his example.

Take his friendship with former fellow Princeton professor Cornel West. Despite the vast divide separating their political views, Drs. George and West share an unshakable friendship. Theirs is a beautiful example of the way we can all live together as Americans and how the kind of confident pluralism Robby teaches can help us love one another.

America is an experiment, and as the founders knew, an experiment can fail. Most, if not all, of the republics that came before the United States collapsed into anarchy or were conquered by stronger tyrants. If our experiment is to succeed, it needs strong defenders like Robby George to guide and enlighten it.

As a confessional Protestant, I—and many other contributors to this volume—disagree with Robby George about a whole host of important theological questions. Robby and I can have spirited conversations about soteriology, but that’s precisely why we agree about civics. Without minimizing our disagreements, we can remember that we share so many important political principles. One of the great idolatries of the twenty-first century has been the deification of politics. Robby, taking to heart the psalmist’s admonition, has never been one to put his trust in princes or parties.

We can—we must—work together for the defense of the human person, the preservation of a free and open society, and the promise of religious liberty. In this cause, Robby George’s work can serve as a beacon. All Americans—theist and atheist, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike—can be grateful for this great scholar’s contributions to our shared intellectual life.

Senator Ben Sasse

1  James Madison, “July 23, 1813: Proclamation on Day of Public Humiliation and Prayer,” University of Virginia, Miller Center, accessed May 15, 2022, https://millercenter.org/.

2  George Washington, “September 19, 1796: Farewell Address,” University of Virginia, Miller Center, accessed May 15, 2022, https://millercenter.org/.

3The Accessible Federalist: A Modern English Translation of 16 Key Federalist Papers, adapted by S. Adam Seagrave (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2017), 40.

4  James Madison, “December 5, 1810: Second Annual Message,” University of Virginia, Miller Center, accessed May 15, 2022, https://millercenter.org/.

Acknowledgments

The idea for this volume came to me in December 2019 while I was sitting at my desk on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As a newly minted ethics professor, I was struck, looking at the number of volumes by Robert P. George that I had on my bookshelves, at just how much I had been influenced by his thought. It also convinced me that more evangelicals needed to be aware of George’s work. That same day, I emailed Dr. George, suggesting a project of this nature to gauge his own interest. More than three years later, that idea is now in your hands.

Many individuals should be thanked for their assistance in the project. First, Robert P. George should be acknowledged for his willingness to give this project a green light. My friend and agent, Andrew Wolgemuth, is always a trustworthy guide for writing projects. Justin Taylor at Crossway is owed appreciation for letting a unique book project like this see the light of day. Project assistance also came from my former or current students Alex Ward, Flynn Evans, Alex Richey, Caleb Newsom, and Christopher Parr. Their work on miscellaneous and tedious tasks is deeply appreciated. Lastly, I want to thank each of the contributors for their willingness to sacrifice time and energy for the sake of a volume that introduces, honors, and interacts with a thinker we all so dearly and deeply admire.

As always, the source of my greatest joy in this earthly life is my family: Christian, Caroline, Catherine, and Charlotte. Their love and support awaken me each day to the goods and promises of this life lived under God’s providential hand.

Andrew T. Walker

Introduction

Tenacious Civility

The Spirit of Robert P. George for Contemporary Times

Andrew T. Walker

“I’m going to make them regret this every day of their lives.”

These were the words that went through the head of the conservative Catholic philosopher Robert P. George after receiving the news that he had been granted tenure at Princeton University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, notorious for its secular atmosphere. He knew he would be a gadfly at Princeton with his unabashed yet genteel and genial social conservatism, but George could not have foreseen at the time just how much he would also thrive and become one of the university’s most famous professors and an intellectual icon within American conservatism.

With a career spanning over thirty years to date and now holding the title of McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Robert P. George is one of the world’s most prominent and respected public intellectuals. Even if others disagree with him, there is no doubt that he is one of the most important living social-conservative thinkers and someone critics must contend with if they wish to live with intellectual honesty. He is taken seriously by friend and foe alike. His stature is that of a grand admiral of social conservatism. If you ever step into his office at the Witherspoon Institute, you’ll see a wall bedecked with awards and accolades. He has been consulted by US presidents, has served on numerous governmental commissions, and has received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President George W. Bush.

Alongside a bevy of other public profiles, George’s 2009 profile in The New York Times Magazine called him, to use the article title, “The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker.”1 It is hard to classify George as only one type of scholar. With degrees from Swarthmore College, Harvard Law School, Harvard Divinity School, and Oxford University, he’s known primarily as an analytic legal philosopher. The themes of his work in legal philosophy, however, have necessarily entailed serious incursions into and contributions within the fields of political philosophy, moral philosophy, constitutional law, and even theology. He has made his mark on the academy primarily by advancing a particular form of natural law theory that understands morality as rationally derived from certain “basic goods” that are constitutive of human flourishing (I delve into this subject in depth in chap. 4). From his belief that society can order itself and its laws to obtain these goods, George criticizes secular views of society that would deny the existence or distort the meaning of concrete moral norms and moral goods. Fundamentally, George is animated by an aim to obtain the ideals of the just society—one whose common good is defined by respect for the human person in all its dimensions.

I first became familiar with the thought of Robert P. George sometime in 2007. I somehow came upon The Clash of Orthodoxies and recall thinking to myself how I had never read arguments that were so powerful and clear—and not explicitly religious—while also aligning with biblical ethics. Though I was still very young and largely ignorant of the tradition I was embarking on, I was grasping that the moral convictions of the Bible were based not only on divine rules but on reason as well. In other words, Christians did not believe their morality was intelligible by pure religious fiat alone. Rather, God inscribed reasons that can be grasped as true for the morality he commands. What were those reasons? Ultimately, to glorify himself but also, as a secondary matter, to order a creation within which humans would be able to prosper. These truths are ones I’m still wrestling with more than a decade and a half later, ones I have quite literally given my career to exploring, defending, and expounding. I believe that Christianity is the answer for everything—from how we need salvation to escape God’s wrath to how to live a well-ordered life. Robert P. George’s body of thought helped ignite that spark.

I wish I could remember the details of how I happened upon a book that would become life altering. That is lost to the annals of time, I guess. But books come upon us in ways that change us and help us see the world in fresh, enlivening ways. Though several living individuals have shaped my thinking in immense ways, I must admit that George’s thought is first among equals. I am persuaded by his articulations of natural law and his defenses of the coherence of morality, the dignity of the human person, marriage, and religious liberty, and frankly, I am teaching my students these ideas with evangelical expression and writing and speaking about them in public forums. This, in summary, is the joy of the intellectual tradition: to recognize an indebtedness to systems of thought that have been advanced by prior generations and to carry those patterns forward for the sake of the common good—ultimately all for God’s glory.

I have gotten to know Robert P. George through various connections. From interactions with him when I served at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to visits to Princeton for workshops at the Witherspoon Institute, I have had the pleasure to get to know George not only as an intellectual but personally. I’m also part of a younger network of scholars, including Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, that has arisen out of George’s tutelage. I’ve come to know Dr. George as someone who possesses the virtues of statesmanship, scholarship, and intellectual charity.

I still remember the first time I met him. It was in 2012 when I was working at the Heritage Foundation alongside Ryan T. Anderson. At that time, we were entering the later stages of the Obama administration’s attempts to redefine marriage. The Heritage Foundation was routinely hosting events and seminars to help Capitol Hill staffers learn the truth about what marriage is and why it is worth protecting. George was a mentor to Anderson, and Anderson had brought George to the Heritage Foundation for an event on the necessity of protecting marriage. Given that the event was happening later in the afternoon, George spent the day in a spare office at the Heritage Foundation. I knew he was going to be there, and so I sheepishly approached him and asked him to sign one of the books he had written. He was, of course, unflappably kind. He signed my book, and off I went (I thought to myself, “Don’t be that guy who lingers around bothering him with twenty questions”).

But what strikes one about Robby (as he insists on being called) is how preternaturally down-to-earth he is and how willing he is to invest in a rising generation of intellectuals. You will learn more about his humble origins later in the volume. But from his banjo picking to his collegiality with those across the ideological aisle, George does not carry himself with an air of pride or self-righteousness. He’s laser sharp, and one better be prepared to defend every utterance one makes, as though standing before an interrogator or tribunal. But George makes no cruel put-downs and exudes no hubris, despite his stature. I know this from experience. One personal story serves to illustrate the kind of intellectual Dr. George is—zealous for valuing ideas and truth as virtues in themselves yet also attentive to young voices.

Though I consider myself an advocate for natural law, a few years ago I wrote an article criticizing a particular formulation of natural law around issues of contraception. I still stand by most of my original claims but acknowledge that I could have communicated my argument with greater precision.

Within a day or two, I awoke—bleary-eyed—to see an email from Robert P. George. I opened it with great curiosity to discover an eight-hundred-word rebuttal of my comments. My heart pulsing, then sinking into my stomach, I read as George rebutted my argument line by line. He did so, of course, with characteristic grace. But a few things struck me after reading his comments: (1) he took the time to read the thoughts of a young, ambitious evangelical, which itself is an honor; and (2) he took time to correct. But he did so in a way that invited me to journey with him in the quest toward greater understanding. He was not dismissive. He was not harsh. He didn’t frame his rebuttal with towering Princetonian condescension that one could expect from a respected, accomplished intellectual. He was admonishing and encouraging, as though he was still a student on the journey as well. I came away with this: I had never felt so affirmed in being told I was wrong.

One of the reasons this book is a valuable enterprise is because it focuses not only on the intellectual fruits of George’s work but also just as much on the implications of character and institution building. We need arguments, but we also need right character and the formation of institutions that work to produce both. George embodies this. He has done the work, and as you will read further in this volume, he has also cultivated a character and posture toward academia and truth seeking that is an antidote to the stifling, cruel illiberalism incubating in our day. Moreover, he has invested in younger scholars (he regularly brags about them on Facebook) and has worked tirelessly in the background to form allegiances in defense of “the permanent things” that, were it not for his relational networks, would never have come to fruition. In George we see an institution builder, a networker, and an intellectual. There’s a formula therein for how ideas take effect and metastasize. Ideas are not simply platonic forms; they influence only to the degree that networks and institutions are there to cultivate and expound them. Ideas, if they are to influence, are inseparable from individuals and institutions.

It’s easy, as a conservative Christian, to want to be the gadfly who stands athwart liberalism yelling, “Stop!” But what Dr. George’s witness communicates is that what matters is being the right type of gadfly—the kind of person who is winsome and gracious but astute in an argument, one who must be taken seriously by ideological counterparts.

His is a combination of scholarly output, acumen in building diverse coalitions, fierce yet honest examination of differing viewpoints, and care for and attentiveness to the next generation. Each facet is a model for us to follow as we enter the next generation of debate about issues integral to Christian faithfulness but also vital to a healthy, functioning social order.

Anyone who knows Professor George knows of his admiration for his students who venture out in defense of “the permanent things”—among them life, marriage, and religious liberty. Indeed, this is a moment when we confess that we, as young scholars and activists in defense of “the permanent things,” stand on someone else’s shoulders. Dr. George has spoken of how the days for “comfortable Christianity” are now over. But he should know that the legacy he’s passing on is being picked up by a generation that is willing to take up its cross to follow Christ.

The book you are holding in your hands offers evangelical explorations into the thought of Robert P. George. I’ve tried to assemble a network of scholars who know the various contours of George’s work well. But you may wonder: Why is there a book such as this written by evangelical Christians about a conservative Catholic? The answer is that George’s thought is profoundly influential among evangelical intellectuals, and now, more than ever, the continuation of his thought for future generations is all the more urgent as the secular winter grows even colder. We need his thought to help us endure coming storms.

There’s a particular reason why this is necessary for evangelical audiences. In my experience, evangelicals have the wonderful instinct to believe the Bible at face value, which means they do not need to be convinced of its accuracy. I love this about evangelicals. We humbly and eagerly submit ourselves to the word of God as his authoritative, inerrant, and all-sufficient revelation. I also notice, however, that despite our confidence in the Bible’s teaching on such subjects as the family or sexuality, evangelicals often lack either the confidence or ability to explain the reason, purpose, or intelligibility of biblical ethics rationally. For example, most evangelicals I know believe unswervingly in the enduring reality of the male-female binary, but if you asked them how to define what a man or woman is, they would cite a Bible verse yet be unable to speak intricately about the way the human body and its embodied forms are designed for specific ends that both complete it and, in turn, dictate how the body is understood and respected. If our answer cannot make sense apart from the Bible, what we have told our audience is that our ethics make sense only as a sectarian matter, rather than as a public matter with public implications for public policy and public morality. A failure to understand how the Bible speaks about creation order leaves Christians with a deficient understanding of the Bible’s relationship to public ethics.

The Bible’s presentation of morality, however, is universal in scope, objective in its truthfulness, and intelligible in its reasons for commanding our obligation to obey it. Biblical morality is, therefore, a matter of law. It summons our obedience because biblical morality constitutes a truthful standard of measurement, action, and restraint. It exists for our good. This is where George’s thought proves immensely valuable to evangelicals. George’s work helps give colorful and rational expression to the ethics that evangelicals hold dear.

Social Conservatism for the Common Good seeks to explain the broad contours of George’s work and demonstrate its ongoing relevance to the moral concerns in the public square facing evangelical Christians. To that end, this volume is a project of social and public ethics, but more than that, I hope it serves students in the broader project of developing a public theology that is faithful to Scripture and beneficial to neighbor and world. Where necessary, of course, authors here explain the divergences of his thought from how evangelicals develop certain arguments within the public square. We are evangelicals, after all, and there are areas where George’s thought differs from our own. In this book we are by no means wishing to downplay the very important differences between Rome and Geneva. Thus, this book is both explanatory and, by nature, critical at points, but it is still complementary to an evangelical worldview.

One of the most important reasons for this book is that it aims to inspire courage. I know of few others like Robert P. George who have been willing to withstand ridicule and contempt for their faithfulness to Christ. Our natural inclination is cowardice, and when Scripture speaks of the transaction of one being blessed in proportion to encountering persecution, it strikes us as bizarre. How can suffering be a blessing? One way is that it draws those who are suffering to an even greater dependence on Christ. But it also fortifies the relationships one can look to when experiencing suffering or persecution. The cross is indeed a place of suffering and liberation—where the Christian learns to live unencumbered by the shallow dross of the world and where intimacy with Christ is most visceral. But the cross is not the last word either. We stand as people who are promised resurrection, which means our persecution, cultural rejection, and scorn are not in vain.

George has powerfully articulated the need for courage as the virtue du jour. At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in 2014, George spoke the following words on how the days of “comfortable Christianity” are over:

To be a witness to the gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship—heavy costs. So for us there is no avoiding the question: Am I unwilling to stand with Christ by proclaiming his truths? The days of comfortable Christianity are past.2

George demonstrates an indefatigable and, frankly, cancel-proof courage. Years ago, he wrote the following on Facebook. It is something I come back to regularly:

Surely no one is surprised that many Christians are swept along by cultural trends, no matter how antithetical they are to Biblical principles and the firm and constant teaching of the faith. ’Twas ever thus. (Indeed, ’twas thus for the ancient Hebrews, too, as scripture makes more than abundantly clear.) And Christians who fall in line with a trend always find ways to say that the trend, whatever it is, is compatible with Christian faith—even dictated by it! It’s hard for human beings to actually be countercultural, and Christians are human beings just like everybody else. So, when Marxism is trendy, there will be self-proclaimed Christian Marxists. When Fascism is fashionable, there will be self-identified Christian fascists. When racial subordination and segregation is the cultural norm, we’ll baptize it. When eugenics is in vogue, there will be Christians claiming that eugenic practices and policies constitute Christian love in practice. If polyamory becomes the next cause embraced by the beautiful people and the cultural elite, we will start hearing about the Christian case for group marriage—“love cannot be arbitrarily confined to pairs.” And on and on. Being human, we crave approval, and we like to fit in. Moreover, we human beings are naturally influenced by the ways of thinking favored by those who are regarded in a culture as the sophisticated and important people. When push comes to shove, it’s really hard to be true to Christian faith; the social and personal costs are too high. We Christians praise the martyrs and honor their memories, but we are loath to lose so much as an opportunity for career advancement, or the good opinion of a friend, much less our lives. So, we tend to fall in line, or at least fall silent. We deceive ourselves with rationalizations for what amounts to either conformism or cowardice. We place the emphasis on whatever happens in the cultural circumstances to be the acceptable parts of Christian teaching and soft-pedal or even abandon the parts that the enforcers of cultural norms deem to be unacceptable. We make a million excuses for going along with what’s wrong, and pretty soon we find ourselves going along with calling it right. Jesus says, “if you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me.” We say, “um, well, we’ll get around to that at some point.” May God have mercy on us.3

In an age like our own, when culture seems to religious conservatives to be growing increasingly secular and hostile to Christian ethics, the fact that someone of George’s convictions can prosper at a place like Princeton is evidence that though the times are challenging and increasingly so, they are not as bad as they could be. But that will continue only if there are individuals and institutions that exist to carry the torch forward with the dispositions of courage, joy, rigor, and tenacity.

George’s adversaries may regret that he was ever given tenure to promote the views he does, but no one—even at Princeton—should say that his tenure was wasted.

1  David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker,” New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com. For an additional intellectual profile of George, see “Robert P. George” at the Contemporary Thinkers website: https://contemporarythinkers.org/robert-george/.

2  Robert P. George, “Ashamed of the Gospel? The End of Comfortable Christianity,” Touchstone, May/June 2015, 3–4.

3  Robert P. George, “A thought and a prayer for my fellow Christians (and for myself),” Facebook, June 13, 2012, https://www.facebook.com/robert.p.george.39/posts/3914005561246.

1

A Socrates for Our Athenian Age

A Short Life of Robert P. George

John D. Wilsey

The Swarthmore College academic year of 1973–1974 was the freshman year for a young country boy from Morgantown, West Virginia. Robert P. George—he welcomes people to call him Robby—grew up as the oldest of five boys, the sons of Joseph and Catherine George. As with most boys in his station, his childhood was marked mostly by days spent hunting and fishing, walking and running through the woods and over the hills in country claimed over time by the Cherokee, Iroquois, Shawnee, English, and French, and later by Virginia and, as a result of national fratricide in the nineteenth century, West Virginia. George was a precocious boy, talented especially at playing what he calls “Appalachian classical music” (that is, bluegrass) on the banjo,1 and he was the first of his family ever to attend college. His high school education was adequate for a boy headed for the coal mines but not suited to preparing an academic. Finding himself poorly equipped for the intellectual rigor and challenges of Swarthmore, he wondered during his first semester whether he would make it to the end of the academic year.2

At this critical time, a professor who believed in George stepped in on his behalf. James Kurth, who taught political science, recognized George’s strengths as a critical thinker with a strong desire to succeed. Feeling that a poorly written paper George had submitted did not reflect the young West Virginian’s true ability, Kurth called him into his office and tutored him on how to approach academic writing. He gave George a second chance at the paper, and his pupil did much better—earning a B+. And as a result of Kurth’s instruction and encouragement, George’s performance dramatically improved in his other courses as well.

In George’s sophomore year, Professor Kenneth Sharpe, who taught an introductory course in political theory, assigned George’s class Plato’s dialogue Gorgias.3 Reading Gorgias was a life-changing event for the young man. Up to that point, George had always believed that the value of education and, indeed, knowledge itself was instrumental, a means to the end of getting a good job and making a decent income. But Gorgias was as a bolt out of the blue sky. Plato portrays Socrates—in his engagement with the Sophist characters Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles—demonstrating that knowledge of truth is actually an end in itself, a thing fundamentally valuable for its own sake. “As soon as Plato led me through the exercise of leading to the conclusion that knowledge is an intrinsic aspect of our well-being and fulfillment as human beings,” George notes, “I could see it! I had to . . . rethink everything.”4 Plato’s Gorgias impelled George toward a lifetime of truth seeking through teaching, writing, debating, and engaging in the public square that has inspired thousands of people over nearly four decades.

Today, George has accumulated a list of impressive credentials. He serves as the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence in the Politics Department at Princeton University, a chair held previously by distinguished figures such as Woodrow Wilson and Edward Corwin. He was appointed to the US Commission on Civil Rights by President George H. W. Bush, served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, was chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, represented the United States in UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology, and was a judicial fellow of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is the founder and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, a program at Princeton devoted to building the undergraduate curriculum in constitutional studies; advocating for American ideals and institutions; hosting visiting scholars in history, philosophy, law, and political theory for half-year and yearlong appointments; and promoting scholarly cooperation between Princeton students and postdoctoral and visiting fellows in the Program.5 He is a 1977 graduate of Swarthmore College, and he received a JD (juris doctor) degree from Harvard Law School and an MTS (master of theological studies) from Harvard Divinity School. George also holds degrees of DPhil (doctor of philosophy), BCL (bachelor of civil law), DCL (doctor of civil law), and Dlitt (doctor of letters) from Oxford University.

One of George’s proudest moments was when he was awarded the United States Presidential Citizens Medal from George W. Bush in a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on December 10, 2008. George’s friend Charles Colson, a recipient of the same honor, urged him to wear the lapel pin signifying the medal as a matter of civic duty, and George wears it everywhere he goes. He has given lectures all over the world, holds twenty-two honorary degrees, was awarded the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University, and several other prestigious recognitions. His name appears as author or editor on thirteen volumes, and his scholarly articles and reviews can be found in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, and other renowned publications. His public writings appear in such auspicious outlets as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and First Things.6 And yet, when one spends a few hours with George, one finds a man devoted to his family, to his students, to his friends, and to ideas. He is known for being the same man when he relates to presidents, popes, Supreme Court justices, and scholars as he is to undergraduates, parishioners, restaurant servers, and janitors.

George’s ready smile, customary three-piece suit, familiar shock of neatly parted salt-and-pepper hair, and dignified yet unassuming manner naturally draw people to him. His friends are deeply devoted to him, and his philosophical opponents are some of his oldest and most committed companions. George is acknowledged by many to be among the most sincere and consistent truth seekers alive today. In 2009, David D. Kirkpatrick of the New York Times Magazine called George “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker,”7 but George charmingly laughs off this salient description by jesting, “I don’t believe a word the New York Times says, and I don’t believe anyone should believe that claim!”8 It is an easy claim to believe nonetheless.

Plato’s Gorgias serves as something of an analogy to George’s life and career, as he has pursued truth courageously since his youth and shown others by his example how to be truth seekers themselves. He is a Socrates in our Athenian culture, a culture corrupted by an unquenchable thirst for power; fueled and justified by baseless, sentimental rhetoric; and devoted to the pursuit of the pleasures of unbridled passions. George has devoted his life to the countercultural mission of practicing humility, extending charity, and demonstrating what Socrates taught about the good life, that “this is the best way of life—to live and die in the pursuit of righteousness and all other virtues. Let us follow this, I say, inviting others to join us.”9 George is a partner to anyone who would seek after the good, the true, and the beautiful. Though he is a committed Catholic, he counts Jews, Muslims, mainline Protestants, and evangelicals among his friends and collaborators. Prominent evangelicals such as Chuck Colson, Timothy George, Albert Mohler, Peter Lillback, and Richard Land have each found common cause with George over the decades, working alongside him to advocate for the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and religious freedom. George has proved himself to be a close Catholic ally to evangelicals for his whole career, a fact that this book attests to.

Early Years

George was born on July 10, 1955, as a third-generation American. His grandparents were immigrants—his paternal grandfather came to America from Syria and was of the Antiochene Orthodox tradition, which George proudly observes was the first tradition in the world in which the followers of Christ were called “Christians.”10 His maternal grandfather, a Catholic, arrived from southern Italy. Both of George’s grandfathers worked in the coal mines, although his maternal grandfather was able to save enough money to eventually become a grocer. Joseph, George’s father (whom he refers to as “the Chief”), was drafted at the age of eighteen in 1944 and served with the Sixty-Sixth Infantry Division (the Black Panthers) in Normandy and Brittany. He was aboard the troop transport SS Leopoldville when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat on December 24, 1944, as it carried the division from England to France during the Battle of the Bulge. Hundreds died, but Joseph was among the soldiers who were rescued. A few years after returning home from the war, Joseph met and fell in love with Catherine Sellaro. They were married in 1953 and had five sons: Robert, Leonard, Kent, Keith, and Edward.11

The family was tight knit, and the boys were particularly close. George remarks, “At times I couldn’t remember which one I was.”12 They stuck together. George recalls, “Rarely did any of us get picked on by other kids, but if we did, it was a case of ‘woe unto him by whom transgressions come.’”13 And while George was the first of his family to go to college, all five boys ultimately earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. Three of George’s brothers—Kent, Keith, and Edward—followed him to Oxford. The other, Leonard, holds graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale.

As a boy, George discovered his love of music, especially mountain music played on the banjo. He began playing at age twelve and got so good at the banjo and the guitar that he played for square dances, for rod and gun clubs, and at the West Virginia University folk music scene. He played often on Friday nights at a coffee house run by the Catholic chaplaincy on campus that was known as the Potter’s Cellar. On Saturday nights, he would play for the campus Protestants at their chaplaincy, which they called the Last Resort. When he played for the miners, he could make up to twenty dollars a night, which George described as a “fortune” for a country boy in Morgantown in the sixties.14 George has always loved banjo picking. His banjo playing could be heard from his rooms while he studied at Oxford, and he continues to be an avid bluegrass and folk musician. During the months of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, George would record himself playing and singing songs like “Keep on the Sunny Side,” then would post his songs on his social media accounts. Each year at the James Madison Program’s annual Robert J. Giuffra Conference, George can be counted on to play and sing informally for a relaxed and joyful crowd after the concluding dinner.

George’s parents were the most important shapers of his character. “My life was built on their success,” George says, and he learned from them how to cultivate a generous spirit.15 He remembers his Catholic family being closely integrated with the religious life of Morgantown, which was defined mainly by Scotch-Irish Protestantism dating back to the eighteenth century. While George does not recall the term evangelical being used as a descriptor of Protestants when he was growing up, he did consider evangelicalism to be a powerful religious and cultural influence in his community. There were Southern Baptists, independent Baptists, Pentecostals, and mainline Protestants in the Morgantown of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Catholic Georges fit in well, since theirs was a working family like everyone else’s. Joseph was a salesman and then a wine and spirits broker in Morgantown, and he encouraged his boys to get to know the religious traditions of their friends by going to church with them, provided they also attended Mass on Sunday.16

Encountering Evangelicalism

George’s first exposure to evangelicalism was through his boyhood best friend and, particularly, the influence of his friend’s mother. They were Southern Baptists, and while his friend’s father had died before George knew the family, these Baptists had become a second family to him. They spoke to George of having a personal relationship with Jesus and of the importance of making a decision to follow Christ. While the spirit of this language was not foreign to George—as Catholics, they would have affirmed those things—George says, “It was just not an idiom in which we spoke.”17 Still, conversations they had together spurred George on to learn more about his own Catholic faith and Christianity more broadly.

It was through George’s friendship with this Southern Baptist family that he was introduced to the ministry of Billy Graham. Films of Graham’s crusades would periodically be shown in the movie theater in town, and they would attend those films together. George remembered how the crusades would close with Graham’s altar call, accompanied by George Beverly Shea’s singing of the hymn “Just as I Am.” Since Graham’s sermon was being displayed on the movie screen, the people in the theater were invited to come behind the curtain backstage to receive counseling and literature. Responding publicly to the altar call was something, as George recalls, “I always felt that, as a Catholic, I shouldn’t do, so I didn’t do it. But I rejoiced that so many in the audience did.” Since those early days, George says, “I developed an enormous admiration for Billy Graham, and a certain kind of envy that the Protestants and evangelicals had him!”18

By the time George went off to Swarthmore, he was struck by how many academics disparaged evangelicals. “They didn’t know [evangelicals],” George says. “I did. I knew that their depiction of them was a caricature, and I was offended that Protestant evangelicals would be thought of in this way by people who purported to be learned, to be intellectuals.”19 Even as a college student, George aligned himself with his evangelical peers, defending them and identifying with them, refusing to distance himself from them or make sure that others knew he was Catholic, attending their Bible studies and prayer meetings, and merely sticking up for his evangelical friends. “I didn’t want to leave [their detractors] with the impression that I was embarrassed by evangelical Protestants,” George recalls, “so I didn’t mind if they thought that’s what I was.”20 George’s earliest friendships with evangelicals, his admiration for Billy Graham, and his identification with evangelicals who were mocked by secular professors in college formed the basis for what later became strong relationships and partnerships with evangelical leaders.

Educational Journey

As a student at Swarthmore, and after having read Gorgias under Sharpe’s guidance, George became fascinated with law, ethics, and jurisprudence under the tutelage of Swarthmore professor Linwood Urban, an Episcopalian clergyman and specialist in medieval philosophy. He later became acquainted with the work of new natural law scholar John Finnis. It was through Finnis’s work on Aristotle and natural law that George broke through David Hume’s embrace of subjectivity in ethics to, as George describes it, “a positive account of the objectivity of practical reason and morality that does not fall to the Humean critique.”21 George came to believe that knowledge of the good is real, that humans can possess that knowledge directly, and that we can accept the knowledge of the good as an end in itself. “My grandmother,” George says, “who had less than a fifth grade education, understood perfectly well that friendship, for example, was good not merely for instrumental purposes, but was intrinsically valuable.”22 After his graduation from Swarthmore, George studied at Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School, where his fascination with the connections between law and morality deepened further. In 1981, upon finishing his studies at Harvard, George received the Frank Knox Memorial Scholarship from Harvard and was accepted to study at Oxford University for the DPhil degree under the supervision of John Finnis and Joseph Raz. Finnis and Raz, protégés of H. L. A. Hart, were taking on a student who would prove to be as significant to the field of legal philosophy in the twenty-first century as their teacher was in the twentieth.

During this time, George was dating Cindy Schrom, an English literature student and classical guitarist whom he had met as a sophomore at Swarthmore. Together, they finished Swarthmore, went to Harvard, and were engaged by the time George went to England to study at Oxford. While bluegrass music wafted from George’s rooms (“A bit of Appalachia had taken over the city of dreaming spires,” George jests) and natural law philosophy flowed from his pen, his thoughts were ever on Cindy back home in the States. The couple was married at Andover Chapel on Harvard’s campus in December 1982. Today they have two adult children, David and Rachel, and George’s family is his life’s first priority, followed by his students.23

In 1986, George submitted his doctoral dissertation, titled “Law, Liberty, and Morality in Some Recent Natural Law Theories.” Charles Beitz, who had taught George political science at Swarthmore, contacted him while he was working on his dissertation to let him know that Princeton was looking to fill a position in their Politics Department. Beitz suggested George write to the department, which George did. He was invited to interview and was offered the position. In 1985, George settled into his teaching post at Princeton. Aside from visiting professorships, including one at Harvard Law School, George remarked, “My one and only [full-time] job has been at Princeton.”24

Evangelical Relationships

After George was granted tenure at Princeton in 1993, George’s relationships and partnerships with evangelicals deepened. He joined with Richard John Neuhaus in bringing Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Eastern Orthodox Christians together through the Institute on Religion and Public Life and First Things. The Ethics and Public Policy Center, under the leadership of its then–vice president Michael Cromartie, convened a conference on Protestants and the natural law tradition. At that conference, George found himself in a spirited debate with Carl F. H. Henry on natural law, which attracted the attention of Chuck Colson. As a result of George’s exchange with Henry, Colson invited George to speak to the board of Prison Fellowship on natural law, an invitation George accepted. A lifelong friendship ensued.25

In Princeton’s broad community of students and residents, George has become a well-known friend to evangelicals. Since George founded the James Madison Program in 2000, it has welcomed Protestant and evangelical scholars each year as postdoctoral and visiting fellows, such as Allen C. Guelzo, J. Daryl Charles, Matthew Wright, Adam MacLeod, Adeline Allen, Carl Trueman, Daniel K. Williams, Jonathan Den Hartog, Roberta Bayer, and many others. George has also maintained close ties with evangelical students through involvement with Princeton Christian Fellowship (known as Princeton Evangelical Fellowship prior to 2017), Manna Christian Fellowship, and Athletes in Action. And George has worked closely with Stone Hill Church, an evangelical congregation in Princeton. Matt Ristuccia, Stone Hill’s longtime pastor (retired in 2018), is one of George’s dear friends, having partnered together with him for many years. Each year, Stone Hill has opened its doors to evangelical visiting scholars at the James Madison Program as they looked for a church home during their yearlong appointments. George has on many occasions given talks at the church.

As a Catholic, George has found common cause with Protestants and evangelicals for over three decades, particularly with regard to issues such as civility, the sanctity of life and marriage, and religious freedom. Still, for George, those issues, as important as they are, must be based in the most important common cause of all, “the spreading of the gospel,” specifically, “what [C. S.] Lewis called ‘mere Christianity,’ the ancient creeds of the Christian church . . . with the essential doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation.”26 Nicene doctrines and evangelism must form the basis for fellowship between Catholics and evangelicals “because it is a profound sharing.”27 If Catholics and evangelicals can base their fellowship on the essentials of the Christian faith, it follows that their partnership in civic engagement will be marked by the love of Christ. Rather than a sentimental abstraction, the love of Christ serves as the impetus behind an active defense of human dignity, of bearing witness to the truth “when it’s easy and when it’s hard, and these days it’s hard,” George says.28 George insists that Christianity, with love as its essential and animating attribute, “is the ground of possibility of mustering the courage to have somewhat uncomfortable conversations about deep issues that people do not always want to talk about.”29 Protestants and Catholics have pronounced theological differences that keep them from uniting with one another under the same ecclesiastical authority. Those differences aside, what characterizes George is his warmth toward evangelicals and his willingness to partner with them in the defense of “the permanent things.”

Tough Topics

George has spent his career directly addressing uncomfortable topics because those topics are at the heart of what it means to be human. Conversations about abortion, sexuality, and rights of conscience may not necessarily ease digestion for family members around the table after a Thanksgiving meal, but those issues transcend political, social, and religious tribal concerns and pertain to the most significant elements of how we know the good, the true, and the beautiful. Central to George’s philosophy is the idea that human law is necessary and good but only to the extent that it is consistent with divine and natural law, which is superior to human law.30

Take abortion as an example. As a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, George heard testimony from Anne Lyerly, MD, who was then serving as chair of the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG). Lyerly’s testimony concerned a report produced by ACOG titled “The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine,” in which physicians laid down their opinions of what should count as the concerns of conscience, thereby stepping far outside the scope of their expertise. Specifically, in the members of ACOG’s judgment, pregnancy should be considered a matter of health care rather than a decision between a man and a woman about having a child. This judgment was philosophical and political, not scientific. Thus, as George said to the Society of Catholic Social Scientists in 2012, the report’s “analysis and recommendations for action do not proceed from a basis of moral neutrality.”31

One of the recommendations for action in the report was notably troubling. Because ACOG judged that pro-life physicians in recommending their patients elect against abortion would be inappropriately foisting their religious beliefs on them, it advocated barring those physicians from doing so. In an effort to prevent force, the report recommended force! In George’s analysis,

Those responsible for the report and its recommendations evidently would use coercion to force physicians and pharmacists who have the temerity to dissent from the philosophical and ethical views of those who happen to have acquired power in the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, either to get in line or to go out of business.32

The inherent contradiction in ACOG’s report was fueled by political commitments that informed their approach to medicine. This was a naked power play in the guise of neutrality and was supposedly, to put it in colloquial terms, “merely following the science.” George argued, “In itself, a direct (or elective) abortion—deliberately bringing about the death of a child in utero—does nothing to advance maternal health. . . . That’s why it is wrong to depict elective abortion as health care.”33

George takes a historical and philosophical perspective in his critiques of abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism. Considering today’s ethical permissiveness and comparing our contemporary philosophical environment with that of the first- and second-century West, George asserts that the ancient heresy of Gnosticism is making a comeback. The ancient Gnostics divided reality into two distinct spheres, the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual was over and above the physical, superior to it in every way. The physical, marked by change and decay, was evil. Gnostic “Christians” taught that salvation from the world lay in a secret, esoteric gnosis, or knowledge of the divine. Today’s gnostics echo the ancients in stressing the immaterial over the material. “Applied to the human person,” George writes, “this means that the material or bodily is inferior. . . . The self is a spiritual or mental substance; the body, its merely material vehicle.”34