Briefly Noted

In matters of religious freedom, we seem to be living in thebest and the worst of times. The best, because an abstract, propositionalassent to religious freedom as a fundamental human right has never been morewidely embraced, and codified in such documents as the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights.

Yet also the worst, because that abstract assent seems tohave diminishing influence over the actual condition of religious freedom inthe world, which has markedly deteriorated in the past two decades. Accountingfor this paradox, and finding realistic ways to address it, is the goal of thisvolume of essays, featuring a lively array of eminent contributors from allover the world, including Gerard Bradley and Thomas Farr, who are well known toFirst Things readers. It is a judicious and ­thought-provoking collection,deserving of a wide audience.

The book’s contents range from a consideration of the status(often eroding) of international legal protections for religious exercise, to aseries of diverse case studies of how religious “markets” operate (or are keptfrom operating) in various countries. It concludes with a powerful critique ofthe growing tendency of governing elites in the Western democracies to rejectthe advancement of religious freedom as an integral feature of an effectiveforeign policy, out of an unfortunate combination of secularist blindness andreflexive avoidance.

Taken together, the essays teach the importance of attendingto the specific historical processes by which religious freedom is realized ineach particular place. One size does not fit all; one Declaration cannot changethe world. The challenges to genuine religious freedom in Turkey or China arequite different from those faced by the non-Orthodox in Putin’s Russia or bycitizens of the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe, let alone theMuslims of India.

Of particular interest are the book’s four chapters dealingwith the problems and prospects of bringing contemporary Islam to a fullerembrace of religious freedom. One Turkish contributor, Recep ?entürk, insiststhat Islam has ample theological resources for sustaining a robust doctrine ofreligious liberty, but others warn that the social experience of Islamindicates the need for caution and countervailing force. In the years ahead,much will hang on which side of that argument has a greater portion of thetruth.

—Wilfred M. McClay, a member of First Things’advisory council, is the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History ofLiberty at the University of Oklahoma.

In many ways, France’s first Protestants, the Huguenots, were“more puritan than the (English) Puritans” in both doctrine and morals.Although they were never able to make France a Calvinist country (as theircoreligionists did in Scotland and elsewhere), they did in the 1560s and 1570sattract between 7 and 10 percent of the French population, ­including a slightmajority of the nobility, as well as seven of the 114 Catholic bishops.

Geoffrey Treasure, a retired senior master at Harrow Schoolin England, has produced a long, detailed, immensely readable study of theHuguenots, clearly aimed at a wider potential audience than academics. Knottyquestions and complex details are usually relegated to the endnotes.

The Huguenots were able forcibly to resist the attempts ofcrown and Church alike to suppress them, and then to win a broad degree ofreligious toleration, unequalled anywhere else in Europe but Poland, throughthe Edict of Nantes in 1598. There followed a half-century or more ­duringwhich the Huguenots ­enjoyed a broad measure of prosperity, respect, and evenacceptance in ­Catholic France.

Louis XIV’s revocation of the edict in 1685 was followed bya massive flight of some 200,000 Protestants from France, and renewedpersecution at home met with a sustained guerilla uprising in the rural area ofthe Cévennes in the early years of the eighteenth century, which divertedFrench military forces at a critical moment from their struggle against foreignenemies. French Protestantism continued to exist underground until, in 1787,Louis XVI’s Edict of Versailles granted religious toleration to Protestants(Calvinists and ­Lutherans) and Jews.

The author has a decided sympathy for the Huguenots (butalso a distaste for Calvinist theology and the crusading zeal it inspired), andalthough he does not seem to have the same degree of sympathy for the “Catholicparty,” his treatment of the seventeenth-century French Catholic revival and ofJansenism’s role as a bridge by which significant numbers of leading Huguenotscrossed over to Catholicism is masterful. He is also aware of the weaknesses aswell as the strengths of the Huguenots’ self-conception as “God’s chosenpeople.”

Anyone with an interest in the ­Huguenots would be well advisedto turn to this book for a full account of their origins and early history.

—William Tighe is associate professor of history at Muhlenberg College.

In his historical tour of the proofs for and against God’sexistence, Nathan Schneider, a journalist and activist whose last work treatedthe Occupy movement, unfolds the story of provers and their arguments from theancient Greeks through medieval Muslims to today’s analytic philosophers andNew Atheists.

The chapters are divided ­roughly chronologically, with abent toward categorical themes. Schneider ­sketches the historical developmentof various categories within the proof genre as thinkers on both sides ­create,critique, and reinvent arguments in an ongoing debate spanning centuries. Hecategorizes these proofs and disproofs as cosmological, dialectical,historical, ontological, phenomenological, sociological, teleological, andtranscendental.

His tour culminates in a description of the modernresurgence of Christian philosophy among today’s most eminent philosophersengaging with the New Atheists. Isolated individual philosophers have given wayto an apologetics movement that has become an industry in itself.

Schneider helpfully presents these philosophicalcontroversies within the context of each philosopher’s life and shows thepersonal nature of the search for truth. He challenges readers not only toweigh the proofs but to determine the proper relationship between intellectualargument and heartfelt belief.

Closing on a personal note, ­Schneider says that howeverurgent the search for proofs or disproofs may seem amid current controversies,we may not find a conclusive argument that settles the matter forever. Instead,arguments carry people toward one side or the other as ­individuals confrontpressing questions and find profound answers. Relayed in ­non-technicallanguage, God in Proof challenges the casual and the experiencedphilosopher alike to engage with historical arguments as they make their ownquest for truth.

—Timothy Jacobs is an M.Div. student at the SouthernBaptist Theological Seminary.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a hip, tattoo-clad, foul-mouthed,formerly alcoholic pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America whoheads a start-up congregation in urban Denver. She has received attention inthe national press—a November profile in the Washington Post declaredher representative of “a new, muscular form of liberal Christianity” that“speaks to fed-up believers.”

In this profanity-laced autobiography/ministry study,Bolz-­Weber narrates her own upbringing in a male-dominated Church of Christcongregation; her eventual alcoholism, drug use, and ­promiscuity; andultimately, her recovery, conversion, and decision to enter the ministry as apastor to the “spiritual but not religious.” In ­ Pastrix, she examinesher own vulnerabilities and prejudices, as well as her trials as a minister ina newly formed church.

Yet despite its merits, Pastrix’s message comes upshort. Dietrich Bonhoeffer decried “the grace we bestow upon ourselves.”Bolz-Weber embraces it .

For instance, she refuses to disavow her Wiccan past, asmany Christians expected her to do. “I can’t imagine that God doesn’t revealGod’s self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity.” Inother words, the author finds gender-neutral language easier than the languageof repentance.

Pastrix differs from the typical conversiontestimonial wherein the evangelist explains how the love of Christ has led tofaith, repentance, and a new path. If one can get past the oft-repeated triumphalismover the ELCA’s 2009 decision to bless same-sex relationships, there is a greatdeal to like in this book. Its message is entertainingly delivered. SinceBolz-Weber was a comedian, her insights are often quite funny.

Most notably, she is a powerful preacher of grace to thosealienated from the church, and a convincing witness for Christ’s power to healaddiction. But her conversion message allows one to enjoy the self-helpbenefits of faith without the guilt: Just be who you are.

—Dennis Di Mauro is the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Churchin Warrenton, Virginia.