Liberty, Blessings, and the NYTimes

My piece on David French is up

Photo by Beyzanur K. on Unsplash

Good Morning! I’m over at The Christian Research Journal today. I tackled (I hope in a way that only spreads sweetness and light) the political and theological views of David French. Most propitiously, just as I was scrolling back through what I’d written, I came across this piece in First Things by James Wood. He put quite neatly what I feel so many Sundays when I wander past The New York Times:

One of the interesting aspects of “winsome third-way-ism” is how its proponents approach the “lost.” While most advocates of this model admit that there are unbelievers on both left and right, they treat those groups disparately. Third-wayers are likelier to treat unbelievers on the left with deference, even affection. They frequently soften scriptural teaching in order to win these individuals to the faith, with the unstated (and often unfulfilled) promise that those hard teachings will be encountered in discipleship. By contrast, the lost on the right are regularly derided from pulpits, and third-wayers are quick to disavow them. The prospect of their conversion is often a matter of disinterest, and the hard edges of Scripture related to right-coded sins are sharpened. The left gets a gospel carrot, the right a stick. 

I hope you’ll check out the whole thing and then head over to CRJ to imbibe the daily content! Here’s a taste:

“I don’t even like him.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve said these words, nor the number of conversations that have provoked them, since 2015. Of course, they are about Donald Trump, former president and the singular modern figure to catalyze the disintegration of any remaining scraps of shared political or moral conviction in the United States. Whether you love him, hate him, or feel no feelings at all, Trump is the line drawn through every American heart.

One of his most articulate evangelical opponents is David French, a person who has emerged in America’s political life as at least as much of a conundrum as President Trump himself. In fact, to me, these two men feel like the Scylla and Charybdis of evangelical politics in 2024. One is intellectual, upright, and legally astute, the other crass and enmired in embarrassing legal and ethical troubles. Both intuitively tap into the forces of American political feeling. Through action and speech, both illumine the shifting contours of moral and spiritual sentiment. Both have had a tone problem. But in the aftermath of the attempt on the life of President Trump, the former president used his speech at the Republican National Convention to call for unity. Likewise, in a short podcast, French expressed his hope that America can find a less divided way forward. It seems, for a brief moment at least, that the kindness French so often preaches is on display. Nonetheless, navigating the turgid and polarizing discourse every day on X (formerly Twitter) and the New York Times leaves me feeling battered, floating on a sea of promises that nothing good lies ahead no matter which way I steer.

Pluralism Will Save Us. David French began his career defending the free speech and free association rights of students on hostile college campuses before doing a tour as a JAG officer in Iraq and then leaving his law work to write for National Review and The Atlantic. When Trump burst on the scene, French flirted with his own presidential run, eventually leaving National Review to launch The Dispatch. In January 2023, he became a columnist at the New York Times.

Understanding French’s personal experience over the last thirty years is central to grasping his political convictions. As a defender and a victim of free speech, he is wholly committed to the kind of tolerance that preserves secular pluralism. In his 2020 book-length response to his debate with Sorab Ahmari, one prompted by Ahmari’s “broadside” against “Frenchism,” he insists that defending the neutral spaces where pluralism remains is the best solution to the troubles we face. “America was built,” he explains, “from the ground up to function as a pluralistic republic. It can flourish only as a pluralistic republic.” Evidence of America’s original pluralism may be found in the diversity of local cultures and religious traditions throughout the nation. It was through the exercise of federalism that each diverse religious community learned to respect the others. That liberality, cemented by the rights of free speech and free association, has made America what it is, despite its many besetting sins. To throw this away in order to “win” the culture wars, as French intimates Ahmari is suggesting, strikes French as a perilous, unreasonable inclination.

Courage Under Trolling. Another key piece of French’s story is that, as a classical liberal, he is committed to ideological impartiality. In a world of cancellations, of the possibilities of speech costing something, he has endured racist and vile personal attacks against himself, his wife, and his children. As a result of his position as a Never Trumper, his whole family was subject to online harassment, particularly from the Alt-Right.

This experience continues to be central to French’s view of American politics and religion. It may be that French feels more comfortable with those who ideologically disagree with him on the Left simply because he has been treated more kindly by his supposed enemies. The practice of distinguishing between ordinary (though sharp) disagreement and extremist trolling — a knack not many of us possess to the degree we would like — was abandoned by French in the poisonous vitriol of the Trump era. If people on the Right feel that French does not well represent their views in America’s paper of record, it is nevertheless understandable that he might be deaf to the substantive reasoning given their affection for a political figure whose internet trolling abilities are legendary.

French’s toxic experience of others’ free exercise of speech, nevertheless, has not led him to question his belief that it is only the exercise of speech that offers a way out of the toxicity. Often pleading for kindness, for the Left and the Right to humanize each other, he believes preserving neutral space where anyone can speak is essential. Even for drag queens, even in a public library.

Read the whole thing! And check out the podcast I did with Melanie.

And finally, not to entirely overburden you, Dear Reader, with content but I’m going to send out a Read the Comments for paid subscribers about mid-afternoon. I just have to run kids in various directions first. Until then, Pip Pip!