Christmas Eve, 2008

Dear Mr. Obama,

In a speech before Planned Parenthood in 1997, you suggested that the “culture war” is a worn out debate  (“so nineties,” as you put it) that America needs to put to rest for once and for all. And you said that you would help to make that happen by signing the Freedom of Choice Act as one of your first acts as president.

But the premise of your thought is profoundly mistaken. It is imperative that you understand this, lest by signing FOCA you accomplish the very opposite of what you hope to accomplish.

To explain what I mean, I have to address something else you said in your speech to Planned Parenthood. You referred a number of times to “ideology” in that speech, and you suggested that ideology is the problem. By “ideology” you seem to mean ideas advanced for the sake of selfish ends, to the detriment of society. You apparently take the battle against abortion as the quintessential ideological battle, as thus understood.

But in the final analysis, none of this will wash; it’s far too facile and presumptive. Not that there is no such thing as ideology. Surely you are right that ideology is a huge problem — perhaps even the problem. But the real question is what to do about it. We won’t know what to do about it if we don’t understand it.

What is ideology, and what is the solution to ideology? Everyone may agree on this much: ideology is ideas proposed in a willful, self-centered, unjust manner, ideas proposed to the detriment of society. But there is something more fundamental than this, which is the real crux of the issue: Ideology is essentially dishonest, because it is a subordination of the pursuit of truth to ulterior, superficial, and often base motives. And so one must ask: is the solution to get rid of ideas, to forget about finding out what is true? Should we, for instance, not care what the truth is about when human life begins? Should we resort to verbal tricks to talk about that, with the implication that we are too modest to have positions on the things that matter most in human life? Is this the only real alternative to the challenge of learning the truth on the one side, versus self-interest masquerading as truth-telling on the other? Or is the real solution not rather to get beyond the selfish and superficial motivations, both personal and societal, that turn the pursuit of truth into ideological manipulation?

Obviously, everything turns on what one thinks of ideas themselves. That, in turn, is intimately connected with what one makes of of the phenomenon called humanity. And this is just what the fight over abortion is about.

There is more here to write about than I can manage now. My children — dear children, fortunate to be born and not destroyed — are clamoring to celebrate the Christ-child, not as a myth or a political ploy, but as the deepest of realities, and the deepest of mysteries too.

Some ideas are expressions of the deepest of realities. Some are, indeed, genuine attempts to discern the deepest realities, which for all that prove to be false. The great idea called tolerance is about the discovery that human beings need to give each other room to be mistaken in their yearning for the truth — not so that we can go back to being selfish, but so that we can submit to the truth in genuine freedom. This is a responsibility of both individuals and societies. The most important personal ethical decisions, as well as the most important societal customs and laws, are in the final analysis about submitting ourselves to the truth not ideologically (which after all is no submission to truth) but with the best of our power of discernment. This requires humility — not the false modesty which pretends to be able to dispense with all judgment.And an extreme disposition to impose abortion on a whole society bears the earmarks not of any such humility, but of hubris. Forcefully keeping important ideas, religious ones especially, out of the public forum is not tolerance, but the corruption of tolerance.

And so for now there is only time to say this: we agree about ideology. We have to get beyond that. But you must understand that signing FOCA won’t help with that. It won’t end the culture war. It won’t end the culture war because some ideas are much more than political ploys or personal selfish agendas. If ideas weren’t so important, ideology wouldn’t be such a problem either.

Flying directly in the face of the right to seek out, nourish, and cherish the truth won’t end any culture war. What it will do is start one … in earnest, in a manner not yet seen. In the name of Peace, let us avoid that.

With a heartfelt prayer for you, on this Most Holy Eve.