Looking At David French

The other day, I ran into a piece by David French on Jonah Goldberg's Dispatch newsletter, "The Moral Collapse of America's Largest Christian University". Up to now, I haven't given David French much thought. All I knew about him was that, as a writer for National Review, he briefly mulled running against Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, making him a never-Trumper. Poking around the web, I saw that he's now, like David Brooks, a contribuing writer for The Atlantic, as well as Senior Editor for Goldberg's Dispatch and a columnist for Time.

Yet Wikipedia says of him,

David Austin French (born January 24, 1969) is an American political commentator, theologically conservative traditional Christian, and former attorney who has argued high profile religious liberty cases.

The "theologically conservative traditional Christian" part puzzles me. Here's what he has to say about "Christians" in the Dispatch story at the link:

A few days ago I was eating dinner with a small group of students at a Christian university, and the subject of post-liberalism came up. A person directly asked me why I seemed to object to formally seeking Christian governance in the United States. I answered his question with a question, “Why do you think it would be better than what we have?”

I was thinking both historically and presently. Historically, one could arguably locate the apex of Protestant power in the United States as somewhere around the time of Prohibition. After all, Christians were powerful enough to pass a constitutional amendment banning alcohol, all as part of an effort to improve public morals and public health.

Yet what was the state of American righteousness at that time of apex Christian power? Lynch mobs roamed the South. The entire region was an oppressive nation-within-a-nation, largely cut off from the rule of law. Anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments proliferated across the United States. Not even religious liberty was safe when Christians ruled.

And what about the present? Its largest institutions reel from scandal. A great mass of its members have succumbed to conspiracy theories. Its “religious” anti-vaxxism is claiming lives by the thousands.

So he's essentially conflating Christianity with Protestantism and then saying "Christians" are Prohibitionists, segregationists, anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy theorists. Though he doesn't mention it here, they're probably Trumpists, too. (He also doesn't mention that Prohibition was an anti-Catholic measure aimed principally at Irish and Italian immigrants.)

But wait. I'm not aware of any movement that is "formally seeking Christian governance in the United States". This would require a repeal of the First Amendment, something I just don't see on the horizon. This sounds an awful lot like a straw-man argument to me. It sounds like some people thought he "seemed to object to" something that as far as I can tell just doesn't exist. Well, I strongly object to space aliens invading the planet to steal our oxygen. Maybe he and I can join forces.

What was that about conspiracy theories?

In reality, especially in a world where Donald Trump has expanded the possible range of activism, at least some Christians, especially Catholics, have adopoted a stance of advocacy, and indeed political alliances, on a case-by-case basis. Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas recently said,

The Catholic Church should feel free to criticize the government when necessary and “shouldn’t be captive to one party or another[.]”

, , , “The Church has to have an independent voice to say we agree when we can agree, and when we can’t agree we’re going to say something,” Bishop Flores told Crux, an online Catholic news outlet.

“And that’s the way it works. I mean, the church is free to speak, and we shouldn’t be captive to one party or another,” he added.

Flores is the new head of the doctrine committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which is charged with assisting the bishops “in areas of faith and morals, providing expertise and guidance concerning the theological issues that confront the Church in the United States.”

This is consistent with recent statements I've noted here from Abp José Gómez, USCCB President, whose view is that there's currently a great deal about which to speak out. Does David French think this is "Christian governance"? I think it's more like the right of petition for redress of grievances, also in the First Amendment.

French isn't much of a legal mind if this is any indication. He certainly isn't much of a writer. I guess that's why he's at Time and The Atlantic.