There are only a few texts I can think of that, if I had the ability, I would force people to read. One is the article by Shelby Steele excerpted above, which changed my life when I first read it.

In responding to the article a blogger made the following comment:

"White guilt? I'm white and I don't feel guilty about it. Maybe you should call it liberal guilt."

That was my take exactly when I first read the article. Dr. Shelby Steele, an African-American veteran of the Civil Rights era (now considered a conservative turncoat), has diagnosed one of the most destabilizing forces in local and international politics, not to mention religion and academe - white (i.e., liberal white) guilt.

As Dr. Steele has pointed out in his several books and numerous articles, atoning for white guilt has been the main thrust of the liberal social agenda in American politics since the mid-60's. Now atoning for guilt is a determining factor in the war on terror.

It didn't take much for me to see how such "atonement" fits naturally into the social erudition of The Episcopal Church since the 60's. The sacramental system of Christendom was hastily put to the service of a "real" moral dilemma -- not as a remedy for some archaic "original sin", but for the blight upon American upper-middle class "moral legitimacy". I don't think it's much of a stretch to equate modern liberal Christianity with this effort.

The worst thing about the liberal social agenda is not what it hopes to achieve - in ECUSA's newly hallowed phrase, "justice and peace among all people". The worst thing about it is that it does not, indeed cannot, achieve them. As Steele points out repeatedly, guilt-ridden liberals do not, cannot, even intend to promote the ideals they espouse. What they intend, finally, is to restore their own "moral legitimacy". This legitimacy is established through symbolic gestures of "justice and peace", namely, through ill-conceived legislative and social initiatives, presented with an air of "righteousness" - i.e., moral authority.

Apply this same intentionality to the war on terror and the implications are ominous: Guilt-ridden Americans are hamstrung when it comes to fighting a sworn enemy. The object of striving is no longer to defeat radical Islam or the "axis of evil". The only enemy that holds America in a death grip is her own sense of guilt. Once this is triggered, America is no longer engaging the war on terror. She's back to struggling for her soul - her moral legitimacy.

There's a terrible irony here. A people striving to achieve moral legitimacy by definition lack the moral will to win a public contest of any kind. Enter what I call the Steele Paradox: any expression of self-interest, including America's very survival, becomes testimony against the very "legitimacy" she labors to restore. Strategists outside the United States have learned to exploit what is a spiritual dilemma, playing our liberal politicians, in Hamlet's words, like a pipe.

Here's my theological reading of the Steele Paradox: when guilty people try to act morally, their moral actions are compromised by their guilt. The result is a classic "double-mindedness." The intention underlying moral agency is no longer the stated outcome, but the pressing need to become moral persons - i.e., to "feel" forgiven. Unless one has some basis to believe one is forgiven, then the "feeling" will be a sham, even when layered over with crafted displays of righteousness.

The solution to the strategic dilemma is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What is accomplished - strategically - by the Gospel? The end of factional rivalries? The restoration of a geopolitical balance of power? Perhaps a blanket endorsement of political conservatism? No to all of the above. The Gospel does not eliminate the need for moral vision and debate, but rather makes them possible.

What the Gospel accomplishes strategically is the neutralization of guilt. Forgiven people are liberated to do other than "justify" themselves. They are freed from the cycle of endlessly proving their legitimacy.

If those promoting a liberal social agenda truly felt forgiven, they would not necessarily change their political opinions. They simply would not be bound to fashionable causes or feel threatened by the need to examine results and refine their methods. They would be more willing to enter into honest debate. They would have the moral will to do what they thought was right, even if hecklers questioned their "moral legitimacy". In short, they would pour their energies into helping somebody else rather than running in ideological circles after their own moral tails.

Conservative Episcopalians have their own hang-ups with guilt and forgiveness. The only advantage they have is that of retaining the Gospel as the basis for practical action. They have their own characteristic problems in applying theory to practice. And they can be blackmailed like anyone else by the need to establish "moral legitimacy". Think of all that was extorted from a placid conservatism in the years after Bishop Pike, all in the name of "tolerance" and "inclusion".

The elimination of guilt is a practical problem, not only for constituents of religious institutions but for societies as a whole. It is no exaggeration to see the implications of this problem for the present war on terror. Not that "forgiven" citizens would adopt a single program of military engagement or restraint. The difference is that their moral choices would be unfettered by the need to "earn" forgiveness.

Persisting in "unforgiveness", particularly in time of war, is the spiritual equivalent to "not counting the cost". America's children once again find themselves on a bloody battlefield. All of a sudden their handlers at home, appalled by images on TV and hounded by the usual detractors, have them fighting an altogether different battle - not the battle for democracy but the battle for "moral legitimacy". The young people on the field, to their credit, have the will to fight, even to die, for something greater than themselves. The folks at home lack the moral will for them to win.

It's a terrible thing to send someone to kill and perhaps to die. Some would argue there is no possible justification for such an extreme course of action. Others will parse fine distinctions between just and unjust wars. In either case couch-potato moralists rarely pay a price for their opinions.

I have only one personal comment about the morality of war: either fight or don't.

There are two classes of persons I believe have no right even to entertain such questions: first, politicians whose motivations even in a time of war are determined by their standing in opinion polls; and, second, the spiritually compromised, whether to the Left or the Right, whose military opinions are determined by a grasping after moral legitimacy - i.e., the forgiveness of sins.

Forgiveness is freely given through the cross of Jesus Christ. The point here is that it is only given. It is never seized, purchased, conjured or conned.

---Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon in charge of Pastoral Care at St. Luke's Cathedral in Orlando, Florida

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