Prophecy Without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square by Cathleen Kaveny

Abstract

Reviewed by: Prophecy Without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square by Cathleen Kaveny Richard A. Hibey Prophecy Without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square. By Cathleen Kaveny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 464pp. $49.95. Cathleen Kaveny’s declared purpose is to forge a new direction for discussion among political philosophers, lawyers, ethicists, religious studies scholars, and theologians about the role of religion in the public square. With irreconcilable dissension the order of the day, politicians and pundits would also do well to read this superior analysis of public discourse in general, and religiously grounded—or prophetic—rhetoric, in particular. Kaveny’s account places the American Puritan experience at the root of today’s discourse in the public square. The practice of religion, in the Puritan way, was rigorous in both content and rhetorical form, the latter a point of her penetrating study. The Puritan Jeremiad sermon followed the style of the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah. The form was inseparable from the belief that unified the American Puritan community. Bound by a covenant with God that set the norms for Puritan life, the community’s leaders admonished their brothers and sisters in faith against sin and condemned in the strongest terms violations of the covenant—this while exhorting the community to repent or suffer material and spiritual loss. As with the prosecutorial rhetoric of these harsh religious/political “prophetic” indictments, these jeremiads were criticisms of past conduct and, in the grand scheme of things, uniquely religious. At the same time, Kaveny posits Aristotle’s “deliberative rhetoric” as the language of politics and public policy (4). It is not forensic in nature; rather, its focus is on the future. [End Page 97] The over-arching question is whether there is a place in the rancorous public square for both historically contentious prophetic indictments and practical deliberation. Kaveny finds no solution to this in philosophical theories of moral reasoning, public reason, and civility because, while appropriate for moderating the discourse of practical deliberation, they do not address the radical condemnation and exhortation to repent and reform at the essence of prophetic indictments. Historically, Kaveny follows the evolution of the jeremiad from an “instrument of social unity” into a vehicle that shifted from the rock-ribbed belief of the community in its Covenant with God to its debating the very values that undergirded the belief and cohesion of the congregations of believers (127). No longer were prophets railing against their own community for their sins (“oracles against Israel”). Over time, prophets were excoriating others not of their community but rather who were enemies of God’s people (“oracles against the nations”) (214). Jeremiads that fortified cohesion of the faith community gave way in the public square to the rhetoric of “national material prosperity and security” (233). Kaveny summons her mastery of biblical scholarship and Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy to unpack the meaning and operation of prophetic indictment and practical deliberation. On the one hand, we are shown the biblical origins of the prophetic indictment as a rhetorical form that radically and uncompromisingly plants the flag of morality regarding politics and society against that which is immoral in the eyes of God. On the other hand, Kaveny argues that the deliberative form of discourse is, in fact, “our normal mode of moral reasoning” (252). Deliberative discourse seeks to identify what is being done and the reasons, motives and circumstances in which a behavior is being executed. Exercising prudence and practical wisdom are vital to a moral resolution. Necessarily, when rhetoric and reasoning collide in debate, tensions will rise. Kaveny asserts prophetic indictment has a place in the public square if its practitioner “possesses both humility and a lively sense of [End Page 98] irony” (375). Humility grants space for competing ideas. Irony “facilitates prophetic humility by enabling prophets to view their own words and actions from other vantage points.” She advances these arguments through her superb analyses of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and the Old Testament Book of Jonah. In the case of the Second Inaugural, Kaveny shows how Lincoln’s humility transposes prophetic indictment judiciously and humbly into a model that loses none of its moral force and yet recognizes...