Napolitano on Easter and Liberty

https://www.creators.com/read/judge-napolitano/04/25/taking-easter-seriously-78f98

Napolitano would have us take Easter seriously and then proceeds to make a mockery of it. I found this to be in keeping with most of his commentaries. We would do well to identify these errors and reflect on them. Have they influenced our own thinking? To what degree do they shape the thinking of Christians around us?

Libertarian Freedom is confused with Biblical concepts of liberty which have to do with bondage to sin and false theological authority. Rejecting the teaching of the New Testament regarding the Christian's relation to the state, Napolitano promotes the sin of rebellion and reinforces the historiographical, theological, and epistemological confusion that dominates not only today's Evangelical sphere but his own Catholic one. His embrace of American Idealism is incompatible with his profession of Traditionalist Catholicism. Only by redefining the latter (or both as Taylor Marshall attempts to do) can they become compatible.

Most Christians in their confusion and fear embraced the kind of government intrusion and surveillance condemned by Napolitano in the aftermath of 11 September 2001. Today, some have walked back their acceptance due to political reasons and the shift in terms of political parties - giving Napolitano new traction.

The Stamp Act was admittedly a heavy-handed law but the Scriptures do not justify the taking of arms against a government that would employ it or laws like it. And while we may detest Bush and the presidents after him who have used these laws to wrongly imprison people and silence critics of their wars and atrocities, it does not permit me to kill those I oppose. By invoking these events which are taken as sacrosanct in the corrupt and idolatrous American mind, Napolitano is surreptitiously leading Christians into sinful thinking.

Did the Revenue Act pay for religious Establishment? That's an oversimplification, but if such arguments are warranted we can likewise assert that all churches who register as 501c3 non-profit corporations are effectively taking subsidies by means of their tax exemption. Taxpayers are having to make up for their failure to pay property taxes and the like. Their savings amount to a credit or subsidy. They don't want to hear this and rail against the suggestion of it - but it's true nonetheless. And how could a Traditionalist Catholic (who presumably endorses Integralism) object to the state subsidizing the Church?

Napolitano assumes the arguments that undergird the regime of 'rights' - Enlightenment concepts that have nothing to do with Scripture, and revolutionary concepts that overthrew the regime of Christendom which so many 'conservative' Christians are keen to celebrate. There's no small irony in this. This is why a century ago the Magisterium railed against Americanism as being fundamentally subversive to the Catholic order. At best we are left to conclude that Napolitano is confused.

He criticizes Trump without naming him and indeed Trump is a tyrant that has subsumed the Liberal Constitutional order established by the American Founders. True as it may be, the powers that be are ordained by God and so if America is ruled by a Nero or Commodus, then so be it. I do not doubt that the present episode represents a great judgment on the apostate Church in the United States and the evil empire it is devoted to.

So-called patriots that support Trump's rejection of due process and his incarceration of residents in foreign prisons are pseudo-patriots at best. They have transformed the American banner and ideal into a new idol of their own making - one rooted in raw power and the ethics of revenge.

Napolitano also erroneously assumes the validity of not only the modern usurious system of capitalism and its view of investment but he also implicitly criticises the central banking policies of the federal government regarding currency and inflation. Now whether these are good policies or not, if he casts this issue of Caesar's coin in moral/theological terms he had better tread carefully, because it may be that he's ranged well beyond Scripture - a point that is already evident. The American system is corrupt to the core. It is a Mammonist order and anti-Christian. Changing monetary policies or eliminating tariffs is not going to change that. Napolitano offers nothing here in terms of helping Christians think through the ethics of economics or wealth.

By means of smoke and mirrors he then juxtaposes these contemporary post-Enlightenment debates over libertarianism into a discussion regarding the Incarnation and crucifixion - and falls into other errors of assumption regarding Catholic theology - reading the medieval Mass into the New Testament narrative.

He distorts the crucifixion and casts it in political terms. The Romans did not fear Jesus as a revolutionary. Pilate had clarified that point and wanted to release him. As an agent of Rome, he made a concession to the corrupt leadership of a client state - the Jewish Sanhedrin. He allowed Rome to do their dirty work - theirs was the greater sin (John 19.11).

We also know that Christ willingly went to the cross and it pleased the Father to bruise him. By casting the crucifixion in terms of politics, Napolitano has fallen into the same kind of errors one sees emanating from Left-wing Christian circles. His argument is every bit as bad as something you might encounter from a proponent of Liberation Theology. Figures like Napolitano view such hybrid theologies as absurd - his is no less so and given its syncretism is no different and no less dangerous. Both represent woeful misunderstandings of redemptive-history.

Napolitano is a highly overrated libertarian commentator and a very poor theologian, ethicist, and revisionist historian. He may criticise Trump today but would he have accepted his appointment to the Supreme Court? It was rumoured that he was on the short-list during Trump's first term. Given his pedigree with regard to the media I find his claims of integrity to be more than a little dubious and I'm left somewhat baffled as to why so many Christians look to this man for wisdom. This Easter-related piece is rather telling and exposes the real poverty and lopsided nature of his thinking.

His ethical extrapolations regarding the meaning of the crucifixion and libertarian freedom are an exercise in non sequitur and are without exegetical warrant.