Understanding fundamentalism within the African American community
By / Dec 14

According to historian George Marsden, “a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something.” Figures such as Bob Jones, J. Frank Norris, and Aimee Semple McPherson all fit within this mold. However, much of the study of fundamentalists has tended to exclude African Americans, for a variety of reasons. Daniel Bare, professor of history at Texas A&M University, has recently argued in Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity in the Segregation Era that thinking about fundamentalism as a primarily white movement ignores very real ideological links between Black and white theologically conservative Christians. 

In his study of Black fundamentalists, Bare argues that to understand them, it is necessary to explore how their theology and racial identity intersected and the ways that this informed their calls for equality in the public square. 

In the book, your approach is not just historical or theological, but one that combines the two, a “social history of theology.” What does this entail, and how does it help when considering these African American fundamentalists? 

The “social history of theology” is a term that I picked up from Mark Noll’s book America’s God to describe the interconnectedness of theological conviction and social/historical context. His point was that you have to understand theological developments within a wide range of social contexts — from the ecclesiastical to the political to the commercial — in order to fully account for why theological ideas develop differently in disparate social contexts. So, given my focus on the United States in the era of Jim Crow, it seemed only natural to extend this idea to encompass the influence of racial context on theological developments. 

After all, the reality of race as a pervasive, structuring element of American society in this period is undeniable — from segregation to voter disfranchisement to the horrors of lynching and other socially-approved forms of racial violence. Racial considerations influenced ecclesiastical developments; they influenced politics; they influenced economics. And whereas the thinking of the white majority in the United States (and in various church contexts) largely developed in accordance with the presumption of white superiority and the propriety of segregating the races, the social realities of discrimination and oppression also prompted Black thinkers and churches to find strength in their community and apply their intellectual and theological efforts to challenging the unjust ideas that relegated African Americans to second-class status.

With all that in mind, my book takes a historical-theological approach that is intended to give proper consideration to both historical and theological factors. So I do believe that theology as being theology holds a profound significance in defining one’s religious identity and worldview, and that theological convictions and formulations deserve to be treated seriously, on their own terms, without reducing them to mere expressions of more subliminal political or economic ideologies. Thus I take a deeply theological look at the religious beliefs of the people I discuss in the book. 

At the same time, I want to recognize that social and historical context plays a significant role in the ways that we think about religion, theology, and broader worldview issues. Our context influences our presuppositions about how the world works, how we interpret the Bible, which issues in the world deserve our focused attention, and so forth. And when we look at the Black fundamentalists whom I discuss in the book, we see people whose theological formulations were largely aligned with those of their white fundamentalist counterparts, and who took their theology very seriously, but who also saw the need to apply their theology in such a way as to address the racial injustices of the world in which they lived. 

As you note in the book, most of the scholarship around the term “fundamentalist” has excluded African Americans for a number of reasons. However, you argue that though different in key ways, these African Americans were part of the larger movement, doctrinally if not formally. How so?

Since my book takes a historical-theological approach to exploring the topic, the definition of fundamentalism that I use is essentially theological in nature. I look at fundamentalism as a centrally theological enterprise that requires an essentially theological definition. It was largely a reactionary enterprise responding to what theological conservatives saw as the dangerous encroachments of theological liberalism (or modernism). Fundamentalists viewed modernists as abandoning the historic Christian faith through their doctrinal compromises, as abandoning the “fundamentals” that comprised the essence of “real” Christianity. 

So as I examine fundamentalism in the book, I lay out four definitional elements to consider: 1) an avowedly supernaturalist and biblicist worldview; 2) an express commitment to the central doctrinal propositions at issue in the fundamentalist-modernist conflict, most obviously crystalized in the “five fundamentals”; 3) a readiness to openly and explicitly criticize and condemn modernist theology; and 4) a willingness to utilize fundamentalist terminology (e.g., “the fundamentals,” “fundamentalism,” etc.) in defining one’s theological positions and religious identity.

The strength of this historical-theological approach is that it allows us to identify and consider Black voices in the historical record who self-identified as fundamentalists and expressly aligned with the theological heartbeat of fundamentalism. Amid a society built on institutional segregation, these Black fundamentalists were not typically part of the formal fundamentalist institutional networks, which were established by well-connected white men like J. Frank Norris or William Bell Riley. As a result, African Americans have remained typically excluded from the story of fundamentalism. Yet if we look at the theological commitments, the apologetics and polemics, the doctrinal formulations, we can see that the fundamentalist outlook clearly spanned the color line. 

The key difference you highlight is that the conservative Black Christians in your study were more outspoken on racial issues than their white counterparts who either ignored the issue or were complicit in racial injustice. How did the Black fundamentalists see their advocacy for this issue as flowing from their theological convictions?

This is a key element of the argument I present in the book. The theological formulations and argumentation surrounding “the fundamentals” was very much the same for fundamentalists across the color line, but Black fundamentalists were apt to draw applications from their theology that their white counterparts would not, specifically with respect to issues of racial equality and racial justice. This illustrates how social and cultural context can play a large role in how people formulate the day-to-day application of their faith.

Throughout the book I offer examples of Black fundamentalists contending that their fundamentalist doctrines actually contained correctives to the evils of Jim Crow that they faced in everyday life. From the doctrine of biblical inerrancy to the doctrine of Christ’s divinity to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, these were divinely appointed truths that necessarily entailed rebukes of racism and segregation. Among the most compelling orators in this vein whom I discuss in the book was Isaac Reed Berry, a Black Methodist minister who was ordained in 1917. Two of Berry’s favorite theological topics in his preaching were also two common fundamentalist themes — biblical inspiration and substitutionary atonement. 

With respect to biblical inspiration, Berry saw in the Bible God’s forthright rebuke of the Jim Crow racial hierarchy; such texts as Acts 17:26 (“[God] made of one blood all nations of men”) and Psalm 133:1 (“Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”) underscored the full humanity and equality of African Americans. Yet, he reasoned, such a divine rebuke only holds weight if the words of the Bible are in fact the very words of God himself; otherwise these biblical passages could be dismissed as mere manmade trifles. Thus, the doctrine of biblical inspiration was foundational for fighting bigotry in the world. Such applications of these common fundamentalist doctrines were unlikely to cross the minds or the lips of Berry’s white counterparts.

Isaac Berry’s social activism appears more similar to the program of social gospel figures like Walter Rauschenbusch. However, Berry and other Black fundamentalists were often in conflict with others in their denomination who were sympathetic to modernist theology. What does this reveal about the tension that Black fundamentalists faced?

Isaac Berry’s (and other’s) gospel message had clear and undeniable social implications without becoming a “social gospel.” Too often people tend to conflate community engagement or religiously-motivated social action with the “social gospel” perspective championed by the likes of Rauschenbusch. But I think it is important to keep in mind that the “social gospel” perspective that Rauschenbusch formalized in his A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) was not merely about finding social applications in the Christian message, but significant theological reformulations on doctrines such as the Trinity, redemption/atonement, Christ’s divinity, and so on. So for fundamentalists, whether black or white, the social gospel perspective was a non-starter from the outset because they prized these traditional “fundamental” doctrines.

Yet the Black fundamentalist preachers that I study in the book did indeed at times offer major social applications, and pushed for large-scale social action, from their pulpits and from their expositions of fundamentalist doctrine. They believed that relying on the fundamental doctrines of “old-time” Christianity, as it was sometimes called, was the only sure way to elicit social change because the calls to justice and righteous living that resided in this gospel message bore God’s own imprimatur in the pages of the inerrant Bible. As a result, Black fundamentalist voices did indeed find themselves at odds, sometimes, with other leaders of the Black community with whom they may have shared certain pressing social/cultural goals (e.g., pushing for voting rights, securing funding for Black education, etc.) but differed as to theological belief or the methods of achieving those desired ends.

This conflict illustrates certain tensions in the experience of these Black fundamentalists. Their blackness separated them from the institutional “fundamentalist” movement that tended to be dominated by powerful white figures like J. Frank Norris (a proponent of segregation and Jim Crow), leading to their marginalization not only at the time but also in the historical study of fundamentalism. Yet their fundamentalist theological convictions also spurred conflicts within the Black community as well, as many leading Black thinkers adopted more social-gospel-friendly perspectives on racial advancement. However, the tension also highlights another important point — that there is a multifaceted diversity within African American intellectual and religious history, and we ought not fall into the trap of creating a monolithic caricature. In the words of famed historian Albert Raboteau, it is a “sometimes overlooked fact [that] African-American opinion has never been unanimous.”

One area of the book that is especially interesting given current conversations is your chapter on the fusion of fundamentalism with Americanism. These African American pastors and evangelists were explicitly connecting their civil liberties with Christ’s sacrifice and America’s identity as a Christian nation. Given that they were making these arguments in the context of a segregated society, how did they reconcile the tension between an America that was both Christian and segregated? 

The whole connection with the idea of America as a “Christian nation” came out most clearly in Isaac Berry’s preaching, as he drew connections between the civil freedoms promised by the United States’ founding ideals and the spiritual freedom secured in the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. He declared, for instance, that Americans’ “civil liberty was first purchased with the priceless blood of the Divine Son of God,” and that “America needs today to bow the knee at the foot of the cross, where freedom’s sword was forged.” In large part, Berry reconciled this tension between a picture of “Christian America” and the reality of racial injustice in the United States by calling Americans to live up to their founding political (and religious) ideals, as he perceived them. 

“Christian America” captured the idealized founding of a nation based on the principles of civic equality, political freedom, and Christian virtue; the fact that racial injustice continued to plague the nation did not invalidate the founding ideals, but rather revealed that Americans were failing to live up to the high standard of their heritage as a “Christian nation.” In this way, Berry’s concept of a “Christian America” served as a basis for him to condemn the un-Christian, sinful practices that he observed in the world around him. So in this configuration, embracing the idea of a Christian America went hand-in-hand with confronting the evils of American racism, just as the prophets of old invoked Israel’s status as God’s covenant people while inveighing against the nation’s wicked departures from God’s statutes.

How does this new way of understanding fundamentalism, and African American Christianity during this period, have ramifications for today? Is there anything that it helps to clarify about our current approaches to race and religion? 

More than pinpointing any one specific issue of the current day, I hope that this study is helpful in illuminating how the process of thinking about, applying, and expressing religion is not only a function of propositional theological claims, but also reflects the social and cultural circumstances in which we find ourselves. As I put it in the last sentence of the book, “theological unity across racial lines was no guarantee that political and social uniformity would follow.” If we look, for instance, at evangelicalism as today’s analogue (albeit imperfectly so) of the fundamentalist movement of a century ago, we can certainly still see major fissures in evangelical life that manifest along the lines of race. 

Very often white and Black evangelicals, even as they may confess the same doctrines on such topics as inspiration or Christology, may yet tend to express very different convictions when it comes to social and political applications of their common faith — from issues like the social justice movement, to conversations about police reform, to considerations of religious liberty, to immigration policy, to presidential voting patterns, and so on. I hope that in this context, the examples in the book might prove to be points of profitable reflection for believers today, and the interests of Christian fellowship and charity might prompt us to seek to humbly and honestly understand other people who offer sincere perspectives that differ from our own, rather than dismissing one another out of hand. 

Explainer: What is Parler, and why does it matter?
By / Dec 14

In recent months, a new social media platform gained growing popularity in light of controversies over content moderation and fact-checking on traditional social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Parler was launched in August of 2018 by John Matze, Jared Thomson, and Rebekah Mercer. While it still has a smaller user base than most social platforms at just over 2.8 million people, the app saw a surge in downloads following the November 2020 presidential election and has become extremely popular in certain circles of our society. It became the #1 downloaded application on Apple and Google devices soon after the 2020 presidential election, with over 4 million downloads in just the first two weeks of November, according to tracking by Sensor Tower.

Here is what you should know about this social media application and why it matters in our public discourse.

What is Parler?

Parler, named after the French word meaning to speak, is described as a “free speech” alternative to traditional social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The company’s website describes the platform as a way to “speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for your views.” Parler intentionally positions itself as the “world’s town square,” and CEO John Matze said of the app, “If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler.”

Parler is a microblogging social service, very similar to Twitter, where users are encouraged to share articles, thoughts, videos, and more. The platform states that “people are entitled to security, privacy, and freedom of expression.” This emphasis on privacy is seen in the ways that Parler will keep your data confidential and won’t sell your data to third parties services, which is a complaint about the nature of other platforms and their business models based on ad revenue. Currently, Parler does not have advertisers on the platform, but they have plans to allow advertisers to target influencers instead of regular users.

Posts on the platform are called “parleys,” and the feed is broken up into two sections namely parleys and affiliate content, which functions like a news feed of content providers for the platforms. To share content from someone else, a user can “echo” a certain post or piece of content.

The platform also has a “Parler citizen verification,” where users can be verified by the service in order to cut down on fake accounts and ones run by bots. Users that submit their photo ID and a selfie are eligible for verification. Once verified, users will see a red badge on their avatar indicating that they are a Parler citizen. Parler also has a “verified influencer” status for those with large followings who might be easily impersonated, very similar to the “blue check” icon on Twitter.

Does Parler censor or moderate content?

The company claims that it does not censor speech or content, yet it does have certain community standards much like other platforms, even if those standards are intentionally set low. The community standards are broken into two principles: 

  1. Parler will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts.
  2. Posting spam and using bots are nuisances and are not conducive to productive and polite discourse.

Outside of these two community standard principles, Parler does have a more detailed account of the type of actions that fall under the principles. The platform is intentionally designed in order to give users some tools to deal with spam, harassment, or objectionable content including “the ability to mute or block other members, or to mute or block all comments containing terms of the member’s choice.”

Overall, Parler is designed to be an alternative platform for those who do not agree with the community standards and policies of other social platforms. The company states that “while the First Amendment does not apply to private companies such as Parler, our mission is to create a social platform in the spirit of the First Amendment.” This is an important point in the debate over content moderation on other platforms though because as the company points out, the First Amendment does not apply to private companies but was written to reflect the relationship between individuals and the state. 

Why is Parler controversial?

As the platform has gained prominence in certain segments of American life, Parler has expanded its user base in large part as a reaction to the content moderation policies on other platforms. Because it has promised to allow and highlight content that other services deem misinformation, contested claims, and at times hate speech, Parler has been characterized by what it allows its users to post without fear of removal or moderation.

Relying on users to moderate or curate their own feeds, Parler seeks to abdicate themselves of any responsibility of what is posted on their platform. The application has also become incredibly partisan, with a large number of users joining the platform after the 2020 presidential election amidst the growing distrust in the ways that other social media label controversial content, misinformation, and fake news.

Currently, Parler has a large number of users from one side of the political spectrum, which can at times lead to a siloing effect where a user only sees one side of an argument. This was one of the issues of traditional social media that Parler set out to overcome with its lax moderation policies in the first place.

Is it a safe platform?

Parler states that any user under 18 must have parental permission to gain access to the application, and all users under 13 are banned. But the service does not currently have an age verification system. Users can also change settings on their account to keep “sensitive” or “Not Safe for Work” content from showing in their feeds automatically. The Washington Post also reports that Parler does not currently have a robust system for detecting child pornography before it is viewed or potentially flagged and reported by users. A company spokesman has said, “If somebody does something illegal, we’re relying on the reporting system. We’re not hunting.”

Given its lack of robust content moderation policies, Parler has drawn a considerable number of users from Twitter and other platforms who decry that their views were censored or their accounts banned. Many conservative elected officials and news organizations have joined the platform, which hopes to attain a critical mass of users large enough to sustain the platform moving forward. Parler currently does not have the amount of brands or companies that other platforms have, which can be needed for a platform to flourish as an information source and connectivity tool for users.

Parler banned pornography on the platform but in recent months changed its content moderation policies to allow for pornography on the platform. This aligns it more with Twitter’s policy allowing this graphic content online. Parler’s approach to moderation can be seen in recent comments by COO Jeffrey Wernick to the Post in response to allegations of the proliferation of pornography on the site. Wernick responded that he had little knowledge of that type of content on the platform, adding, “I don’t look for that content, so why should I know it exists?” He later added that he would look into the issue.

Since the shifts in policy in recent months, Parler has suffered from issues surrounding the proliferation of pornography and spam, which should come as no surprise as the pornography industry has been using innovative technology from the early days of the internet. Parler states that it allows anything on its platform that the First Amendment allows. The United States Surpreme Court has declared that pornography is constitutionally protected free speech.

It should be noted that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ban all pornographic imagery and videos from their platforms. Facebook and Instagram use automated systems to scan photos as they are posted and also rely on a robust reporting system for users to flag content that may violate the company’s community standards. While Twitter’s policies allow for pornography, it does employ automated systems to cut down on rapid posting and other spam-related uploads as well as the use of human moderators to cut down on abuse from users and bots.

Should social media companies be able to censor speech and enforce content moderation policies on users?

This is at the heart of the debate over free speech and social media, especially centering around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is a part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 230 has been called the law that gave us the modern internet. The law allowed a more open and free market of ideas and for the creation of user-generated content sites.

As the ERLC wrote in 2019, many social conservatives, worried about the spread of pornography, lobbied Congress to pass the the Communications Decency Act, which penalized the online transmission of indecent content and protected companies from being sued for removing such offensive content. Section 230 was written with the intention of encouraging internet companies to develop content moderation standards and to protect them against liability for removing content in order to have safer environments online, especially for minors. This liability protection led to the development of community standards and ways to validate information posted without the company being liable for user-generated content.

Controversy over the limits of Section 230 and ways to update the law have been center stage in American public life for the last few years, especially as the Trump administration issued an Executive Order on the prevention of online censorship. Both sides of the political aisle are debating if it should simply be updated or if the statute should be removed completely.

Alexandra DeSanctis on Catholicism, human dignity, and conservatism
By / Sep 19

Alexandra DeSanctis is a staff writer for National Review. Some of her most recent publications at National Review include “Donald Wuerl, the Church’s Most Oblivious Cleric,” “Abortion-Rights Groups Smear Kavanaugh and Undermine Judicial Neutrality,” and “Catholics Deserve Answers, Not Church Politics.” She also serves as a co-host with David French of the Ordered Liberty Podcast.

She was previously a William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism with the National Review Institute and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She is a current resident of New York City.

Remembering Justice Scalia . . . and Surveying the Terrain Ahead
By / Feb 22

In Joseph Pearce’s biography of G.K. Chesterton we are given an account of some of the reactions to the death of the great writer. T.H. White, who wrote The Sword in the Stone, entered his classroom and announced, “G.K. Chesterton died yesterday. P.G. Wodehouse is now the greatest living master of the English language.” Hugh Kingsmill shared the news of Chesterton’s death to his friend Hesketh Pearson through a closed bathroom door. In response, “he sent up a hollow groan which must have echoed that morning all over England.”

My response to the death of Antonin Scalia was similar. He was, in my mind and in the minds of many others, the single greatest jurist of the last several decades. In a time when it became increasingly popular to discover new rights in the Constitution, such as the right to privacy which has resulted in tens of millions of abortions in the United States, Scalia insisted that such fundamental questions had to be decided by the people if not directly answered by the text of our governing document. He recognized that there is nothing about going to law school, not even a very good one, that turns a person into an exceptionally wise man or woman to whom all other judgments of morality must defer.

Justice Scalia is celebrated and remembered as a defender of the text and original meaning of the Constitution. He would find no new rights lurking in the “emanations and penumbras” of the clearly stated law, as Roe did. He would not turn the 14th Amendment into a lever to redefine marriage in the face of thousands of years of human history. At the same time, he did not believe the Constitution allowed him to translate his own preferences into law. Justice Scalia was dedicated to what he viewed as a judge’s work, which is not the same as the job a legislator does. Supreme Court judges interpret the Constitution. They do not have the power to effectively amend it with a mere majority vote when the document itself demands a much more arduous process for those who would wish to change it.

What all of this means is that the jurist was ultimately a champion for self-government. He believed that it is the task of the citizen to participate in the democratic process (within the bounds of the constitution) and to decide fundamental questions about our values. Justice Scalia did not believe that putting on the black robe meant taking on the mantle of the philosopher-king. While some have characterized him as something like an enemy of social progress, the reality is that he would have put up little opposition to democratic movements. Instead, he resisted the Court’s assumption of authority that rightly belongs to the electoral process and the nation’s statehouses. He rightly recognized that a doctrine of a living, evolving constitution was the catalyst for a process of reasoning that ultimately takes power from the people and concentrates it in the hands of elites. In his dissent in Obergefell, he noted that all of the justices on the court had attended law school at either Harvard or Yale, were either Catholic or Jewish (so no evangelicals or other protestants), and hailed from the two coasts. His point was simple. There is something wrong with the Court occupying the position of making law for the people, while simultaneously being so unrepresentative.

Justice Scalia’s death comes at a bad time, especially for reasons of life and religious liberty. The Hobby Lobby case ended as a 5-4 decision in favor of the company’s need for an accommodation to conscience and religious liberty in the face of the HHS mandate on contraception. Justice Scalia was one of the five. His absence raises serious questions about whether religious liberty petitioners can prevail in future cases. For example, the Little Sisters of the Poor have a case pending before the court. Religious liberty expert Douglas Laycock bluntly stated that the Little Sisters lost their case when Justice Scalia was found dead. We shall see. If the case were to conclude as a 4-4 tie, then the lower court ruling against the Little Sisters would seem to resolve the case against them (at least for the time being). Alternatively, their case could be assigned for a later re-argument. The legitimacy of the court depends upon a more solid resolution of religious liberty claims, ultimately, so the next appointment to the court will be critical.

At the same time, there is a major Texas abortion case (Whole Women’s Health) which revolves around the constitutionality of state laws requiring abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards to which outpatient surgical centers are held. Clinics are also required to employ only physicians with admitting privileges in nearby hospitals. That is another case that may well end up with a 4-4 deadlock without Justice Scalia. Because the lower court upheld the restrictions, that ruling would hold within the appellate circuit until some later resolution of the case by the Court or unless the case were assigned to re-argument.

Antonin Scalia fought for a conception of the Constitution and of the Supreme Court that became increasingly out of fashion during the twentieth century. Thanks to his intellectual strength and his power of expression, he defended his views and probably increased the influence of his judicial philosophy. His death creates crises both immediate and potentially long term. We have to pray that the next justice will bring as much wisdom and skill to the job as Justice Scalia did. More importantly, we need to keep praying for life and religious liberty.

Family-First Conservatism: A Tentative Manifesto
By / Jun 11

What does it mean to be a conservative? No one seems to be able to agree on what the term conservatism means anymore, which is why in modern America there are almost as many brands of conservatism as there are conservatives. There are neo-cons and paleo-cons, theo-cons and crunchy cons. There are social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, conservatives who aim for National Greatness and others who strive to be Compassionate. There are brands of conservatism that are oxymoronic (progressive conservatives) and some that are simply subversive (e.g., those who attempt to claim same-sex marriage is compatible with conservatism).

Unless you are already familiar with the political taxonomy, such labels aren’t particularly useful. To truly understand what a conservative believes, it is often more instructive to simply ask what it is they want to conserve.

My own answer to that question would be the one proffered by my intellectual hero, the late, great Russell Kirk: The institution most essential to conserve is the family.

I believe that while ultimate sovereignty belongs to God alone, he delegates authority throughout society to various institutional structures (churches, businesses, the state, etc.). Naturally, these institutions are not immune to the effects of sin or human depravity, but they still retain the legitimate authority given to them by our Creator. Although each of these institutions is important, the most essential and primary is the family.

My political philosophy could be called “family-first conservatism” for I believe in our current period within Western history, the institution of the family should be given pride of place in decisions about public policy and the creation of social norms.

While family-first conservatism is rather limited in scope—merely an emphasis within conservatism rather than a distinct branch—I believe it is robust enough to generate a core set of principles and policy prescriptions. In a future article I’ll outline what those policy prescriptions should entail. For now, here are the core principles, which I have gleaned from the writings of better thinkers than myself, and which I believe could serve as a tentative manifesto of family-first conservatism:

1. We believe the family is the basic unit of society. Defending the family from internal and external threats is therefore one of the crucial tasks of all other societal institutions.

2. We believe that from birth we are initiated into the community structure of the family. We are not thrust into a state of radical individualism but rather into the most basic form of community. We are created to be both individuated persons and members of a community; neither can be reduced into the other.

3. We believe the heart of the family is the pre-political institution of marriage, a “one-flesh union” of one male and one female, sexually complementary spouses who cleave to each other in permanent commitment, loyalty and fidelity. We believe this communion is naturally ordered to the good of spousal unity, to procreation, to the nurturing of children, and to the good of all society.

4. We believe that economic liberty has proven essential to the material enrichment needed for families to flourish. Economic policies should therefore encourage and create conditions—such as social mobility, respect for private property, family-friendly taxation, freer access to labor markets—that both encourage self-sufficiency and strengthen the natural bonds of the family.

5. We believe in protecting the intrinsic dignity of all members of the human family, at any and every stage of life, in any and every state of consciousness or self-awareness, of any and every race, color, ethnicity, level of intelligence, religion, language, gender, character, behavior, physical ability/disability, potential, class, social status, etc., and believe that they must be treated in a manner commensurate with this moral status.

6. We believe the interaction between people in community has led naturally to the formation of various, distinct institutions and social structures. Families interact with other families to create distinct communities such as the neighborhood, the city and the state, and that the various tasks and requirements for living has led to the formation of churches, schools, businesses, civic unions and other associations. We believe one of the key roles of each of these institutions is to support and serve families.

7. We believe religious liberty starts in the home and that the right of conscience and the right to practice faith according to personal beliefs are not merely sacred individual rights but inalienable rights of the family. While no right is absolute, we believe the right to religious freedom should not be infringed or denied unless it absolutely necessary for the protection of society.

8. We believe parents should have the primary authority and influence over their own children. We also believe parents bear responsibility for the upbringing of their children, and this role should not be usurped by other institutions unless necessary to prevent incontrovertible physical or emotional harm of the child.

9. We believe that while parental authority is primary, other institutions have an interest and a duty in protecting the welfare of children and should do what they can to create and preserve a moral ecology that is conducive to creating virtuous citizens, even when it requires limitations of some expressions of their own liberty.

10. We believe that while many other social structures are equal in dignity and value, the family should nevertheless be considered “first among equals” and given special consideration in making decisions about public policy.