Difficult Times Ahead

First Things is running a retrospective series of The Public Square in memory of Father Neuhaus. The current one has a lovely, Chestertonian quote:

I’ll presume to call it Neuhaus’ Law, or at least one of his several laws: Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

Read the whole thing, if you can.

My simpler and less eloquent explanation is that there is only orthodoxy and the periods between orthodoxies. When toleration for orthodoxy is the policy it means that the new orthodoxy is preparing to turn and seek the eradication of the old.

The new orthodoxies in politics and religion are seeking to suppress the old. Pro-lifers are arrested for peacefully protesting abortion or seeking to talk to women going into abortuaries. A new orthodoxy seeks to intimidate adherents of the old into silence. A new "orthodoxy" is fighting a rear-guard action against a re-surgent old orthodoxy. There are troubles ahead. Batten down the hatches.