Canadian-American Christian writer (1936 – 2009)
Richard John Neuhaus (May 14, 1936–January 8, 2009) was a prominent writer and Christian cleric (first in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, then the ELCA and later the Catholic Church).
Born in Canada, Neuhaus moved to the United States, where he became a naturalized United States citizen. He was the longtime editor of the Lutheran Forum magazine newsletter and later founder and editor of the monthly journal First Things and the author of numerous books.
A staunch defender of the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion and other life issues, he served as an unofficial adviser to President George W. Bush on bioethical issues.[1]
Early life and education
Born in Pembroke, Ontario, on May 14, 1936, Neuhaus was one of eight children of a Lutheran minister and his wife. Although he had dropped out of high school at age 16 to operate a gas station in Texas,[2] he returned to school, graduating from Concordia Lutheran College of Austin, Texas, in 1956. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees from Concordia Seminary in 1960.[1]
Career
Lutheran minister
Neuhaus was first an ordained minister in the conservative Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.[3]
In 1974, a major schism in the Missouri Synod resulted in many "modernist" churches splitting to form the more progressive Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to which Neuhaus eventually affiliated. The AELC, merged a decade later in 1988 with the other two more liberal Lutheran denominations in the US, the American Lutheran Church (1960) and the Lutheran Church in America (1962), to finally form the current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for which Neuhaus was a member of the clergy.
From 1961 to 1978, he served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, a poor, predominantly black and Hispanic congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[4] From the pulpit he addressed civil rights and social justice concerns and spoke against the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s he gained national prominence when, together with Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he founded Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam.[1]
He was active[when?] in the Evangelical Catholic movement in Lutheranism and spent time at Saint Augustine's House, the Lutheran Benedictine monastery, in Oxford, Michigan. He was active in liberal politics until the 1973 ruling on abortion in Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court, which he opposed. He became a member of the growing neoconservative movement and an outspoken advocate of "democratic capitalism". He also advocated faith-based policy initiatives by the federal government based upon Judeo-Christian values.[1] He originated the "Neuhaus's Law",[5] which states, "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed."[5]
He was a longtime editor of the monthly newsletter published in between quarterly issues of the interdenominational independent journal Lutheran Forum, published by the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau during the 1970s and 1980s. He was a supporter of the movement to reestablish, in Lutheranism, the permanent diaconate (deacon) as a full-fledged office in the threefold ministry of bishop / presbyter (priest) / deacon under the historic episcopacy (office of bishop), following earlier actions of the Catholics in the Second Vatican Council and the churches of the Anglican Communion (including the Episcopal Church in the US).
In 1981, Neuhaus helped to found the Institute on Religion and Democracy and remained on its board until his death. He wrote its founding document, "Christianity and Democracy". In 1984, he established the Center for Religion and Society as part of the conservative think-tank Rockford Institute in Rockford, Illinois, which publishes Chronicles. In 1989, he and the center were "forcibly evicted" from the institute's eastern offices in New York City under disputed circumstances.[citation needed]
In March 1990, Neuhaus founded the Institute on Religion and Public Life and its journal, First Things, an ecumenical journal "whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society."[6]
Catholic priest
In September 1990, Neuhaus was received into the Catholic Church.[7] A year after becoming a Catholic, he was ordained by Cardinal John O'Connor as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He served as a commentator for the Catholic television network Eternal Word Television (EWTN) during the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.[citation needed]
Neuhaus continued to edit First Things as a Catholic priest. He was a sought-after public speaker and wrote several books, both scholarly and popular genres. He appeared in the 2010 film, The Human Experience, released after his death, where his voice features in the narration and in the film's trailer.
Personal life and death
Neuhaus died from complications of cancer in New York City,[8] on January 8, 2009, aged 72.[9]
Political significance
In later years, Neuhaus compared pro-life activism to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. During the 2004 presidential campaign, he was a leading advocate for denying communion to Catholic politicians who supported abortion. It was a mistake, he declared, to isolate abortion "from other issues of the sacredness of life."[1]
Neuhaus promoted ecumenical dialogue and social conservatism. Along with Charles Colson, he edited Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission (1995).[10] This ecumenical manifesto sparked much debate.[citation needed]
A close yet unofficial adviser of President George W. Bush, he advised Bush on a range of religious and ethical matters, including abortion, stem-cell research, cloning, and the Federal Marriage Amendment.[11] In 2005, under the heading of "Bushism Made Catholic", Neuhaus was named one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" by Time magazine:[11]
"Bushism Made Catholic:" When Bush met with journalists from religious publications last year, the living authority he cited most often was not a fellow Evangelical but a man he calls Father Richard, who, he explained, "helps me articulate these [religious] things." A senior Administration official confirms that Neuhaus "does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence" on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defense-of-marriage amendment.[11]
Neuhaus was criticized for his political engagement as "theoconservatism".[12][13] In contrast, the theologian David Bentley Hart described Neuhaus as
a reflective, intelligent, self-possessed, generous, and principled man, is opinionated (definitely), but not at all spiteful or resentful towards those who disagree with him; words like "absolutist" are vacuous abstractions when applied to him. His magazine publishes articles that argue (sometimes quite forcibly) views contrary to his own, and he seems quite pleased that it should do so.[14]
Neuhaus also controversially defended Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, in the pages of First Things[15]
