Sardonic Ex Curia: October 2012

October 18, 2012

An Important Message!

Dear Readers:

As of this Thursday, October 18, 2012, I will be shifting my link-blogging operations to the website "Big Pulpit". The daily postings of mine will be called "GOD AND CAESAR". Please point your readers there. I plan to maintain this website for musings, which (I hope) will occur more frequently. Let me know if you have any questions!

--Sardonicus

October 17, 2012

Is [the] God [of classical theism] dead? - Edward Feser
Romney Wins the Three-Way Debate at Hofstra - AT (Crouse)
Scoring the Debate - TAC (Bonchamps)
When It Comes To Job Creation, Obama Doesn't Hold A Candle To Reagan - TIC (Domitrovic)
The Irreconcilable Conflict - TIC (Buchanan)
Campaign 2012: Economy and Empowerment - On the Square (Weigel)
The Vice Presidential Debate and Abortion: That’s Just Joe Being Joe! - MoJ (Breen)
Candy and Fact Checking on Libya - PoMoCon (Lawler)
Culture: The Missing Conservative Tradition - The Public Discourse (Bauerlein)
Multitasking Prayer - First Thoughts (Mills)
“Act of Terror” is to Obama what “is” was to Clinton - LI (Jacobson)
Post-debate murmurings - Pundit & Pundette
Candy Crowley Grudgingly Admits That Romney Was Right - TAC (McClarey)
America Strikes Back in US-Iran Cyberwar - Via Meadia
Candy Crowley’s Big Lie of a “fact-check” - Neo-Neocon
Impartial Moderators and Undecided Voters in the Land of Unicorns - LI (Engel)
Had I but Time Enough - PoMoCon (Caesar)
Some Quick Post Debate Thoughts - TAC (Darwin Catholic)
The Weight of Glory - MoJ (Schiltz)
Brad Lewis on religious freedom, the common good, and the mandate - MoJ (Garnett)

October 16, 2012

October 15, 2012

Elizabeth Warren obtained federal fee waivers despite high 6-figure income and 8-figure net worth - LI (Jacobson)

Roger Scruton on the Art of the Aphorism - Maverick Philosopher

The Politics of Impatience - City Journal (Bellin)

Supreme Court to Rule on Arizona Voter Law - FedSoc Blog (Publius)

It's Complicated - Jewish Review of Books (Cherniss)

New York’s Blue Suicide - Via Meadia

Pussy Riot and WEIRD Values - First Thoughts (Movesesian)

Why are Catholics Praising the Nobel Prize Stem Cell Technology? - TAC (Trasancos)

When Fake Messiahs Bleed - TAC (McClarey)

Why Congress Doesn’t Work: Undermining Self-government - TIC (Linbeck)

Two Cheers for Failing Law Schools - Liberty Law Blog (Morriss)

Troubling Auto-Rescue Plunder (TARP) - AT (Hoven)

Barack Obama's October Surprises - at

Peer Lending and the Problem of Credit - FPR (Erler)

The Embarrassment of the Catholic Left - On the Square (Reno)

No, Bloomberg Isn’t Banning Circumcision - On the Square (Helfand)

Obama's Currency War - TIC (Domitrovic)

The Power to Lend? - Liberty Law Blog (Greve)

Eric Hobsbawm and the Neglect of Communist Crimes - Volokh (Somin)

Barack Obama and the Perilous Politics of Progress - Public Discourse (Holloway)

October 14, 2012

The Sad Decline of the New Yorker - First Thoughts (Franck)
Suit Yourself - Indiana Barrister
Iran and U.S. in Undeclared State of War - Via Meadia
Taking Progress out of Progressive - LI (Engel)
Fukuyama: On Building Better Bureaucracies - Via Meadia
Compassion & Self-Interest in a Humane Economy - TIC (Frohnen)
The American Revolution at Sea - TAC (McClarey)
Celebrity Fetal Bumps - AT (Hope)
Black Christians: Shame! Shame! Shame! - AT (Marcus)
Joe Biden, 'Practicing Catholic' - AT (DeAngelis)
The Clear Moral Choice - AT (Thomas)
Clear Eyes, Full Heart - My Change of Heart on Mitt Romney - AT (Gross)

October 13, 2012

Self-Driving Car Lobbyists Go on Tour - Via Meadia
Scientism - Maverick Philosopher
Spare the Rod, Spoil the World - LI (Engel)
Excellent News, Smithers! - Via Meadia
Socialism: The Poor Get Poorer - TAC (McClarey)
Now I’m dreaming about politics - Neo-Neocon
Radical Islam On The Rise In Indonesia? - Via Meadia
Repeating “That Is a Fact” Does Not Make It So - Volokh (Adler)
Bishop Jenky: Obama’s Threat to Religious Liberty - TAC (McClarey)
The Media's Law of Silent Protests - AT (Zelikovsky)
Romney's Edge - AT (Sobel)
Obama's War on Nuclear Power - AT (Somsel)
Faith and Freedom: Why Liberty Requires Christianity - TIC (Pearce)
Whose nature? Which law? - Edward Feser
VP Debate Thoughts - PoMoCon (Spiliakos)
No Laughing Matter - City Journal (Gelinas)
Big Shocker: More Fraud Exposed in Green Carbon Trading Scheme - Via Meadia
Pro-life = misogyny? - Evangel (Koyzis)
US Prepares to Export Crude Oil - Via Meadia
Milton Friedman on the Intellectual Laziness of the Left - Liberty Law Blog
Africa Goes Boom - Via Meadia
Catholic Bishops: Biden Didn’t Tell the Truth About Obamacare’s Abortion Drug Mandate - FedSocBlog (Publius)
The Church’s Nature as Explained by the Second Vatican Council - MoJ (Araujo)

October 12, 2012

October 12, 2012 (Second Edition)

The Passing of Two Great Intellectual Historians - FPR (Hart)

The HHS Mandate and the Vice Presidential Debate - MoJ (Moreland)

Are Sanctions Working? Iran’s Oil Output and Sea Trade Plunge - Via Meadia

That tendentious ("he's a Randian extremist!!!") anti-Paul Ryan statement - MoJ (George)

Religious Organizations and the Affirmative Action Case - First Thoughts (Movsesian)

Massive Corruption Scandal Is Victory for Brazilian Courts - Via Meadia

Why are People So Easy to Swindle? - Maverick Philosopher

October 12, 2012

Better off? Hell no. - TAC (Frech)
Prudential Judgement - TAC (Darwin Catholic)
“Tack to Center” Not Key to Romney’s Post-Debate Surge - Via Meadia
The Protean Welfare State: A Response to David Conway - Liberty Law Blog (Palmer)
The Rhetoric of Middle-earth (An excerpt from Writing Down the Dragon) - The Superversive
Nagel's Reason for Rejecting Theism - Maverick Philosopher
Which Is Worse: To Help the Syrian Rebels or to Do Nothing? - Via Meadia
Will the Benghazi Debacle Cost Obama the Election? - Via Meadia
Partial Recall - City Journal (Billingsley)
The Obamage Is Done - AT (Gensert)
An Evangelical Case for a Catholic Sensibility - On the Square (Leithart)
The Catholic Left’s Unfair Attack on Paul Ryan- On the Square (George)
Has Democracy Died? - TIC (Olson)
Conservatism and the Life of the Spirit- TIC (Panichas)
Gold and Fear - AT (Blackwell & Morrison)
Sister Blandina and the Original Billy the Kid - TAC (McClarey)
The Effect of Fairness on Tax Revenues - AT (Beatty)

October 12, 2012 (Post-VP-Debate Edition)

Laugh Clown, Laugh! - TAC (McClarey)

Two Pitchers Full of Warm Spit? - Via Meadia

Veep Reax - TAC (DarwinCatholic)

Laughing Hyena v. Gentleman Ryan - TAC (McClarey)

The VP Debate -PoMoCon (Lawler)

Best Tweets of the Vice Presidential Debate - LI (Jacobson)

VP Debate: Not What I Expected - TAC (Bonchamps)

Post-debate thoughts - Neo-Neocon

Joe Biden's inappropriate affect - Pundit & Pundette

October 11, 2012

Tweeting the Vice Presidential Debate

I will be tweeting throughout the Vice Presidential Debate this evening. You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here: @SardonicExCuria

October 11, 2012

Confidence Returns to US Economy? Perhaps… - Via Meadia

People Died, Obama Lied - LI (Engel)

The Global Energy Revolution Comes to Ireland - Via Meadia

Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Overview - Maverick Philosopher

The Lie Alibi - PoMoCon (Spiliakos)

Here’s Where the University of Texas Loses in Fisher - Volokh (Bernstein)

Gay Marriage and Intolerance - Volokh (Bernstein)

Thoughts on the Oral Argument in Fisher v. University of Texas- Volokh (Somin)

The Religious Liberty Case Against Religious Liberty Litigation: Non-Universal Exemptions and Judicial Overreach - Public Discourse (Munoz)

Prudence: The Lost Virtue - TAC (Bonchamps)

DEPRAVITY - Midwest Conservative Journal

Thinking About Scams - PoMoCon (Presnall)

The Obama Tapes That Can Bring Romney Victory - AT (Olshaker)

Is Paul Ryan Hawt? - AT (Hatter)

Why Matthew Vines Is Wrong About the Bible and Homosexuality - On the Square (Gonnerman)

The Modern Cycle Of Economic Boom And Bust - TIC (Domitrovic)

Founders’ Faith: None of the Above - TIC (Smith)

The Catholicism of Joe Biden and Paul Ryan - TAC (Hartline)

The Military Rationale for Affirmative Action in College Admissions - Volokh (Somin)

Affirmative Action under the Gun - Via Meadia

Blond v. Cameron; Or: How Do You Turn Localism Into a Governing Agenda? - First Thoughts (Cantirino)

Study Supports Plans To Frack in the Heart of Los Angeles - Via Meadia

Obama and Media fired political accusations first, aimed later in Libya - LI (Jacobson)

Rowan Williams on Evangelization - MoJ (Moreland)

Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: Forgery Confirmed? - First Thoughts (Williams)

Is Academic Freedom Possible? John Henry Newman’s Witness - First Thoughts (Velez)

Zampolit Angela McCaskill, Report For Reeducation - Popehat (Ken)

Lemann on Romney: Transaction Man - Neo-Neocon

TRANSACTION MAN - The New Yorker (Lemann)

Why did Obama lie so blatantly about Benghazi? - Neo-Neocon

‘He Lies!’ They Commanded - NRO (Ponnuru)

Suspending Employee for Signing a Referendum Petition - Volokh (Volokh)

Kansas: The New Tea Party Laboratory - Via Meadia

October 10, 2012

October 10, 2012 (Second Edition)

Libya, Protests, and Spin - PoMoCon (Pitrone)

Latest EU Failure: Deficit Targets - Via Meadia

Frustrated with Republicans - First Thoughts (Reno)

Organizing For America caught assisting double voting - LI (Jacobson)

What to Make of Romney’s Post-Debate Poll Boost - Via Meadia

Chicago Tribune withholds endorsement for Jesse Jackson Jr. - LI (Sorock)

No Longer Joseph Pulitzer’s School - City Journal (Stein)

Not Amish, But Close - AmConMag (Arbery)

WEIRD Values - First Thoughts (Movesesian)

Religious None-Sense - First Thoughts (Knippenberg)

New Study Exaggerates Benefits of No-Cost Contraception - NRO Corner (New)

Boycotts, action, and penance - The New Agrarian

October 10, 2012

99% Chance That This Florida Attorney General’s Brief Was Filed by Someone Not Licensed to Practice Law - Volokh (Volokh)

The “Obama doesn’t want to win” meme - Neo-Neocon

Protestants No Longer Hold Majority in the US - Via Meadia

SCHADENFREUDE - MCJ

A Visceral Tour de Force - City Journal (MacDonald)

Gotham to D.C.: Drop Dead - City Journal (Gelinas)

Arrogance - PoMoCon (Scott)

Humility - PoMoCon (scott)

Political Justice: Equality of Opportunity not Sameness of Opportunity - Public Discourse (Azerrad)

Frankly, I Don't Care How Due Process Makes You Feel - Popehat (Ken)

Vatican II’s Golden Anniversary - On the Square (Weigel)

Christopher Dawson and the Humility of the Liberal Arts - TIC (Birzer)

Thoughts on Statesmanship in a Season of Dearth - FPR (Shiffman)

Inviting people in religion B to join religion A if they actually believe the teachings of A and don't believe the teachings of B - MoJ (George)

Big Bird and Scared Obama - TAC (McClarey)

“Talibans of Austerity”- Liberty Law Blog (Dalrymple)

Barack Obama, Pants on Fire- AT (Sullivan)

Phony in Chief - Townhall.com (Sowell)

Cell Phones and College Tuition - AT (Baker)

New York’s Education Reform Pioneers - City Journal (Sahm)

Politics on the Lincoln Highway - PoMoCon (Pitrone)

New Study Says Free Contraception Causes Abortion to Spiral - TAC (Trasancos)

The "On All of Our Shoulders" statement - MoJ (Garnett)

Arrogance, Humility, and the President - PoMoCon (Lawler)

Al-Qaeda Surges in Syria—U.S. Watches, Worries, Waffles - Via Meadia

October 9, 2012

“‘Nones’ On the Rise” - Evangel (Gilson)

NAACP Tries to Kill the Golden Goose - AT (Weissberg)

Time to Demythologize the Authoritarian Impulse - AT (Jonescu)

October Political Reality Check - AT (Chantrill)

The Empty Chair Speaks - AT (Cusmariu)

Roepke and the Restoration of Property - TIC (Ancil)

Yoram Hazony and the Jeffersonians - On the Square (Rogers)

Educating Citizens with Kirk, Kass, and Guinness - TIC (Woods)

The Conservative’s Right Mind: A Reply to David Brooks - Public Discourse (Schlueter)

Another Cost of the Recession: People Aren’t Having Kids - Via Meadia

Florida voters have a chance to reject bigotry and Blaine - MoJ (Garnett)

October 8, 2012

Why Obama Will Lose All Three Debates - AT (Pelerin)

The Last of Stalin’s Foot Soldiers - On the Square (Hannam)

Life Under Compulsion - FPR (Esolen)

Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine- Dr. Boli

The Flight from Hell - On the Square (Doino)

The Desires of Man - TIC (Schall)

Schaeffer on Nothing - The Constructive Curmudgeon

Could Fannie and Freddie Add $5 Trillion to U.S. Debt? - AT (Iachetta)

Columbus, Catholicism and Courage - TAC (McClarey)

Friday Night Lights Shine on Romney - PoMoCon (Presnall)

Have Americans Finally Tired of the Obama Narrative? - PJ Media (Kaufman)

Religious Bigotry: The First Refuge of Scoundrels - TAC (McClarey)

The Tragedy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi - New York Review of Books (Sifton and Stern)

Chavez Wins, No One Surprised - Via Meadia

Argentine Death Spiral Watch - Via Meadia

Boston Globe columnist claims Elizabeth Warren’s family suffered anti-Indian discrimination - LI (Jacobson)

The Ethical Case for “Right to Work” - Indiana Barrister (Bohanon)

Obama’s illegal campaign contributions? - Neo-Neocon

United Kingdom Makes Sincere Attempt To Kick Assholes Off Internet - Popehat (Ken)

As Libya Seethes, Pols Squabble Over Loot - Via Meadia

Supreme Court Justices in Church? We Can’t Have That - TAC (Zummo)

Romney’s Foreign Policy: A Weary America Must Lead - Via Meadia

October 7, 2012

Mender, Not an Ender - PoMoCon (Lawler)

Wall Street Occupies Itself - Via Meadia

Dark Satanic Mills of Mis-Education: Some Proposals for Reform - TIC (Koons)

Faith in the Fictional War between Science Fiction and Faith - John C. Wright

ASK DR. BOLI - #170 - Ask Dr. Boli

Realms of Experience Beyond the Natural - Maverick Philosopher

MIND MELD: SF/F Stories For English Lit Class - See esp. the response by John C. Wright

Reader Mailbag: Does Via Meadia Give Oil Companies A Pass? - Via Meadia

Camille Paglia on the Visual Arts in America Today - Volokh (Anderson)

How Capitalism Can Save Art - WSJ (Paglia)

Romney and Obama: Dueling Bostonians - Via Meadia

Garcia, "Academic Freedom and the Telos of the Catholic University" - MoJ (Garnett)

October 6, 2012

A response to Katherine Infantine

Here on Sardonic Ex Curia, I post links coming from a variety of perspectives, from political scientists to philosophers, laypeople of all sorts, theologians, writers, artists, musicians - you name it. I have not, until this point, responded directly to a writing by another person.

Today, that changes, as I respond to a writer named Katherine Infantine, who blogs at the First Things blog entitled "First Thoughts", is a Junior Fellow at First Things, and graduated with honors from Gonzaga University in 2010, where she edited a collegiate Catholic magazine. She has also served as an Intercollegiate Studies Institute fellow and a missionary. The article to which I am responding is located here - it is intelligently written, as one might expect from her list of accomplishments. In considering her article (and her own comment) at length, I believe that there are two things that need to be expanded upon and corrected in her thoughts. First, she correctly identifies a problem in the modern mind with definitive Church teaching, upon which I would like to expand. Second, she conflates a request to the individual Catholic to act in a certain way as a request to leave the Church, to which I respond and attempt to explain below.

Ms. Infantine has written what is, in essence, a two-part blog post. The first part consists of her main argument, and is entitled "Don't Believe? Don't Receive." Taking her inspiration from a posting on the legal blog "Mirror of Justice", Ms. Infantine opens with the question:

Is the Catholic Church showing a sincere and admirable respect for the free will of individuals and encouraging personal responsibility or is she unnecessarily turning away her members who suffer a great degree of doubt about certain Church teachings?

Her concern revolves around a recent statement issued by the Archbishop of Newark, John Myers, which discusses a variety of positions taken by the Catholic Church on issues related to marriage and sexuality. As part of that (sixteen-page) letter, the Archbishop noted that:

I urge those not in communion with the Church regarding her teaching on marriage and family (or any other grave matter of faith) sincerely to re-examine their consciences, asking God for the grace of the Holy Spirit which “guide [us] to all truth” (John 16:13). If they continue to be unable to assent to or live the Church’s teaching in these matters, they must in all honesty and humility refrain from receiving Holy Communion until they can do so with integrity; to continue to receive Holy Communion while so dissenting would be objectively dishonest.

I would like to note before proceeding that, in and of itself, Archbishop Myers is not breaking new ground here. There are many documents that indicate that one should abstain from the Eucharist when disagreeing with the Church on certain critical matters, and they run from the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church to the Fathers of the Church. For example, in his First Apology of 155 - 157 A.D. , Justin Martyr stated:

We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined.

After setting the stage, Ms. Infantine proceeds to argue that by requesting that those who disagree with the Church on fundamental teachings on moral matters related to marriage and sexuality refrain from receiving the Eucharist, the Church is essentially failing to respect the free will of such individuals, and that this amounts to, in essence, asking those who dissent to leave the Church. In Ms. Infantine's words:

How are those members of the Catholic Church who now reject Church teaching on contraception, same-sex relations, women ordination, etc. ever to come home again if we kick them to the curb?

Ms. Infantine was challenged very quickly by multiple commentators to more clearly define why she so easily equated "please refrain from the sacrament" to "please leave the Church". After reviewing the several challenges, Ms. Infantine replied to them in a length comment on her original piece, which she began by admitting:

I do concede that I have perhaps conflated the caution not to receive holy Communion with kicking members of the Catholic Church (permanently marked by the Sacrament of Baptism) to the curb.

And added:

I also do acknowledge that members are still obligated to attend Mass while not receiving Communion, as I saw much of this in my time in Ecuador.

She proceeded to clarify her argument and original remarks by noting that she is concerned that the cautions to refrain from accepting the Eucharist will be seen by Catholics who disagree with such teachings as an invitation to disengage with the Church. In other words, while the statements themselves concerning refraining from the Eucharist are not, ipso facto, a demand of departure, the effect of such words on a dissenter will be for them to depart the Church. As Ms. Infantine summed up:

All this being said, I completely agree that we must take all precautions not to take for granted the merciful and mysterious gift in which God gives himself to us in the Eucharist, not to make ourselves one with Him while really only living a lie. I just think that these messages of caution need to be accompanied by more talk of the immense love that Christ and his Church have for each member and the great pain that is caused by each dissent and each sin. If it comes across as merely “If you don’t believe a Church teaching then you can’t have Jesus,” it will push people away rather than point out the urgency and necessity of working through these dissenting ideas until they find the truth about these doctrines and more importantly unity with Christ and his Body, the Church.

A thorough reply to Ms. Infantine is difficult for several reasons, but two seem to be particularly important. First, she does correctly identify a difficulty confronting the teaching mission of the Church, particularly in modern culture - how does one set forth difficult teachings (such as the teaching against homosexual marriage) without simultaneously alienating members of the Church? And, in the modern world, is such even possible? In the second place, her argument seems to suffer from a very modern difficulty - namely, placing in opposition "respect" and "permissiveness". Both of my responses, I set forth in greater detail below.

Above, I say "particularly in modern culture", because the challenge in our times is that the locus of authority has shifted from any external source to the individual person. It is not simply that moral questions are often answered with the shrug of subjectivity, but the yardstick for morality is solely the feeling of the individual. The modern asks for no other authority and respects no other authority save the individual himself or herself. The Dominican Father Servais Pinckaers notes (in his "Morality: The Catholic View", even while affirming the importance of conscience), that in the modern Catholic,

[P]ersonal conscience tends to become the ultimate judge in the moral life, without one being sufficiently attentive to the ambiguity that arises when one so closely associates conscience with one's personal opinion, which is often self-justifying.....In such an atmosphere we are very far from the view of conscience described by [Cardinal] Newman: a conscience that makes judgments in the prescience of God by listening to his sovereign voice, or perhaps more accurately a conscience that lets itself be judged by God and guided by his law through a fruitful, open, and intelligent obedience.

Even more so in our time than in Cardinal Newman's, the modern demands that his or her personal opinion be the ultimate measure of value. Indeed, "value" is the ultimate determinant of the morality of any given action. When a modern is faced with a statement from the Church that challenges one of their own beliefs, the modern is likely to become angry, for what is challenged is the correctness of the modern's own morality, which in the modern mind, reigns supreme. How could the modern not become angry or upset? Ms. Infantine correctly notes that such a morality must be approached with love and caring.

If that were all Ms. Infantine were saying, then both her blog and my response (if at all) must be both pregnant with meaning and succinct in statement. However, she takes a step further, and simultaneously reveals a hint of the same modern mind at work in her argument. The modern, faced with the morality of Christ (for such is the morality of the Church for all time), must grow angry and upset, and even consider separation from the Church, for the idea of a morality separate, apart, and above individual value is stunning to such a person. The statement by Fr. Pinckaers, above, is meaningless, or even less than meaningless, being written in an incomprehensible language.

Ms. Infantine reveals the modern mind at work in her own argument when she equates a cautionary note to refrain from the Eucharist when one is in disagreement with Church teachings with a request that the individual in disagreement leave the Church. It is clear that attending Mass, engaging with the Church and one's own parish, and other ways are completely separate from receiving the Eucharist. For, as St. Justin Martyr hinted, those who disagree with the teachings set forth do not receive the Eucharist. And, to add to this, many other Church Fathers and St. Paul himself note that receiving the Eucharist unworthily results in drawing down greater sin upon one's own head. It is clear, however, that from the earliest of Catholic writings until now, separation from reception of the Eucharist is not separation from the body of the Faithful. The question is, how could the Church respect the autonomy of the modern more than to respect the modern's conscience? The Church does not say, "Whatever you believe is nothing - accept the Eucharist because the power of Christ is greater than your free will!" Nor does the Church say, "The Tradition we have been handed has moral content so flexible that whatever you believe, you are welcome to the Body of Christ" - such would be an insult to the life of Christ, whose words and deed defined the very nature of morality. Even as noted by St. Paul, if the Church were not to make a request to refrain from receiving the Eucharist, She would be permitting without plea the desire of a dissenter to receive the Eucharist unworthily, something that the Church, concerned as She is with the salvation of souls, could not do.

The request to abstain from the Eucharist is an invitation for dissenters to engage with the Church and work through their difficulties. They are not, and cannot be, a demand for the dissenter to leave the Church, for Christ himself made no demands. When the dissenter chooses to separate himself or herself, even as Judas did, they are exercising their own free and autonomous will to depart. Free will is so great a gift that, even as God desires the dissenter to be saved, He will make no forcing gesture to save the dissenter's soul but will leave the dissenter to their Will.