Andrew Sullivan reprints the same quote from Ron Bailey provided by Derb (he even gives him a “hat tip”). The quote, just to refresh your memory is this:

“A year ago, I asked [Irving] Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, ‘I don’t believe in God, I have faith in God.’ Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, ‘is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that ‘that is a stupid question,’ and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, ‘it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion.’”

To which Sullivan adds:

Re-reading the theocons for my book on conservatism, I have been struck by how, in recent years, they have come to a consensus that in order for their political-theological project to be coherent, they may have to undermine Darwin and evolution. This political Pope may help provide cover. You cannot restore Aquinas as the central figure for the West’s understanding of its own politics without dethroning Darwin. For the neocons, this will present a real challenge: to say things they know are untrue in order to promote a political reordering that they approve of. Some will balk, like Krauthammer. But others will find a way to be tactically silent, or worse. Power is at stake.

[Italics mine]

Okay, so two points. First, what exactly is wrong with what Kristol says? Derb suggests that there are much better answers for non-believers to offer (taking it for granted that Kristol is a non-believer). Maybe so. But that’s a pretty weak condemnation. We could all be better diplomats than we sometimes are.

Still, Irving says he doesn’t believe in God, he has faith in God. Is this really an admission that he thinks there is no God? The bit from Hebrews is provided by Ron Bailey, not by Irving Kristol, (as is the bit about the twinkle in Irving’s eye. Ron’s a scrupulously honest guy, but twinkles in septugenarian eyes are notoriously hard to read). As for Irving telling (my old boss) Ben Wattenberg that “it’s a stupid question,” how exactly is that so ominous? Maybe, Irving believes it’s a stupid question for any number of reasons, among them Irving’s desire to head off one of Ben’s notoriously loaded questions.

I seem to recall either Irving or Daniel Bell recounting a story in the documentary “Arguing The World” where one of them recalls how they told their father “I don’t believe in God” and the answer back was “Do you think God cares whether you believe in Him?” Whether it was Irving or not, that is still very, very, Irving. That’s how he talks about such things. As Wes Smith notes, the question of what Irving believes may or may not be important but it must be weighed at least somewhat independently of what his public arguments are.

As for his public arguments Ron cites an essay that Kristol wrote nearly fifty years before that says it would be wise to support religion if people started becoming unreligious. This is damning… how exactly? Irving didn’t write “if the rubes find out God doesn’t exist we should convince them otherwise.” He said, if religion dissolves it would lead to social disarray. Who can look back on the last two centuries and disagree with that? If Kristol said something more damning, you can be sure Ron would have quoted it.

Point number 2: Am I the only one who thinks Sullivan’s “power is at stake” line is just plain shabby? In the early days of the war on terror, Andrew honorably denounced people who claimed that “the neocons” were the power-hungry back room schemers of popular mythology. He’s still probably willing to do that — sometimes — when the issue is foreign policy. But when it comes to his war against “theocons” at home and in Rome, Andrew is apparently quite willing to believe that “the neocons” are sufficiently lustful for power for its own sake that they will say whatever they want. Even if one were to credit everything Ron and Derb attribute to Kristol when it comes to his alleged anti-Darwinism, even they don’t suggest that this is all about “power.” They at least give Irving the benefit of the doubt that he is striving toward what he believes is the greater good. Andrew’s version of the tale is that this is about power and nothing more. That’s really unfair.

And the two points go together. Kristol honestly believed that Nietzsche’s prediction that if and when man accepted the idea that God is dead, terrible horrors and wars would be unleashed since there would be no standards for truth other than the will-to-power. Irving rejected the view that a Nietzschean world would be a peachy one. It was — and is — against this backdrop that Kristol highlights the importance of religion. Andrew turns this completely on its head and ascribes to Kristol a motive of pure will-to-power.

He does this, by the way, through a trick he and the New Republic created: the dreaded theocon bogeyman. Since none of the so-called theocons actually call themselves theocons or write in defense of this made-up thing called theo-conservatism, Andrew is surely correct that it will be difficult for their “political-theological project to be coherent.” At least he pays them the compliment of having a “project” based in ideas. For the neocons who support the theocons, it’s merely a power-play.