Matthew Continetti on Irving Kristol's Theological Politics

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2017

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Irving Kristol was truly one-of-a-kind. He had a capacious mind and a winsome personality, and his journey from young Trotskyist to “godfather” of neoconservatism has long captivated those who have written about his remarkable career. Yet, for all the ink spilled on Irving Kristol the man, Irving Kristol the political thinker has often been neglected.

Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon, believes it is long past time to devote more attention to Irving Kristol’s political thought. In his 2014 essay in National Affairs, “The Theological Politics of Irving Kristol,” Continetti subjects more than 50 years of Kristol’s writings to close reading. In doing so, Continetti draws out the theological foundations that underpinned so much of Kristol’s thinking on politics and society.

In this podcast, Continetti and Tikvah’s Jonathan Silver discuss Irving Kristol’s “neo-orthodox” theology, his distinction between the rabbinic and prophetic tendencies, and the Jewish foundations of his political disposition. In doing so, they draw out the deeper meaning of Kristol’s thought and sketch out the ways his wisdom can shed light on our current political moment.

Courtesy of Pro Musica Hebraica, musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim, and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tikva podcast and Great Jewish Essays and Ideas.
0:07.0	I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. If you like listening to our podcast, I invite you to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, and I hope you'll also leave us a rating and a review.
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0:28.7	Irving Crystal was an essayist with a blessed pen, a capacious mind, a winsome personality,
0:35.0	and a good deal of commentary about his extraordinary legacy begins with
0:38.6	the man, his cheer, his humor, what seemed like the effortless way. In the pages of the public
0:45.0	interest and the Wall Street Journal, he gave voice to a mode of social analysis and a way of
0:50.8	thinking about public life that came to be known as neoconservatism.
0:56.2	Our guest today is Washington Free Beacon editor, Matthew Contonetti.
1:01.3	The theological politics of Irving Crystal is an essay and article that Matthew published in
1:06.9	National Affairs, the journal that in many ways succeeded the public interest.
1:12.1	In it, Matthew writes that it's long past time to examine not Crystal the man, but Crystal
1:17.6	the political thinker, to subject his writings and views to close reading, and to discern what
1:23.4	lessons they hold for today. Well, in subjecting more than half a century of Irving Crystal's writings to close reading,
1:30.2	Matthew found that the key to understanding Irving Crystal is to understand his theological frame of mind.
1:38.1	Matt, welcome.
1:39.4	How did you come to discover Irving Crystal's theological mind?
1:43.0	Well, Jonathan, thanks for having me here.
1:44.7	So much of the thinking about Irving Crystal just comes from reading him closely.
1:54.5	And throughout the bibliography, there's a persistent theme, and that is his religious bent or his interest in religious matters.
2:06.6	And this comes across clearly in his autobiographical essay, which is reprinted in Neoconservatism, the 95 collection, and then reprinted again in the 2011 collection
	...

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