It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. I’ve been busy going in many different directions. But lately, I’ve been feeling the need to get back to posting on the website and in Facebook. The following is my latest “essay.”
I wanted to respond to a Heritage Foundation article I read on the place of religion in conservatism.
I recently read an article on the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, which was a review of a book titled, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, by a man named Yoran Hazony from the Herzl Foundation in Israel.
He speaks in the interview about the fact that many conservatives are confused in America as to what conservatism really means. He says some actually believe that conservatives seek to “conserve” liberalism! He goes on to say that it’s not enough for conservatives to just be “against” the woke trends of modern society. We have to understand what we are “for,” in other words, what our unifying, central core principles really are, and he says studies indicate we don’t. I find this to be true. And if conservatives aren’t clear on what they believe or what conservatism is, how can those outside such a movement understand what we’re trying to say?
I recently took a 30-lecture course from something called “The Liberty Classroom,” an online school created by libertarian Tom Woods. The course was titled “The History of Liberalism, Conservatism, and Libertarianism,” and I found it very helpful, but was also surprised by many things I learned. One of the main things that surprised me was that all three of these movements or schools of thought have evolved greatly over the years. What they emphasized in one period might not be what they’re about today.
This same thing has happened with political parties in the US over the years. For example, since Lincoln freed the slaves, blacks in America were almost exclusively Republicans in the early days of that party. Many Democrats were open racists, even members and supporters of the KKK! The Democrat Party gradually promoted themselves as the party of the working classes and minorities, whereas the Republican Party came to be seen as the party of business and the rich. Then, over the last decade, this has changed dramatically. Now, the Republican Party has become the party of the working and middle classes, and many blacks and Hispanics, and the Democrat Party is clearly allied with Big Tech, academia, the Media, and Wall Street. They still count on the support of minorities while actually doing little for them. But I digress.
In the history course I took, I saw how the conservative and liberal movements, and even the libertarians, have always had many schisms and disagreements. Each movement or group has multiple factions. There’s the far-left, left, and the moderate liberals or progressives, and there are far-right, alt-right, moderate right, neocons, and libertarians on the other side. You have AOC and “the squad,” but you also have Joe Manchin or Harold Ford. Likewise, the right has factions more near the middle and gradations extending out to the far-right as well.
Because of these differences I’ve discovered, I’ve lost hope of ever seeing a unified political party, much less a unified country. I’ve come to see that we can no longer trust labels like conservative or liberal, right or left, or even Christian and non-Christian. It comes down to what the individual believes and does regarding each individual issue. For example, look how Kansas, a supposed Republican stronghold, voted recently in reaction to the reversal of Roe v Wade. Over 65% voted for abortion, and most are supposed to be Republicans! This is why, amongst Republicans, we often hear that so and so is a RINO, Republican In Name Only. I have come to see this is a misnomer. One faction of the Republican Party cannot simply dismiss other factions as illegitimate. If one group can do this to others, those others can likewise just as easily dismiss them.
We see this even within Christianity, which one would think might be a more unified group. But what is a Christian? What does a Christian believe or do? Within the broader realm of Christendom, we have everything from snake-handlers in Appalachia, to generally milder Anglicans and Presbyterians, to Charismatic or Pentecostal churches with big rock concerts or who “name it and claim it,” to very liturgical and traditional Catholic or Orthodox believers. Which are the true Christians? Does anybody but God really know?
My point is that I believe we need to take each person as an individual and we need to discuss each issue to see where we stand on it. For me, a true Christian is a person who has turned from the former, worldly, self-centered life, has been truly born again, is new and redeemed inside, and who lives life in line with God’s will and commands to the best of his/her understanding. A true Christian simply will not (cannot) live in direct disobedience to God long-term. Such a person will not accept things which are clearly contrary to God’s revealed will, such as the killing of a baby or the practice of homosexuality or the habitual use of drugs or alcohol. They will never yield on these issues – they cannot! They know God’s will from His written Word and they know God never changes, so their morality cannot “evolve” or change over time. They don’t live out perfectly the will of God, nobody does that all the time, and probably nobody even fully knows what God’s will is for them in every circumstance. But what they have come to understand, they seek to live, by God’s grace and empowerment.
For this reason, I have also ceased to identify myself so much as a conservative, because to me, the term has become confused and obscure. What are we conserving? Can you be a gay conservative? Is religion important to conservatism? Some see conservatives as fearful people who want to cling to guns and religion because they’re afraid of change. Some see conservatives as people who are always nostalgic for the past, because they can’t adapt to present realities. They believe white people are afraid of losing their power as new groups immigrate to this country, etc. But is this really what conservatism is about? Not for me anyway!
And what about liberalism? What is it? Many conservatives see liberals as their enemies. I used to be among such! But then I learned that liberal comes from the Latin word libera which means free. And I learned that, since, “who the Son sets free is free indeed,” Christians are liberals because we’ve been liberated!
I always wanted to fight against a liberal takeover of my country. But then I discovered that America has always been a liberal democracy, and all the developed countries of Europe are liberal democracies! I learned that the idea of a liberal arts education arose so Christians could educate people about the truths of God. Education was promoted as a means of building better people, better disciples of Christ! All of this came from the influence of Christianity over centuries of time.
If you don’t believe it, I can recommend a whole slew of books to prove it, from Tom Holland’s Dominion, to Vishal Mangalwadi’s This Book Changed Everything, to Rodney Stark’s, For the Glory of God, and many, many others. Even a recent Dave Ruben podcast, in which he interviewed journalist Douglas Murray brought this out. I thought it truly amazing that a podcast in which two gay men, each “married” to someone of his same sex (my point being that today, most think gays are against Christianity and Christianity is against gays), even these gay men concluded that Christianity was what made Western Civilization and what holds our society together!
Liberal democracy, with its foundations of freedom and human rights, actually came out of the Christian Church’s influence in Europe over centuries of time. Not only that, but even science, public education, our predominant morality and basically every other thing we cherish today came from biblical and Christian influence!
Of course, some see liberalism more in terms of being more open on social issues such as homosexuality or sexuality in general, the use of drugs, etc. You’re considered liberal if you’re more unrestrained in your judgments and views of such aspects of life and have a “live and let live” philosophy. You’re more conservative if you believe these areas need restraint and government should establish laws to that end.
The strange thing is that today, classic liberalism has been overtaken by the so-called progressive movement, which is actually illiberal! Classic liberalism stands for tolerance, and of course, toleration implies you don’t agree with something, but allow it anyway. No one “tolerates” ice cream! No, we tolerate that some people eat liver and onions or beef tongue or balut! At universities, students were supposed to be exposed to different viewpoints, so they could learn to weigh positions and decide which were best.
But today’s progressives are anything but tolerant! They want to create “safe-spaces” on university campuses, where the poor, snowflake students won’t have to worry their little heads by hearing anything contrary to what they’ve always accepted! Today’s progressives are mostly Marxists and fascists, who want to take over society and shut out opposing voices! They decide what’s allowed on social media and what’s “disinformation.” Rather than tolerating different ideas and letting everyone have their say, they want unanimity of speech and thought! So again, we see that titles and terms have changed, and movements have morphed into something quite different from what they were originally. And again, it becomes necessary to see where we stand as individuals, on individual issues.
So I conclude with my own personal commitment. I no longer care so much about left or right, conservative or liberal or progressive, Republican or Democrat or any other titles. All of those titles can mean different things to different people and that all changes over time! What I want to do is to try to discern God’s ways and God’s will from a daily study of His Word and conform my life to that. I want to learn that and promote that, in personal life and in society at large.
I’ve also come to think of myself, not so much as a conservative, but as a realist, a Christian realist. I believe in reality, as in 2 + 2 = 4, there are two genders, marriage is between a man and a woman, a “fetus” is a baby, and it’s immoral and incredibly wicked to take an innocent human life, if you don’t work, you can’t eat, economics requires common sense, you can’t tax your way into prosperity or print money to create it, etc., etc.
God is the Creator of all reality. Our place isn’t to argue with His reality or to deny it, say it doesn’t exist or that it’s fluid or that there’s some kind of “new” reality. Our place is to learn what is real, and to seek to line up our lives in harmony with it. We learn reality by studying what’s “out there” in the real world, by empirical study and reason, and we learn it by studying the truth God has revealed in His Word.
I want to live in line with Reality, which is Christ, and to be always both studying and applying that reality to my life. And since the Creator of all reality has commanded me to go into all the world and make disciples, that is, to educate others about God’s reality, I want to share what I learn with as many others as I can.