David French is a Christian, a political commentator, a former staff writer for the National Review, a columnist for Time Magazine, and senior editor of
The Dispatch, a conservative news site.
He recently published an excellent piece entitled, “A Christian Defense of American Classical Liberalism,” in which he clearly and compellingly describes the equally malicious rise of authoritarianism from both the Right and the Left in America.
Both are dangerous in very similar ways. But, more than that, he explains why Christian theology provides the church with the best framework for understanding these dangers.
Christian theology also offers the best framework for grasping the social and political benefits of classical Liberalism.
Below is an excerpt:
On the push and pull between ‘humans as made in the image of God and humans still trapped in sin.’
I’d like to introduce you to a term you need to know (indeed, many of you no doubt know it already). It’s “horseshoe theory,” and its short definition is relatively simple. As political movements grow more extreme, they grow more alike. Like a horseshoe, they bend closer together.
A classic example of horseshoe theory is represented by 20th-century European clashes between fascists and communists. It’s not that there aren’t differences between fascism and communism, it’s that in their totalitarian reality, the two competing regimes created quite similar conditions on the ground.
Thankfully the American manifestations of horseshoe theory haven’t created anything remotely like the fascism and communism that led to history’s bloodiest war, but we’re seeing horseshoe theory emerge nonetheless, and its left-wing and right-wing manifestations have settled on the same target—American classical liberalism.
By “American classical liberalism,” I mean the specific structure of government created by the founding generation, modified and expanded through the Civil War Amendments, affirmed and extended through judicial precedent. While this constitutional structure is malleable enough to accommodate a wide variety of social, economic, and foreign policy choices, at its heart it is defined by a commitment to individual liberty, equality under law, and democratic government.
On the left, the challenge most prominently comes from a series of critical theory-influenced ideologies that fundamentally reject that American founding (and American classical liberalism itself) as irrevocably stained and tainted (mainly) by America’s racial sins. Classical liberalism, in this telling, was the enabler of great injustice.
Some definitions of critical race theory, for example, specifically reject liberalism, viewing liberalism as a “vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege.” This is why, for example, critical theory-influenced colleges often attempt to pare back commitments to free speech and due process on campus. These “liberal” commitments are perceived as oppressive to women and people of color, enabling “hate speech” or sexual predation.
On the right, the challenge comes most prominently from a cohort of mainly Christian intellectuals, many of whom were featured in an extended New York Times piece about the new right and some of whom are in a marriage of convenience with Trumpist populism. They perceive liberalism as both problematic on its own terms and inadequate to the task of resisting “woke” post-liberals on the left.
Whereas critical race theorists root their objections to liberalism in its coexistence with American oppression, many Christian post-liberals (perhaps we can call them “critical religion theorists”) root their objections in liberalism’s alleged contributions to American immorality and godlessness, with a particular emphasis on abortion and the sexual revolution.
You will find the entire article here. Take a look.
