Tag: liberalism

Christian illiberalism

While I’m on the topic of labels…

Over the past few years, I’ve found myself largely disillusioned by classical liberalism, especially as it finds itself being practiced today, in a world where rampant individualism and capitalism have collided in a way that I think is doing significant damage to people, culture, politics and the earth. Nonetheless, I keep finding myself drawn back to classical liberalism, especially at intersects with democracy and pluralistic Western society. I’m steeped in this liberal tradition, and I don’t anticipate ever being fully free of it.

That said, I just want to lay down a marker to say, I find the Christian illiberalism of Leah Libresco Sargeant (click that link and read that article, don’t pass it by) very attractive and powerful, and I keep at least a toe in that camp. Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder and Alasdair Macintyre all influence me the same way, and remind me that, inevitably, Christianity in its best forms finds itself at odds with classical liberalism. This is a tension I will always have to live with.

conservative-liberal-socialist-democrat-leftist-anglican-anabaptist-christian

I’m working on a longer piece for my newsletter (which you should subscribe to!) in which I try to account for my political and ideological wanderings over the last couple of years. But, a couple of shorter pieces have come across the radar in recent weeks that I identify strongly with. First, as pointed out by Kevin Drum, is this piece by Ruy Teixeira at Politico. Teixeira is formerly of the progressive Center for American Progressive, but is moving to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mostly because of his disillusionment with the identarian left and its illiberal proclivities. Drum highlighted the line that really hits home for me:

I’m just a social democrat, man. Trying to make the world a better place.

Ain’t that the truth. Progressives would be a lot better off if we remembered what kinds of policies put food on the table for most people (and thus what policies most voters actually care about.) It points me back to Alan Jacobs’ short and helpful reminder from a couple months back:

Your periodic reminder from Leszek Kołakowski: It’s possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. 

I resemble that remark. It feels nice to be seen, amidst a progressive left that seems in many ways to have left me and some of my fellow travelers behind. Its for that very reason that I don’t really claim the term “progressive” anymore, but instead float somewhere between “leftist” and “classical liberal”, with a smattering of social democrat sprinkled in, and floating above it all (and really, superseding it all), “Christian.”

Excerpt #14

A society that cannot imagine placing the weak at its center, that forgets that society exists for the weak, will be drawn towards the Manichaean modes of cancel culture. We see sin but not grace – we try to find and throw out the bad apples, whom (we think) no one can restore to righteousness. Or we see ourselves mirrored in the most notorious sinners, and work to deny sin, since we don’t want to be cast out with them.

Paul points us towards the proper expression of our vulnerability in his second letter to the Corinthians. He struggles with his own thorn, and asks the Lord to spare him. “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:8-9).

To give an honest accounting of ourselves, we must begin with our weakness and fragility. We cannot structure our politics or our society to serve a totally independent, autonomous person who never has and never will exist. Repeating that lie will leave us bereft: first, of sympathy from our friends when our physical weakness breaks the implicit promise that no one can keep, and second, of hope, when our moral weakness should lead us, like the prodigal, to rush back into the arms of the Father who remains faithful. Our present politics can only be challenged by an illiberalism that cherishes the weak and centers its policies on their needs and dignity.

Leah Libresco Sargeant, “Dependence: Toward an Illiberalism of the Weak” in Plough No. 26, page 58.