Hm. Via Daniel Larison, Rod Dreher has a piece in USA Today from Monday arguing that the GOP would be foolish to toss religious conservatives overboard - but at the same time, he says, the nature of religious conservatism has to evolve:
Times change. Today, the greatest threats to conservative interests come not from the Soviet Union or high taxes, but from too much individual freedom. Look around you: Americans have been poor stewards of our economic liberty, owing to cultural values that celebrate unfettered materialism. Our families and communities have fragmented, in part because we have embraced an ethic of extreme individualism. Climate change and a peak in oil production threaten our future because we have been irresponsible caretakers of the natural world and its resources. At best, the religious right stood ineffectively against these trends. At worst, we preached them, mistaking consumerism for conservatism.
It’s almost a collectivist argument, isn’t it? And I don’t necessarily say that in pejorative fashion; but this is a call for recognizing the primacy of the community over the individual. I don’t necessarily disagree with all of Dreher’s assertions in the piece (though I disagree vehemently with some).
But this idea of “too much individual freedom” comes perilously close to Rick Santorum’s line a few years back, that the “pursuit of happiness harms America.” I can see what Santorum is trying to say; I don’t subscribe to the notion that you promote freedom by restricting it. Though there is the idea that without clear limitations you can never have freedom, because the appetites take over. As they have.
But as I commented at Larison’s place - virtually the entire focus of conservative evangelicals has been on abortion and homosexuality. Maybe they’d say that it’s because they perceive these two things to be such an overwhelming threat that they simply have to be addressed first. But when you think about it - these might be the two least harmful excesses of the past few years.
Compared to the unintended consequences of the Iraq War - is gay marriage really a greater problem for the U.S.? Is abortion actually of greater consequence to the nation and its people than the economic meltdown, precipitated in part by our propensity to live beyond our means - something conservative evangelicals have not focused on so publicly?
Can the religious right broaden its focus; will it? Were it to spend as much time an energy on new initiatives - were it able, as Dreher counsels, to “think and talk in terms — and not overtly religious ones — of building up civil society and its mediating institutions” - its appeal would be broader.
But my suspicion has long been that down deep, religious conservatism isn’t about building bridges, or civil societies; it’s been about establishing, or re-establishing, cultural supremacy. It’s about perfecting mankind, and certainly this nation, via faith.
But I thought conservatives believed that man cannot be perfected? And if man is fallen, can even a Christian society save him?
