James Kalb Sees Liberalism as a Religion

I think he’s on to something, of course. He sums up the problem when he says that liberalism “began as an attempt to moderate the influence of religion in politics, [but] ends by establishing itself as a religion.”

My only qualification on that is, “If that’s what liberalism does, then The Thing that Used to Be Conservatism is just another species of liberalism.” After all, it too makes claims on the allegiance of Christians and tries to elevate its preferred doctrines and shibboleths to the status of revelation (“Jesus is a Capitalist!”). It too believes in social engineering (at gunpoint, in foreign lands that need the blessings of democratic capitalism, abortion on demand, gay marriage, and all the rest of our superior civilization). It too is skeptical about all those tired Catholic teachings that do not recognize that we live in New World Fighting a New Kind of War to bring about and End to Evil. In short, liberalism seems to have no corner on secular messianic ideology. The Thing that Used To be Conservatism is deeply infected with it too.

My recommendation: stop fleeing Liberalism for The Thing That Used to Be Conservatism and start fleeing modern ideological thinking (that always ends on some insane secular messianic scheme) for authentic Catholic faith and teaching.