What is most shocking about this interview is that the professor spoke to Dreher on the condition that his name and university not be divulged.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s scared of losing his job and what he says isn\u2019t even extreme or radical in any way.<\/p>\n
He simply admits to being a Christian. Dreher gives him the name Prof. Kingsfield<\/p>\n
Dreher asks, \u201cWhat prompted his reaching out to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very worried,\u201d he said, [the prof] \u00a0of events of the last week. \u201cThe constituency for religious liberty just isn\u2019t there anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like me, what unnerved Prof. Kingsfield is not so much the details of the Indiana law, but the way the overculture treated the law. \u201cWhen a perfectly decent, pro-gay marriage religious liberty scholar like Doug Laycock, who is one of the best in the country \u2014 when what he says is distorted, you know how crazy it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlasdair Macintyre is right,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a nuclear bomb went off, but in slow motion.\u201d What he meant by this is that our culture has lost the ability to reason together, because too many of us want and believe radically incompatible things.<\/p>\n
But only one side has the power. When I asked Kingsfield what most people outside elite legal and academic circles don\u2019t understand about the way elites think, he said \u201cthere\u2019s this radical incomprehension of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey think religion is all about being happy-clappy and nice, or should be, so they don\u2019t see any legitimate grounds for the clash,\u201d he said. \u201cThey make so many errors, but they don\u2019t want to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n
To elites in his circles, Kingsfield continued, \u201cat best religion is something consenting adult should do behind closed doors. They don\u2019t really understand that there\u2019s a link between Sister Helen Prejean\u2019s faith and the workd she does on the death penalty. There\u2019s a lot of looking down on flyover country, one middle America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sad thing,\u201d he said, \u201cis that the old ways of aspiring to truth, seeing all knowledge as part of learning about the nature of reality, they don\u2019t hold. It\u2019s all about power. They\u2019ve got cultural power, and think they should use it for good, but their idea of good is not anchored in anything. They\u2019ve got a lot of power in courts and in politics and in education. Their job is to challenge people to think critically, but thinking critically means thinking like them. They really do think that they know so much more than anybody did before, and there is no point in listening to anybody else, because they have all the answers, and believe that they are good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The self righteousness of the ideologue. They will kill and believe they are doing good work.<\/p>\n
What is also disconcerting is the professors admission that people aren\u2019t thinking and talking. And its the academics who aren\u2019t thinking\u2026the ones who get paid to think.<\/p>\n
Why is this?<\/p>\n
Because of the dictatorship of relativism.<\/p>\n
If there is no such thing as truth there is nothing to think about. If there is no such thing as truth there is no such thing as discussion. If there is no such thing as truth there is no such thing as debate.<\/p>\n
The only thing left is the rule of force.<\/p>\n
I win because I am stronger. I have the police. Forget about truth. You will do it my way.<\/p>\n
Because there is no truth all that matters is emotion and power.<\/p>\n
What we are seeing in our country is an explosion of emotion and power.<\/p>\n
And it is going to get worse.<\/p>\n
Much worse.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A pizzeria owner in small town America is hounded into hiding with death threats, computer assault, pornography violence and arson threats. No conversation. No discussion. Just raw bullying. Rod Dreher has an excellent conversation here with a law professor who is pessimistic about religious freedom in the USA after the events this week in Indiana. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":18632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"police-state\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2015\/04\/police-state.jpg\")
<\/a>A pizzeria owner in small town America is hounded into hiding with death threats, computer assault, pornography violence and arson threats.<\/p>\n