- Feb 5, 2002
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A former colleague of mine in Congress recently told me that he now describes himself as a nondenominational Protestant rather than an evangelical. His reason? He has met too many evangelicals who view their faith as serving their politics. He believes this subordination is not only exacerbating the political divide in our country, but tearing evangelical churches apart and undermining their Christian witness. What he said next shocked me: Hope for our nation’s healing now lies in the Catholic Church.
For many Americans, political partisanship is now inextricable from social identity. Research shows that partisanship can grow so powerful that it not only determines people’s policy preferences, but can change their professed religious identity, class identity, and even sexual orientation. Our culture tells us that partisan identity is absolute: We must join a team, and then conform completely or risk banishment as a heretic. But it is not love for one’s own that holds each team together—it is contempt for those on the outside. Political partisanship is becoming a sectarian fundamentalist pseudo-religion.
Something especially pernicious is happening on the sectarian left, where it is not much of a stretch to see reflections of the French Revolution. Roger Scruton, in a 1989 essay titled “Man’s Second Disobedience,” says the Revolution was not a reaction against abuses of power, but “a war against religion,” a rejection of the transcendent God of Christianity and the sacredness of the human person—a rejection of the human as imago Dei.
Continued below.
Be Catholic First | Daniel Lipinski
For many Americans, political partisanship is now inextricable from social identity. Research shows that partisanship can grow so powerful that it not only determines people’s policy preferences, but can change their professed religious identity, class identity, and even sexual orientation. Our culture tells us that partisan identity is absolute: We must join a team, and then conform completely or risk banishment as a heretic. But it is not love for one’s own that holds each team together—it is contempt for those on the outside. Political partisanship is becoming a sectarian fundamentalist pseudo-religion.
Something especially pernicious is happening on the sectarian left, where it is not much of a stretch to see reflections of the French Revolution. Roger Scruton, in a 1989 essay titled “Man’s Second Disobedience,” says the Revolution was not a reaction against abuses of power, but “a war against religion,” a rejection of the transcendent God of Christianity and the sacredness of the human person—a rejection of the human as imago Dei.
Continued below.
Be Catholic First | Daniel Lipinski
