I would recommend you check out some of Paul Gottfried's work on this topic. I am currently reading his book
Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy. Here is a relevant excerpt:
Liberal Protestant theology is entirely compatible with the managerial state’s evolution into a regime promoting victim self-esteem. Without administrative assaults against biological and social distinctions, argue liberal Protestants, the sin of discrimination would rage even more fiercely. This is the message of J. Philip Wogaman, the Methodist pastor of Bill Clinton. As a Christian, Wogaman insists, it may be appropriate to treat the President’s sexual escapades as a “private vice,” offset by his continuing war against sexism, racism, and social injustice. Like other Protestant liberals, Wogaman has moved from a Social Gospel witness, advocating radical economic redistribution as a federal project, to what are presented as Christian concerns about the victims of Western society. Wogaman has championed his positions as the spiritual head of a prestigious Methodist congregation, who turned to the ministry after a long, distinguished career as a professor of Christian social ethics.
It is now incumbent on Western, particularly American, political leaders to lament past offenses against designated victims. Such acts are the modern equivalents of the days of fasting and public penance practiced by the visible saints in Puritan New England. They are the signs (similar to the Calvinist notae) by which the godly community and godly magistrates recognize the workings of grace. It is less significant whether whites in the United States are collectively responsible for the sin of slavery than the fact that President Clinton has made this assertion. Clergy and journalists rose to his defense when he did because of the need for public confession on behalf of a sinful nation.
You may also enjoy
this article that discusses some of the ideas of Gottfried. Again, I will provide a relevant excerpt:
...Gottfried observes a disturbing adoption of religious phraseology to support their narrative.
The secularized version of the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity puts certain classes of victimizers in a state of social sinfulness by virtue of the race and class they were born into, independent of their own decisions and voluntary beliefs. Theologically, Calvinism of course teaches that men are bound in their sin such that they cannot by their own volition achieve the righteousness standards of a God who demands perfection unto his eternally just standard. The morphing of this theme into a weapon of the secular state is especially insightful.
Gottfried draws a parallel between the liberal religious themes of public atonement, “dying to oneself,” and responsibility for the sins of one’s father and the phenomenon of politically correct movements.
This kind of [secular theocratic] regime, which imposes political correctness and interprets sin as insensitive behavior, builds steadily upon pervasive social guilt, an attitude and sentiment instilled by American religious culture. It can also be argued that mental and conceptual bridges continue to link the current liberal religion to older American Christian symbols, themes, and experiences. […]
What has allowed today’s fashionable Christian ideas to progress is not only “obscene niceness” but also residual memory. Contemporary liberal Christianity combines rituals of Western self-rejection with established Protestant attitudes about individuality and equality, the radically fallen state of the sinner, and the simultaneous self-debasement and self-elevation of the saint.
A very good example of all this can be seen in the short exchange between Tucker Carlson and his recent guest, a woman who argues in favor of a law in Belgium that criminalizes phrases that “express contempt” for women. The core of the crime, according to guest Cathy Areu, is actually the thought itself, which was the source of the phrase. Society, she argued, needs to be rid of these sinful thoughts and until that happens, people should be prosecuted for expressing them. The Social Organizers, apparently, focus not just on violent actions, but on “the heart” which produces the actions. This is a very clear example of the borrowing of religious themes by the authoritarian Left.
Perhaps a bit more of an abstract example, but I figure I'd chime in on this since I just happen to be reading about it currently.
