Tom Holland argues that the moral disputes at the heart of our culture are between rival versions of Christian ethics that are playing out in the conservative versus progressive divide. The problem is that only one side of the culture wars is aware that its argument functions within Christian grammar. It is fiercely ironic then that the secular Kulturkampf is really a critique of Christian ideas with other Christian ideas. Hence G. K. Chesterton’s complaint that ‘the modern world is full of old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each
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