Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart – Again

by Robert Kagan

Critics of liberalism are right to point out that the rights-protection machine that the founders set in motion is destructive of many traditions, and that includes religious institutions. It exerts pressure on all hierarchies and belief systems that limit the freedom of individuals to think and act as they please. Liberalism, for instance, has been destructive of the traditional patriarchal hierarchy of the family. By granting women equal rights both in and out of the home, liberalism has weakened the “dominion” of men. It has changed the nature of marriage and in some ways even the definition and understanding of what marriage is for. So, of course, has technology, in the form of contraceptives and abortion, but it is liberalism that allowed women to take advantage of that technology, freeing them to play roles that were once played only by men. Hierarchy lies at the heart of traditional Christianity in both its Catholic and Protestant variations. There is God, the father of creation; then the Pope or divinely chosen king, the father of the church or realm; then the father as head of the family. That is the proper Christian order of things, and the slave was also part of this divinely ordained hierarchy. That is what many American Christians have always believed, and they have viewed liberalism, correctly, as a threat to those hierarchies. Traditional religions have also tended to demand participation by the entire society, not just pockets of believers. The idea of many...