House of Eratosthenes

As a child, Razib Khan spent several weeks studying in a Bangladeshi madrasa. Heather Mac Donald once studied literary deconstructionism and clerked for a left-wing judge. In neither case did the education take. They are atheist conservatives — Mr. Khan an apostate to his family’s Islamic faith, Ms. Mac Donald to her left-wing education.

They are part of a small faction on the right: conservatives with no use for religion. Since 2008, they have been contributors to the blog Secular Right, where they argue that conservative values like small government, self-reliance and liberty can be defended without recourse to invisible deities or the religions that exalt them.

And they serve as public proof that an irreligious conservative can exist.

“A lot of religious conservatives say, ‘You can’t be conservative because you don’t believe in God,’ ” said Mr. Khan, 34, who was raised in New York and Oregon but whose grandfather was an imam in Bangladesh. “They say I am logically impossible, and I say, ‘Well I am possible because I am.’

“They assert your nonexistence, and you have to assert your existence.”

Neither Mr. Khan nor Ms. Mac Donald gainsays the historical connection between conservatism and religiosity. Influential conservatives, like the 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, have been sympathetic toward religion in part because it endures.

Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at National Review, noted that conservatives throughout history have esteemed “mediating institutions” like schools and churches, sources of authority other than the state. “If that’s the way you’re thinking, concern for the strength of organized religion follows pretty naturally,” Mr. Ponnuru said.

That’s me to a T. I have more substantive disagreements with the social-con right than I do with the left. The “religious right” is right on the biggest thing — mankind are fallen creatures — but wrong on the remedy; leftism is a fantasy tout court.

I know I’m not the only one to have noticed this, but I’m continually struck by the weird fracture in contemporary American politics when it comes to religion. The left could sweep the field if they could get over their foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of Christianity. Isn’t their biggest gripe against “evangelicals,” for example, that they’re always trying to “legislate morality?” Well, then: Jerry Falwell would happily sign off on the most widespread, intrusive, collectivist, liberty-destroying “social justice” program the Berkeley Peace Studies department could come up with in their deepest, sweatiest, most bong-infused wet dream provided they talked about Jesus while herding us off to the reeducation camp. I mean, think about it: aside from the daily prayers to ol’ whatzisface, the difference between a medieval monastery and the leftist’s dream collective of socially-conscious, environmentally-sound, shade-grown, fair-trade, certified-organic, no-logo, anti-corporate, locally-sourced, think-globally-act-locally, we-are-the-world pantywaist tree-huggers is….what now?

If only they could learn to be, ***ahem****, tolerant of the occasional Hail Mary, the left could turn this place into Soviet Canuckistan in no time.
- Severian | 02/20/2011 @ 10:22
I’m a Christian AND a conservative, so I suppose that makes me part of the majority on the right.

I have run across a few of those non-religious conservatives. While I at one time entertained the possibility that secular conservatism might have been a contradiction, rooming with one in college quickly cured me of that notion. I figured out pretty quickly that a person doesn’t have to be a Christian in order to still see the wisdom of smaller government, lower taxes, federalist thinking, and a strong national defense.

In fact, I think secular conservatives are far LESS contradictory than Christian liberals. I’ve run into a few of them, too. I always want to ask, “Exactly what part of the Bible is in harmony with the modern left-wing agenda?” “We have compassion for our fellow man, unlike your hardhearted right wingers” or something along those lines, is the stock answer.

Except….any idiot ought to know by now that the Bible talks about individual charity and compassion, which couldn’t possibly have less to do with the modern welfare state. I could go on, but I won’t. I’ve already written an essay on this. I am annoyed by the suggestion that “Christ was a liberal.” No, He wasn’t…He was a conservative. It was His opponents of the day who were on the left.

Severian, I usually enjoy your posts a good deal, but I think you’re pretty far-off base with those comments. Christians aren’t interested in sending anyone to a re-education camp….
- cylarz | 02/20/2011 @ 14:51
Cylarz,

the “reeducation camp” crack was aimed at our modern totalitarian friends on the left. No Christian I personally know wants to send folks off for reeducation. For that, I apologize.

However, I disagree that secular conservatives are far LESS contradictory than Christian liberals. For most of history they were one and the same. Abolitionists, urban reformers, and prohibitionists, just to name three, were more than happy to use the state’s power for explicitly Christian ends. Likewise, most of the original arguments for the welfare state drew heavily on Christian rhetoric. If the Bible enjoins only individual acts of charity, then Wilberforce, William Lloyd Garrison, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. all must’ve missed that day in Sunday school.

Christianity is a communitarian ethos, and because of that I’d have no problem constructing an explicitly Christian argument for just about anything on the modern liberal agenda.* The only ones I couldn’t make fit are abortion and gay marriage — two biggies, I admit, but those owe a lot more to Marxism and its drive to bring down ambient civilization than anything I recognize as classically “liberal.”

But here again is why conservatism is so much more intellectually robust than modern leftism — we can have quite sharp debates over this kind of stuff, and feel ourselves intellectually richer for it (I know I do, and I thank you for calling me out on my rhetoric up there). Leftism is about toeing the line, always and everywhere.

And again, thank God (or whomever) that it is. I realize that “lacking the opportunity to sin” is not the same as “consciously choosing to not sin,” but I think that distinction largely escapes the Falwell types. I think they’d be perfectly fine with all kinds of state intrusion into private life, providing it “legislated morality.” (Or, I should say, “legislated their kind of morality,” since leftism is nothing if not grimly moralistic).
- Severian | 02/20/2011 @ 17:29
Abolitionists, urban reformers, and prohibitionists, just to name three, were more than happy to use the state’s power for explicitly Christian ends.

I don’t see anything inherently wrong with not wanting your government to sanction something which you believe is morally wrong. It may be hypocritical to be a believer and not want the government to permit morally wrong things. I don’t think it’s hypocritical to be opposed to it affirmatively supporting those things. Slavery was wrong because it was a violation of the right of self-determination, which our founders believed was afforded to every man by God, not government. I don’t know what an “urban reformer” is, and as for prohibition, you will find few defenders of that policy today, even in the church. I suppose that one might be one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” things.

The left-wingers among us believers often do want the government to take things a step further, and they make the rest of us look bad.

Likewise, most of the original arguments for the welfare state drew heavily on Christian rhetoric. If the Bible enjoins only individual acts of charity, then Wilberforce, William Lloyd Garrison, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. all must’ve missed that day in Sunday school.

Apparently they did. James Madison, founder of our Constitution: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” I am sure that quote is familiar to you.

Christianity is fundamentally compatible with principles of limited government – protecting people from one another and very little else – which is why I believe its “home” is on the right to start with. I can only speak for myself, but I don’t believe in using the state’s power to compel righteousness. God seems to want people to do that willingly, not under duress.

Christianity is a communitarian ethos, and because of that I’d have no problem constructing an explicitly Christian argument for just about anything on the modern liberal agenda.

I’m not sure what you mean by “communitarian ethos,” because that sounds like something Karl Marx would have written about. If it has anything whatever to do with subsuming the mind and will of an individual to that of some group, then no. We do submit ourselves to our Lord…but that’s entirely different from presuming that some collectivist unit is going to have superior judgment over that of an individual. A lot of outsiders to our faith seem to presume that we never question our clergy; that we believe whatever those men tell us; that we have no sense of independent thought, or that we never disagree with one another. Quite the contrary on all counts, and I frequently find myself refuting those stereotypes. I can only speak for my own faith (evangelical Christianity)…not that of other so-called “organized religions” such as the Catholic Church, Islam, Mormonism, Judaism, or anything else.

I’m really not following you on the rest of that sentence. You’re going to sit here and tell me your understanding is that the Christian faith would smile upon euthanasia, gay marriage, the left’s idea of “health care reform,” opposition to capital punishment, disarming the public, or countless other typically-left positions?

As to legislating morality, try to remember that every law on the books got there because some legislator thought something or other was right or wrong…and enough other legislators agreed…and some governor or president agreed. (And in some cases, some judge agreed and upheld the law.) I’m a bit tired of hearing the “you can’t legislate morality” canard. Nonsense. We can – and do – every day. The problem is simply that we don’t all agree on what’s moral, and neither do all of us draw on the same sources of moral inspiration.

I’m not going to mince words here. That assertion (“I can construct….” is really kind of insulting. I dislike being lumped-in with not only the secular Left on this point, but also apparently religious theocrats of various stripes. You want to make this point about the mullahs running Iran? Fine. Christians? Not so much.

I don’t know what a “Jerry Falwell” type is, so I can’t comment. What I can say is that it’s a real crying shame that so much of the American public – people who should know better, living as they do in an undeniably Judeo-Christian culture – has so many wackadoo ideas about us, or apparently sees us as indistinguishable from the Left. A different set of tyrants, just another group of zealots who want to control what other people say and do and think.
- cylarz | 02/20/2011 @ 19:42
Fair enough. No insult intended, and I apologize if you took it that way.
- Severian | 02/20/2011 @ 21:20
None taken at all, Sev. I think you’re a brilliant guy and I have enormous respect for you and your opinions. This is actually the first time I’ve disagreed with anything you’ve written.
- cylarz | 02/21/2011 @ 00:06
First let me say that there are some confused conservative Christians who don’t get what I am about to say. But by and large, I find that most would agree with what I am about to say, even if they have never thought about it before.

I was raised a Catholic.

I was taught by the nuns in Catholic school the principles and values and reasoning behind why our Founders designed what they designed the way they designed it, and I was taught to respect it.

You can’t get a whole lot more religious conservative than “Catholic”.

American Catholics (and most other American Christians) do understand the dangers of having an official state religion, and the flip side of that, state religious persecution. A lot of American Catholics came here to flee precisely that. And that bit from Matthew 22 comes to mind, “Render to Ceasar what is Ceasar’s, and to God what is God’s” There’s your original “separation of Church and State.” Most Christians understand it well. Catholics have seen their religion abused by states and they have been abused by states because of their beliefs.

The history throughout which Severian speaks of Christians using Government to enforce Christianity occurred largely before this old New Idea was birthed at the founding of our nation. American conservatives are religious, and espouse Christian values, but they in general do not insist that the esoteric teachings of their denominations be enforced as law.

One of the beauties, I think, of the way this country was established is that it mirrored the Christian view of the relationship between God and Man … that is, man has free will, and each is free to accept or reject God in his own way. The consequences for which, good or bad, were to be meeted out by God.

If the Judeo/Christian religion family specifically has a commandment that says “thou shalt not kill”, does that make it a religious law that should not be enforced? Stealing? Libel? Who gets to decide when a value is “religious” and when it is not? It’s really not as cut and dried as secularists would have you believe.

There must be a line, somewhere, but how do we decide where that line is? (A: largely, at the ballott box)

It turns out people do have values, and those values are reflected and enshrined in their religions. Since a country is inhabited by people and since, in a country that uses democracy to at least partially decide, especially on the local level — what laws are going to be enforced and how — and people have religious values — religious values will necessarily make it into law. This is where at least I believe atheistic conservatives go wrong and have contradictory beliefs. Why do we agree on certain values? Why is murder bad? What is “bad”? Where does that come from? There is a certain amount of denial necessary to maintain that there is not a higher plane from whence these ideas eminate. If there is not, then values are truly arbitrary. So why are we even arguing over them? Everybody’s right. If values are arbitrary, then we can just do whatever we can get away with until somebody physically restrains us or kills us.

Secular progressives do not distinguish between Church and State, they are working hard to make the State into everyone’s Church. The State is the only entity with the authority to enforce its laws (outside of self-defense and defense of others’ life and limb). This is the same moral hazard as having an entity that claims to speak for God endowed with the exclusive right to enforce laws. It is, in the end, no different.

It was largely Christians and some secularists acting in the Christian tradition (whether they went to a Church or not) that designed our system of government, drawing on a vast array of lessons learned throughout history from secular and religious governments alike. And this is why most American Conservatives are Christian. They are comfortable with the founders’ model, because it is essentially the model of their own God the way they understand him. There is much difficulty in separating cultural values from religious values when the two have been naturally intertwined throughout history. I say it is impossible. Remove one, destroy the other.

Those Christians who are progressives have typically been led astray by calculating secular progressives who have used selections of Christian teaching and cleverly confused or obfuscated who it is that these commandments and teachings are aimed at — the individual. “Society” does not have a soul. Each of us do. It is our job to care for it. Not to pass that job off to the government by voting that others must do as you have been commanded to lessen or even offload your moral burden on others, freeing you from your own responsibilities.

So … as a non-church-going Christian sympathetic psuedo-Catholic theologian of the Transdimensional Disorder of the Friendly Sons & Daughters of the Cosmic Raccoons stripe … I’m probably more in cylarz’s park here.

In the Christian world, there can be Church and State. In the Progressive world, there can be only One.
- philmon | 02/21/2011 @ 12:10

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