We, the Enemy
The Liberal State & the Decline of Pluralism
The modern idea of religious liberty assumes that it is the state above all that threatens such freedom—by establishing a state church or hampering the free practice of religion—and that the modern liberal state, in proclaiming its studied neutrality, its distance from religion altogether, is the ultimate protector of such liberty.
How deeply the liberal state is really committed to genuine religious liberty—at what point “neutrality” becomes hostility—is an open question. But genuine liberty also depends on “civil society”—communities and institutions that exist independent of, and in many ways prior to, the state.
Thus, it has long been realized that laws prohibiting racial discrimination are not sufficient—people do not truly exercise their rights in a society where popular attitudes and social institutions remain hostile.
A Herd of Independent Minds
Although “pluralism” is ritualistically extolled as a fundamental good, in reality there is less and less real pluralism in modern liberal society. While all points of view are supposedly welcomed, it usually turns out that only one point of view is finally accorded legitimacy. What George Orwell called “the herd of independent minds” all quickly come to agree on issues as diverse as embryonic stem-cell research, smoking, homosexuality, health care, and foreign policy.
Even state universities are essentially institutions of civil society rather than of the government, since state legislatures exercise only very limited control over them. Liberalism has become an orthodoxy that is enforced partly by the government but primarily through schools, charitable agencies, philanthropic foundations, professional societies, and even groups like the Girl Scouts.
But it is above all the communications media that are tirelessly alert to deviations from that orthodoxy. Thus, the ongoing story of American religion is almost always told in accord with a particular “master narrative”—open-minded liberals struggling to persuade their various churches to adjust to modernity, with those who resist such accommodation portrayed as unenlightened, possibly stupid, often malicious.
For the most part quite consciously, enlightened opinion, especially as established in the media and the universities, seeks to inhibit freedom of religion, not (principally) by legal restraint but by exacting a heavy social cost from believers—a strong sense of social isolation and inferiority.
This exists on all levels. Children realize that somehow the reality of God cannot be acknowledged in their schools, that religious belief is treated as some mysteriously sinister subject. The entertainment industry mocks traditional moral values, and the news media treat orthodox religion as a menacing atavism. Although sleeplessly vigilant against all kinds of stereotyping—racism, sexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia—enlightened opinion fails to notice the most outrageous anti-Christian bigotry, when it does not openly embrace it.
Flourishing in Adversity
James Hitchcock is Professor emeritus of History at St. Louis University in St. Louis. He and his late wife Helen have four daughters. His most recent book is the two-volume work, The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life (Princeton University Press, 2004). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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