Intolerant Secularism Replacing Liberalism

Strengthen The Things That Remain

By Francis J. Beckwith

Boston mayor Thomas Menino, for instance, said, “Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston. You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population. We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion.” Well, in that case, the mayor’s office should be shut down, since while doing the business of city government it seems intent on discriminating against devout Christians and their businesses based on the degree to which their devotion offends secular sensibilities.

What I believe is happening here is something of a revolution in thinking. As I have noted elsewhere in this space, what many of us have come to know as liberalism was contrived for the very purpose of adjudicating these sorts of disputes. One citizen, for example, may believe that homosexual conduct is morally benign, and thus he comes to the conclusion that same-sex “marriage” should be recognized by the government. Another citizen, however, may believe that homosexual conduct is deeply immoral, since it is inconsistent with not only what Scripture teaches but also with the deliverances of natural law. He, therefore, concludes that same-sex “marriage” makes about as much sense as “square-circle.”

In either case, the citizen cannot simply “unbelieve” his beliefs by an act of will, since they are organically connected to what he believes about human nature, morality, and the common good. These beliefs are, in a sense, fundamental to the citizen’s identity as a person. He can no more pretend his beliefs are false than he can deny that the sky is blue.

Liberalism, as traditionally understood, recognized and respected this reality. It did so because its advocates believed that in a free society people of good will, equally rational and well informed, are bound to come to radically different conclusions on a variety of issues. For this reason, it allowed for a public space in which citizens and the institutions they form, with their differing and sometimes contrary points of view, can co-exist, without fear of government punishments or reprisals. Things, however, seem to have changed.

Perhaps it is because on the issue at hand – same-sex “marriage” – liberalism is conceptually incapable of doing the work it once did. It is one thing to allow and celebrate moral and religious diversity when there is a broadly shared understanding on what sorts of institutions are vital to the common good and civil society. It is quite another when that shared understanding breaks down – when the very question of what is essential to civil society is itself in dispute.

Consequently, in such a milieu, as I believe we find ourselves, appeals to “civility” – as both sides are apt to advance – cannot have a referent, and thus appear to one’s adversaries as nothing more than a self-serving platitude.

Liberalism has been all but defeated in certain enclaves. What has arisen is a secular hegemony, one whose sincere devotees, like their pre-Enlightenment theocratic predecessors, will not tolerate dissent. Thus, we do well to heed what St. John wrote to the angel of the Church of Sardis, “Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain.” (Rev. 3:3)

Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Baylor University. He is co-editor (with Robert P. George and Susan McWilliams) of the forthcoming A Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics, a festschrift in honor of Hadley Arkes.