I'm stuck by the *assumption* that Christianity and conservatism are naturally aligned. It's as if you're saying, "You Tories will lose on your own. Get religious because it's an indispensable means to your ends."
But I don't see Christianity and conservatism as naturally aligned. Alignment is perennial but tactical and domain-specific. Nothing of what Oakeshott describes in that very memorable quote is specially favored by Christianity at all.
I don't see modernity and Christianity as in tension or conflict, except in the sense that Christianity and "the world" have always been in conflict in every age. In an important sense, modernity was invented by Christianity for Christian reasons and succeeded in advancing Christian goals.
Well I do address this a bit at the start of my “Godless Conservatives” essay. Where I see the overlap between Christianity and conservatism. The long and short being that both have a strong element of preserving and extending tradition, adapting it for new ages. That’s not all Christianity does of course, but it’s an aspect of Christianity highly relevant to this Substack and its purpose.
I don’t contend that modernity is intrinsically irreconcilable with Christianity; indeed I’m taking pains to argue the opposite case. But I think it’s just clearly true that a great many of the defining early moderns were in a sense principled anti-traditionalists. They *wanted* to cut human society free from its Christian-tradition moorings. Now, of course, there’s a lot of variety among them when it comes to things like: How free? What does that mean for Christian faith? Do we hate it as such or just want a modified form of it? Who gets to decide what parts get preserved and what gets modified? But to say that the early moderns had a strong anti-traditional bent is I think just clearly true, and it’s equally clear that some of them openly hated Christianity as an enemy, while others chopped it up with far too much confidence and too little care.
So that’s where Christians and conservatives have a lot of common ground. Both want to ameliorate that damage and make modernity more lovable.
So... yes and no. I'm partly sympathetic. But... where do figures like John Locke and William Wilberforce fit in?
Also, "anti-traditionalist" ≠ "cut human society free from its Christian-tradition moorings" ≠ anti-Christian.
John Locke is, if you had the name a single person, the founder of modernity. He was also very explicitly a Christian and a Christian apologist, and the foundational argument for liberalism that he supplied in the *Second Treatise of Government* was totally an unapologetically dependent on the Bible. Locke did oppose Christian tradition in one sense. He opposed the wicked tradition of religious persecution by Christian churches, and essentially every living Christian today knows perfectly well that he was right. On this foundation issue of modernity, Christianity and conservatism are 100% opposed.
William Wilberforce represents another case where Christianity and conservatism were 100% opposed. Of course, you can, if you like, reach back into history and discover that Christians were the pioneers of emancipation even from ancient times, and that medieval Europe was the first advanced society without slavery. You can discover that it was the weakening of the church's authority that created an opening for slavery to come back in Europe's overseas dominions. But by Wilberforce's time, slavery had lasted for generations and the memory of Christendom without slavery was half forgotten. Wilberforce supposed opposed slavery as an old, traditional evil, to be abolished because it was the will of God.
To think of liberal modernity displacing Christianity is the wrong mental model. Modernity was born because some Christians zealously practicing their faith realized that some some traditions which had attached themselves to Christianity like barnacles to a ship were evil, and they set out to abolish them and create a new society without them. They disentangled the church from power for the sake of truer Christian practice and a purer, more spiritual church. In so doing, they created new secular ground for those who didn't like Christianity to stand on. Voltaire is an heir of Locke, but it's not Locke's fault that he is.
I suppose it's not wildly off track to call Christianity conservative. But it's a good deal truer to call it liberal.
I'm stuck by the *assumption* that Christianity and conservatism are naturally aligned. It's as if you're saying, "You Tories will lose on your own. Get religious because it's an indispensable means to your ends."
But I don't see Christianity and conservatism as naturally aligned. Alignment is perennial but tactical and domain-specific. Nothing of what Oakeshott describes in that very memorable quote is specially favored by Christianity at all.
I don't see modernity and Christianity as in tension or conflict, except in the sense that Christianity and "the world" have always been in conflict in every age. In an important sense, modernity was invented by Christianity for Christian reasons and succeeded in advancing Christian goals.
Well I do address this a bit at the start of my “Godless Conservatives” essay. Where I see the overlap between Christianity and conservatism. The long and short being that both have a strong element of preserving and extending tradition, adapting it for new ages. That’s not all Christianity does of course, but it’s an aspect of Christianity highly relevant to this Substack and its purpose.
I don’t contend that modernity is intrinsically irreconcilable with Christianity; indeed I’m taking pains to argue the opposite case. But I think it’s just clearly true that a great many of the defining early moderns were in a sense principled anti-traditionalists. They *wanted* to cut human society free from its Christian-tradition moorings. Now, of course, there’s a lot of variety among them when it comes to things like: How free? What does that mean for Christian faith? Do we hate it as such or just want a modified form of it? Who gets to decide what parts get preserved and what gets modified? But to say that the early moderns had a strong anti-traditional bent is I think just clearly true, and it’s equally clear that some of them openly hated Christianity as an enemy, while others chopped it up with far too much confidence and too little care.
So that’s where Christians and conservatives have a lot of common ground. Both want to ameliorate that damage and make modernity more lovable.
So... yes and no. I'm partly sympathetic. But... where do figures like John Locke and William Wilberforce fit in?
Also, "anti-traditionalist" ≠ "cut human society free from its Christian-tradition moorings" ≠ anti-Christian.
John Locke is, if you had the name a single person, the founder of modernity. He was also very explicitly a Christian and a Christian apologist, and the foundational argument for liberalism that he supplied in the *Second Treatise of Government* was totally an unapologetically dependent on the Bible. Locke did oppose Christian tradition in one sense. He opposed the wicked tradition of religious persecution by Christian churches, and essentially every living Christian today knows perfectly well that he was right. On this foundation issue of modernity, Christianity and conservatism are 100% opposed.
William Wilberforce represents another case where Christianity and conservatism were 100% opposed. Of course, you can, if you like, reach back into history and discover that Christians were the pioneers of emancipation even from ancient times, and that medieval Europe was the first advanced society without slavery. You can discover that it was the weakening of the church's authority that created an opening for slavery to come back in Europe's overseas dominions. But by Wilberforce's time, slavery had lasted for generations and the memory of Christendom without slavery was half forgotten. Wilberforce supposed opposed slavery as an old, traditional evil, to be abolished because it was the will of God.
To think of liberal modernity displacing Christianity is the wrong mental model. Modernity was born because some Christians zealously practicing their faith realized that some some traditions which had attached themselves to Christianity like barnacles to a ship were evil, and they set out to abolish them and create a new society without them. They disentangled the church from power for the sake of truer Christian practice and a purer, more spiritual church. In so doing, they created new secular ground for those who didn't like Christianity to stand on. Voltaire is an heir of Locke, but it's not Locke's fault that he is.
I suppose it's not wildly off track to call Christianity conservative. But it's a good deal truer to call it liberal.