THE FAITHFUL AND THEIR FREELOADERS:

Christian, Therefore Conservative (Edward E. Ericson, Jr., Winter 2002, First Principles)

In The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk, one of the fathers of modern American conservatism, offers a credo consonant with these central Christian teachings: “Conservatives believe that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead.” The Politics of Prudence, Kirk’s late-in-life summation of the principles of conservatism, lists as the first principle, “The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.” A conservatism that seeks “the restoration of the ethical system and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded,” Kirk has said, “is conservatism at its highest,” and it is my kind of conservatism.

What this perspective seeks to conserve is, in a nutshell, Western culture. The West’s two fountainhead sources are Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought. The great tradition of Western culture has proven peculiarly absorptive; it has brought influences from many disparate sources into a rich conversation. But it is Christianity that has for centuries formed its core. And it is, above all, this core to which “conservatism at its highest” remains faithful.

According to this view, reality is objective, and its source is God. Human beings find meaning in life by attaching themselves to this reality and its transcendent source, not by trying to construct their own version of reality. This vision accords primacy to the individual, who bears God’s image, but it locates him within community, since we are all his image-bearers and thereby share a common human nature. Christian conservatism hews a middle path between the modern errors of individualism and collectivism. It places a premium on human liberty, but it distinguishes liberty from license by placing limits on liberty; it proposes an ordered liberty. Freedom is constrained by moral laws that are built into the universe. These laws provide norms for good behavior. The goal is to live a good life, and this means living in harmony with the universe as it really is.

Because human beings are at one and the same time both grand (via creation) and miserable (via the fall), our lives are open to high drama, even to heroism. As Solzhenitsyn avers, “the line dividing good and evil cuts though the heart of every human being.” Great literature is the record of this drama. Writers who are not Christian—the ancient pagans, for instance—glimpse this overall pattern. But Christianity gives the fullest, most intellectually satisfying account of it. And part of that account is that, in our fallen condition, we cannot be restored to our full humanity as God’s image-bearers apart from the redemption provided by Christ’s sacrifice.

The drama of our lives is to be played out in all spheres of human activity. These include politics and economics. However, as Solzhenitsyn says, “ . . . the state structure is of secondary significance. That this is so, Christ himself teaches us. ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’—not because every Caesar deserves it, but because Caesar’s concern is not with the most important thing in our lives.” So I reject the primacy of politics, which I think some conservatives share with liberals and leftists.

The longstanding Christian world view retains numerous adherents among the populace today. Among intellectuals, however, it headed into eclipse 200 years ago with the Enlightenment, which gave birth to the modern age. If Enlightenment thought played a certain, albeit limited, positive role in the founding of the United States, it was a disaster for Christianity; for it set in motion a rejection of God and a substitution of man for God. The Enlightenment promulgated what Solzhenitsyn has called “rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of all.”