The patron saint of conservatism before Reagan was the 18th-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke, a philosopher who developed a social contract theory in response to the horrors of the French Revolution. Burke prized liberty, hierarchy and tradition. He insisted that humans take into account not only what one owes to the present generation (or one's own family), but also pay proper deference to those who came before, and those who will come after.

His philosophy was reminiscent of Jesus' admonition that individuals should "do unto others as they would have done unto themselves," but extended out to embrace all humans, across all time periods. Burke's philosophy was unmistakably interested in concern for one's neighbor, friend and fellow citizen. Unimpeded selfhood, he thought, would lead to social animosity and then total social unraveling.

Reagan and Republican leaders who have come after him have paid less heed to Burke than to the conservative economic philosophy of Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, who say the government should leave people alone and let individuals decide for themselves how to behave. Requiring people to be obligated to one another, according to their approach, champions coercion.

Of course, it is rare to hear evangelicals argue so starkly against goodness or charity. But as their response to the vaccine shows, evangelicals no longer emphasize mutual obligation in their public rhetoric, focusing instead on their own cultural losses. The resulting hostility has festered into a refusal to act beyond their own front door.