R. R. Reno Quotes

For a long time Christianity has sewn its teachings into the fabric of Western culture. That was a good thing ... . But the season of sewing is ending. Now is a time for rending, not for the sake of disengaging from culture or retreating from the public square, but so that our salt does not lose its savor.

Yale University is famous for its Sex Week. It does not have a Dignity of the Worker Week or even a Save the Planet Week. This self-involved focus speaks volumes about the preoccupations of today's ruling class.

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. "There is no principled reason," he writes, "for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection." . . . Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody's conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary "liberty of conscience."

Leiter's argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that's an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism.

Today's "progressive" is committed to expanding lifestyle freedom, which the rich tend to manage, like economic freedom, to their advantage. But while the benefits of economic freedom do in fact extend even to the poor, what trickles down from lifestyle freedom is dysfunction, disorder, and disarray. The

We want a culture of the people, by the people, and for the people, not defined by white European traditions, male preferences, or any other form of group identity.

Yet the life expectancy for white people without a high school diploma has dropped catastrophically since the 1990s - down by five years for women, three years for men - suggesting a cultural crisis among poor whites akin to that in Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet the morally preening powerful, confident in their supposedly progressive views, largely ignore this collapse and the people suffering from it.

Religion gives us a place to stand outside politics, and without it we're vulnerable to a system in which the state defines everything, which is the essence of tyranny.

Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that's no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith's indomitable resolve.

Progressivism is a luxury of the one percent.

We resist the gospel because we fear all powers that effect change in us, even as we live in a society that constantly champions progress and development.