Thanks for the heads up about Katherine’s new book. I had a long chat with her in about 2013 about some of these networks.
It occurs to me that the myth of a Christian founding actually has a longstanding and established version wedded to the dominant liberal centrism of the 20th century that worked ok as long as the mainline churches were predominant and enforced a kind of liberal pluralism. When it was forced to actually include women, POC, LGBTQ people, etc. and for various other reasons the Center collapsed, there was a great deal of liberal failure of nerve — the failure of the new left, the emergence of neo-conservatism from liberal centrists and even fairly reactionary currents on the left all tended to project a nostalgic image of a virtuous religious past that grounds the culture somehow, providing a moral compass and legitimacy for imperial power.
Is there really a usable past in America, for progressives? If so, what role does religion play in it?
Thanks for the heads up about Katherine’s new book. I had a long chat with her in about 2013 about some of these networks.
It occurs to me that the myth of a Christian founding actually has a longstanding and established version wedded to the dominant liberal centrism of the 20th century that worked ok as long as the mainline churches were predominant and enforced a kind of liberal pluralism. When it was forced to actually include women, POC, LGBTQ people, etc. and for various other reasons the Center collapsed, there was a great deal of liberal failure of nerve — the failure of the new left, the emergence of neo-conservatism from liberal centrists and even fairly reactionary currents on the left all tended to project a nostalgic image of a virtuous religious past that grounds the culture somehow, providing a moral compass and legitimacy for imperial power.
Is there really a usable past in America, for progressives? If so, what role does religion play in it?