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[The Hungarian Conservative] The Remnant's Delusion
The latest of the #NeverTrump manifestos is styled as an effort at civic healing, but it abdicates the partisan anchoring from which to effect it.
Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. By David French. St. Martin’s Press; 288 pages; $28.99.
Christians’ just rapport with the polis — how the conscience of the faithful cohabits in a mundane public square — is a puzzle still dogging Christianity. At times it appears to still dog politics itself, no less than two centuries ago.
Something about the Judeo-Christian frame of mind aspires to a higher good, known to lie beyond the reach of politicians to effect, yet sure to court abdication if made impervious to politics. The ability of Christians to extend their notions of the good onto others — including the faithful — has been on a non-stop downward course since the Enlightenment, even when said notions strike as self-evidently superior to their secular competitors. No modern nation has been more profoundly shaped by this tension than the American republic, founded as we are on a thick layer of Christian morality combined with a classical liberalism that conceives of individuals as rights-bearing, able to fashion and pursue their own version of the good life.
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