This is an adapted excerpt from the new book Conservative: Knowing What to Keep, available on Sept. 24.
Given the primacy of conscience to the founders, the government they forged was specifically prohibited from either imposing religious ideas on the citizenry or hindering an individual citizen’s endeavors to live out their faith in society. The only centralized authority government was given regarding religion was the power to protect citizens’ space to practice theirs. In this way, the United States would not serve any one creed, and by doing so, would serve all of them equally.
The progressive Left today rejects this with extreme prejudice. It’s not because they hate religion. They just hate everyone else’s. For progressives today, politics is the one true faith.
Their causes, from environmentalism to gun control to abortion to healthcare or welfare policy to their identity politics extremism, are not policy positions but transcendent moral principles. Listen to the way they advocate their preferred reforms.
They don’t engage conservatives as opponents but accuse them as heretics full of hateful ideas warranting no place in public debate. People who disagree with their energy regulation ideas are “climate deniers,” borrowing a term originally coined for neo-Nazis. Pro-life activists, including Catholic nuns or moms with young children, are portrayed as “haters of women.” Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who proposed a plan to save Social Security and Medicare from the fiscal death-spiral they are about to enter, was portrayed in a political attack ad as killing an old woman. And any politician who publicly supports the plain language of the Second Amendment is held responsible for — and indeed, bloodthirsty for — mass murders.
If you follow the Left’s rhetoric and tactics closely, a frightening realization settles in. They’re not trying to erect a wall between church and state, but rather build walls around their own church and imprison every heart, mind, and conscience in America within them. They’re not trying to sweep the public sphere of religion altogether. They’re trying to establish a new, official, state religion — like medieval kings or sultans — in which “error has no rights.”
Consider the progressive Left’s most recent skirmishes against religious conservatives, and a clear pattern emerges.
Exhibit A: “Not Someone Who This Country Is Supposed to Be About”
In 2018, Russell Vought testified before the Senate Budget Committee. He was nominated by President Trump to serve as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Ranking Committee Democrat Bernie Sanders of Vermont accused Vought of being “hateful” and “Islamophobic.” Sanders took issue with a piece Vought wrote in January 2016 about a controversy at the nominee’s alma mater, Wheaton College. The Christian school fired a political science professor for expressing solidarity with Islam. Vought defended the school, saying a religious school had the right to employ only those who supported its views. Sanders took particular umbrage with Vought’s statement that Muslims “do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”
Sanders repeatedly demanded Vought explain his theological beliefs about salvation and judgment, and repeatedly cut Vought off as he tried to educate Sanders about Christianity 101. Sanders insisted the traditional view of all Christians — that a personal faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven—was grounds for disqualification from public office.
“In my view,” Sanders said, “the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world […]. This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms … we must not go backwards.”
He concluded his questioning by saying, “I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.”
Vought was confirmed for the position in the Budget office, but not one Democrat senator voted to confirm him.
Exhibit B: “The Dogma Lives Loudly with You.”
In 2017, a law professor from the University of Notre Dame named Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by Trump to serve on the federal Court of Appeals in Chicago. Barrett was viewed as “controversial” by progressive Democrats because she (a) was Catholic, (b) was involved in a popular ecumenical Christian fellowship group, and, most importantly, (c) had seven kids and so seemed likely to be pro-life.
At Barrett’s confirmation hearing, Senate Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois asked Barrett if she considered herself “an orthodox Catholic.”
Later, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California opened her questioning of Barrett like this:
In both these cases, Democratic senators who took oaths to uphold the Constitution brazenly violated its sixth article:
Sanders, Durbin, and Feinstein were not acting like custodians of the Senate’s advice and consent role; rather, they were acting like Grand Inquisitors, testing the theological purity of Christians trying to live out their faith. They do not believe in religious equality or tolerance. They think people who hold differing theological beliefs should be barred, for that reason, from public service.
Former Sen. Jim DeMint is Chairman of the Conservative Partner Institute. Rachel Bovard is Senior Director of Policy for the Conservative Partner Institute.
