The Aquila Report

Your independent source for news and commentary from and about conservative, orthodox evangelicals in the Reformed and Presbyterian family of churches

Corem Deo Pastor's Conference 2024
  • Biblical
    and Theological
  • Churches
    and Ministries
  • People
    in the News
  • World
    and Life News
  • Lifestyle
    and Reviews
    • Books
    • Movies
    • Music
  • Opinion
    and Commentary
  • General Assembly
    and Synod Reports
    • ARP General Synod
    • EPC General Assembly
    • OPC General Assembly
    • PCA General Assembly
    • PCUSA General Assembly
    • RPCNA Synod
    • URCNA Synod
  • Subscribe
    to Weekly Email
  • Biblical
    and Theological
  • Churches
    and Ministries
  • People
    in the News
  • World
    and Life News
  • Lifestyle
    and Reviews
    • Books
    • Movies
    • Music
  • Opinion
    and Commentary
  • General Assembly
    and Synod Reports
    • ARP General Synod
    • EPC General Assembly
    • OPC General Assembly
    • PCA General Assembly
    • PCUSA General Assembly
    • RPCNA Synod
    • URCNA Synod
  • Subscribe
    to Weekly Email
  • Search
Home/Biblical and Theological/Liberty, Religion, & Woke Progressivism

Liberty, Religion, & Woke Progressivism

There may still be hope for American civilization.

Written by Casey Chalk | Friday, January 29, 2021

The pride of place that cultural Christianity once enjoyed in America is increasingly sidelined by a new, woke progressivism which, though purporting to be neutral and science-based, is in fact a competing religious ideology. The more that it dominates our cultural and political institutions, the more it can misuse the coercive powers of the state and societal pressure to ensure conformity.

 

Liberty is enshrined as the greatest good of the American political experiment. Its primacy is codified in our founding political documents, anthemized in our patriotic music, and honored in political speeches, legal rulings, and newspaper editorials. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” wrote the Supreme Court majority in its 1943 ruling, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, “it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Yet, is that truly accurate?

Liberalism’s advocates certainly argue that America’s political philosophy both maximizes personal autonomy, and vociferously protects it. There has been, however, a centuries-long tension between preserving individual freedom, and the coercive demands of the state. Some libertarians call any form of taxation theft. Others, particularly pacifists or isolationists, chafe at the federal government’s periodic application of conscription, now managed by the Selective Service System. The fact that federal and state governments have exercised these functions without massive, violent resistance suggests that most Americans acknowledge some concessions to freedom are required for citizenship.

There are, nevertheless, some more tricky cases, many of which have to do with religious liberty. Can an organization be compelled to offer medical services (like contraception) to its employees, for example, even if those services violate the organization’s religious beliefs? In July, The Supreme Court ruled in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania that it cannot. Can an organization engage in selective hiring and retention, not only in reference to religion, but sexual or gender identity? Also this year, the Supreme Court ruled that employees of religious organizations enjoy a “ministerial exemption” that precludes the enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Of course, a Supreme Court with different members, who perhaps hold to a jurisprudence less sympathetic to religious liberty, could have ruled the opposite in both of those cases. Why, one might ask, does religious freedom necessarily trump sexual, gender, or economic freedom? Indeed, in some jurisdictions, adoption agencies’ religious beliefs have been viewed not as sacrosanct, but subordinate to contemporary progressive norms about gender and sexuality. Moreover, what actually constitutes religion in the first place? And who gets to decide that? Herein lies a problem, and it is one that Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley discuss in their new book, It is Right and Just: Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion.

Hahn and McGinley discuss what other prominent thinkers, including Columbia University professor John McWhorter, have similarly identified: a lot of socio-cultural and intellectual movements, parading as neutral and empirical, actually possess a lot of the same qualities as what we traditionally think of as “religion.” The ideology of woke progressivism, for example, has its own dogmas (e.g. primacy of racial identity, sexual libertinism, et cetera), its own conception of sin (“white privilege”), and its own soteriology and eschatology (the dismantling of racist power structures, racial reparations, et cetera). Those who refuse to conform are maligned as heretics. Fearing cancellation, the latter then employ ritual-like penitential language to seek mercy.

Read More

Related Posts:

  • The Equality Act and the Rise of the Anti-Theological State
  • Unequally Woked
  • Can political liberalism and religious liberty…
  • The Culture War Must Go On
  • How Politics has Replaced Religion in America

Subscribe, Follow, Listen

  • email-alt
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • apple-podcasts
  • anchor
Corem Deo Pastor's Conference 2024
Reformation Worship Conference 2023

Archives

Books

Special

God is Holy
  • About
  • Advertise Here
  • Contact Us
  • Donations
  • Email Alerts
  • Leadership
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Principles and Practices
  • Privacy Policy

Important:

Free Subscription

Aquila Report Email Alerts

Special

Letter of Jude
  • About
  • Advertise Here
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Principles and Practices
  • RSS Feed
  • Subscribe to Weekly Email Alerts
Providence Christian College - visit

DISCLAIMER: The Aquila Report is a news and information resource. We welcome commentary from readers; for more information visit our Letters to the Editor link. All our content, including commentary and opinion, is intended to be information for our readers and does not necessarily indicate an endorsement by The Aquila Report or its governing board. In order to provide this website free of charge to our readers,  Aquila Report uses a combination of donations, advertisements and affiliate marketing links to  pay its operating costs.

Return to top of page

Website design by Five More Talents · Copyright © 2023 The Aquila Report · Log in