Christianity and Liberalism

On the “white nationalist” website Majority Rights there appears to be a lot of opposition to Christianity with the religious right in the US, for example, being blamed for the expansive immigration policies of the Bush administration.

In white nationalist circles the logic seems to be that Christianity spawned enlightenment liberalism, which in turn led to the excesses of modern liberalism, therefore the end of Christianity will lead to the end of contemporary liberalism

The French nouvelle droite intellectual Alain de Benoist blames Christianity for the rise of the modern liberal right in the United States and believes that a new post-modern conservatism can be developed from paganism.

The connection between Christianity and liberalism though, is far from clear cut.

In the United States there does appear to be a strong connection between right-liberalism and Calvinism, although the country’s staunchest economic libertarians are generally atheists.

However, in socially liberal European countries such as Sweden belief in Christianity is much weaker.

Catholic countries such as Italy and Chile further complicate the picture, since they tend to be more socially conservative than north European states and have a lukewarm view of economic liberalism.

Hence it appears that Christianity acts on a break on social liberalism, while sometimes promoting economic liberalism.

This perhaps explains why a socially conservative country like the US can also be the world’s leading exporter of pornography.

Given the strength of social liberalism in post-Christian North Europe though I find it hard to see why adopting paganism will lead to a revival of euro-centric nationalism.

While Christianity has often been allied with aspects of liberalism there has also been a strong counter-liberal Christian tradition. Edwardian Christian's like Chesterton and Henry George promoted intellectual common sense to counter rational utopianism.

In Australia and New Zealand for example, the popularity of the land tax movement gave governments the mandate to break up land monopolies and promote a landowning middle-class hostile to urban socialism.

Today Christian “common sense” opposition to liberalism has a growing presence on the blogosphere.

It has also influenced “post-liberal” thinkers like the British academic John Gray.

If Christianity isn’t the primary factor behind the excesses of modern liberalism then what is?

Three other possible factors are: global overpopulation, material affluence and the growing division between liberal ideology and western scientific empiricism.

Critics of modern liberalism probably need to focus more on how these and other important factors interact to create the excesses of modern liberalism.

White nationalists who blame liberal excess on Christianity are putting too much emphasis on the power of ideas. Religion is more a method of coping with conditions rather than a primary determinant of conditions. Considering white nationalists believe that biology is one of the main factors in determining human affairs, it is ironic that they are so concerned about the influence of Christianity.