Article Title
Abstract
Contemporary liberalism, both its American variant as well as its classical and European cousins,' is often thought of as a secular political philosophy with little in common with various religious faiths, least of all Christianity. Indeed, many of liberalism's most famous adherents, past and present, have taken a certain pride in distancing themselves from Christianity, most especially and perversely, Roman Catholicism.' Yet, such views may be mistaken in having ignored the fundamentally faithbased grounding of contemporary liberalism: first, its optimistic metaphysics makes it possible for its adherents to ignore human sin and to assume that individual self-love and corporate other-love form a natural identity; and second, liberalism's empirically empty defense of human equality elevates all human beings regardless of individual merit to equal dignity while rendering all other species subordinate, as means not ends.' Without assuming a loving God, indeed in this case a Christian God who maintains an orderly universe and loves equally that which he has created in His own image, as materialists have been pointing out for centuries, such notions should collapse as indefensible absurdities.'
Recommended Citation
Barry Alan Shain, Liberalism: A Religious-Dependent Faith, 33 Campbell L. Rev. 559 (2011).