Liberal Cosmopolitanism and a Dearth of Allies
What is cosmopolitanism and why is it the base assumption for many who otherwise should be allied in a greater project of what it means to be Christian and Citizen, to be Churches and States?
With the rise of what has been either self-consciously or by others labeled “Christian Nationalism”, many modernist assumptions of what governance, spirituality, and citizenship are have been called into question. For the modern, the liberal (be it either in classical or neo flavors), these questions have been largely settled. Governance is by the rules-based order, enforced by the global community which is ruled chiefly by the American hegemon, which is itself ruled by a liberal elite. Spirituality and religion are tolerated but only if exercised away from the public square, especially in areas of morality, duty, and ethics. Citizenship is of the world, and only administered by local governments in obeisance to the afore-mentioned cabal of unaccountable Rule. For those with Christian Nationalist convictions, these modernist assumptions are at the very least unsatisfying if not offensive to how life has been lived for thousands of years.
Liberalism, as a philosophical and political doctrine, emerged from the Enlightenment, a significant 17th and 18th-century intellectual movement that prioritized reason, critical inquiry, and individualism. This movement, challenging traditional doctrines and advocating empirical and scientific understanding, led to a shift towards secularism, liberal political theory, and a critical stance on absolute monarchies. This profoundly influenced the evolution of modern democratic, scientific, and philosophical frameworks. Building on these Enlightenment ideals, liberalism emphasizes individual liberty, equality, and rationalism. It upholds the protection of individual rights, adherence to the rule of law, and the establishment of representative government, reflecting the Enlightenment’s rationalist and humanist principles that highlight the individual’s inherent value and capacity for reason as central to creating a just and equitable society.
What person doesn’t want a just and equitable society? Who doesn’t want individual liberty? Who doesn’t want to be treated as having certain rights, seen as fundamental to human existence? The answer is that for the most part — save the occasional psychopath — is that everyone wants these things. The question is this: Can liberalism deliver on these goals? What are the means and costs of doing so? The answers are summed up by “it depends, but mostly, no”.
Liberalism has produced two of the most powerful Empires in world history, with an earlier liberalism empowering the British Empire as its increasingly powerful monarchy was contemporaneously castrated, and also the United States Empire, a fully monolithic hegemon for 30 years and the dominant Western force for 45 before that. But liberalism promises are founded upon benefits for the individual, and the power of both the British and now American Empires has been in its aggregate measures of wealth and influence. Individually, the median citizen, while certainly not starving, isn’t participating in the liberal paradise of untold wealth and “citizenship of the world”. The individual has contrastingly seen his saved wealth and way of life either transferred away or destroyed.
In order to achieve these goals of GDP-maxing and freedom from whatever it is one seeks freedom from, certain things must be sacrificed. Firstly, common religious assumptions built upon millennia-developed theology, with their culture-propping buttresses, have been swept away. Now, science, previously a handmaiden of theology, is now left to roam the earth devouring whatever it sees, and the dignity of man is at the top of the menu. Science sees man not as a reflection of the Creator’s glory, but as an accidental collection of cells. Science, ignoring its own dictats of entropy in the face of increasing order, makes no distinction for the top of the food chain and tends towards mechanistic utilitarianism. It is all omelet and no eggs.
So much for championing the individual.
Read the rest at American Reformer:
https://americanreformer.org/2024/01/liberal-cosmopolitanism-and-a-dearth-of-allies/