Trump’s Victory Is Good News for Religious Believers
By R R Reno, First Things.
Religious believers breathed sighs of relief on Wednesday morning. Religious liberty was not a significant issue in the Trump campaign. But there can be no doubt that his administration will accommodate religious dissent, instead of using legal and bureaucratic pressure to enforce conformity to progressive dogmas, as did the Obama and Biden administrations.
However, there are deeper reasons for religious believers to be happy with the election outcome. Three generations ago, Theodor Adorno and a team of social scientists published The Authoritarian Personality (1950), a book that claimed to identify characteristics of people who endorse authoritarian demagogues. Among these characteristics were the acceptance of traditional moral norms, especially concerning sex and family life, and the willingness to follow the orders of authority figures. Although the study did not target religious believers, by this account, a faithful Christian who adheres to the Bible’s moral teaching and recognizes God’s authority as supreme would be considered a “proto-fascist.”
The framework developed in The Authoritarian Personality was widely accepted and shaped elite American opinion. Mainstream liberals adopted the presumption that an incipient authoritarianism lurked in the American populace. Many adopted the Manichean dichotomy of Karl Popper’s 1945 book, The Open Society and Its Enemies. Opposition to conservatism was seen as a decisive cultural struggle between backward-looking, close-minded “Middle America”—the Archie Bunkers—and forward-looking, open-minded progressives.
In this milieu, the older, rationalist criticism that religious belief lacks a foundation in reason gave way to the moral objection that traditional faith inculcates slavish obedience. It perpetuates patriarchy, homophobia, and other sins against the progressive ambition to dethrone old authorities and remove traditional barriers. Ardent faith came to be viewed as a dangerous threat.
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