American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order. By Jerome E. Copulsky. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024. 384 pp. $40 (hardcover).
“The concept of heresy,” Jerome Copulsky observes, “is…relational—it is a term deployed by a group to mark out its boundaries, define its foes, and police deviance within its ranks” (3). That is to say, one can only be a heretic in relation to a predominant orthodoxy. In this book, the orthodoxy in view is “American liberalism, democracy, pluralism, and secularism” (10); those “American heretics” who have dissented from it are Copulsky’s focus. His survey is “necessarily selective,” given the number of factions that could be described as heretical in relation to American liberalism: “I’ve opted for depth over breadth, limiting our visits to those operating within the Christian tradition and focused on challenging the very foundations of the American political order” (7). As Copulsky does not present a comprehensive history, the book unfolds in an episodic manner: “Each chapter closely explores a particular episode of American ‘heresy,’ providing an intellectual portrait of the thinkers who propounded it, their critique of the American political order (as they understood it), and their account of the regime that ought to be constructed in its stead” (4–5). Some of the groups discussed include loyalist Anglican clergy during the American Revolution, the Covenanters of the Reformed Presbyterian Church following the ratification of the Constitution, and pro-slavery theologians at the time of the Civil War, among others.
In every chapter Copulsky quotes his chosen subjects at length, allowing them to speak for themselves even as he narrates their views and positions them within the larger scope of their historical moment. If the copious endnotes are any indication, a great deal of intensive research was required to unearth these historical figures and bring their views to light, an accomplishment for which Copulsky deserves credit. That said, he offers little in the way of substantive engagement with them, not troubling to explain precisely how they are wrong, remaining content to flavor his narrative with implicit disdain. It is only in the final chapter—on postliberals and National Conservatives—that Copulsky responds to his interlocutors, but even then his criticisms are merely cursory. To give an example, Copulsky notes that postliberals such as Patrick Deneen fail to acknowledge that “liberalism—the secular regime it imagines, its commitments to human dignity and freedom, and its unceasing project of progress—is in some way an outgrowth of Christian ideals” (252). The point has been made before,[1] and it should not be overlooked. However, this is all the more reason Copulsky and other committed liberals should reckon seriously with the following question: why is it that many American Christians—who have heretofore been willing to inhabit the liberal, pluralistic church-state arrangement that characterizes modern America—are increasingly embracing anti-liberalism? One plausible answer is that it has gradually become clear American liberalism, understood as some impartial arrangement in government and society with regard to religion, is already dead (if it ever really existed to begin with). For years traditional Christians faced growing cultural hostility and legal punishment for continuing to uphold key elements of their religious beliefs.[2] At present this trend has abated, but the balance of power could easily shift in such a way that it resumes with a vengeance. In any event, there is now good reason to believe that an official government stance of neutrality toward religion will be neutral in name only. Copulsky acknowledges this in the closing paragraph of the book, where he refers to “the admittedly not-entirely-neutral frame of our liberal democratic republic” (288). Thus the question is perhaps not whether America will be liberal or illiberal, but rather, what kind of illiberalism will America adopt?
These questions are not taken up by Copulsky, though. In fact, it appears as if the book is not meant to persuade people who do not already agree with his position, coming across instead as an anthology of horror stories designed to terrorize the author’s colleagues and shore up their pre-existing commitment to pluralistic liberalism. In this endeavor Copulsky may well be successful, but potential readers should not expect any sustained argumentation against the American heretics. If anything, Copulsky all but invites Christians to favor them when he frames the stakes this way:
If you believe that the civil government is an ordinance of God, that the state ought to cultivate virtue, or that politics has a redemptive purpose, directing human beings to their highest good, you’re unlikely to be satisfied with the ethos and procedures of liberal democracy and with a policy of religious liberty as the solution to the stubborn reality of religious pluralism. You may begin to dream of theocracy in America. (285)
Given that the first proposition is affirmed in Romans 13:1, Copulsky is effectively saying to readers, “If you take the Bible seriously at all, you have good reason to be skeptical of liberal democracy.” Between Copulsky’s minimal engagement with his opponents on the one hand and statements like this on the other, Christian readers may find that he lends credence to the American heretics far more than he undermines them. Furthermore, considering the degree to which Copulsky allows the primary sources to speak for themselves, this book could readily serve as an unwitting primer on the American tradition of Christian anti-liberalism. There are numerous points on which the various figures and thinkers discussed herein are not to be followed, but their basic critiques of pluralistic liberalism should inspire thoughtful reflection among Christians today. Indeed, the illiberal statements of the American heretics will likely ring true for many, especially when compared to Copulsky’s own conclusion that “if it is to endure, America’s liberal democracy will have to be sustained in the absence of a moral consensus” (288). It is difficult to imagine what a society without any moral consensus would look like, to say nothing of whether such a conglomeration of people could even rightly be called a society. What this assemblage would not be, it seems safe to say, is liberal:
When we are on particular occasions confronted by so far irresolvable disagreements that arise out of shared practical deliberation, but extend beyond it to questions about the nature of the human good, we always have to face the possibility that shared deliberation with these particular others will no longer be possible. A community that has hitherto been able to participate in joint rational decision making may be fractured by such irresolvable disagreements. It may no longer be possible for its members to arrive through shared practical reasoning at a common mind about how it is best for them to act together. Instead they will have to base their communal decision making either on inherited patterns of authority endowed with nonrational legitimacy or on some implicit or explicit social contract whereby individuals and groups, each trying to maximize their own advantage, arrive at some arrangement about allocations of costs and benefits. In either case it will be inequalities of power that determine the outcomes of decision-making processes. Power rather than practical reason will now have the last word.[3]
As one scholar has pointed out, “When this kind of power or influence is exercised by majorities or interest groups apart from a social consensus, it usually indicates a corruption of liberal democracy.”[4] In short, it may well be the case that, whether Copulsky and his ilk know it or not, we are all American heretics now.
Notes
- See, e.g., Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014), and Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019). ↑
- See, e.g., Mary Eberstadt, It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (New York: Harper, 2016), and Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 37–45, 178–81. ↑
- Alasdair MacIntyre, “Intractable Moral Disagreements,” in Intractable Disputes about the Natural Law: Alasdair MacIntyre and Critics, ed. Lawrence S. Cunningham (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 19–20. ↑
- Gerald McKenny, “Moral Disagreement and the Limits of Reason: Reflections on MacIntyre and Ratzinger,” in Cunningham, Intractable Disputes, 196–97. ↑
