The Secularized Christianity of Oren Cass

"A disturbing new trend is emerging in conservative politics in America. There is no other adjective to describe it. The move invites Christians to modify the focus of policies that have long defined Christian political action based on the Culture War, small government, and morality."

From The Imaginative Conservation

By John Horvat

Like it or not, Grace exists despite Oren Cass’s inability to sense it. Now is the time to appeal to God to send His Grace to this age of little faith. Such a move is the only one that makes sense in the face of the postmodern decadence that now prevails.

A disturbing new trend is emerging in conservative politics in America. There is no other adjective to describe it. The move invites Christians to modify the focus of policies that have long defined Christian political action based on the Culture War, small government, and morality.

These Christian policies were powerfully motivated by the love of neighbor and the love of God. The new trend no longer seeks to convert the world to such heavenly ideals, but to adapt to earthly realities. This initiative represents a leap of faith toward a new orientation aimed at those without faith.

Toward Secularized Virtue

A good presentation of this new trend appeared in the October 2024 issue of First Things with a long cover story titled “Constructing Conservatism” by Oren Cass.

Mr. Cass is the founder and chief economist of American Compass, a conservative think tank that “emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.”

The author says Christian conservatives have largely failed to attract those outside its ranks because they insist upon linking virtue to religion.

Thus, America should change and adopt a secularized version of virtue for its political agenda that can more widely appeal to those like Mr. Cass with little or no faith.

“By anchoring our account of virtue in an explicitly religious foundation,” he writes, “conservatives weaken our own cause, quiet our own voice. We are left not only ineffective in countering the left but derelict in reforming the right, which, denuded of a useful political reality, has for too long veered into market fundamentalism.”

Abandoning the Culture War

In plain English, Mr. Cass’s reference to “anchoring our account of virtue in an explicitly religious foundation” means the Culture War, based on the hot-button sexual and morality issues framed around the Ten Commandments. He insinuates that the Culture War must be brought to a close to make way for a more reasonable secular strategy.

Never mind that the Ten Commandments, while part of Divine Revelation, are a succinct summary of the natural law “written on the hearts of all men.” They are valid for all places, times and peoples. Any society falls apart when they are not followed.

Never mind that the conservative movement has fought a grueling war around the moral issues anchored in these Commandments that have exasperated the left and stalled or slowed down its relentless sixties agenda on so many fronts.

Repositioning and Relegating Religion

Mr. Cass and his followers seek to walk away from this war and construct a secularized conservativism that they think would attract both believers and “those who no longer find religious faith compelling.”

This position does not reject religion. Indeed, it even praises and welcomes its contribution to the debate. Mr. Cass will, for example, quote Catholic social teachings that support his views on human solidarity. However, to attract more people and better fight the left, religion must be turned into something cultural, not divine.

“We should understand religion, not as the moral foundation upon which the nation’s culture and morality are constructed but as the form into which many ideas and much experience were poured—shaping them and holding them upright.”

Like many populist and nationalist models, the Christian religion, under Mr. Cass’s proposal, would be relegated to a cultural identity marker that shapes society. It would become one of many factors in the formation of culture, not only the worship of the One True God. It would be nice to have, but it is hardly essential.

Christianity as an Identity

Many populist or nationalist models using this framework hope to restore America’s sense of community, family and prosperity. However, religion and moral issues are either sidelined or secularized. The idea is to keep everything cultural so as to win politically.

Inside this new framing, one need not lead a moral life to be a cultural Christian. Indeed, Elan Musk is the father of at least 12 children (eight through IVF) from 3 women. Yet he identifies as a “cultural Christian” because he says he appreciates some vague Christian values.

A Shared Moral Vision and Inherited Obligations

Mr. Cass insists that secular virtue based on “tradition and reason” represents the future. Habits and “inherited obligations” that have stood the test of time will regenerate the country.

Hence comes the nationalist proposal of return not to a religious regeneration but to an identity with a “shared moral vision and set of values, which in turn reflect the traditions and character of our nation and its culture.”

The Redemptive Role of Work

His secular program centers on values like the dignity of work, solidarity, national identity and borders, trade policy and the common good.

His movement places a special emphasis on the satisfaction of work found in good jobs. Work takes on an almost redemptive, transformative role that will induce now-reluctant Americans to get married, have children, and get involved in communities. He thinks work will be so exciting that it will induce the millions of young men living in their parents’ basements playing video games to emerge and enter the workforce.

He wants to enlarge the role of big government in the lives of Americans by having it provide financial incentives to encourage work, communities, and families.

Those engaged in this process would not necessarily need to follow a moral code—they can be married, divorced, homosexual, or whatever, as long as they fit inside this big umbrella of solidarity and work.

A Burkean Vision

Indeed, Mr. Cass yearns for a Burkean society where time-tried customs and habits prevail over all else. However, Edmund Burke’s eighteenth-century vision presupposed Christian foundations, which no longer exist today.

Today’s society, immersed in vice, selfishness and laziness, needs much more than a call to duty and hard work to lift it out of its mire. Generations of decay have corrupted so much of the “shared moral vision and set of values” that once dominated American society.

There is no reason to assume that this new appeal to tradition and reason will be any more effective in convincing Americans to be moral than the lost influence of religion. Mr. Cass’s national trade policies and appeal to solidarity read more like planks from a British Labor Party platform rather than ideas charged with the supernatural fire that can set the world ablaze.

Faith Is Out of Fashion

That’s why this trend is so disturbing. Mr. Cass does not attach due value to supernatural life. He measures everything according to the criteria of the other side. Faith is just another natural factor in forming society, nothing more.

He blandly concludes, “We live in an era in which faith has fallen out of fashion.” He reduces the cause of this decline to the advantages those in the meritocracy gain when trusting in tradition and reason rather than faith. Christians seem to be portrayed as losers who rely on sentiment and blind faith to cover for their weaknesses. Thus, he believes appealing to a secular set of values will prove more helpful in turning the situation around.

Mr. Cass looks no further for causes of religion’s decline. He just follows the surveys, and according to them, faith is now out of fashion.

Excluding God from History

Indeed, the worst thing about these secular programs is that they are secular. Like most liberal programs, they exclude God from history. They do not recognize the immense role of God’s supernatural Grace in personal lives and the history of nations. This Grace acts regardless (and perhaps in spite) of what the surveys report or the meritocracy thinks.

Worst of all, these programs call upon citizens with faith to take the liberal attitude of acting as if God does not exist in the public square in the name of broadening appeal to or accommodating those without faith.

Thus, these programs deprive the conservative cause of its most powerful weapon. By taking God out of the picture, they gut the movement of its most dynamic element found in Grace. They take away this vital resource needed to face an enemy that has overwhelming power at its disposal.

The Extraordinary Power of Grace

The Catholic Church teaches the value of supernatural life, which has consequences in personal life and politics. Grace, which is the created participation in God’s uncreated life, expands the capacities of people and groups of people beyond their normal powers, making them capable of great conversions and overcoming massive obstacles.

Grace makes Christians proportional to the grand task ahead and explains how Christendom accomplished so much with so little. Grace can inspire people to a love of God that can make personal and political action overwhelming and victorious. It does not need overwhelming numbers to win.

All this is discarded in the name of a sterile and secular vision that publicly denies supernatural reality, which helps people overcome the effects of fallen human nature. Everything is reduced to personal and human terms.

Like it or not, Grace exists despite Mr. Cass’s inability to sense it. This Grace sustains many who are now engaged in the fight for the culture. It attracts the spiritually-famished masses to a destiny for which they were created. Now is the time to appeal to God to send His Grace to this age of little faith. Such a move is the only one that makes sense in the face of the postmodern decadence that now prevails.

The featured image, uploaded by Collision Conf, is “2 May 2017; Oren Cass, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute, on the Planet:tech Stage at Collision 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo by Stephen McCarthy.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.