Christianity ≠ Conservatism

If American conservatism is individualist social-contract theory combined with anti-statism, then it has very little in common with Christianity, according to James W. Skillen:

George F. Will, drawing from what he considers “the best political book in years” (John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge’s The Right Nation), writes in a recent column that “the emotions underlying conservatism’s long rise [in America] include a visceral individualism with religious roots and anti-statist consequences” (Washington Post, 10/10/04). According to Micklethwait and Wooldridge, religiosity is what “predisposes Americans to see the world in terms of individual virtue” and to be skeptical of government.

This is why American Christians ought to be conservatives, right? And doesn’t it also mean that in today’s culture Christians should vote for the evangelical and politically conservative George W. Bush rather than for the politically liberal John Kerry, who happens to be Catholic?

Regardless of how you choose to cast your vote on November 2, to presume that religiously political conservatism harmonizes with Christianity is a serious mistake….

More here.

(via Byzantine Calvinist)