I want to begin by making it clear that my intention is not to offend my Christian friends and family. If you listen carefully, I believe what I am about to say should not offend you. Indeed, I would hope it will flatter you. I see you as an ally. For the woke progressive who reads this, not so much. This essay is about him. I’m using Christianity as the comparison point. We need more of that attitude.
Growing up, I was an atheist—and I have remained one. Yet almost everyone around me believed in God, angels, and devils. I was often the only person in the room who did not share those beliefs. Others took these things on faith, for such things cannot be demonstrated empirically. But they did not demand that I do the same. I could disbelieve without fear of reprisal. People could hold their faith, and I could reject it, and we all managed to coexist peacefully.
Today, however, disagreement feels very different. It feels that way because different beliefs are not tolerated by certain groups, and these groups wield considerable power. We are living in a climate where political ideology—particularly on the progressive left—demands the same kind of unquestioning faith once reserved for religion and demands it of everyone under the threat of reputational, material, and even physical harm.
One may like to imagine that I’m exaggerating, but people are harassed, intimidated, and even assaulted for refusing to believe in progressive doctrine and mythology, such as the myth of gender identity. Progressives hold those who defy woke doctrine “accountable” for their deviation. Today is the big memorial service for Charlie Kirk, a young conservative influencer who was held “accountable” for refusing to fall in line with gender identity doctrine.
Think about that. A man murdered another because he refused to believe that a man can be or become a woman. This would be like a Christian assassinating an atheist for refusing to believe that Jesus was the son of God. And the murderous actions of the progressive zealot are being praised by millions, many of whom are prepared to risk their livelihoods to voice that praise.
Progressives insist that authoritarianism characterizes the Republican Party, that Trump is a fascist, and that democracy is on the verge of collapse. There is no evidence for these claims. Like religious dogma, such claims must be accepted not through reason but through faith. If people want to take such things on faith, they are welcome to it. But can they behave like Christians, who don’t make other people’s lives miserable by pressing their faith on them? Could progressives go to their place of worship and voice their beliefs and practice their rituals without trying to impose them on the rest of us? Can we ensure that their beliefs don’t scale the Wall of Separation? Can we all agree that we enjoy a Bill of Rights that leaves matters of conscience to the individual? Apparently not.
I don’t care if a man wears women’s clothes. But why do I have to affirm the lie that women’s clothes—or women’s makeup, silicone breast implants, a surgically crafted neovagina—makes a man a woman? Why should women endure men who think or say they’re women in their female-only spaces? Why must progressives behave like zealous Muslims, praying loudly in the streets, hassling disbelievers, and threatening violence? Why do they insist on taking control of government and imposing their faith-based doctrines on a free society of individuals who are trying to live by rational rules and evidence-based policies constrained only by necessary ethical guardrails? Christians aren’t doing that—even if progressive mythology, which centers false claims of oppression and persecution in its doctrine, imagines otherwise.
Thus, the crucial difference between Christianity and progressivism lies in their respective consequences. The Christian faith that surrounded me growing up, that still surrounds me, was and is not dangerous. It didn’t and doesn’t threaten my safety. It didn’t and doesn’t silence me—though I confess I was often silent because I was outnumbered, and because I asked myself: what would it matter anyway? Was I going to talk people out of a faith belief? Especially since their faith afforded me the right to my own beliefs? Christianity allowed for disagreement and coexistence.
Progressivism doesn’t tolerate me and my beliefs. This ideology resembles Islam and other authoritarian belief systems. These belief systems are not content to let others live differently; they demand conformity. They suppress speech, punish dissent, and justify hostility toward those who resist.
This is where fear enters the picture. For the first time in my life, I must worry about whether others—specifically progressives—will harm me because of my beliefs. I never worried about that with Christians. Whatever my disagreements with their faith, I felt safe around them—and I still do. Their beliefs did not threaten my freedom or safety. The same cannot be said of today’s woke progressivism. You see the proof of that everywhere.
For almost thirty years now, nearly every fall and spring, I’ve walked into a classroom and lectured about Karl Marx. I always tell my students that to truly understand Marx, one must see how he arrived at his brilliant insight about the power of ideology. You can’t discuss Marx’s theory of false consciousness without first discussing Ludwig Feuerbach and his rejection of the divinity of Christ in the mid-nineteenth century.
I’ve given that lecture year after year, always knowing that in every class there are Christians—many of them conservative, many on the political right. But not once have I feared they posed a danger to me. They listen. They don’t complain. They don’t report me. They don’t try to have me fired.
Yet if I were to speak about gender as binary and immutable, I know what would happen—because it has happened elsewhere. I would receive complaints. Hell, I don’t even bring that subject up in class, and still a petition was circulated demanding my removal. The same thing has happened when I’ve presented crime statistics truthfully, exactly as the data show: there is no anti-black racism in civilian-police encounters. Students went to the dean and complained that I wasn’t “in line” with Black Lives Matter. As if I had to align my lessons with BLM propaganda. That’s the equivalent of Christian students running to the administration and insisting that I wasn’t “in line” with Christianity—yet that has never happened.
This contrast reveals something important: how differently Christians and progressives respond to intellectual challenges. Christians may disagree profoundly, but they tolerate the discussion. Tolerance is central to Christian teachings. Rational Christianity is a major source of Enlightened values. This is why I often say that Christians are allies in the cause of defending the American Republic. Progressives, by contrast, react like intolerant religious fundamentalists—any challenge to their ideology is treated as an offense worthy of escalation, whether through administrative channels or organized campaigns to silence the “infidel.”
The comparison highlights something important about ideologies: they are not created equal. Christianity, whatever one may believe about its truth claims, is built on the example of Jesus, who gave his life for others out of love. Islam, by contrast, has historically promoted a posture of hostility toward those who are different, insisting that outsiders must either conform or be cast out. When Christians ask, “What would Jesus do?” this does not cause one to worry that his head may be detached from his body. It is the spirit of intolerance in zealous religious belief that the progressive left mirrors: either one adopts their ideology, or one risks marginalization, silencing, or even violence.
For those wondering why progressives ally with Islamists, why they share their hostility toward Jews and the modern state of Israel, the answer lies in part here. The vast majority of modern Jews do not live strictly by the Old Testament. Jewish thought today is largely secular and aligns more closely with rational Christianity in the modern period than it did long ago. As Karl Marx and Max Weber, in careful independent analyses separated by a generation, showed, Christianity itself drew heavily from Judaism’s rational elements, transforming them into a framework that helped form the very foundations of civil society: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the separation of church and state. Progressivism, like Islam, rejects that foundation.
My only problem with Christianity is that I cannot believe in what I have no evidence for. But that is no problem for Christians. And Christians have no problem with me. So—no problem. As long as Christians don’t impose their beliefs on me, and I don’t try to strip their beliefs from them, we remain friends and family.
Progressives, however, don’t want that arrangement. And so I confess: I do not feel safe in their presence. Christianity’s faith may be empirically unprovable, but it does not endanger me. Progressivism’s faith, however, threatens my freedom and security—because it insists not only on belief among its members but also on the obedience of society to woke progressive doctrine. This attitude threatens democracy and human freedom.
freedom and reason 