What Has New Haven to Do with Hungary? On Theological and Political Postliberalism*

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of political theorists and religious writers and activists—including Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, R. R. Reno, and Adrian Vermeule—have aligned themselves with postliberalism, a political ideology that sees liberalism, in both its classical and neoliberal manifestations, as the source of the problems in Western democracies. Christian nationalism is one version of postliberalism. For theologians, however, the term postliberalism is often associated with the so-called Yale school of theology, spearheaded by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, that was prominent during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite some obvious differences, I contend that there is a direct line, or rather multiple lines, connecting theological postliberalism and today’s political postliberalism. The connections are ideological, institutional, and rhetorical: they share a philosophy of antiliberalism, were promoted by the same institutional channels and networks, and contributed to a common theological and political discourse.