America changed from a largely single-faith culture to a two-faith nation — sacred and secular — and it will be a two-faith nation for the foreseeable future …
Ross [Douthat] calls this modern liberalism a “pseudo-church.” Increasingly, however, we can drop the “pseudo.” As Andrew Sullivan and many others have been arguing for some time, the language and practice of secular intersectionality directly compares with multiple elements of classic religious belief — from original sin (privilege), to justification (becoming woke), to sanctification (being an ally). But the secular nature of this religion leads many progressives to believe it can fully inhabit government, the academy, and corporate America without constitutional or legal consequence …
Tolerance is easy when tolerance doesn’t threaten your power. A nation secure in its identity can and should unite to protect marginalized and politically weak religious voices, and in 1993 it did exactly that. A nation torn by religious division, by contrast, will view each advance by a religious foe as a material defeat of religious friends. Unless we can break that paradigm, look for the American divide to widen all the more.