{"id":3295,"date":"2006-04-09T01:18:58","date_gmt":"2006-04-09T01:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/theocon-moment.html"},"modified":"2006-04-09T01:18:58","modified_gmt":"2006-04-09T01:18:58","slug":"theocon-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/theocon-moment.html","title":{"rendered":"Theocon Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat in the WSJ:<\/a><\/p>\n

An engaging piece in which Douthat looks the "theocon" label in the face – and embraces it. <\/p>\n

Take that, Andrew Sullivan!<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Political movements are often labeled by their enemies. "Neoconservative" was an insult Michael Harrington hurled at Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol during their journey rightward; "queer" was a slur before it became a badge of empowerment (and impenetrable academy theory). So perhaps it’s time for religious conservatives to stop complaining about the term "theoconservative"–coined by Jacob Heilbrunn in 1996 and popularized by Andrew Sullivan, among others–and accept it with a wink and a grin, as the kind of backhanded compliment that any successful movement earns from its opponents. <\/p>\n

This a good time for such considerations, because the last, limping years of the Bush administration find religious conservatives in a position of unusual strength–flush from victory in the Roberts and Alito confirmation battles; relatively untainted by the stumbling and scandals afflicting the GOP; and stronger, in numbers and credibility, than most of their rivals for control of the party. "National greatness conservatism" has foundered, at least temporarily, on the rocks of Iraq, while the starve-the-beast right looks in the mirror and finds the beast staring back, wearing Jack Abramoff’s fedora. Which means that for the moment, the closest thing to a credible public philosophy the GOP has to offer emanates from the once-unlikely alliance of evangelicals and Catholics, and their God-infused politics of social reform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat in the WSJ: An engaging piece in which Douthat looks the "theocon" label in the face – and embraces it. Take that, Andrew Sullivan! Political movements are often labeled by their enemies. "Neoconservative" was an insult Michael Harrington hurled at Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol during their journey rightward; "queer" was a slur…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTheocon Moment - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/theocon-moment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Theocon Moment - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ross Douthat in the WSJ: An engaging piece in which Douthat looks the "theocon" label in the face – and embraces it. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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