Natural Theologies of Gender as National Conservative Political Theology

Abstract

National conservatism is a post-liberal political ideology associated with conferences held by the Edmund Burke Foundation. The intellectual core of this ideology is the use of natural theologies of gender to undergird a transnational and interfaith approach to political theology. This mode of political theology is analyzed in the thinking of political theorist Yoram Hazony, theologian R.R. Reno, philosopher Patrick Deneen, and theologian Albert Mohler. These thinkers do more than simply rejecting the premises of liberal democracy as a political order: they all assert the fundamental role of patriarchal gender roles in the survival and prosperity of the nation state. While they hold that the nation is the primary political unit, their understanding of gender is even more fundamental as a foundation for the nation.