I had a college professor of world history, appropriately named Dr. Faust, who somehow had come to believe that Martin Luther was responsible for breeding Hitler. This fantasy brings to mind G.K. Chesterton's maxim that "A man who won't believe in God will believe anything."
Dr. Faust found out that I had conservative ideas. He asked about my denominational affiliations, whether I approved of a denominational merger, and whether I preferred blondes to brunettes, among other strange questions. I later realized that he was probing to see if I had an "authoritarian personality" according to Adorno's theory. Very much later, I came to understood that his inexplicable hostility towards me was rooted in the forest fears of liberal mythology.
The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (Hardcover)
by Damon Linker
http://www.amazon.com/Theocons-Secular-America-Under-Siege/dp/0385516479
From Publishers Weekly
Conventional wisdom on the left holds that conservatives bring up issues ranging from abortion and gay rights to the teaching of evolution primarily as a cynical ploy to activate their political base, but Linker challenges that notion by detailing the inner workings of the "theoconservative" movement. He describes it as a group of mostly Catholic intellectuals who view American society in sometimes apocalyptic terms, whose absolute and uncompromising moral framework for law—their ultimate goal is "the end of secular politics"—holds great sway in Republican circles. Primarily and almost obsessively concerned with Richard John Neuhaus and his journal First Things, Linker's exposé sometimes makes it seem as if the political philosophy that animates perhaps a quarter of the electorate is essentially a one-man show. More curious is that, though his words drip with disdain for virtually every position championed by the magazine, Linker himself was an editor at First Things until barely a year before his book's publication. This book may leave readers yearning for a more broad-based study of how Neuhaus—whose journal has a circulation of well under 50,000—and his ilk have managed to motivate a resurgence of politically minded religiosity in such a large number of Americans. (Sept. 19)
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From Booklist
Linker informs us of a tiny cabal of -activist-propagandists who have forged an alliance between right-wing Catholics and Evangelical Christians that has worked so effectively for the Republican Party that President Bush, in particular, accepts its advice. The cabal's leader is leftist Lutheran minister turned hyperdogmatic Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus, the founding editor in chief of First Things, the flagship journal of the cabal's movement, which Linker, once on staff at First Things, calls theoconservatism. Neuhaus' 1984 book The Naked Public Square advanced the idea that secularism forces religious voices out of public debates; conservative Jews as well as Christians found Neuhaus' notion very persuasive and politically useful. Linker believes that, however admirable its goals may be, theoconservatism at best misunderstands and at worst despises American liberal democracy, especially the wisdom of the separation of church and state. Linker's literate, reasonable chronicle and assessment of the theocons, that of an erstwhile colleague who shows no personal animus toward his former associates, is one of the most enlightening critiques of the Religious Right to date. Ray Olson
Linker is a man who has lost his faith.