Let me dwell on the idea that "the way beyond liberalism is through it." In plain English, we should not discard liberalism, but embrace liberalism and advance liberalism and improve it. I like this thought and expression. Generally speaking, liberalism refers to liberal democracy as exemplified by American democracy and liberal economy as exemplified by American capitalism. In short, the way to the future for the United States is through liberalism, not through any alternatives to liberalism, regardless of how appealing those alternatives may seem to be.
In principle, American democracy is not unbound or unregulated democracy. For example, the American experiment in democratic government is different from the experiment in participatory democratic government in ancient Athens; the American experiment involves elected representatives, so it is not an experiment in participatory democracy. Moreover, American democracy is regulated by laws, which of course can be changed from time to time. But more importantly, the overall system of American democratic governance is a carefully constructed system of checks and balances.
Regarding the liberal economic order, we Americans have learned the hard way that unbound capitalism can lead to devastating results. So we should pursue government regulation of the capitalist economic system to protect the common good. To safeguard and protect the common good, we should avoid the kind of deregulation often espoused by Republicans.
The Republican noise machine excels in denouncing so many things -- so-called liberals (but what about libertarians -- aren't they liberals?), liberalism (e.g., democracy and capitalism?), socialism, communism, Marxism, Social Security, the welfare safety net, affirmative action, legalized abortion in the first trimester, gay marriage, tax increases for the rich, health care, etc. The omni-directional denunciations of the Republican noise machine remind me of the omni-directional denunciations of Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) in "The Syllabus of Errors" (1864). In any event, whatever Republicans stand for, as distinct from all the stuff they stand against, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives stand with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Ayn Rand in favor of self-centeredness and selfishness.
Gary Dorrien sees Albert Ritschl (1822-1889) as establishing the framework out of which the social gospel movement developed. Dorrien says that "the trademark liberal Ritschlian school idea of Christianity [was] as an ellipse with two centers: eternal life as the goal of individual existence and the kingdom of God as the goal of humanity" (p. 15). Got that? The goal of humanity on this earth, not in the afterlife, is the kingdom of God on this earth, inasmuch as this is possible on this earth. Because this is a goal that we Americans can only hope to approximate as we work toward it, I would argue that it is therefore not an utopian goal, because it is not an unrealistic goal for us to strive for, provided that we understand that we will be able only to approximate it.
In the 1950s, Eric Voegelin quipped, "Don't immantize the eschaton." (The eschaton refers to the end-time, the end of the world as we know it.) William F. Buckley, Jr., helped make this quip popular. But the quip is misleading.
Christian theology has for centuries claimed that the monotheistic God is both transcendent and immanent. The inbreaking of what is referred to as the kingdom of God is an example of how God is immanent. Therefore, the inbreaking of God's kingdom in individual persons in effect immantizes the eschaton.
Moreover, the inbreaking of God's kingdom is best understood as a personal experience in one's consciousness. This kind of personal experience breaks down the kind of self-centeredness and selfishness that Ayn Rand and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin glorify. But the inbreaking of God's kingdom is not limited to Christians or even to persons of explicit religious faith. The inbreaking of God's kingdom is best understood as an experience that is open to all of human persons and as an experience that has always been open to all human persons.
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