Peter Beinart thinks we need a whole lot more religion.

Maybe it’s the values of hierarchy, authority, and tradition that churches instill. Maybe religion builds habits and networks that help people better weather national traumas, and thus retain their faith that the system works. For whatever reason, secularization isn’t easing political conflict. It’s making American politics even more convulsive and zero-sum.

For years, political commentators dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and ’70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.

My thoughts.

1. He is not the first to suggest that bad things happen when politics comes to fill a void left by a decline in religion.

2. I am glad that there are people on the left who would like to see the heat turned down in politics. The Three Languages of Politics is my attempt to help with that project. The revised edition is due out soon.

3. I hope that the left did not discover that political warfare is ugly only because of their shocking defeat in November. Instead, I would prefer to believe that Beinart would have written the same essay decrying politico-religious movements on both sides even if the requisite thousands of votes in key states had gone a different way and Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency.