The C-Suite Converts to the New Political Religion

“…Today’s CEOs are like Thomas Cranmer, the 16th-century archbishop with his finger to the wind.

Easter Week, as the culture wars rage on, is a timely moment to reflect on the religious nature of the modern ideology our leaders seek to impose on us.

Astute historians have observed that the wars of religion that seemed to define pre-Enlightenment history never really went away; the religions just got new labels. Secular ideologies that supplanted the old confessions seized the mind with the same sense of spiritual mission. The loyalties they demanded were more divisive and even more destructive than anything organized religion ever managed.

In the 19th century it was nationalism. In the 20th, communism and fascism. In the 21st woke cultural nihilism is the dominant confession, and a fanatical one.

The modern secularists who deride the hagridden mysticism of traditional religion are now the most devoted congregants in the First Church of Antiracism. Penitents line up to be shriven for their white privilege, bending the knee before the altar of justice and equity. They present pendants of the martyred St. George of Minneapolis for blessing from Hollywood prelates and Ivy League divines, solemnly chanting canticles from the Black Lives Matter breviary.

The history of religious war offers warnings for all of us, but most of all for those late converts to the new religion in the big corner offices of American corporations…

…The men who run Major League Baseball, Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola and other giants have been quick to mouth the required antiphony of the modern liturgy. After long careers in which they seemed happy to let their talents propel them to unimaginable wealth, they’ve now discovered that the society that elevated them was founded in evil.

But instead of doing the honorable thing, and stepping down in favor of some less-privileged underling, they demonstrate a commitment to the faith by denouncing others. Here you have the essence of the new faith and morals of the woke classes, the truly privileged people in our society: I’m not to blame, you understand; it’s all those other white folk…”