"The "notion of religion, purged of any standards of moral judgment, contains a flaw that destroys it from within. . . . . If we detach the understanding of religion from any moral test of what counts as legitimate or illegitimate in a moral teaching, then we have also removed the moral ground for treating religion itself as a good. If there is no truth underlying our judgments of good and bad, then what is the ground on which we claim religion to be a good that should be honored in public life? . . .
"Indeed, we have heard these questions from the adversaries of religion. They have asked why these 'beliefs' should be accorded any higher degree of deference than the other things that people care strongly about. . . . The response to this challenge cannot be seeking to protect religion by denying that the religious may be rightly governed, along with everyone else, by laws that truly command what is rightful and forbid what is wrongful."
Hadley Arkes, "Backing into relativism," First things no. 294 (June/July 2019): 35-36 (33-37).
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