Scrutonian Conservatism Reconsidered

The last formulation suggests an ambiguity in Scruton’s self-presentation. Sometimes he presents himself as a defender of the Christian inheritance, sometimes as a defender of the secular state against religious forms of membership. The two affirmations are of course not necessarily incompatible. Occasionally and only occasionally, however, he seems to suggest that Islam reveals something essential about the nature of religion as such. (Much more often he identifies with the Christian call to repentance and forgiveness—to “turn the sword inward” rather than pursuing the path of fanaticism and religious imperium). One is tempted to say that Scruton’s legitimate revulsion against Islamist fanaticism led him to accentuate his emphasis on secularism as the crucial ingredient in modern liberty.