““There is also the wider fact that politics more generally operates for some people as a secular religion—especially politics dictated by a worldview professing to cover all aspects of life, such as Marxism. One compelling statement of that case has been offered by social scientist and journalist Stanley Kurtz, who locates just such a widespread transmutation in today’s passionate embrace of political liberalism—what Kurtz calls the “collective defense of the individual’s sacred rights”—by many Western people.63 “A certain form of liberalism,” he argues, “now functions for a substantial number of its adherents as a religion: an encompassing world-view that answers the big questions about life, dignifies daily exertions with higher significance, and provides a rationale””
