However, the reality is that “theocons”–if we are speaking mainly of some of the better-known First Things figures (Neuhaus, Weigel, Novak, Bottum)–were originally named theocons by the secular neocons who didn’t care for their lack of enthusiasm for the “regime” (and even objected to having it called a regime–which is something apparently reserved for dictators in foreign countries). “Theocons” as such were neoconservatives or close associates of the same until their more secular compadres found their religiosity to be just a little too worrisome and found the need to distinguish them from the rest. The blowup over the “End of Democracy?” symposium, while perhaps not as stark as Linker seems to portray it (I am going by what he said in his TNR article), was a significant rupture among the neocons on central “culture war” questions. There seems to have been something of a rapprochement in recent years, and the fact that Mr. Bottum is an editor at both Weekly Standard and the editor of First Things show that they are certainly close allies if obviously not always of the same mind on everything. I do not think this alliance is purely circumstantial or an accident of history, but represents a common trend of people coming from the left, retaining many of the goals and values they acquired on the left, and then seeking to redefine their old liberalism as conservatism and find new supports for sustaining liberalism in religion, among other things. They share fundamental assumptions and so can readily collaborate with or reinfoce one another. The more secular neocons, rather like the Straussians, tended also to emphasise the importance of public religiosity (if only as an effective support for a functioning society), though this has waned among the neocons in the last six or seven years.

It is true that FT did not dwell very much on the debate about the war, but what its contributors did say was generally shockingly favourable to the argument for attacking Iraq, or it was surprisingly indifferent to the reasonable moral objections to the war. (I would note that, on their website at least, the response to the bombing of Lebanon was similarly supportive of the effort and weak in taking seriously the moral problems posed by the campaign.)

It may not be FT’s brief to debate contemporary foreign policy, but it is remarkable that one of the most heated debates of the last fifteen years barely drew their attention and when it finally did one of their most prominent contributors, George Weigel, marched in lockstep with the pro-war argument with what I can only call a perversion of the just war teaching while Michael Novak served as envoy to try to convince the Vatican that it had misunderstood the justice of the cause. These two appear to be fairly deeply invested in the latest phase of neoconservative foreign policy, and it is unmistakable that Mr. Bottum fully supports the Iraq war as well. The point is not that other conservatives also failed to raise objections to the war, as you are right that so many did support it (to their everlasting shame, I should think), but it is that a magazine that claims to represent religion in the public square was stunningly willing to acquiesce in a policy that should have spurred on quite a lot more reaction and contemplation than it did.

If anything, FT’s relative silence during the war debate was as damning as anything its contributors did say. They always seem to find their voices when it comes time to dish out criticism against “pacifism” in the Vatican, but they somehow cannot work up the concern to say anything about jingoism in Washington. That, I submit, shows an undue adherence to the foreign policy positions advanced by the neocons. So, no, there is no strict or necessary identity between the two groups in this matter, but the “theocons” have certainly made it clear where they stand, and for the last many years it has been undoubtedly foursquare with neoconservative views of these conflicts.

Then again, being liberals whose theologico-political philosophy, what with its roots in Murray, sounds an awful lot like religious Straussianism, they really had no alternative consistent with their assumed commitments. The only alternative to this course would have been a reactionary affirmation of the centrality of the Church, the implication being that, down the road, if anything, the desired end would be something akin to the ancien regime, in which the Church was the pillar and ground of the social order, yet in a sense which pointed to the transient nature of things here below, and to the Heavenly City as the locus of man’s eschatological hope - a city present in the Church yet not fully present in this age.

In other words, it really sounds as though one can either affirm the old Christendom, or strive for power as a liberal sectarian of one stripe or another.

Lastly, speaking as a reader of FT, I wasn’t overwhelmed by the volume of commentary on foreign policy before or after the launch of the Iraq War. Probably the only issue thoroughly canvassed was Just War Theory. Hardly a mouthpiece of the interventionist right.