My mailbox recently held a surprise package that turned out to be a book sent to enlighten me (or perhaps help me mend my errors). Whatever the intent, I appreciate the thought, gesture, and commitment behind it. Appreciation of the contents of the book is not as easily come by. You won’t wonder why I say that after learning the title: “Liberalism is Sin.”

I have no quarrel with people noting the flaws, errors, and problems of what is called liberal thought. Questions and problems do exist. But I’ll tell you that I get as jumpy as a cat in a field of catnip over the mixing of a political category with a theological one of “sin.” I say please don’t go there because it will do no more good than attempting moral assessments of the universal vote based on some notion that God didn’t want equality because He/She didn’t make people equal. See how quickly we get in a muddle that does nothing for us or does the same as the centuries-ago debates over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

I suspect belief systems or religion has always been hard on the body politic. Pagan groups bashed and assaulted one another based on their views of “proper” observance or “correct” belief. In its formative years, the Western world suffered centuries of awful and often very bloody conflict between Christian and pagan beliefs, followed by more of the same between Protestant and Catholic. These were often horrific conflicts. Did you know that at one point, Protestant Sweden wiped out near 25 percent of the population of Catholic Poland? That’s an example of taking faith where it should not go. More recently, Muslim Turkey conducted an exterminating religious war against Christian Armenians; except for political face-saving, the Turks explain this effective genocide as a civil war. If you’ll recall, we had a Civil War which though very bloody and long didn’t include marching a million or so civilians into a desert to die, though on a lesser scale that was done to American Indians as part of the “settlement” I’d call Land War.

We used to think the planet’s largest genocide was political. We call it the Holocaust for its millions killed, though Stalin may have done as well shortly after WWII when the Iron Curtain shielded much of his excess from view. Between the two, we could have ten million dead from political (though the Holocaust DOES have a religious element) action within the past century. That’s a lot of political killing, though around half was religious. The big winner, though, has to be religious murder, with the Muslim Moghuls at the top of the heap. The Moghuls held high their book of faith that gave the non-believer three choices: convert, accept demeaned social and political status, or be killed. A lot of Hindus didn’t appreciate the first two choices and died in millions equal to or better than Hitler or Stalin’s record. So, either a state or a religion with unchecked power is dangerous to human welfare, though for my money true belief attracts a type who looks a little too thrilled about snuffing the lives of others. Frankly, if that sort of crap is what makes a god happy, then you might want to look for another god or a large mental ward to contain the fanatics.

As a practical matter for the species, a secular state that maintains separation between church and state is our best chance at maintaining freedom and diversity, both of which are by far trickier to manage than we suppose when the words “freedom” and “diversity” fall from our lips. So I’d not agree with the premise of the book that liberal equals sinner, any more than I’d say conservative equals the same. Thoughtful political position on either side is part of free will, which we have either by nature or given us by an unknown power. You cannot remove free will without taking away the foundation of humanity’s basic plan. Free will fosters creativity as much as it does avarice. I’ll risk the one for the sake of the other.

People knowing me would usually say I’m a liberal, but whether a five-foot or five-eleven type is unclear. Frankly, I’m more liberal about social issues than financial ones, and I doubt there are many who come out pure in either category. No human truly fits or fills a label, though some try damn hard and are quite annoying for it.

But want to know something I find amusing? I saw a heap of humorous irony in the book’s title because it is supposedly “sinful” liberalism that permits critical dissent. Conservative societies are not known for welcoming anything other than repetition and approval. That book exists because of the liberalism is criticizes and rejects. And I’d hope that the author does not mean to throw away the liberal initiatives that gave us universal education, women’s rights, voting rights, fair trade, and environmental protections. It was not stand-pat conservativism that gave us those things, any more than it was conservatives who rebelled from King George in 1776. Too much tradition or conservative value can leave a society stuck in place the same as too liberal change or too little value can leave a social group aimless and weak in principle.

One of my liberal sins is being critical of my own positions, while another sin is being too slow to oppose the questionable for fear of being bigoted. But no, it is not bigotry or denial of freedom to oppose policies or beliefs that would enslave and demean. In a secular state, no group deserves the right to subjugate others to its sectarian beliefs. I don’t care how called upon by whatever god they are to do so—we the body politic have to get on top of that and say no to any and all erosion between the walls of church and state.

As for “Liberalism is Sin,” I add so is Judgmentalism. The Bible says so.