Radical grounding …

… Mr. Emerson’s Tombstone by Wilfred M. McClay | Articles | First Things.

… the point is this: the “liberal” elements in early American political thought must always be understood as being propounded in tension with other, far more restrictive—and more communitarian—views of human nature and human society. Protestant Christianity must be regarded as the most important of these forces. To the extent that Protestantism underwrote an emphasis upon individuality, it was in the form of a  constrained individuality.