 Burke was a Christian thinker whose conservatism has been traced to his theological presuppositions (Harris 1993; Cobban 1960: 94); he saw atheistic Jacobinism as a threat to Western cultural tradition. Many conservative writers share his religious interpretation of the contract across the generations; for Kirk (1954: 7), established religion is among the traditions that conservatives value. But religious belief is not essential to conservatism, and Oakeshott was a secular conservative (Cowling, 2004: xv).