Earlier this month, the journalist, novelist, theologian, and activist Michael Novak died.

Novak leaned left in his earlier years, starting off writing speeches for the John F. Kennedy campaign and penning essays that were influential in the nascent student movement. But by the late 1970s, he had made the rightward trek along with others who would come to be known as neoconservatives, like Irving Kristol and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

Novak distinguished himself with his defenses of what he called “democratic capitalism,” working to shore up religious support for capitalism even after the Cold War came to a close. The man who once described himself as a “radical Leftist” found the well-funded environs of right-wing think tanks a comfortable place.