Different day from the previous one, I know; but it's still a day and it's a thought. The thought, in this case, is Roger Scruton's. Cutting a rather long story short, what it amounts to is that we owe our Western freedoms of expression and conscience to secular democratic government and this is what people want but it doesn't make them happy. For happiness something else is required, which 'goes by many names: sense, meaning, purpose, faith, brotherhood, submission'. The upshot is that for the liberal achievements of the Western polity to survive, we need to give them a 'heart'. The latter can be recovered from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Forgiveness and irony are two great gifts of that tradition which would provide the sustaining heart.
Much is lost in the abbreviation; it's there for you to read for yourself. I find both the premise and the conclusion derived from it questionable. The claim that people want secular democratic government but aren't made happy by it needs some comparative data set out in support of it. My hunch is that the data showing that people want this is likely also to show that they are made as happy by it as others are by brotherhood, submission or what have you. As for Scruton's conclusion, I think it's doubtful that you'll get a bigger and more receptive audience for the virtues of forgiveness and irony - though I have no quarrel with the contention that they are virtues - than you will for the publicly demonstrated benefits of liberal tolerance and secularism.