Summer 2024 Edition
Editor’s note: Quarterly, we like to remind our readers that we too are readers. We hope you enjoy our summer recommendations.
Timon Cline, Editor-in-Chief
First off, Gilbert Chinard’s 1929 Thomas Jefferson. Chinard was French, so it’s surprising that part of his aim is to clear Jefferson of charges that he was influenced by French (or otherwise continental) philosophers. Rather, he was thoroughly Stoic and British, insists Chinard.
The benefit of reading older biographies like this is that they are completely free of the current thing. No chronological snobbery. The book is unapologetically laudatory, triumphant even. Older books are also, for this reason, more honest and more dangerous. Enter at your own peril. What’s striking about Chinard’s book is his emphasis on the Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness of Jefferson, something you can pick up from his essay on Anglo-Saxon language or in the Summary View, but Chinard finds evidence throughout Jefferson’s writings. The second president’s life project was a sort of restoration of pure Anglo-Saxon culture and governance, sanitized of Norman influence. Often forgotten too is how much personal hardship Jefferson experienced, especially in his late 30s in the midst of the war for independence and his stint as governor of Virginia. While he was grieving the death of his wife and nursing near-fatal wounds from a riding accident, his constituency were trying to get him thrown out of office and his friends were complaining that he was too withdrawn from public life. Through it all, his personal discipline, mental and physical, is inspiring. Many of us have many complaints about Jefferson today, but you’ve at least got to appreciate that we are lesser mortals by comparison.
Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People is a massive, sweeping slog, and totally worth it. Fair warning, you have to read about 150 pages at a time to keep the flow because there are no chapter breaks. Despite its length, this is a highly learned but non-specialist book. It helps a grand narrative stick in your head. I’m reading it in tandem with the forgotten work of Timothy Pitkin (1766-1847), A Political and Civil History of the United States (1828), which I don’t necessarily recommend. Pitkin is much dryer and focused, and probably required reading for people more invested in the field (although I rarely if ever see him cited). But both books start in the right place, with the exploration of Newfoundland and the French Huguenots of Florida. British and Protestant, that’s the way I like my early American history… because that’s what it was. If anyone has a suggestion, I’d very much be interested in a full, focused study of Huguenot exploits in early America. Send it my way.
Next up, John Davenant, On the Death of Christ (ed. Michael Lynch). Sunday afternoons are for theology. I don’t get to do as much of it as I did in seminary, obviously, but I try to keep at least one, non-research related book like this going. Lynch’s translation of Davenant’s work on the extent of the atonement is the current one and it’s superb and very accessible. If you want to get passed cartoonish acronyms in your Reformed Orthodoxy, this will help you understand the diversity of theological positions in the seventeenth century on doctrinal areas now conceived as monolithic. Highly recommended!
I’m midway through Paul Scheffer’s Freedom of the Border. It’s fascinating to read a European progressive discover, to his own evident surprise, the necessity of borders, even for an “open society.” That’s basically what Scheffer grapples with throughout. He has to do a lot of throat-clearing to get there without offending his intellectual class, but he does, more or less, get there. Bottom line: if you want to maintain the “blessings of liberty,” it can’t be a free-for-all; citizenship has to matter; resource distribution cannot be infinite, etc. There’s useful stuff in Scheffer’s book for us on the right if only a demonstration of how to package more restrictive immigration policy in a way that is palatable for liberals—maybe. Granted, much of the same may be accomplished through sheer force of reality smacking nearly every western country squarely in the face. But look at Denmark. They’re a comparatively closed country because they realized that their social democratic policies cannot function at multicultural scale. Scheffer’s book should be in the immigration/borders starter pack not because it is groundbreaking, but because it shows the inescapability of these issues, at least for the intellectually honest. I think I’m going to follow it up with Peter Brimelow’s Alien Nation (1995) to see how it compares, and how it’s held up almost 30 years later.
I’m currently reviewing Yuval Levin’s American Covenant and Noah Feldman’s The Broken Constitution which will be out (hopefully) soon at American Reformer. One is obviously more historically centered than the other, but the combination of the two should be interesting, especially in light of other recent works from Charles Kesler and Christopher Caldwell. I’m also reviewing Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale, so I won’t say more here. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check our podcast with her!
Ben Dunson, Founding & Contributing Editor
In Archibald Alexander’s (1772–1851) book Thoughts on Religious Experience (p. 151) he tells the story of a young cadet at West Point who had written to him in 1825 (coincidentally, the year Robert E. Lee entered West Point) expressing the ways in which one of Alexander’s books had been instrumental in helping him overcome doubts he had about Christianity. That book was Evidences of the Christian Religion, which later was joined with a book on the canon of Scripture to become The Truth, Inspiration, and Authority of Scripture. Alexander, who was the first professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote the book to encourage Christians to come to a robust trust in the truths of the Bible. Alexander’s approach would likely be labeled “evidentialist” today: it includes a defense of the veracity of the miracles of Scripture, a defense of the trustworthiness of the testimony of the apostles, a discussion of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, and more. Alexander, of course, also recognizes that revelation and regeneration are necessary for one to come to know God truly and savingly, a fact that caricatures of evidential apologetics might at times downplay. The way I see it, every single fact in the universe testifies to the truthfulness of God’s word, whether those be evidences or the classical proofs for God’s existence. Evidential arguments must be placed in a proper framework of faith, but they need not
be approached merely as “probabilistic” proofs. The facts (evidence) really do testify to the existence of the God of Scripture and should be highlighted accordingly. What I most benefited from in this book is Alexander’s discussion of the place of reason in Christian apologetics (chapter 1) and his arguments in the next few chapters defending Christianity by appealing to the facts of natural revelation and natural law. One of his strongest apologetical arguments is simply to present the character and being of God as described in Scripture as an answer to those who would argue that revelation is either impossible, or that it is impossible for us to come to have knowledge of that revelation. Once one understands God as the sovereign creator and upholder of the universe it not at all difficult to recognize that he is perfectly capable of making himself known, both in nature and in Scripture. Alexander knows that unbelief blinds the minds of unbelievers to these truths, but also argues that presenting these truths to unbelievers may very well be one means God uses to awake them to new life in Christ.
Roger Scruton’s short book Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged is a meditation on the meaning of culture, and how the excellencies of Western culture can be preserved. Scruton does not claim that other cultures have no good in them, but he argues the fairly obvious point—though one that is vehemently denied by the multicultural consensus of the modern West—that “not all cultures achieve equal heights” (p. 2). Scruton is always a good read, but one argument in this book struck me as particularly important today. In his preface Scruton contends that “[u]nlike science, culture is not a repository of factual information or theoretical truth, nor is it a kind of training in skills, whether rhetorical or practical. Yet it is a source of knowledge: emotional knowledge, concerning what to do and what to feel.” (p. x) We could put it this way: culture is an objective reality that shapes us as much as the facts of math and science, but it does so in a very different way than those fields of knowledge. Think about how people dress. Today, few people know how to dress well. In the past this was not the case. Consider typical picture of an American city in the 1920s. Everyone is well-dressed. This is true both of the rich and the poor, of adults and children. Is this because everyone spent hours considering his or her wardrobe every day? No, the culture of dress at that time passed on objective knowledge that was absorbed by cultural osmosis. People didn’t even have to think about dressing nicely. The culture of the day, as Scruton puts it, was “a source of knowledge.” Today, that source of knowledge does not exist. If one is going to dress well, he or she will have to spend a lot of time and effort learning how to do so. Or consider a more serious matter: sexual morality. In the past, American moral culture, having been derived from Protestant Christianity, provided the “emotional knowledge, concerning what to do and what to feel” about sexuality, whether about marriage, divorce, adultery, homosexuality, or other areas. One didn’t even have to think about this. The culture did the thinking for you. A healthy culture, so understood, is indispensable in ensuring that families, society, government, and so on, operates in a good and healthy manner. Every aspect of such a culture will reinforce what is good in ways most people do not even consciously observe; it will confer “on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge” (p. 2). “We transmit this knowledge,” Scruton writes, “through ideals and examples, through images, narratives, and symbols. We transmit it through the forms and rhythms of music, and through the orders and patterns of our built environment” (p. x). This, in the end, is Scruton’s answer to those who would complain that the legacy of Western, Christian civilization is of no practical benefit for those who need skills to make money and prosper in the world. “What does it benefit ordinary children,” he asks, “that they should know the works of Shakespeare, acquire a taste for Bach, or develop an interest in medieval Latin?” Scruton’s “reply is simple: it may not benefit the child-not yet, at least. But it will benefit culture. And because culture is a form of knowledge, it is the business of the teacher to look for the pupil who will pass it on” (p. 30). When culture is thus preserved people will know what to feel and how to live without even thinking about it. Scruton does not write from a Christian perspective, though his insights into culture fit well within the framework of what the Bible teaches about natural revelation and natural law. People in the world (even unbelievers) are able to recognize beauty, order, proportion, excellence, and so on, because these things are objective reflections of the one who made the world.
Mike Sabo, Contributing Editor
Since our last roundup, my time for reading has been mostly taken up by wading through copious amounts of material in preparation for attending the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowship in August. I’ve been brushing up on political philosophy—for example, I’m reading Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Locke, and Leo Strauss on regime politics, the law, and broader philosophical questions. And I’m also immersing myself in selected readings from the American political tradition, which includes Washington’s statesmanship and Lincoln’s attempts to steer the country through the Civil War (yes, Claremonsters are Lincoln fans, much to the dismay of most of the New Christian Right). The readings also cover American foreign policy and the subsequent political and cultural revolutions brought about by the early Progressives, the New Left, and the civil rights movement. And that’s just what’s included in the massive, double-columned reading packet I got in the mail. Additionally, I was also sent 35 books (most of which, thankfully, I’ve previously read). These include three key works of Aristotle and Harry Jaffa respectively, along with notable books by Protestants: C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and the Abolition of Man, Joshua Mitchell’s American Awakening, Scott Yenor’s The Recovery of Family Life, and Tom West’s crucial works on American political theory, Vindicating the Founders and The Political Theory of the American Founding.
When taking a break from politics and political thought, I’ve been slowly reading through Gilles Emery’s The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God, which I bought upon reading James Dolezal’s glowing review. Emery, a Dominican priest and a professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, patiently walks readers through the basic trinitarian doctrines of the Christian faith. He explores how the Bible conceives of the Trinity, examines the trinitarian doctrines taught by the historic creeds of the church, and presents a unified doctrine of how the Trinity saves and sanctifies Christians. Unsurprisingly, the only major downside of the book is Emery’s minimal engagement with Protestantism—if memory serves, Karl Barth is the only Protestant interlocutor he engages with. An already strong book would have been even better had Emery cited the scholarship from a growing group of Protestant theologians, including Scott Swain and Fred Sanders, who are doing very good work on the Trinity. Mark Jones commented at Reformation 21 last year that “there are some stellar Roman Catholic theologians today, despite being critically wrong on some key doctrines.” In my view, Emery is one such theologian.
Ben Crenshaw, Visiting Fellow
Although my dissertation research has me primarily reading seventeenth and eighteenth century religious and political works, the public should be aware of three more recent books on Protestantism, natural law, and politics. The first is Protestantism and the American Founding edited by Thomas S. Engeman and Michael P. Zuckert (University of Notre Dame Press, 2004). The book is structured around a lead essay by Zuckert who argues that the American founding as a political project was a departure from and, in certain respects, a repudiation of both Protestant and Puritan political theology. Instead, the founding generation fully embraced a secular Lockean perspective on politics. The rest of the book is filled with responses to Zuckert’s arguments by notable figures like Wilson Carey McWilliams, Peter Augustine Lawler, Thomas G. West, and Mark A. Noll. Zuckert is given the last word in final rejoinder essay.
Two things stick out about the essays in this book. The first is the weakness of Zuckert’s arguments. From a misreading of John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon aboard the Arrabella, A Modell of Christian Charitie, to a complete misunderstanding of how Protestants (and Puritans) understood the relationship between reason and revelation, to misconstruing basic doctrines like sola Scriptura, Luther’s two kingdoms, and the right to resist tyrants, to a flat and one-dimensional Lockean reading of the Declaration and the founding—Zuckert’s two essays are a litany of embarrassing errors by someone clearly intent upon reading Protestantism and Puritanism out of the American founding. In many ways, Zuckert’s essays are merely a recapitulation of the arguments he previously made in The Natural Rights Republic (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996). The other notable feature of the book is the lack of the respondents to adequately articulate and rebut Zuckert’s errors. Perhaps the best effort is Thomas G. West’s article, “The Transformation of Protestant Theology as a Condition of the American Revolution,” in which West locates many elements of the American founding in our Puritan heritage. Even so, he believes Protestant political theology had to change for the founding to happen is it did. Although this book is twenty years old now, the reader should become familiar with the arguments in it as they are endlessly recycled. An updated book by scholars more familiar with Protestant politics is urgently needed.
To help with that future work, the reader should familiarize themselves with two other books. The first is Puritanism and Natural Theology by Wallace W. Marshall (Pickwick Publications, 2016). Unlike Zuckert, Marshall has immersed himself in the torrent of English and American Puritan literature from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Using an impressive number of primary sources, Marshall puts to the rest the myth of Puritan fideism—the idea that the Puritans spurned reason and relied solely upon faith and biblical revelation in their knowledge of God, themselves, and the nature of the world (including politics). Marshall systematically shows how the Puritans deployed rational and discursive argumentation to rebut practical atheism, to argue for the existence of God, to learn about the world, and to understand providence, evil, and man’s immortality. Marshall even includes a bonus appendix on John Locke’s natural theology and evidentialism which, among other things, shows that in these areas, Locke was an orthodox Protestant. Marshall’s book includes a superb bibliography and table outlining the Puritans included in his study.
The other book is David Haines’ Natural Theology: A Biblical and Historical Introduction and Defense (The Davenant Press, 2021). Haines’ book is more narrowly focused than Marshall’s on natural theology, although both address the topic. The value of Haines’ book is twofold: first, it is an historical survey of natural theological arguments going back to the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the early Church fathers, St. Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas; second, in response to neo-Calvinists who, following Karl Barth, essentially deny reason’s ability to know
truths about God and his moral law outside of revelation, Haines includes a substantial chapter on the Protestant understanding, embrace, and use of natural theology spanning the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. This clearly demonstrates that historic Reformed Protestant orthodoxy agreed with Emil Brunner over Barth on the possibility and value of natural theology. Not only that, but Haines’ work reveals the continuity of natural theology from the Greeks through Protestantism. Protestants did not diverge from the tradition, but assumed and developed it. The greatest defect of this book is the publisher and editors. If Davenant Press were a serious publisher, they would include bibliographies and indexes in their books. By omitting these, the reader is left seriously impaired in their research. In addition, Haines’ editors clearly forced him to cut back much of his scholarship, including his footnotes. Yet for such an important topic that recovers ancient and early modern texts on natural theology, the more the better, as many readers will use this book as a reference text. Davenant has since released a second edition of Haines’ book (January 2024) that is substantially longer, so perhaps some of these shortcomings have since been addressed. Either way, the book is worth owning, and Haines should be commended for solid research that refutes bad thinking about natural theology among many Protestants.
Terry Gant, Managing Editor
I have repeatedly intended to sit down and read Politica by Johannus Althusius. It has been a needed addition to my knowledge base for teaching political science to high school seniors, and it comes up constantly in American Reformer articles. I have finally started making my way through it, and I am going slowly, annotating. It has been quite excellent, as many of you already know. I look forward to incorporating a lot of the ideas in my classroom. I have no doubt certain excerpts will be printed off and read for discussion in class. Alas, it is not so easy to assign the whole work as our reading list is already crammed full, but maybe one day I will be able to replace something else with Politica.
Another book I need for professional development purposes is Deeper Heaven by Christiana Hale. In addition to Planet Narnia, this book is the best work on CS Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, sometimes called the Space Trilogy. It is a clarification of Lewis’s Medieval Cosmology and commentary on each of the three books in the series. I have been very fortunate to have added the Ransom Trilogy to our reading list this year in my class and want to prepare for it. The content of this work will definitely make its way into my classroom. It has been an enjoyable read, too.
I enjoy very few works of genre fiction, but one genre that I do like is a very specific sub-genre of historical fiction based on Napoleonic naval conflict, ca. 1775-1825. My favorites in this genre are the Hornblower Series of books by CS Forester. I have just finished reading Hornblower and the Atropos and not for the first time. Horatio Hornblower is a naval captain for the British during the Napoleonic era. Each book is a series of adventures, usually aligning with the duration of his assignment to a particular ship. Atropos is a smaller ship and one of his first commands as a captain. I like these stories because Hornblower, while deeply flawed in many ways, is such an admirable character and demonstrates so many good qualities. It is highly instructive to young minds in particular that Hornblower rejects failure and excuses and always finds a way to solve problems with creativity and all of his accumulated knowledge and expertise. Difficulties and discomfort are endured with stoicism and manfulness. Discipline, courage, and loyalty are prized virtues. Nothing motivates Hornblower to perform excellently except for his passionate desire to be thought of as a many who does his duty. There is much to laud about the book series simply for their enjoyment and fun adventures, but I mostly value them for the character of Hornblower and those around him that are admirable. I miss the days when admirable men were the main characters in fiction stories. I would highly recommend these books to young teens and adults, especially boys.
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