The sects and factions that dominated the socio-political life of the early republic were predominantly of Protestant heritage. Their theological commitments, for better or worse, conditioned the early character and trajectory of the nation. Any who deny this are simply not paying attention to the historical data.
Much as modern secular scholars have tripped over one another in their eagerness to try and complicate the historical record of the role of religion in the American Founding, clinging like drowning men to the corpse of Thomas Jefferson as their beloved apostle of reason, the verdict of history is fairly incontestable.
While Divided We Fall is surprisingly (and commendably) critical of the left, it also reveals that French is likely to dismiss any meaningful countermeasures by conservatives as manifestations of paranoia and delusion. To acknowledge conservatives’ grievances and fears as fundamentally legitimate, after all, would be to give up on the established order for which French has become a self-appointed guardian.
G.K. Chesterton once quipped that "we are fond of talking about 'liberty'" for the very reason that it "is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good." American Christians ought to beware of this temptation with regard to religious liberty, especially in light of their duty to be good citizens and good Christians.
There is much talk of the common good today. How can it possibly be invoked intelligibly apart from a definite, concrete conception of the community to which it should be directed and applied, that is, to the nation?
Throughout the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and the first half of the Twentieth Centuries the American education regime gave the Christian Scriptures an influential–if not preeminent–place in the national education regime. In the Twenty-First Century, even in the Bible Belt, the notion that religion and particularly the Bible have a place in public education elicits howls of theocracy and fretting over “separation of church and state.”
If true piety depends on faith, and faith is an act of understanding and will, you cannot simply compel people into piety; that would defeat the very purpose. And yet is not compulsion central to the practice of politics and the exercise of sovereignty?
As the drums of war thunder let us not beat them unthinkingly “Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles…” […]
There are few things worse than being called a “nationalist” these days. We’ve learned to spell “patriotic” with four letters; we’ve refashioned it as a cultural expletive unsuitable around women, children, and polite company. Globalism is the new gospel; nationalism the new heresy. And the Grand Inquisitors read the roll call of the damned every evening at five o’clock.
By recovering our own tradition we will be able to learn how, why, and where we can partner with others in broad coalitions to advance laws for the common good of all Americans. We will find the resources to resist a vision of secular social justice which, divorced from God, necessarily devolves into idolatrous tyranny and oppression.
