Freedom in the U.S. is poised to collapse sooner rather than later, according to Os Guinness in his new book, A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future. The reasons pertain both to external relations—imperial overreach and hubris in particular—but results more particularly from the increasing internal decadence among its people and leaders.
His argument includes a number of moving parts. Central to his argument, however, is the threat to the relationship that he terms the “golden triangle of freedom”: Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith, and faith requires freedom.
Of course, every generation has its authors that exclaim that times are worse than they’ve ever been, and that America won’t survive. Guinness concedes that the American framers were imperfect men, some as “distinguished for their vices and hypocrisies as well as for their virtues.” So how much virtue, and what type of virtue, is necessary to sustain American freedom? If all people are imperfect, then we know that republics can work with imperfect people. If one is then going to claim—seriously, at least—that the lack of virtue is an imminent threat to a republic, then some line on a continuum of imperfection needs to be identified.
Guinness of course does not do this. Rather, he circumvents this difficult question—this necessary question—by exaggeration. He essentially claims that Americans are at, or near, the endpoint of the virtue-vice continuum. He argues that Americans are closing in on “no virtue at all.”
To replace “virtue alone” with “no virtue at all” is madness, and what the Wall Street crisis showed about unfettered capitalism could soon be America’s crisis played out on an even more gigantic screen. Leadership without character, business without ethics and science without human values—in short, freedom without virtue—will bring the republic to its knees.
If in fact there was close to “no virtue” left among American leaders or citizens, then I would agree that Guinness has convincingly sounded the alarm of America’s imminent demise as a free country. But any suggestion that Americans are close to the point of zero virtue is transparently false. Guinness treats “virtue” as a seamless garment. While the Church need take every sin seriously, I am unsure that every sin represents a threat to civil society.
Don’t get me wrong, my goal is not at all to “define deviancy down.” Yet the sort of Jeremiad that Guinness produced is hardly unknown. He predicts a near-term, catastrophic consequence to American political life based on what he observes today in the U.S. Asking for a theory and evidence about the location of the boundary between the type and level of vice that is consistent with sustaining liberty and the type and level of vice that is inconsistent with sustaining liberty—and where the U.S. is currently on that measure—would seem to be a reasonable question.
The first link in Guinness’s “golden triangle” is the necessity of virtue to freedom. The second link in his argument is the necessity of faith to virtue. Hence, no faith means no virtue means no freedom.
Despite the tight theoretical link in Guinness’s argument relating the necessity of faith to virtue (and etc.), Guinness demurs on what it would take to revitalize this critical component of the triangle, writing that providing an answer to this pressing question “lies outside my present concerns.”
This is a bewildering demurral given that the “golden triangle” serves as the organizing theory for the entire book:
The liberty of the American republic is not self-sustaining, and it needs a safeguard beyond that of the Constitution and its separation of powers. But what does it take to turn parchment barriers into living bulwarks? What is the catalyst that can bond together the external laws of the Constitution with the internal commitments and duties of citizens—rulers no less than ruled? The framers’ answer was to understand, cultivate and transmit the golden triangle of liberty, and thus the habits of the heart that sustained the citizens and the republic alike (emphasis added).
Guinness devotes his book to a “free people’s suicide.” His central theoretical construct is that the “golden triangle” needs to work to create “sustainable freedom” and avert the catastrophe that he predicts. He argues that the connection between virtue and faith is fundamental to remedying what he thinks threatens American society. His demurral at this point is like an auto mechanic telling you that you can pick up your car from the shop and drive it home because it’s all fixed, except for one critical piece without which the car cannot run.
James R. Rogers is department head and associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University. He leads the “New Man” prison ministry at the Hamilton Unit in Bryan, Texas, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Texas District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
RESOURCES
Os Guinness, A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future
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Comments:
"To replace “virtue alone” with “no virtue at all” is madness, and what the Wall Street crisis showed about unfettered capitalism could soon be America’s crisis played out on an even more gigantic screen. "
1. Devotion of factors of production to the military is at this time lower than it was in just about any given year during the period running from 1941 to 1992.
2. The economic crisis which erupted in 2008 found its origin in the financial sector. Of the goods and service produced in this country, 94% by value are by other economic sectors. Even within the financial sector, large swaths of it were not implicated in imprudent (much less unethical) activity.
3. While we are at it, to what extent is mispricing of risk a failure to character?
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Kick the guy to the curb. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
Defining a region of stress and strain in which a steel girder, for example, responds in a near-perfect proportion of load to deflection (i.e., the linear region), is useful, because such quantities can easily be added together to enable a simulation of the whole building. But such linear simulations aren't quite as good at predicting exactly when a structure will fail, because at that point the culprit element's environment has driven it outside the linear region. We can make an estimate of when it will fly apart, but with a considerably increased error zone. Beyond there be dragons, unless you have a knack for partial differential equations and a lot of time. Having seen PDEs, I'd rather have the dragons.
Back to the topic at hand--Os Guinness has pointed to the elements of our national life that have exceeded design moral and spiritual load, and he is telling people that structural failure will result, and that no societal building that has endured increasing loading like this is still standing.
Then a guy comes out and says, "Details! I want details! You know engineers design things with a reserve; I want to know how much that is. That's what we pay you for, isn't it, all that math and stuff? Unless you can give me those details, I can't accept your statement as rational or useful, and I'll go back to watching 'Ghost Adventures.'"
Is it wise to treat sin like a linear load, fully observable and its effects controllable, if we will only keep lack of virtue to a manageable level? I don't think so. Iniquity is one of the things the Bible explicitly labels a mystery, which is something that humans will never fully understand without the direct revelation of God. It has a life of its own, works unseen, and is absolutely wicked at breaching containment barriers. It is the ultimate disruptor. There is no "safe" exposure level. Rather, absent a direct act of God to revive and redeem our society, we will likely find out in retrospect which tiny component failed and spectacularly brought down the entire project. But then there is also the nonlinear grace of God, who would have spared Sodom if there were only ten righteous men. There were not.
A better way to think about the danger to society from loss of structural (moral, spiritual) integrity is a wooden structure filled with termites. You have to go to each supporting beam, dig away the inner walls and examine them, drill holes in them to confirm their outward appearance, and then replace or shore up each one, piece by piece. You can do computer simulations, but really that's focused on a practical goal: to help you find which beam should be replaced next.
The point that I think we're missing here is that the beams are not communities, or cities, or demographic slices or generations; they are individual human hearts that must be changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, one infinitely precious person at a time.
And that brings us back to the Great Commandment (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and strength) and the Great Commission (As you go, make disciples of all the ethnic groups, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching to observed all that Jesus commanded us), thus loving them as we love ourselves. Pleading that God will have mercy on our evil society as we constantly ask him to send workers into his spiritual harvest field to make disciples are the best strategies we have.
Much of his review and the ensuing comments, are in the abstract. The facts on the ground are more persuasive. Where is the virtue in hundreds of individuals controlling, for their own personal use, billions of dollars while Americans in Appalachia go hungry? Where is the virtue in banks and corporations hoarding trillions of dollars while millions of Americans who want to work, can't find a job?
Rick says it would have seemed strange to see politicians mention their faith in the fifties and sixties. Really? In the fifties Perry Como was singing the 'Ave Maria' and 'The Lord's Prayer' on prime time television. One of America's most popular shows was Bishop Sheen's weekly "Life is Worth Living." Today's society sees virtue in homosexuals necking on prime time television. Given his obvious failure to notice, it's no wonder Rick is bewlidered.
Understanding the semantic relationship between virtue, faith and freedom to religion, morality and government, Guiness's argument is not a new one. We can encounter it in the Farewell Address of the Father of our Country:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
That's "indispensable." Let Guiness's detractors trash that.
you're partially right, but you forget the fact that human beings don't "just want bread," as it were. normal, sane human beings want a culture thicker than "consent" and "contract," a culture within which they can flourish. and human flourishing necessarily involves wisdom, temperance, fortitude, justice, charity, and hope, inter alia.
If a people disregard virtue and vice in favor of self-expression, then finally everyone's impulses run loose like the bulls at Pamplona. One's will, preferences, and desires run amuck and quickly come to blows with everyone else's.
If people live without limits, then sooner or later the state steps in and provides them.
This usually is bad news for freedom, but good news for whatever Caesar is slouching off to a convenient Rubicon.
My comment was not about popular entertainment, but about public statements by our top politicians. The debasement of primetime t-v has occurred simultaneously with the Fourth Great Awakening. Please name a 20th century American president prior to Carter who bared his soul publically about his religious faith or declared Jesus to be his Savior. I can name several from Carter onwards who have done so--including Reagan, Bush, Obama, and most recently Romney, even though he isn't the president yet.
Culture is certainly "thicker" than consent and contract. We get our bread because rule of law enforces the promise behind the credit card. We get our bread because the bread maker likes to bake as well as make a living at baking. You can go on and on. My point was that social contexts and social arrangements can often produce "virtue" without having to peer inside anyone's soul to see if they have the requisite level of virtue. The rope line at the bank enforces upon the tellers the virtue of equality, of treating customers without regard to race/gender/religion (fill in the blank here). That simple contrivance relieves me of worry that the bank teller hates the cross I wear and would not serve me. Would it be better if the bank teller "tolerated" religious diversity--maybe, but who will teach such things? Who will make sure the lesson is learned? What does that cost us? It is far simpler to just expect that the rope line makes for equality. Indeed, the lesson is so profound that if a retail worker looks up and asks "Who is next?" you can think of nothing that makes sense in America besides "Oh I think I was first" and that refers simply to chronology, not race, wealth, knowledge, gender, religion all the other factors that count for so much and make for differing treatment in other places and times. If you said, "I'm next because I worship the right God," people would be confused. Is it because all Americans love equality? Maybe, but the rope lines certainly help regardless of individual levels of virtue.
