Dear Friends,
I am getting a late start on this newsletter today. I’ve been up against a hard deadline for an academic journal essay, which I have just now thankfully finished and sent along its merry way. Hopefully I will see it again someday (academic publishing takes forever).
Anyway, the essay was a foray into some debates about classical liberalism, the broad system of individual liberty, rule of law, free markets, freedoms of speech, religion, and association that has prevailed in the western world for the past three hundred years. That system is under obvious attack from the political left—it gets in the way of their various totalitarian aims. But there are those on the right, too, who find it inconvenient and think we need a more powerful and robust government to make people live the right way.
What I wonder is whether Christianity might have any contribution to make to the question. The reason I ask is because many of those defending the classically liberal order do so without much thought to whether or not the system has any subterranean support beams provided by Christian theology. They seem to think not. Jonah Goldberg wrote an entire book on the subject and his first sentence was, “There is no God in this book.” That’s not an affirmation of atheism, by the way; it is a statement about his method. He wants to defend the liberal order (and he does so exceedingly well) without any recourse to anything theology might supply.
But, spoiler alert: he doesn’t succeed.
Gratitude, Patience, and Hope
Our civilization is facing a crisis of gratitude, patience, and hope. Note that those are all expressions that apply to time. Gratitude is what one feels about the fruits of the past. Patience is what one exercises in the present. Hope is what one feels about the future. We are experiencing a loss of confidence about history itself and our place in it: how to evaluate the past (is it all human triumph, or oppression and villainy?), how we feel about the present (contentment or rage?), and what we should reasonably expect from the future (decline or utopia?).
One of Goldberg’s main arguments in the aforementioned book is that we lack gratitude for the ideas and institutions that have provided unimaginable health, wealth, opportunity, and prosperity. In this I think he is entirely correct. For so many people, prosperity is guilt-inducing. All wealth is ill-gotten gain at the expense of someone else. At present, class-envy is turning into race-envy: all advantages seem to flow from “whiteness” and anybody born with that skin color is being studiously tutored to feel unimaginable guilt for that offense. We’re a people that cannot easily take yes for an answer; we see every blessing to have a corresponding curse; we find a dark lining in every silver cloud. “Yes, but…” is our default response to any cultural progress or advance. “Yes, but it is not enough.” “Yes, but there are still imperfections.” “Yes, everyone’s standard of living has improved; but some people still have more than others!” We are ungrateful people.
We are impatient people. Panicky. Incredibly prone to Chicken Little or Greta Thunberg shouting at us that “The End Is Near!” If we are going to have social change resulting in heaven on earth, we need to move that process along as quickly as we can. So the intellectuals and politicians and pundits stoke a never-ending, 24/7/365 sense of hysteria and impending doom regarding anything near to hand: climate change, COVID-19, or the reelection of Donald Trump. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a bipartisan pastime. I just saw the President re-tweet actor James Woods who declared this:
A tad hyperbolic, perhaps? I mean, if I had a mind I could dig through media content from 2008 and find some pretty similar declarations. I remember that was back when I used to listen to Sean Hannity on the radio, and he assured me—if it was once, it was ten thousand times (in just a single show)—that the election of Barack Obama was literally the end of America.
Twelve years later, we’re still here. And so is Sean Hannity, assuring me that this time—really, really, pinky swear!—America itself is at stake. I don’t begrudge him the ratings, but I find the Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf schtick pretty tiresome. And, please note: I am not arguing for or against reelecting Donald Trump here. I’m arguing for some much-needed perspective.
We are not hopeful about the future. We are frankly terrified of it, particularly in the age of COVID-19. America, by far the most prosperous and powerful (and most benign) empire the world has ever seen, sitting astride the globe, is utterly paralyzed. We are worried. About Russia and China. The virus. The national debt and our economy. Unemployment and poverty. That not enough confused kids get government-subsidized hormone blockers. We are worried about everything.
A Firm Reliance on The Protection of Divine Providence
Our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor with a conviction and attitude attached: “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.” Sure, lots of people think that was just 18th century boilerplate—that’s just how people signed off on world-historical documents back then. But I do not think so. Even a Deist like Benjamin Franklin (who signed that document—the Declaration of Independence) said near the end of his life:
“I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men!”
He even exhorted the Constitutional Convention to seek illumination from God in prayer! No, I think the founders really meant it when they spoke of a firm reliance on God’s providential ordering of things. Whether they were personally Christians or not, they had a Christian-inflected understanding of history. That God is sovereign and has plans and purposes. That our actions and deeds have significance and meaning in light of that overarching counsel of God.
If anyone had anything to say about God’s providence and sovereignty over creation, it would be Protestant Reformer John Calvin. And—just listen to this—here is how he describes the blessings of a deep faith in God’s providence:
Gratitude of mind for the favorable outcome of things, patience in adversity, and also incredible freedom from worry about the future.
That is quite a sentence. Gratitude for the past, patience in the present, and hope for the future. That sounds just like what the doctored ordered for our ungrateful, impatient, and despairing civilization. When we talk about classical liberalism and the ordering of society, the successes and failures of our past, the challenges of the present, and hopes for the future, we are not just talking about psychology or sociology or anthropology or political science. We are also talking about theology. What is the grand story of which we are a part? Is there meaning in what we think, feel, and do? Are we part of a mission, and is that mission something of ultimate value?
God does govern in the affairs of men. Too often we think of providence—actually, I take that back. We barely think of providence at all. But if and when we do, it is usually in times of suffering or calamity. It is primarily a comfort to know that God has purposes even for our suffering, that “all things work for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). But providence is so much more than an explanation of God’s mysterious ways when we bump up against the rough edges of our fallen world. God’s providence, his plans, include us all of the time in all of our endeavors. And it enables us to be grateful for the past, patient in the present, and hopeful for the future.
Karl Marx thought that religion was the “opiate of the masses.” That is, if people think God has it all planned out it dampens their enthusiasm for making the world a better place. It has a first-glance sort of plausibility, but that isn’t actually how it works. The spiritual descendants of Calvin, particularly in Holland and England, suddenly saw all of their earthly endeavors (including law, statecraft, art, and economics) as being part of God’s grand mission in the world; God’s absolute sovereignty didn’t suck the air out of their daily lives, it inflated their daily lives with ultimate meaning and significance. The prince and the scullery maid alike could contribute something of value to the glory of God and the benefit of their neighbors! And you know what? Those “dour” Calvinists—the Dutch Reformed and English Puritans—are in very large part responsible for…
Can you guess?
The classical liberal order that has brought such unprecedented blessing to the world. How we understand history and our place in it makes a great deal of difference, indeed.
Miscellany
My mom took the kids to the zoo yesterday, and they heard a Kookabura sing. It’s really quite something:
Anyway, the reason I found it amusing is that the Kookabura is responsible for the most egregious copyright lawsuit of all time. You see, popular Australian band “Men At Work” wrote a song called “Down Under.” It has a flute part that you’d definitely recognize. Well, twenty-seven years after the song was released, somebody noticed that two of its flute phrases (seriously: two bars) bore a resemblance to a popular 1934 Australian children’s song, “Kookabura Sits in the Old Gum Tree.” Yes, the copyright holder for that children’s song sued for 60 percent of the royalties from that song. That’s… a lot of money. They won, but the judge only gave them 5 percent. The band claims that the similarity never even crossed their mind, and I believe them. I mean, check it out for yourself:
Joe Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate in the Presidential election. My quick view is that Trump’s chances got better as a result, not worse, because he can (well, I’m not sure he really can) practically ignore Biden and run against her. She was a shockingly poor performer in the Democrat primaries, did not come across as likable, and (to me, anyway) exudes the feeling she is someone hungry for power to run my life. For my own good, of course.
I’ll send you off this week with a classic from singer-songwriter David Wilcox. It’s an amateur recording, so be sure to persevere and stick around through his tuning and introductory remarks. It’s a song that could only be written by someone who somehow grasps the ideas in this newsletter: “There is evil cast around us / but it’s love who wrote this play.”