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Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies
The intellectual and political elite of the West is nowadays taking for granted that religion, in particular Christianity, is a cultural vestige, a primitive form of knowledge, a consolation for the poor minded, an obstacle to coexistence. In all influential environments, the widespread watchword is “We are all secular” or “We are all post-religious.” As a consequence, we are told that states must be independent of religious creed, politics must take a neutral stance regarding religious values, and societies must hold together without any reference to religious bonds. Liberalism, which in some form or another is the prevailing view in the West, is considered to be “free-standing,” and the Western, liberal, open society is taken to be “self-sufficient.”
Not only is anti-Christian secularism wrong, it is also risky. It's wrong because the very ideas on which liberal societies are based and in terms of which they can be justified—the concept of the dignity of the human person, the moral priority of the individual, the view that man is a “crooked timber” inclined to prevarication, the limited confidence in the power of the state to render him virtuous—are typical Christian or, more precisely, Judeo-Christian ideas. Take them away and the open society will collapse. Anti-Christian secularism is risky because it jeopardizes the identity of the West, leaves it with no self-conscience, and deprives people of their sense of belonging. The Founding Fathers of America, as well as major intellectual European figures such as Locke, Kant, and Tocqueville, knew how much our civilization depends on Christianity. Today, American and European culture is shaking the pillars of that civilization.
Written from a secular and liberal, but not anti-Christian, point of view, this book explains why the Christian culture is still the best antidote to the crisis and decline of the West. Pera proposes that we should call ourselves Christians if we want to maintain our liberal freedoms, to embark on such projects as the political unification of Europe as well as the special relationship between Europe and America, and to avoid the relativistic trend that affects our public ethics. “The challenges of our particular historical moment”, as Pope Benedict XVI calls them in the Preface to the book, can be faced only if we stress the historical and conceptual link between Christianity and free society.
Not only is anti-Christian secularism wrong, it is also risky. It's wrong because the very ideas on which liberal societies are based and in terms of which they can be justified—the concept of the dignity of the human person, the moral priority of the individual, the view that man is a “crooked timber” inclined to prevarication, the limited confidence in the power of the state to render him virtuous—are typical Christian or, more precisely, Judeo-Christian ideas. Take them away and the open society will collapse. Anti-Christian secularism is risky because it jeopardizes the identity of the West, leaves it with no self-conscience, and deprives people of their sense of belonging. The Founding Fathers of America, as well as major intellectual European figures such as Locke, Kant, and Tocqueville, knew how much our civilization depends on Christianity. Today, American and European culture is shaking the pillars of that civilization.
Written from a secular and liberal, but not anti-Christian, point of view, this book explains why the Christian culture is still the best antidote to the crisis and decline of the West. Pera proposes that we should call ourselves Christians if we want to maintain our liberal freedoms, to embark on such projects as the political unification of Europe as well as the special relationship between Europe and America, and to avoid the relativistic trend that affects our public ethics. “The challenges of our particular historical moment”, as Pope Benedict XVI calls them in the Preface to the book, can be faced only if we stress the historical and conceptual link between Christianity and free society.
220 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 19, 2018
Marcello Pera's short book is dense and closely argued. Decrying the increasing secularization of Europe, his argument serves as a warning to America. If classical liberal ideas, which gave rise to the West and were espoused by America's founding fathers—like the notion that truly free societies are rooted in the soil of religious sentiments—are abandoned in the United States, as they have been in most of Europe, then we can expect to go the way of Europe: toward ever increasing government bureaucracy, ever increasing moral decay, and ever increasing loss of liberty.
September 23, 2025
Un liberal agnóstico que quiere utilizar el cristianismo para sus fines. En algunas partes tiene razón, en otras se ve lo ideológico por encima de lo teológico. por cierto, le endiña a John Stuart Mill cosas que no dijo, ni afirmó, para justificar sus cosas de partido berlusconiano.
August 31, 2014
The author, Italian, is struggling with the current state of Europe: the rise of secularism, the decline of affirmation in the importance or role of Christianity in society, and the penetration of Muslim non-assim-ilating communities in the heart of Europe. What does this mean for Europe, but also for Western Civilization? In the beginning he provides the reader with an excellent introduction to the shaping of modern classical liberal thinking in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Classical liberalism, being different from modern liberalism, in that it favored limited government, and individual rights and liberties.
Unfortunately, the book gets bogged down as the author ties to sort out the path he is going to take and trying to set up in the reader an understanding of the forces at play here. It has slowed down after a first few chapters.
The later part of the book does pick up. However, it is more a discussion and dissection of the failure of modern progressive liberalism to present a coherent political philosophy that can hold modern society together. The collapse of Western Society, having been projected since the later 1930s, it is more of a slow decay, is in part perpetuated by the modern nihilistic philosophies starting from the mid-to-late 19th century. What Pera hints at, though not strongly demonstrating, is that Christendom provided Europe with a rich reservoir ideas, truths, and traditions to slow the decay. However, this reservoir is not being replenished in the modern era. Will Europe balkanize as urban areas are captured by Muslim communities who demand their own courts, laws, schools, etc? Will the EU dismantle sovereign counties, with their unique Western / Christian political and cultural institutions to be replaced by one Ubur Bureaucratic State? Pera does an excellent job presenting the problems facing Europe, much of which is a wound self-inflicted by the vacuous philosophies of relativism and multiculturalism.
The problem with this book is similar to the charge faced by G.K. Chesterton when he wrote his book - Heretics. One critic charged Chesterton - now that you told what is wrong with the world, tell us what is right. I think the same charge can be leveled against Pera. There are multiple books about the problem of modern philosophies and the damage they are doing to politics and society. What we need more of are books on why we should go back to our Christian roots. What ideas, structures, premises found in historic Christendom should we be examining and discussing? How does these ideas distinguish the West from the Rest (To use a title from a book by the British philosopher Roger Scruton.) Surely, Pera would not want a priestly class to rule over the political class. As a Catholic I wouldn't want the pope, Francis or any other, running governments. However, what we need is the admittance of religion and its open discussion in the public square and as force in the market place of ideas. There the various religious theological and philosophical frameworks can be examined along with any other framework - political, social, economic, etc - to be accepted, rejected, or modified. However, when we are told that religious convictions have no place in the public square, that they are purely personal (which is a self-serving barrier on open discussion placed by those opposed to religion)and should be kept personal, that smacks of totalitarianism and fear, though supposedly with a smiling face. Here is the real problem - the attempt to silence religious ideas, specifically Christian ideas as Pera and others in Europe and the US have noted. We must fight to allow these ideas to be expressed openly in society, to challenge the relativistic, materialistic modern framework and allow for Chesterton's romance of Orthodoxy to again become a force in Europe and the West.
Unfortunately, the book gets bogged down as the author ties to sort out the path he is going to take and trying to set up in the reader an understanding of the forces at play here. It has slowed down after a first few chapters.
The later part of the book does pick up. However, it is more a discussion and dissection of the failure of modern progressive liberalism to present a coherent political philosophy that can hold modern society together. The collapse of Western Society, having been projected since the later 1930s, it is more of a slow decay, is in part perpetuated by the modern nihilistic philosophies starting from the mid-to-late 19th century. What Pera hints at, though not strongly demonstrating, is that Christendom provided Europe with a rich reservoir ideas, truths, and traditions to slow the decay. However, this reservoir is not being replenished in the modern era. Will Europe balkanize as urban areas are captured by Muslim communities who demand their own courts, laws, schools, etc? Will the EU dismantle sovereign counties, with their unique Western / Christian political and cultural institutions to be replaced by one Ubur Bureaucratic State? Pera does an excellent job presenting the problems facing Europe, much of which is a wound self-inflicted by the vacuous philosophies of relativism and multiculturalism.
The problem with this book is similar to the charge faced by G.K. Chesterton when he wrote his book - Heretics. One critic charged Chesterton - now that you told what is wrong with the world, tell us what is right. I think the same charge can be leveled against Pera. There are multiple books about the problem of modern philosophies and the damage they are doing to politics and society. What we need more of are books on why we should go back to our Christian roots. What ideas, structures, premises found in historic Christendom should we be examining and discussing? How does these ideas distinguish the West from the Rest (To use a title from a book by the British philosopher Roger Scruton.) Surely, Pera would not want a priestly class to rule over the political class. As a Catholic I wouldn't want the pope, Francis or any other, running governments. However, what we need is the admittance of religion and its open discussion in the public square and as force in the market place of ideas. There the various religious theological and philosophical frameworks can be examined along with any other framework - political, social, economic, etc - to be accepted, rejected, or modified. However, when we are told that religious convictions have no place in the public square, that they are purely personal (which is a self-serving barrier on open discussion placed by those opposed to religion)and should be kept personal, that smacks of totalitarianism and fear, though supposedly with a smiling face. Here is the real problem - the attempt to silence religious ideas, specifically Christian ideas as Pera and others in Europe and the US have noted. We must fight to allow these ideas to be expressed openly in society, to challenge the relativistic, materialistic modern framework and allow for Chesterton's romance of Orthodoxy to again become a force in Europe and the West.
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April 2, 2012Recommended to us by Dr. Mary Poplin...just began to read. Fascinating.
July 16, 2012
An Italian "liberal" (which means "conservative" in American English) praising the US for keeping God (and "Christianity") in our government. What.
January 2, 2014
Poor logic on behalf of the author made this book philosophically irrelevant.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews