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Liberty, the God That Failed: Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama
What has gone wrong with the grand American experiment in "ordered liberty"? The progressive answer is that America has failed to live up to its full promise of inclusiveness and equality--likely the result of corporate greed and white male ruling elites. The mainstream conservative or libertarian's reply points to the Warren Court, the 1960's, or a loss of Constitutional rectitude. Christopher Ferrara, in Liberty, the God That Failed, offers an entirely different answer. In a counter-narrative of unique power and scope, he unmasks the order promised as a sham; the liberty guaranteed, a chimera. In his telling, the false god of a new political order--Liberty--was born in thought long before America's founding, and gained increasing devotion as it slowly amassed power during the first century of the nation's existence. Today it reveals its full might, as we bear the weight of its oppressive decrees, and experience the emptiness of the secular order it imposes upon us.
Ferrara destroys multiple myths constructed by the secular state with a relentless uncovering of truths hidden by both liberal and conservative/libertarian accounts of what has gone wrong. In this brilliant retelling of American history and political life, the author asks us to open our eyes to harsh realities, but also to the possibilities for a rightly ordered society and the true liberty that can still be ours.
Ferrara destroys multiple myths constructed by the secular state with a relentless uncovering of truths hidden by both liberal and conservative/libertarian accounts of what has gone wrong. In this brilliant retelling of American history and political life, the author asks us to open our eyes to harsh realities, but also to the possibilities for a rightly ordered society and the true liberty that can still be ours.
699 pages, Paperback
First published June 5, 2012
12 people are currently reading
267 people want to read
About the author
Christopher A. Ferrara
15 books33 followersA Roman Catholic attorney, pro-life activist, and journalist. He is the founder and current president of the American Catholic Lawyers Association. He is also a regular columnist of The Remnant, a traditionalist Catholic newspaper.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 9, 2015
This is a must-read for both policy wonks and the non-political curious about where the nation is heading and what place a Catholic ought to expect to have in it. Ferrara begins with a brief but easy to understand explanation of the philosophy behind the American Founding and then launches into a fascinating revisionist history of the United States' early days through the Civil War.
Before reading 'Liberty' I'd never really grasped all that was lost in replacing the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition of government with the new Lockean, American ideal. While I can sympathize with revolutionaries groaning under memories of persecution by absolutist, heretical monarchs, the thing they wrought ended up being much worse than the most egregious king or parliament. Instead of having God's law (as understood through Scripture & Tradition, not some individualistic heretical point of view) as the ultimate check on earthly power, we have a system where law is based on majority rule.
Chris Ferrara deftly explains how 'conservative' and 'progressive' narratives of how to view the Constitution, law, and the common good are flawed results of liberalism. Furthermore he explains 'strict contructionism' or 'constitutional originalism' cannot be an effective check on the ever growing American State. He also dismantles the libertarian myth of the Founders to reveal men all to happy to exercise unchecked power once they ceased to be revolutionaries and took office.
While he is extremely critical of the American Founders, don't write Ferrara off as a monarchist dreamer. He dares to say that monarchy is as viable an option as democracy to govern us moderns, but points out how a republic might design a rightly-ordered constitution. Catholics in particular should note that our nation's liberal ideals of religious freedom are not meant for us, whose faith is rooted in a consistent tradition dating from the days Christ walked the earth. As stated by Locke and the Founders, liberalism is designed to create a new religion of state secularism. There is no neutrality.
America may be a nation primarily composed of Christians but the book makes clear we were in no way founded as a Christian nation.
Before reading 'Liberty' I'd never really grasped all that was lost in replacing the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition of government with the new Lockean, American ideal. While I can sympathize with revolutionaries groaning under memories of persecution by absolutist, heretical monarchs, the thing they wrought ended up being much worse than the most egregious king or parliament. Instead of having God's law (as understood through Scripture & Tradition, not some individualistic heretical point of view) as the ultimate check on earthly power, we have a system where law is based on majority rule.
Chris Ferrara deftly explains how 'conservative' and 'progressive' narratives of how to view the Constitution, law, and the common good are flawed results of liberalism. Furthermore he explains 'strict contructionism' or 'constitutional originalism' cannot be an effective check on the ever growing American State. He also dismantles the libertarian myth of the Founders to reveal men all to happy to exercise unchecked power once they ceased to be revolutionaries and took office.
While he is extremely critical of the American Founders, don't write Ferrara off as a monarchist dreamer. He dares to say that monarchy is as viable an option as democracy to govern us moderns, but points out how a republic might design a rightly-ordered constitution. Catholics in particular should note that our nation's liberal ideals of religious freedom are not meant for us, whose faith is rooted in a consistent tradition dating from the days Christ walked the earth. As stated by Locke and the Founders, liberalism is designed to create a new religion of state secularism. There is no neutrality.
America may be a nation primarily composed of Christians but the book makes clear we were in no way founded as a Christian nation.
June 20, 2014
Liberty: The God That Failed is an imposing tome, clocking in at over 600 pages of small-print, heavily footnoted text. Christopher Ferrara had a great deal to say, and spared no effort in saying it – although he promises to find material for a sequel! Unfortunately, because of its density, it took me quite a number of months to read my review copy all the way through. I certainly won’t be having much impact on initial sales! Nevertheless, I agreed to write a review, so I have written a review.
At the center of Liberty is a compelling dissection of certain internal contradictions in the political philosophy of John Locke and the English Enlightenment, which Ferrara examines through the lens of American history – a history marked (or, in Ferrara’s telling, defined) by those shortcomings. The greatest of the “Hobbeslockean” errors Ferrara recounts are (first) the belief in majority rule, for which Locke sets forth an argument that is incoherent in several respects, and (second) the belief in religious toleration, which leads inevitably to the evisceration of all religious dogma and the final replacement of public morality with mob sentimentality. These two political dogmas are the basis of the “liberty” which has always been at the heart of the American project. As a result, Ferrara hates America nearly as much as he hates John Locke.
“Hate” is a strong word, yet it is quite adequate here. Ferrara does not seem to be out to win converts. The number of people who might conceivably be persuaded by this study is already fairly small: anyone who comes into this book without a fairly solid understanding of – and sympathy for – the government of pre-Enlightenment Christendom (already very rare in a West dominated by the Black Legend of the English Reformation) will come away impressed that Ferrara wants to put the pope on the throne, burn the heretics, and replace Ben Bernanke with Johann Tetzel. Frankly, this is not all that far from the truth, and Ferrara makes no particular pretense of trying to persuade anyone who isn’t already a faithful Catholic with certain natural sympathies toward the ancien regime. Nevertheless, there was an opportunity here: much of the “Ron Paul Republican” camp is made up of hardnosed Catholic social conservatives who think Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty” and its successors hold great promise for the future prosperity of the United States under God. (I count myself among that number.) A critique of Liberty from Christian conservative premises is sorely needed, even if only to expose and ultimately shore up weaknesses in the Christian libertarian viewpoint. In the right hands, with the right tone, persuasion was possible.
Yet Ferrara spares no effort alienating even this narrow audience. Much of the study is not particularly connected to its anti-Lockean premise, but to exposing and itemizing every hypocrisy the author can discover about the pantheon of American heroes, from Washington to Madison to Lincoln and back. (About 200 pages could have been cut without impact.) The rest of the prose drips with unconcealed contempt and caustic sarcasm. Ferrara has no kind word for the Constitution, for the Founding Fathers, for any part of our system of government, for our history, for any of our heroes, or anything whatsoever about the American nation. Any American reader even slightly tainted by patriotic virtue – even the magnanimous, un-ideological patriotism of Chesterton’s Adam Wayne – will find Liberty: The God that Failed alternately depressing and infuriating, and is unlikely to feel warmly toward Mr. Ferrara after finishing. On the off chance that you still do, Mr. Ferrara will take care of it with a few snide comments about American Catholicism’s beloved Fr. Neuhaus (who is, in the author’s mind, an accessory to the Americanist heresy), ensuring once and for all that the only people who will enjoy this work are the handful of sedevacantist and ultra-trad monarchists who wanted a polemic to make them feel affirmed.
However, despite the author’s best efforts to give us an excuse to ignore his arguments, his arguments are still in there, between the digs and digressions, and they have merit. Conservatives have spent so long defending the rule of law (and therefore the text of the Constitution) against the imprecations of anti-Catholic, anti-human progressives who would prefer rule by dictat that we have failed to scrutinize the Constitution ourselves – and conveniently failed to notice the radical elements of the political philosophy there enshrined that have given rise to modern progressivism. It is incontrovertible that a strong strain of Founding thought not only resisted established religion, but actively worked to have recognizably dogmatic (Christian) religion annihilated from the public square, as it largely has been today; not only lacked conservatives’ loyalty to the rule of law, but in fact led a bloody rebellion against the rule of law, using heavy taxes as a thin justification to rally the people behind their abstract cause of self-governing Liberty – then turned around and imposed vastly higher taxes, which the Founders demanded the People pay in the name of Liberty.
For his part, Locke’s confused argument for individual “self-determination” that somehow co-exists with an absolute dictatorship of majority rule (both authorities he more or less pulls out of thin air) undoubtedly contributed greatly to the confusion out of which the Civil War erupted. Locke’s contradictions on this point continue to cloud questions of great consequence even today, such as President Obama’s “individual mandate,” which (originally) required all citizens to purchase medical insurance under penalty of law. And Locke’s intolerant version of religious tolerance – in which all religions are subjects to the sovereign and can be coerced if their beliefs become “dangerous” – has led us directly into the maw of the modern progressive’s assault on conscience protections in every theater of Western life. Ferrara does his reader a service by exposing these constitutional shortcomings, and there is nothing unreasonable in his demand that they be redressed; indeed, much in Catholic political theory suggests that some constitutional reform is vital. Mr. Ferrara strongly favors the general approach of the National Reform Association. For my part, I am unpersuaded that the U.S.A. needs to become a confessional state in order to fix natural law (rather than our self-contradicting majoritarian individualism) as the cornerstone of our political order.
Ferrara is a lawyer, not (at least by profession) a philosopher or a historian, but he clearly has chops in both fields. He puts both to good use, at any rate. My area of particular (if amateur) historical interest is the Secession Crisis and the Civil War (particularly the constitutional law of the period), and, throughout the hundred-fifty-odd pages devoted to the War and its surrounds, I was generally familiar with many of the sources he drew on. Rarely did he mislead the reader with an unfairly edited quotation; never (that I noticed) did he mis-state a matter of fact. Indeed, Ferrara offers a valuable (if not particularly relevant) service in his long and devastating critique of the antebellum South, the slave power generally, and secession specifically – which was plainly an act of immoral, illiberal, and illegal rebellion, under both Church teaching and the Constitution, and yet is often defended by libertarians today.
Surprisingly (given his credentials), his grasp on the American legal and political system is not so strong. In one memorable passage near the end of the book, Ferrara calls upon the Catholic members of the Supreme Court to rule against abortion rights, and to justify this not merely on the basis that unborn humans are persons protected by the 14th Amendment, but on the explicit basis of Catholic teaching on the natural law and morality. He asks: “What Senator would dare impeach any of the justices” for proclaiming a Christian religion the majority of the population still retains? I answer: between 60 and 90 of them – as he must realize, if he has even a passing familiarity with the current makeup of the Senate. The American electorate is (nominally) Christian, but polling is unambiguous: they do not believe Christian thought should serve as the basis of law in this country or any other. They may be mistaken about this, but to simply deny they believe it, as Ferrara does, is absurd.
The ideas in Liberty: The God That Failed are worth accessing and engaging. For a Ron Paul Republican like me, it is not necessary to agree with Ferrara’s conclusions to be helped by them. My outlook on American politics has certainly been affected by this book, because it forced me to examine some of my hitherto unchallenged premises. Even when I did not abandon those premises, I was helped, because Liberty forced me to develop stronger arguments for them. Unfortunately, the book is hampered by its unnecessary length and its profound disdain for its subject matter. Liberty would (and will) make a great resource for Catholic monarchists trying to develop arguments for their critiques of liberal governance – in other words, the choir to which Mr. Ferrara is emphatically preaching – but I do not plan to recommend it to anyone who does not already agree with its conclusions. 3/5 stars
At the center of Liberty is a compelling dissection of certain internal contradictions in the political philosophy of John Locke and the English Enlightenment, which Ferrara examines through the lens of American history – a history marked (or, in Ferrara’s telling, defined) by those shortcomings. The greatest of the “Hobbeslockean” errors Ferrara recounts are (first) the belief in majority rule, for which Locke sets forth an argument that is incoherent in several respects, and (second) the belief in religious toleration, which leads inevitably to the evisceration of all religious dogma and the final replacement of public morality with mob sentimentality. These two political dogmas are the basis of the “liberty” which has always been at the heart of the American project. As a result, Ferrara hates America nearly as much as he hates John Locke.
“Hate” is a strong word, yet it is quite adequate here. Ferrara does not seem to be out to win converts. The number of people who might conceivably be persuaded by this study is already fairly small: anyone who comes into this book without a fairly solid understanding of – and sympathy for – the government of pre-Enlightenment Christendom (already very rare in a West dominated by the Black Legend of the English Reformation) will come away impressed that Ferrara wants to put the pope on the throne, burn the heretics, and replace Ben Bernanke with Johann Tetzel. Frankly, this is not all that far from the truth, and Ferrara makes no particular pretense of trying to persuade anyone who isn’t already a faithful Catholic with certain natural sympathies toward the ancien regime. Nevertheless, there was an opportunity here: much of the “Ron Paul Republican” camp is made up of hardnosed Catholic social conservatives who think Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty” and its successors hold great promise for the future prosperity of the United States under God. (I count myself among that number.) A critique of Liberty from Christian conservative premises is sorely needed, even if only to expose and ultimately shore up weaknesses in the Christian libertarian viewpoint. In the right hands, with the right tone, persuasion was possible.
Yet Ferrara spares no effort alienating even this narrow audience. Much of the study is not particularly connected to its anti-Lockean premise, but to exposing and itemizing every hypocrisy the author can discover about the pantheon of American heroes, from Washington to Madison to Lincoln and back. (About 200 pages could have been cut without impact.) The rest of the prose drips with unconcealed contempt and caustic sarcasm. Ferrara has no kind word for the Constitution, for the Founding Fathers, for any part of our system of government, for our history, for any of our heroes, or anything whatsoever about the American nation. Any American reader even slightly tainted by patriotic virtue – even the magnanimous, un-ideological patriotism of Chesterton’s Adam Wayne – will find Liberty: The God that Failed alternately depressing and infuriating, and is unlikely to feel warmly toward Mr. Ferrara after finishing. On the off chance that you still do, Mr. Ferrara will take care of it with a few snide comments about American Catholicism’s beloved Fr. Neuhaus (who is, in the author’s mind, an accessory to the Americanist heresy), ensuring once and for all that the only people who will enjoy this work are the handful of sedevacantist and ultra-trad monarchists who wanted a polemic to make them feel affirmed.
However, despite the author’s best efforts to give us an excuse to ignore his arguments, his arguments are still in there, between the digs and digressions, and they have merit. Conservatives have spent so long defending the rule of law (and therefore the text of the Constitution) against the imprecations of anti-Catholic, anti-human progressives who would prefer rule by dictat that we have failed to scrutinize the Constitution ourselves – and conveniently failed to notice the radical elements of the political philosophy there enshrined that have given rise to modern progressivism. It is incontrovertible that a strong strain of Founding thought not only resisted established religion, but actively worked to have recognizably dogmatic (Christian) religion annihilated from the public square, as it largely has been today; not only lacked conservatives’ loyalty to the rule of law, but in fact led a bloody rebellion against the rule of law, using heavy taxes as a thin justification to rally the people behind their abstract cause of self-governing Liberty – then turned around and imposed vastly higher taxes, which the Founders demanded the People pay in the name of Liberty.
For his part, Locke’s confused argument for individual “self-determination” that somehow co-exists with an absolute dictatorship of majority rule (both authorities he more or less pulls out of thin air) undoubtedly contributed greatly to the confusion out of which the Civil War erupted. Locke’s contradictions on this point continue to cloud questions of great consequence even today, such as President Obama’s “individual mandate,” which (originally) required all citizens to purchase medical insurance under penalty of law. And Locke’s intolerant version of religious tolerance – in which all religions are subjects to the sovereign and can be coerced if their beliefs become “dangerous” – has led us directly into the maw of the modern progressive’s assault on conscience protections in every theater of Western life. Ferrara does his reader a service by exposing these constitutional shortcomings, and there is nothing unreasonable in his demand that they be redressed; indeed, much in Catholic political theory suggests that some constitutional reform is vital. Mr. Ferrara strongly favors the general approach of the National Reform Association. For my part, I am unpersuaded that the U.S.A. needs to become a confessional state in order to fix natural law (rather than our self-contradicting majoritarian individualism) as the cornerstone of our political order.
Ferrara is a lawyer, not (at least by profession) a philosopher or a historian, but he clearly has chops in both fields. He puts both to good use, at any rate. My area of particular (if amateur) historical interest is the Secession Crisis and the Civil War (particularly the constitutional law of the period), and, throughout the hundred-fifty-odd pages devoted to the War and its surrounds, I was generally familiar with many of the sources he drew on. Rarely did he mislead the reader with an unfairly edited quotation; never (that I noticed) did he mis-state a matter of fact. Indeed, Ferrara offers a valuable (if not particularly relevant) service in his long and devastating critique of the antebellum South, the slave power generally, and secession specifically – which was plainly an act of immoral, illiberal, and illegal rebellion, under both Church teaching and the Constitution, and yet is often defended by libertarians today.
Surprisingly (given his credentials), his grasp on the American legal and political system is not so strong. In one memorable passage near the end of the book, Ferrara calls upon the Catholic members of the Supreme Court to rule against abortion rights, and to justify this not merely on the basis that unborn humans are persons protected by the 14th Amendment, but on the explicit basis of Catholic teaching on the natural law and morality. He asks: “What Senator would dare impeach any of the justices” for proclaiming a Christian religion the majority of the population still retains? I answer: between 60 and 90 of them – as he must realize, if he has even a passing familiarity with the current makeup of the Senate. The American electorate is (nominally) Christian, but polling is unambiguous: they do not believe Christian thought should serve as the basis of law in this country or any other. They may be mistaken about this, but to simply deny they believe it, as Ferrara does, is absurd.
The ideas in Liberty: The God That Failed are worth accessing and engaging. For a Ron Paul Republican like me, it is not necessary to agree with Ferrara’s conclusions to be helped by them. My outlook on American politics has certainly been affected by this book, because it forced me to examine some of my hitherto unchallenged premises. Even when I did not abandon those premises, I was helped, because Liberty forced me to develop stronger arguments for them. Unfortunately, the book is hampered by its unnecessary length and its profound disdain for its subject matter. Liberty would (and will) make a great resource for Catholic monarchists trying to develop arguments for their critiques of liberal governance – in other words, the choir to which Mr. Ferrara is emphatically preaching – but I do not plan to recommend it to anyone who does not already agree with its conclusions. 3/5 stars
March 21, 2018
This book is an outstanding expose of the myth of the modern secular state being a bastion of freedom. From the beginning, the establishment of the U.S. with its cries of liberty (a catch phrase for power) and its spread throughout the western world has led to the decline of true freedom, which can only come from God and obedience to his laws.
Tracing the errant philosophical foundations of modern political theory coming from Hobbes and Locke, their rejection of the Church and valid Greco-Catholic metaphysical principles, through the tumultuous history of the United States, this book demonstrates the sand that the modern secular state is built on.
The only thing that can reverse the death spiral our culture is currently on, is a return to God, his Church, and the old order.
I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Tracing the errant philosophical foundations of modern political theory coming from Hobbes and Locke, their rejection of the Church and valid Greco-Catholic metaphysical principles, through the tumultuous history of the United States, this book demonstrates the sand that the modern secular state is built on.
The only thing that can reverse the death spiral our culture is currently on, is a return to God, his Church, and the old order.
I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
July 15, 2025
Liberty: The God That Failed is a powerful and deeply insightful critique of modern political liberalism and its spiritual consequences. Christopher Ferrara masterfully connects the dots between the philosophical errors of liberalism and the practical breakdown of society and morality we witness today. This book is not just a political analysis, it is a profound call to recognize the root causes of our cultural crisis, which lie in a rejection of God and natural law.
What I appreciated most is Ferrara’s clear and uncompromising voice, backed by solid scholarship and a firm grounding in Catholic teaching. He exposes how the idolization of “liberty” divorced from truth has led to social chaos, legalism, and moral decay. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the modern world is in such turmoil and what the true remedy might be.
If you are looking for a book that challenges the dominant narratives and offers a thorough, faith-based perspective on political and cultural issues, this is it. Ferrara’s work encourages not only reflection but action rooted in conversion and fidelity to divine truth.
Highly recommended.
What I appreciated most is Ferrara’s clear and uncompromising voice, backed by solid scholarship and a firm grounding in Catholic teaching. He exposes how the idolization of “liberty” divorced from truth has led to social chaos, legalism, and moral decay. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the modern world is in such turmoil and what the true remedy might be.
If you are looking for a book that challenges the dominant narratives and offers a thorough, faith-based perspective on political and cultural issues, this is it. Ferrara’s work encourages not only reflection but action rooted in conversion and fidelity to divine truth.
Highly recommended.
January 19, 2014
This book will open your eyes to the founding of our country. It will also challenge your conception of our freedoms and why this country is in the place it is these days.
I challenge any thinking Christian of any stripe to read this book.
The second and third reading are even better.
I challenge any thinking Christian of any stripe to read this book.
The second and third reading are even better.
January 7, 2020
You don't have to be a Catholic to appreciate this devastating critique of Classical Liberalism.
November 28, 2014
Outstanding work.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews