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Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War
Hard choices lie ahead, Christians. The bestselling team of James Robison and Jay Richards show what’s at stake in our post-Christian society, how to prepare, and why we must never forget that the battle, above all, is spiritual.
Our rulers have kicked aside our Constitution and common sense. They have demonized our heroes. Now they’re trying to erase the difference between male and female. All while running up unimaginable and catastrophic debt.
What’s left for Christians in such a society, where dissent invites ruinous retribution? Should they retreat? Fight back? Something else?
God is not finished with us as a nation, but if we’re going to get off the road to ruin, we must do more than slow down and conserve whatever good We must repent. That means a hard, 180-degree turn—and fast.
If we’ll pray, think straight, persuade other lovers of truth to join us, and fight together—wise as serpents and innocent as doves—then there’s still hope.
Our rulers have kicked aside our Constitution and common sense. They have demonized our heroes. Now they’re trying to erase the difference between male and female. All while running up unimaginable and catastrophic debt.
What’s left for Christians in such a society, where dissent invites ruinous retribution? Should they retreat? Fight back? Something else?
God is not finished with us as a nation, but if we’re going to get off the road to ruin, we must do more than slow down and conserve whatever good We must repent. That means a hard, 180-degree turn—and fast.
If we’ll pray, think straight, persuade other lovers of truth to join us, and fight together—wise as serpents and innocent as doves—then there’s still hope.
- GenresChristian
256 pages, Hardcover
Published February 13, 2024
11 people are currently reading
385 people want to read
About the author
Jay W. Richards
27 books64 followersJay W. Richards has served in leadership positions at the Discovery Institute and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
He has written many academic articles, books, and popular essays on a wide variety of subjects, from culture, economics, and public policy, to natural science, technology, and the environment. His previous books include The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, with Guillermo Gonzalez (Washington DC: Regnery Publishers, 2004); The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Immutability and Simplicity (InterVarsity Press, 2003); Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong Artificial Intelligence, as editor and contributor (Discovery Institute Press, May 2002); and Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies, as editor and multiple contributor, with William Dembski (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, February 2001).
Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, May 2009), seeks to explain the market economy to people who don’t like economics, and defend it against its religious critics.
Richards is also executive producer of several documentaries, including The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Birth of Freedom, and The Effective Stewardship Curriculum (Acton Media and Zondervan, 2009). He has been featured in several television-broadcast documentaries, including The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Case for a Creator, The Wonder of Soil, and The Privileged Planet, based on his book with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.
A self-described “shameless generalist,” he has academic specialties in philosophy, theology, and political science, including extensive research in formal logic.
He has a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion, an M.Div. (Master of Divinity) and a Th.M. (Master of Theology), with a thesis on social philosopher Michael Polanyi (from whom F.A. Hayek got his concept of “spontaneous order”). He also has a Ph.D. (with honors) in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. While at Princeton, he helped restart and edit the Princeton Theological Review, and led extracurricular apologetics seminars during his four years there.
His work has been covered (and sometimes harshly criticized) in The New York Times (front page news, science news, and editorial), The Washington Post (news and editorial), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Nature, Science, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, The Scientist, Physics Today, California Wild (California Academy of Science), New Scientist, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Enterprise, Congressional Quarterly Researcher, Human Events, American Spectator, First Things, Science & Spirit, Science & Theology News, Christianity Today, Crisis, National Catholic Register, World, Breakpoint, American Atheist, World Socialist of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and many other academic and popular outlets.
He has been interviewed for stories in print publications not just in the U.S., but also in Germany, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, and the UK.
Jay Richards has lectured at scores of academic conferences as diverse as the Evangelical Theological Society and the Western Economic Association, on scores of college and university campuses, at many public policy meetings, and on several occasions has lectured to members of the U.S. Congress and U.S. congressional staff.
He has written many academic articles, books, and popular essays on a wide variety of subjects, from culture, economics, and public policy, to natural science, technology, and the environment. His previous books include The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, with Guillermo Gonzalez (Washington DC: Regnery Publishers, 2004); The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Immutability and Simplicity (InterVarsity Press, 2003); Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong Artificial Intelligence, as editor and contributor (Discovery Institute Press, May 2002); and Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies, as editor and multiple contributor, with William Dembski (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, February 2001).
Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, May 2009), seeks to explain the market economy to people who don’t like economics, and defend it against its religious critics.
Richards is also executive producer of several documentaries, including The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Birth of Freedom, and The Effective Stewardship Curriculum (Acton Media and Zondervan, 2009). He has been featured in several television-broadcast documentaries, including The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Case for a Creator, The Wonder of Soil, and The Privileged Planet, based on his book with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.
A self-described “shameless generalist,” he has academic specialties in philosophy, theology, and political science, including extensive research in formal logic.
He has a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion, an M.Div. (Master of Divinity) and a Th.M. (Master of Theology), with a thesis on social philosopher Michael Polanyi (from whom F.A. Hayek got his concept of “spontaneous order”). He also has a Ph.D. (with honors) in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. While at Princeton, he helped restart and edit the Princeton Theological Review, and led extracurricular apologetics seminars during his four years there.
His work has been covered (and sometimes harshly criticized) in The New York Times (front page news, science news, and editorial), The Washington Post (news and editorial), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Nature, Science, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, The Scientist, Physics Today, California Wild (California Academy of Science), New Scientist, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Enterprise, Congressional Quarterly Researcher, Human Events, American Spectator, First Things, Science & Spirit, Science & Theology News, Christianity Today, Crisis, National Catholic Register, World, Breakpoint, American Atheist, World Socialist of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and many other academic and popular outlets.
He has been interviewed for stories in print publications not just in the U.S., but also in Germany, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, and the UK.
Jay Richards has lectured at scores of academic conferences as diverse as the Evangelical Theological Society and the Western Economic Association, on scores of college and university campuses, at many public policy meetings, and on several occasions has lectured to members of the U.S. Congress and U.S. congressional staff.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 8, 2024
Richards, Jay W. Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War.
Talking about culture war is dangerous. Such discussions usually degenerate to “Evangelicals are supporting Trump!” Meaning is the first casualty. There are other ways to talk about the culture war, ways including rational discussion and science. Jay Richards, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, provides us with a handy tool to rebut globalist elites.
Richards is able to transcend the current debates over whether Trump is good or bad. Richards calls out elites like Russell Moore and David French. While they make good points concerning Trump’s morality, their message comes across as “Lord, I thank you that I am not like this Trump-voter.”
For or better or worse, however, elites have always been the drivers of culture. It is they who have the resources and overlapping networks.
Reason
We can only fight the good fight if we commit ourselves to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This means those transcendentals must be objective, knowable, and communicable.
Law
In promoting liberty and law, Richards, following the Augustinian tradition, defines liberty as the power to do what you ought to do.
Marriage
Richards observes that “student loan debt is a more solemn covenant than legal marriage” for Americans today. Much of his chapter on marriage echoes earlier jeremiads than warn that with the fall of marriage we will see the fall of civilization. Too true, so there is not much more to add, save the amusing comment that “evolution seems to favor religious families.”
Children
Main idea: children are a natural result of sex, and children function best in families. As one writer said, “A healthy culture requires a healthy marriage culture” (David Popenoe, Disturbing the Nest).
Although Richards correctly notes that small government and the market are the best environments, he critiques libertarians for ignoring the family. The family undergirds the values that “protect individual rights” (Richards).
Education
Main idea: “Education should guide [children] to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.” “It should provide not just knowledge, but wisdom and virtue.”
Now, instead of asking “Is it true?” we now ask, “Does it work?”
Equality
No one applies “equity,” defined as “equal outcomes,” across the board. Doctors do not make the same as cashiers.
Main idea: “the free market ‘nudges’ people to move capital to meet other people’s needs.”
“Labor is a cost of doing business, and wage laws are price controls on labor.” They will always marginalize the poor. One man’s wealth does not make another man poor. Wealth is not a stable “pie” somewhere. It is fluid.
Poverty
Key point: “In almost one hundred biblical passages about the poor, not one of them mentions the government.”
Main idea: “Over time, government welfare tends to do more harm than good because it tears through a web of overlapping jurisdictions of responsibility.”
How is Wealth Created?
Main idea: “Socialism detaches income from performance.”
Key idea: Because developing countries lack property rights, they remain poor, among other reasons. “The right to property channels and orient our actions in wealth-enhancing ways. It changes the way we view ourselves and the world around us.”
“New wealth comes from how we represent, inform, and transform matter–and by minds working together.”
“Free economies discourage miserliness and encourage its near opposite–enterprise.”
Free Enterprise
Main idea: “Economic value is in the eye of the beholder.”
In one of his metaphors, Richards compares prices to information. A socialist planner (or a government bureaucracy) would have to be omniscient, knowing all the desires of all its people. Assuming that such does not work, one must instead use prices as an index for what people will pay for a good. How much they pay suggests how badly they want it–but only at that moment.
Globalism and the threat of Communist China
Main idea: Expanding circles of trade lead to increased standards of living. Buying only local, by contrast, limits access to resources needed for life.
Key idea: “Global trade is about the spread of economic freedom. We made the mistake to think that the free market would erode China’s communism. Rather, China avoided many of the Soviet Union’s mistakes. “Instead of state-owned farms, it built firms”--and these firms invested in Western markets.
Scarcity
Key idea: “The stone age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for a lack of oil.”
Conclusion
Richards has given us a timely survey of the different fronts. He advocates neither retreat nor dominion. For all of its problems, the classical liberal model we have inherited works. Market economies and limited government have lifted people out of poverty. Aside from a few quotes from Thomas Paine, this book is excellent.
Talking about culture war is dangerous. Such discussions usually degenerate to “Evangelicals are supporting Trump!” Meaning is the first casualty. There are other ways to talk about the culture war, ways including rational discussion and science. Jay Richards, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, provides us with a handy tool to rebut globalist elites.
Richards is able to transcend the current debates over whether Trump is good or bad. Richards calls out elites like Russell Moore and David French. While they make good points concerning Trump’s morality, their message comes across as “Lord, I thank you that I am not like this Trump-voter.”
For or better or worse, however, elites have always been the drivers of culture. It is they who have the resources and overlapping networks.
Reason
We can only fight the good fight if we commit ourselves to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This means those transcendentals must be objective, knowable, and communicable.
Law
In promoting liberty and law, Richards, following the Augustinian tradition, defines liberty as the power to do what you ought to do.
Marriage
Richards observes that “student loan debt is a more solemn covenant than legal marriage” for Americans today. Much of his chapter on marriage echoes earlier jeremiads than warn that with the fall of marriage we will see the fall of civilization. Too true, so there is not much more to add, save the amusing comment that “evolution seems to favor religious families.”
Children
Main idea: children are a natural result of sex, and children function best in families. As one writer said, “A healthy culture requires a healthy marriage culture” (David Popenoe, Disturbing the Nest).
Although Richards correctly notes that small government and the market are the best environments, he critiques libertarians for ignoring the family. The family undergirds the values that “protect individual rights” (Richards).
Education
Main idea: “Education should guide [children] to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.” “It should provide not just knowledge, but wisdom and virtue.”
Now, instead of asking “Is it true?” we now ask, “Does it work?”
Equality
No one applies “equity,” defined as “equal outcomes,” across the board. Doctors do not make the same as cashiers.
Main idea: “the free market ‘nudges’ people to move capital to meet other people’s needs.”
“Labor is a cost of doing business, and wage laws are price controls on labor.” They will always marginalize the poor. One man’s wealth does not make another man poor. Wealth is not a stable “pie” somewhere. It is fluid.
Poverty
Key point: “In almost one hundred biblical passages about the poor, not one of them mentions the government.”
Main idea: “Over time, government welfare tends to do more harm than good because it tears through a web of overlapping jurisdictions of responsibility.”
How is Wealth Created?
Main idea: “Socialism detaches income from performance.”
Key idea: Because developing countries lack property rights, they remain poor, among other reasons. “The right to property channels and orient our actions in wealth-enhancing ways. It changes the way we view ourselves and the world around us.”
“New wealth comes from how we represent, inform, and transform matter–and by minds working together.”
“Free economies discourage miserliness and encourage its near opposite–enterprise.”
Free Enterprise
Main idea: “Economic value is in the eye of the beholder.”
In one of his metaphors, Richards compares prices to information. A socialist planner (or a government bureaucracy) would have to be omniscient, knowing all the desires of all its people. Assuming that such does not work, one must instead use prices as an index for what people will pay for a good. How much they pay suggests how badly they want it–but only at that moment.
Globalism and the threat of Communist China
Main idea: Expanding circles of trade lead to increased standards of living. Buying only local, by contrast, limits access to resources needed for life.
Key idea: “Global trade is about the spread of economic freedom. We made the mistake to think that the free market would erode China’s communism. Rather, China avoided many of the Soviet Union’s mistakes. “Instead of state-owned farms, it built firms”--and these firms invested in Western markets.
Scarcity
Key idea: “The stone age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for a lack of oil.”
Conclusion
Richards has given us a timely survey of the different fronts. He advocates neither retreat nor dominion. For all of its problems, the classical liberal model we have inherited works. Market economies and limited government have lifted people out of poverty. Aside from a few quotes from Thomas Paine, this book is excellent.
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