Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

by R.R. Reno

America’s two greatest strengths—her liberal democratic culture and her free-market economy—have made her a global superpower. But left unchecked, these two strengths can become great cultural weaknesses, sowing selfishness, recklessness, and apathy. In Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society , theologian R. R. Reno argues that America needs a renewal of Christian ideals—ideals that encourage self-sacrifice, responsibility, and solidarity. Drawing on T.S. Eliot’s 1940 essay “The Idea of a Christian Society,” Reno shows how Christianity encourages “an abiding ambition for higher things” and a “moral vision” that can strengthen communities and transform America into a truly great nation.

Genres: Christianity, Cultural, Theology, Religion, Christian, Nonfiction, Philosophy

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2016

About the author

Russell Ronald Reno III is the editor of First Things magazine. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University.

A theological and political conservative, Reno was baptized into the Episcopal Church as an infant and grew up as a member of the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore, Maryland. As an adult he was an active participant in the Episcopal Church, serving as Senior Warden of the Church of the Resurrection in Omaha, Nebraska from 1991–1995, as deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1993, 1996, and 1999, and as a member of the Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops from 2001-2003. On September 18, 2004, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good chapter on the ways moral non-judgementalism undermines the working class and reinforces the power of the educated elites is the best part of Reno's book, but it's a strong essay within a weaker supporting argument. Reno's prescription lacks specificity. He does have a good conclusion, reminding Christians not to accept the premises of the ruling secular consensus, fading into a position akin to dhimmitude.

I would give 3.5 stars if possible.

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given the bombastic and melodramatic hotness of the past several months, a book promoting the resurgence of a Christian Society in the United States might well be taken as simply the dying gasps of a glum devotee. Yet R.R. Reno, editor of First Things magazine, past professor at Creighton University, and accomplished author, boldly jumps through the flames to present his 215 page hardback, “Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society”. It is a volume written to stimulate stability, arouse civility, and awaken creativity. The title of the book is a tipping-of-the-hat to T.S. Eliot’s “The Idea of a Christian Society” penned in the 1930’s as World War II and Nazism were looming large on the horizon. Reno’s reworking of Eliot’s theme, though, is written in a different era, with contemporary concerns.

The author’s unease is that when “a culture of freedom becomes a cult of freedom, injustice, suffering, and social dysfunction get explained away as “choices”” (4). Further, that those who normally put themselves forward as socially progressive are actually “waging a war on the weak” through unimpeded choice, self-definition, and deregulation of cultural mores (5). Additionally, the pursuing of these liberation projects – consistent as they may be with the American dream – are also consistent “with a powerful, coercive government” (30) because moral deregulation “serves only the interests of the powerful” (85). Similarly, if “government can define marriage and parenthood as it sees fit, the personal is the political, which is one of the definitions of tyranny” (129). The author works this all out in well-reasoned detail through seven chapters.

On the other hand, Reno espouses the logic of faith, which “runs counter to the cult of freedom” (5). The author does not promote a resuscitation of some Nouveau Christendom to be shoved down unwilling throats. Instead, the bulk of the manuscript seeks to reclaim the importance of our “speaking up in the public square as Christians” (6). For the way forward, the way to renew our society is “by restoring our voices as Christian citizens” (7), which he fills out in the following seven chapters. As he does so, he is careful to give sober and sane reminders that salvage the reader from falling into fanatical idealism, or disenchantment: “We are called to do what we are able, not to succeed” (8); “Christians are called not to win debates and elections but to build a civilization of love – never an easy task, certainly not today” (184).

“Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society” has some surprising twists. Reno takes several of his directions from Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel, as “one of the most important Christian movements of the twentieth century” (66). Also, the author regularly turns the statistical and ideological table on those who are clamoring for moral deregulation and nonjudgmentalism as the way to empower the people; “It’s hard to imagine a moral system more conducive to elite domination over ordinary people than nonjudgmentalism, which leaves poor people literally demoralized. Increasingly dysfunctional, the poor and near-poor can’t form communities and social institutions capable of representing their interests, making it easier for [the elites] to dominate…politically, culturally and morally” (85).

In the end “Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society” is a book for Christians of every clique and coterie. It is a book needed by those who are passionate about social justice. And for those alarmed by the secularizing decrees that have become systematized and standardized. It is a book that clarifies the importance of liberty, limited government, resilient morality and renewed faith. “The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith’s indomitable resolve” (138). I highly recommend the book!

[Charles Haywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Already before I began writing this review, I was worn out reading books with a similar theme, that of Christian renewal, including Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option” and Charles Chaput’s “Strangers in a Strange Land.” I was already going to retire and turn to reading biographies for a while. It is not, of course, Reno’s fault that this is the final book I read in the chain. I have tried to ensure that my being worn out does not color my perception of the book. Nonetheless, I was disappointed in this book. While what it says has value, and Reno’s heart is in the right place, his book is largely derivative and superficial, and it omits, for all practical purposes, any real plan for achieving the goal of its title.

Or perhaps not, for that stated goal is pretty limited. This book, after all, is not called “Resurrecting the Christian Society.” It is titled “Resurrecting THE IDEA OF a Christian Society.” This is a much more limited goal—but a much less worthwhile one. While this goal is certainly not ignoble, it is not adequate. For the idea actually is perfectly alive. As with most ideas, there is no reason the idea of a Christian society cannot live forever—at least in dusty libraries or the minds of antiquarians. I am sure this is not what Reno has in mind, but this focus on ideas, rather than action, is a conceptual block that pervades the book (and most books of its kind). As Richard Weaver said, ideas have consequences, true, but there is no mechanism by which ideas necessarily lead to consequences. Every idea needs someone, or some tight, focused group, to form those ideas into those consequences, to breathe dynamic life into the dry bones of a mere idea. So, perhaps, Reno succeeds in the goal of resurrecting an idea—but that goal, of itself, is of very limited value.

We will get to my prescription for a cure. First, the book itself. Reno’s writing is clear, precise, and to the point. It’s not flashy (in fact, it’s borderline dull). He sets his framework by summarizing T.S. Eliot’s book, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” written in 1939 (from which his own title comes, obviously, but I do not think Reno makes the parallels that would have made the borrowing a good idea). Reno notes that Eliot “took a formal approach, trying to outline the social structures necessary for Christianity to provide a foundational reference.” Eliot focused on education, community and internal individual renewal. By “formal,” Reno really means “abstract,” in contrast to his own “more concrete approach, tailored to the unique circumstances of twenty-first-century America.” As we’ll see, though, Reno’s approach is just as abstract, if not more so.

Leaving Eliot totally behind (he is not mentioned after page four, which as I say makes the title choice of this book less than inspired), Reno outlines his primary goal and the means to achieve it. That goal is “the need to restore genuine freedom,” by which he means not the unlimited, ever-expanding freedom that is part of “liberal democracy,” or more generally of the Enlightenment project as it has developed in the modern era, but the ordered freedom that all pre-Enlightenment thinkers regarded as essential to full humanity. (One could argue that there is a middle ground, such as Yuval Levin’s mid-20th Century “expressive individualism”—but Reno does not seem to admit much middle ground here.) Accompanying real freedom, the prime goal, is the related goal to restore “natural goods that one finds in many cultures”—namely, “solidarity, limited government, and a sense of the transcendent.”

How is ordered freedom to be restored? By “speaking up in the public square as Christians.” And to do this we should not “sell the public potency of Christianity short.” Reno believes that “a relatively small number of Christians can inspire and reinvigorate the public imaginations of the disoriented majority.” Why Reno thinks this can be done is not clear—it seems to me that a small number of Christians has been very vocal for decades, and very ignored by the culture at large. What is more, “disoriented” is a weak euphemism for what is actually somewhere between a fundamental conflict of visions and a combat with outright evil. And, finally, this is a weak Christian brew. Ordered freedom is a concept that originated long before Christianity, and Reno himself notes that many of the “natural goods” he aims to achieve can be found in “many cultures,” by which he explicitly includes non-Christian ones. Therefore, why speaking up “as Christians” is necessary to restore ordered freedom is not clear. We could easily, in theory, obtain a non-Christian society with ordered freedom, that would nonetheless, like the Classical world, be very unpleasant because it lacked the Christian elements we treat as essential to any society, but are not in fact essential, or present, in many societies throughout history and today.

In any case, Reno correctly begins by reviewing the American view of freedom, or, rather, “our metaphysical dream of freedom”—that is, false freedom. It is false, of course, because true freedom, ultimately, requires that we serve something other than, and greater than, ourselves. Put succinctly, in all classical philosophical thought, prior to the Enlightenment, virtue, and liberty, is the opposite of “living as one likes.” But “living as one likes” is the crux of the American dream. If no man’s destiny is fixed at birth, why, ultimately, should any aspect of any person be fixed or limited? If there is no metaphysical content to nature, why cannot nature simply be overruled in any given case? What is nature but a set of irrational, or non-rational, restrictions? And, as many others have pointed out, this worship of false freedom necessarily leads to denial of objective morality and increasing power being given to the government, both to fill the gap as mediating institutions that limit people’s autonomy decay or are destroyed, and in order to suppress any person, institution, or custom that dares suggest that unfettered freedom should be limited in any way—tyranny in the service of freedom. “We must deploy the coercive power of government to promote freedom; we must limit freedom for the sake of freedom.” Reno is very clear that “These liberation projects are consistent with the American dream.” Not the stereotypical dream of economic gain, but of freedom. And where we are should not be a surprise. “Unchecked by loyalty to God, nature, and custom, the American dream of freedom cannot help but become militant.” Authority, that necessary touchstone of a well-ordered society for all philosophers prior to the modern era, in America, has always lived on borrowed time, and that time has run out.

Having set his framework, the next five chapters, the bulk of the book, cover specific areas in which Reno sees that work can and must be done to resurrect the idea of a Christian society (although, again, the focus is not so much on Christianity, but on a society better than the one we have now, which is not the same thing). Reno begins, in “Defend The Weak,” by pointing why harm results from unfettered freedom as a philosophical matter, as well as a matter of human nature, and for empirical proof he relies heavily on Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart.” Reno’s basic point is that large segments of our society have fallen into the gutter, economically and spiritually, and are staying there, face down (although he certainly doesn’t use that metaphor). A major cause of this fall is the decay of any standards, which used to both guide and give meaning to those who live in the less wealthy, less secure, less comfortable zones of society. But our ruling classes, those who live on the comfortable side of society (Murray’s fictional, statistical town of “Belmont”), hold up “nonjudgmentalism” as a high moral good. The focus is on each person’s freedom, meaning he must have free choice in all matters, except to limit the freedom of another, and that implies that no other person’s choices can be limited, insofar as they are moral choices. Thus, by our elites, smoking can be discouraged, because of its health effects and because it has no moral component, but having children out of wedlock cannot, since no moral choice can be discouraged, regardless of its demonstrated bad consequences. As Murray enumerates in great detail, this works out pretty well for Belmont, and disastrously for everyone else.

Nonjudgmentalism, of course, is another form of denial of any kind of universal, or even local, authority. It is everywhere, not just in structures of social control, but even in required verbal imprecision where precision may imply judgment, as in “illegitimate child.” And the effect of this freedom, this abandoning of authority, is to harm the weak, the socially marginalized and bewildered, who in fact need, and have always needed, the true freedom brought by clear rules, based on human nature and reflecting reality. Liquid modernity is only good for those who can take advantage of it.

The next chapter, “Raise Up The Poor,” reinforces this point, or more accurately repeats it without adding much. While he is careful not to “discount the hardship of material poverty,” Reno expands the “preferential option for the poor” to include ending nonjudgmentalism—we should “restore a public culture of moral and social discipline, a discipline Belmont people need to endorse if they’re to exercise cultural leadership for the sake of the common good rather than their own.” We need, instead, “courageous judgmentalism.” Here Reno leans heavily on the sociologist Robert Putnam, although he admits that Putnam’s writings, unlike Murray’s, are not as directly supportive of his views. Roughly, those in and from dysfunctional families suffer and decline, and that dysfunction is the direct result of failing to hold the poorer members of society to the standards to which they used to be held—both by themselves and by their social superiors (though Reno does not use that latter term).

“Promote Solidarity,” the chapter following, is best read as a simultaneous attack on the related ideologies of neoliberalism and libertarianism. Man is a social being, Reno implies, and not only does the atomism of unlimited individual choice lead to destruction, so does the atomism of overly individuated lives. While “diversity” is a cant word full of falsehood, one of what Richard Weaver aptly named “god terms,” “words or phrases that evoke, often thoughtlessly, what are taken to be [by every society] its supreme goods,” it still contains a seed of truth. The diversity of merely having some neighbors of different social classes, different skin colors, or different religions is silly. Such diversity binds nobody and adds nothing concrete to society. Rather, what is desirable is solidarity, which can contain but far supersedes mechanical diversity.

Solidarity is “a condition of sustained personal interaction and reciprocal obligations combined with an internal sense of belonging.” Solidarity may be blocked or harmed by evils like actual racial discrimination, but it is not enhanced by pretending that mere difference has some inherent value. “Solidarity stems from our free assent to unity in the service of a common end.” And solidarity is not the end of either neoliberals or libertarians. Reno does not use the term “neoliberal,” but that is what he means by “today’s technocratic elite . . . . [who prefer] post-religious, post-patriotic individuals defined solely by the pursuit of private self-interest . . . [who are] more easily managed than those united in a common purpose. They are easier to dominate than those willing and able to make sacrifices for the sake of a transcendent loyalty.” He does use the term libertarians, recognizing that Hayek was not wrong to fight centralized government, but he was wrong to imply that was all was needed for the good society. “Freedom can be threatened by centralized planning, but it is also diminished when we have no solid ground on which to stand.”

The last core chapter, “Limit Government,” is less a call for smaller government and more a familiar call for the restoration of intermediary institutions, which have withered as government has grown, and a subsidiarity that revolves largely around religion and religious institutions, in opposition to unnatural federal government mandates such as gay “marriage.” Again, nothing wrong here, but nothing really new (although Reno notes presciently, pre-Trump, that “without a capacity for self-government encouraged by participation in local affairs, even the most potent eruptions of populism are likely to fail.”).

Reno closes the book with two more chapters. The first, “Seek Higher Things,” counsels a rejection of both Social Darwinism and Epicurean materialism, both of which reject the idea that there are higher truths to serve—namely, they reject the unique Christian focus on love, which leads to commitment to others (and to God). This is the closest the book comes to an explicitly Christian emphasis, to the exclusion of other thought. The second, “The Possibility of a Christian Society,” addresses the obvious question of whether this is all a pipe dream (to which most people today would reflexively say “yes”). Reno makes the not uncommon, but very Pollyannaish, argument that statistically there may be fewer active Christians, but that many who said in the past they were Christian did so on cultural grounds, and the number of believing, practicing Christians is much the same. He argues that according to a University of Virginia study, roughly 20% of American families are “Faithful”—i.e., orthodox Christians. They are now the cultural periphery, rather than the establishment. Reno says his “book is essentially an argument that [the establishment] is failing, that it promises freedom, but delivers tyranny,” and therefore the “establishment is vulnerable, very vulnerable.”

But vulnerable to what? Reno’s answer is, vaguely, “a religious counterculture,” of speaking the truth with charity and hospitality, presumably generated by the 20% who are Faithful. This is not satisfying. And it is symptomatic of this genre of books on Christian societal renewal—they are mostly long on history and melancholy, and short on mechanisms for reforging the future in fire and iron, metaphorical or otherwise. Even the best of the lot, Rod Dreher’s "The Benedict Option," which is chock full of specific and practical recommendations, as well as having the clearest analysis, does not offer a clear path from small, but vibrant, Christian communities to macro societal renewal. Such a course may make the ground more fertile, but it does not plant the ground itself.

It seems to me that what all of these “Christian renewal” writers fail to identify is an actual mechanism by which a Christian society, rather than its mere idea, can be resurrected. That is, they describe the characteristics of such a society, and how it would differ from today’s society, but they do not say how to get from here to there. And getting from here to there is everything.

So what would the mechanics of a real Christian renewal look like, and how would it be accomplished? That’s a large topic, but its basic outlines are simple. All renewals, in the sense of upheavals followed by a new normal, are created by the confluence of multiple things that come together at precisely the right moment. If we focus on modern societies that have gone through such a process, whether based in actual religion (the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Great Awakening) or pseudo-religion (late 18th and early 19th Century France; 20th Century Europe more than once), we see what they have in common is, indeed, preceding “disorientation” in multiple manifestations, but they also have a catalyst, gathering the threads together and creating rapid, lasting, organized change where before there was merely stuttering incoherence. In human terms, what that usually means is a leader, along the lines of, as Churchill described him, the “incandescent” Lenin. No Lenin, no 20th Century Russia, and a very different 20th Century. No Jonathan Edwards, no Great Awakening. Similarly, no Person Yet To Be Determined, no Christian renewal, regardless of how much time is spent talking about the need for that renewal.

That’s not to say Lenin was admirable. Lenin looked like Satan and the resemblance was fitting. But his was a pseudo-religion, and we can presume that our Person Yet To Be Determined is a practicing and believing Christian, whose goal is actual Christian renewal. And thus what Christian renewal needs is both a commitment to renewal by a non-trivial number of Christians and this man of destiny. Maybe he is like St. Ignatius, or St. Francis, or a Christian version of (the fictional) Paul Atreides—a man who seizes the time and molds it to the service of a new religious idea, which here is simply an old idea made new. We cannot predict this, any aspect of it, and it is a fool’s game to try, for such men are only visible in hindsight, limned by the arclight of their deeds. Like the Corsican corporal, or the Mule in Asimov’s “Foundation” (yes, I have a thing for science fiction), they erupt from nowhere, defying predictability, seemingly called forth from the earth, as if from sown dragon’s teeth. And, of course, this path is fraught with dangers, including the very real risk of false prophets, for those who seek prophets are easily deluded by con men. But if there is to be a Christian renewal, this is the only path. None of this is to denigrate Reno’s call for more Christian participation in the public square; or Dreher’s call for the Benedict Option, for keeping the faith alive and passing it on; or Chaput’s call for hope and Christian demonstration. All these things are essential, but none will come to full fruit without a spark to set it alight, and it is that for which Christians should stay cautiously alert, for a year or for an age.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is required reading for any serious Christian who is looking at our culture and asking 1) how did this happen and 2) how can we fix it? This is a profound, clearsighted, accessible analysis of how abandoning Christian principles has lead to the degradation of those on the peripheries.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Reno's argument is that American commitment to freedom above anything has led to society splitting into elites and the poor. Liberal policies and meritocratic institutions do not protect the weak and poor from the freedom of such things as no-fault divorce, sexual freedom and economic globalisation. Rather, they destroy them and wreak havoc in poor communities. To take an example, the strong, the cultural elites, don't divorce anywhere near the rate the poor do, even though they are more likely to support no-fault divorce. The elites are well organised among themselves, with strong economies and extensive social connections and support. They benefit from the freedoms they promote. But the poor, without good financial habits, with drug and alcohol abuse, with shattered families and poor social connections are vulnerable.

Reno's argument is that "Christians are called not to win debates and elections but to build a civilization of love". This is not to say that the former are not important, but our focus, orientation should be on such things as hospitality and crisis pregnancy centres, things that tangibly help the poor, repair the broken, heal the nations. We should not accept that salvation comes to the world by pulling the levers of power. It comes by the ministration of love. No spiritual victory ever comes without material effort.

An excellent book, and a good companion read to "Against Christianity" by Peter Leithart. Highly recommended for Reno's experienced and practiced analysis of western culture, as well as his thoughts on how to fix it.

[Derrick Jeter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reno makes a compelling case for living Christianly as citizens in post-Christian America. A necessary read for those serious about their dual citizenship.

[Cameron M · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked this book up, I was expecting a much denser focus on how to become a Christian society, which in my opinion, this book barely touched up.
Reno focused primarily on what has been occurring over the last 70-80 years and the impacts/effects on our current culture and society. The author provides profound insight into the cultural and societal impacts of what has been going on within the United States, and you can tell there is serious concern behind his writing.
I was expecting, though, proposals on how to counter what has been corrupted in America with Christianity and its doctrine. There was none of that, but rather romantic notions of this happening.
I wasn't particularly fond of the author's (perceived) stance on the church staying out of the political realm, as I disagree with that premise. Christ is King of the universe, yes, even of American politics and government. Why wouldn't Christianity want to get involved in every nook and cranny to speak the Gospel of hope?
Overall, the book is worth a read as there is plenty of evidence of the undoing of overall American morale and sensibility.

[Bob O'Bannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, it should be stated very clearly that this book is not about establishing some kind of an oppressive Christian theocracy, so those possibly alarmed by the title should stand down. Instead, R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, makes the case that it is the leavening influence of Christian values and a Christian worldview that is "most likely to restore humanizing qualities to our society." (5). This does not mean "establishing" Christianity, Reno says, but "speaking up in the public square as Christians." (6).

A big part of this book revolves around a discussion of the American tendency to idolize and deify freedom as something to be pursued at all costs. Ironically, Americans are so committed to freedom that they will rely on the coercive power of government to "limit freedom for the sake of freedom." (25). But freedom for the sake of freedom eventually breaks down, because it leaves us dependent upon our own weaknesses and shortcomings as fallen human beings. "Our American dream of freedom will become a nightmare if we do not put it in the loyal service of something greater than ourselves." (37).

Reno makes a compelling case in chapters 2 and 3 that the progressive agenda of secular leftists actually ends up exploiting and harming the vulnerable and weak in society. The wealthy and educated embrace a worldview of "nonjudgmentalism," in which they refuse to speak against sexual immorality, divorce, gender confusion or drug use, all of which have functioned as a "sturdy set of guard rails for society." (55). Once those guard rails are removed, the ones who suffer are the poor, who do not have the resources to navigate their way through a society of moral anarchy. "Poverty is not only material; it is also moral, cultural, and religious. It's a sign of the poverty of our public discourse that discussing the moral and spiritual poverty of the poor is positively prohibited." (68).

Reno also makes the case that it is by a Christian worldview that people can remain politically free.
Two institutions are absolutely necessary to limit the expansion of government: marriage and religion. The family is actually its own "highly efficient welfare system," and when it breaks down, government will certainly take its place (163). Therefore, one of the most effective bulwarks against tyrannical government is a strong family.

But the most powerful limit on government is when citizens are united in their commitment to a higher, divine authority. These are the people who will not be controlled or destroyed, as the underground church in China has demonstrated. (136). These are the people who are truly free. "The transcendent authority of the Bible is not a threat to democracy, as some secular liberals would have us believe. It's a crucial limit on worldly power." (132).

Even though contemporary western culture seems to be leaving its Christian heritage behind, Reno looks back over the course of history and notices that many governments, dictators and empires have come and gone, but the church remains. "Over the long haul, religious faith has proven itself the most powerful and enduring force in history." (192). As our culture continues to deteriorate and rot, it may be that people will long for the resurrection of the idea of a Christian society.

[Joel Zartman · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Our ambition is not to become the next establishment but to influence, directly and indirectly, the moral and spiritual outlook of the current one, turning it in directions that promote wellbeing for everyone.” –Reno

It is a sensible goal. It is an interesting book, if not brilliant. It is engaging and thought-provoking. Reno is a good thinker, though he is not Richard John Neuhaus. While I have not yet forgiven him for not being Richard John Neuhaus, I have forgiven him for being R. R. Reno. His insight is penetrating, if not his wit.

[Santeri Marjokorpi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reno kertoo mikä läntisissä jälkikristillisissä yhteiskunnissa on mennyt pieleen ja mitä siitä pitäisi ajatella. Pääviesti on, että perinteisten moraalikäsitysten purkaminen sopii rikkaille ja menestyville, mutta tuhoaa köyhimpien ja heikoimpien elämää. Renon mukaan moraalin uudistaminen onkin eräänlaista rikkaiden luokkasotaa köyhiä vastaan. Kirjassa on paljon mielenkiintoisia näköaloja aiheisiin, joista yhteiskunnassa keskustellaan laajasti. Kirja on ajankohtainen ja merkittävä konservatiivinen puheenvuoro.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes some interesting points and strikes a helpfully hopeful note in its final analysis, but overall it is of very uneven quality. Parts of it are repetitive, it's very much reliant on recapitulation of secondhand material, and there are some lapses in the editing.

[Jasonwilkerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good work if you want a clear indictment of where we are and how we got here. Not so good if you want a book that you will put down having a list of concrete actions to take.

[Shawna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took awhile to finish because the argument was so rich. I both wanted to understand what he was saying and not finish too fast.

[Tyler Hurst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, not quite convinced, but curious ideas. I am interested in the notion of the Post-Protestant WASP. Not sure what the result of this book is supposed to be.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helpful book. Lots of sociological commentary. Good on description--needs more development in prescription (as in what would a Christian society actually look like?).

[Richard de Villiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

(INCOMPLETE REVIEW)

Released at the tail end of the Summer of '16 this book seemed borne of marriage of two works released just before by two other prominent conservative thinkers "It's Dangerous to Believe" by Mary Eberstadt and Yuval Levin's "Fractured Republic." What is remarkable about "Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society" is Reno's coming to very similar conclusions to what ails modern society. He obviously doesn't lean on Levin to buttress his argument but draws a great deal from Charles Murray's observations in "Coming Apart" and to a lesser extent Robert Putnam's "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis." Reno finds that there is a great divide between those that are succeeding in the new economy.

Reno doesn't just find an income inequality; he is clearly concerned about the moral inequality. Reno notes that the elite profess to be nonjudgmental and seemingly embrace an do what you feel like ethos. In fact, as noted in "Coming Apart" hew to somewhat traditional mores in their personal lives. The ones that suffer from this new era of nonjudgmentalism are those that have fallen behind. The story is by now familiar. In addition to Murray and Levin, J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" introduced us to the real people behind the statistics that have been cited.

I can understand more secular readers being turned off by the title and that would be a shame. Reno is astute observer and a articulate one. His call is not for a theocratic state of any kind - he dismisses the reestablishment of Christendom. He points out what Jesus himself noted that His kingdom was not of this earth.

[Jeffrey Brannen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vigorous challenge to pessimistic Chrostians

I have vigorously opposed and argued for rejecting a Christian society. Perhaps this is a function of being Presbyterian and seeing the power of the church as wholly spiritual. Perhaps this is a rejection of the power struggles from my youth where the Moral Majority equated the moral purity of the nation with the Kingdom of God. Regardless, the very idea of a Christian society smacked of Constantine, and that was a BAD thing. In fact, had I not listened to an interview with the author, I would have never picked up the book, simply because of its title.

That being said, Reno has rattled my cage and I don't know quite what to do with it yet. This is going to require a pen and a journal to wade back into the text in order to adequately digest the arguments.

Chapter one, "The Need for a Christian Society," is worth the price of the book. Of special note is his deconstruction of the American Dream. True success, he argues, is not qualified by bank accounts or titles, but by deep and abiding commitments to something greater than yourself. The American Dream, apart from a commitment to God, is self-destructive and largely empty. It is freedom chased for freedom's sake.

Also, and this is vital, we, as Americans, want a government for, by, and of the people, not peoples. That is, not fragmented and individualized, but whole and with solidarity. We also ought to seek a culture that is for, by, and of the people. Instead, we have an increasing fragmented government and culture.

It is into this mix that Reno posits Christianity - Christians faithfully living in obedience to Christ, as the solution to this dissolution.

Chapter 2-Defend the Weak. The 1%ers, the rich and powerful, have created a culture which promotes themselves and tramples the weak. Christianity provides an explicitly contrary position to the cultural norms of the mighty.

Chapter 3-Raise Up the Poor

Chapter 4-Promote Solidarity

Chapter 5-Limit Government

Chapter 6-Seek Higher Things

Chapter 7-The Possibility of a Christian Society

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rusty Reno is no theonomist. This book is mostly about how moral breakdown and a poor definition of "freedom" have led to today's societal ills. In fact, most of the book doesn't discuss faith at all. Nevertheless, Reno believes that a deeper appreciation for the transcendent, a focus on the institutions of the family and the church rather than the government, and an understanding that freedom is best defined as pursuing what we were created to pursue, will lead to a renascence. I don't disagree, although it's hard to see how that would constitute a "Christian society." In any case, he's preaching to the choir, but the volume's turned down so low that I'm not sure anyone can hear. Read Yuval Levin or Charles Murray instead.

[William Price]

A very interesting book. Not the last word...waiting for the Benedict Option. The sociological analysis of our culture in the first half of the book was good and strong, but the second half seemed to slow down and become less potent. The few examples of Biblical exegesis were weak. However--surprise!--the Afterword was a gem. Worth reading while we wait for more.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a fascinating analysis of the recent transitions in American culture, and an intriguing proposal for a renewal of Christian influence in our society and a recovery of "solidarity" in the nation's life which has been vacated as a result of reigning progressive dogmas.

[Mike Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

my review: http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/21/c...

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

R.R. Reno, senior editor of First Things, takes a look at how Christians can effect change in a society in which they no longer hold a position of dominance. While some espouse the Benedict Option for Christian society to turn inward and prepare for the storm to come, Reno critiques the current society and shows how we can live a Christian life and thereby support the poor and weak and defeat the tide of post-Protestant tyrannical liberalism.

I have long felt torn between libertarianism and more of a Christian Democrat view. Reno does a great job of painting a Christian Democrat position that doesn't abandon a limited government and Christian social values. He shows how Christian social values are necessary to the life of the poor and underclass being lived with dignity and purpose.

Reno's chapters on solidarity and subsidiarity are wonders. He expresses the views clearly and convincingly. This is bordering on one of my favorite ten books ever.

[Brian Kornelis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Offers a compelling cultural and philosophical analysis of freedom in American society. Libertarian freedom has become the ultimate goal, rather than the penultimate goal. This has become an increasingly totalitarian political project. Also, makes the argument that this cultural/political/philosophical project is disproportionally harmful to the poor and marginalized. (Draws a lot from Murray's sociological research here) Reno argues that the push back against this tide of American history is a return to the "strong gods." Because of 20th century totalitarianism and world war(s) we've abandoned the gods of blood, soil and nation and traded them for health, wealth and pleasure in a globalizing society.

[David Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society by R.R. Reno
Thursday, April 20, 2017
9:07 PM
I am interested in anything R.R. Reno writes now, having read his excellent, often profound commentary on Genesis in the Brazos Theological Commentary Series he edits, and also Fighting the Noonday Devil - and Other Essays Personal and theological, and because my respect and appreciation for him is often renewed by reading his editorials in the journal First Things. I would not have read this book just based on the title, even though I recognize the allusion to T.S. Eliot's book, which I have read but do not remember well. But basically, anything Reno writes I anticipate to be a distillation of wisdom now.
Tis book does not disappoint. I listened to it in audio format and that is not ideal so I feel a little shame-faced trying to summarize it in the vagaries of my apprehension compounded by the medium in which I engaged it. Nevertheless, I remark the strong moral strength in this book. Reno refreshingly brings the language and concepts of virtue to bear on his subject, while drawing extensively as well on the contemporary sociological writers, especially Robert Putnam, Mary Douglas, and Charles Murray. I have come to have more of a sense of the inadequacy of sociology to truly illumine. It can do limited service but addressing issues with mere sociological language is like a bunch of eunuchs sitting around discussing how to sire a family. Tolstoy wrote once, "Before I am a writer, I am a man." Many issues we must still meet as a man or woman, pre-theoretically, not merely as a sociologist, or writer. I am refreshed by the strength of Reno's moral perception and language because it forges through a therapeutic morass and keys in on the fundamental.
Reno has a lot of reflective strength in much of his writing. One aspect of this book is his treatment, drawing on the secular shared language of sociology, of the way in which secular progressives promise freedom but deliver tyranny. Much of secular progressive thought serves the 1% and wreaks havoc among the poorest in our nation. Many of the rich espouse liberal views but live in a kind of fifties pattern when it comes to their own personal lives. For the poor trying to apply the same kind of philosophy, they are left bereft of the dignity and discipline of religion and shorn of a stable marital institution. Marriage has become "a creature of the State" rather than a pre-political institute from time immemorial that the State respects. The State now encroaches on the personal and the personal is the political, which is one definition of tyranny. Reno traces lays the realities traced by Putnam and Murray at the door of secular progressives. It brings to mind an older story traced by Nicholas Berdyaev of how communism began in a humanitarian compassion for the suffering and a protesting atheism that ended up in the justification of the destruction of thousands upon thousands. It also reminds me of the many brilliant essays by one of the finest contemporary essayists, Anthony Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple. Dalrymple, who served as a psychiatrist in slums and prisons in the UK and abroad, indicted secular liberal intelligentsia and the rich "bobos in Paradise" for advancing philosophies whose consequences they could mute and mitigate with their wealth but which have unmitigated disastorous and desolating effect on the poor.
Another aspect of the book that I found compelling was Reno's treatment of Epicurean materialism and its "lowering therapies." Also, his look at the "nones" and his take on their nature and meaning I thought compelling. I especially noticed a portion where he mentioned that 75% of the nones who report that they do not pray are devoted to the Democrats. My friend remarks that this is just because Republicans have identified themselves as the Christian party, thereby repulsing the non-Christians, but this does not account for the aggressiveness against Christians and the "values voting" of the nones.
Reno closes on a somewhat positive note. Though he recognizes that currently things are not in Christians' favor, a faithful remnant that emphasizes hospitality and gratitude will eventually find an opening once the tiresome overreach of the left frays. I am probably not summarizing that well. Reno seems to take a position which parallels or complements Rod Dreher's in many ways. I think Dreher is right to emphasize the importance of strengthening Cristian churches and communities and regaining lives of integrity and liturgical and moral discipline, regaining memory and forging deliberately against the grain of atomistic individualism communities capable of producing martyrs if necessary and of witnessing and engaging when the opportunities provide themselves, but in the meantime building thriving subcultures. I think Reno may disagree to some extent. I look forward to reading his commentary on Dreher's book soon.
Reno strikes me as a worthy editorial successor to the founder of First Things, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. As towering, brilliant, and pithy as Neuhaus was, Reno is certainly an author and thinker of substance in his own right.
I probably should have derived more from this book but I was navigating traffic, saving lives by dividing my attention.