1 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:22,559 Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist 2 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:26,399 Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at The 3 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:31,079 Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge. 4 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:34,359 As always, you can email the show at radio at 5 00:00:34,399 --> 00:00:39,000 the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fbr LST. 6 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:42,280 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and 7 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:45,039 of course to the premium version of our website as well. 8 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:50,560 Our guest today is John Wilsey John D. Wilsey, Professor 9 00:00:50,679 --> 00:00:54,600 of Church History and Philosophy and chair of the Church 10 00:00:55,039 --> 00:00:59,520 History Department at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also 11 00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:02,920 serves a senior fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture 12 00:01:02,960 --> 00:01:07,239 and Democracy, an initiative at the First Liberty Institute. Today 13 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:12,040 we've discussed John's new book, Religious Freedom, a Conservative Primer. 14 00:01:12,799 --> 00:01:18,439 This is very timely and very historical at the same time, 15 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:21,159 and I love it when the Twain meet. John. Thank 16 00:01:21,159 --> 00:01:23,000 you so much for joining us in this of the 17 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:24,079 Federalist Radio Hour. 18 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,040 Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to be here with you, Matt, Thanks so much. 19 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:30,000 Speaker 1: It's a fascinating book and a fascinating look over the 20 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:34,480 history of this country and so very relevant today. This 21 00:01:34,519 --> 00:01:38,920 is shocking reading in your book, but maybe it's not 22 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,879 all that surprising. In the times in which we live. 23 00:01:42,599 --> 00:01:46,760 Patriotism and religion have sharply declined since nineteen ninety eight, 24 00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:51,120 when seventy percent of Americans considered patriotism to be very important. 25 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:55,959 In twenty twenty three, just thirty eight percent believed the same. 26 00:01:56,719 --> 00:01:59,959 In nineteen ninety eight, sixty two percent of Americans consider 27 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:04,680 religion to be important. That number dropped to just thirty 28 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:09,439 nine percent in twenty twenty three. How did we get here? 29 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:09,759 Speaker 2: John? 30 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:10,759 Speaker 1: How did we get here? 31 00:02:12,759 --> 00:02:17,759 Speaker 2: Yeah, we only have a little bit of time, so 32 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:19,800 I don't think I have time to explain. 33 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,960 Speaker 1: Sure, this could be a multi part podcast, that's for sure, 34 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:27,680 But I think. 35 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:29,560 Speaker 2: I can help to answer the question and help to 36 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:36,520 get our minds around that issue by referring to the 37 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:41,960 definition of conservatism that Peter Vierick, who was a longtime 38 00:02:42,199 --> 00:02:49,120 history professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, wrote some 39 00:02:49,199 --> 00:02:55,520 of the earliest book lengths works on conservatism from about 40 00:02:55,599 --> 00:03:00,080 nineteen forty nine until about nineteen fifty six. And this 41 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:03,120 is how he defines it. And we can think about 42 00:03:03,159 --> 00:03:08,639 this definition in contrast to our culture today, and I 43 00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:11,599 think it can help us think about causes and how 44 00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:13,080 we got to where we were. Let me read this 45 00:03:13,719 --> 00:03:17,639 if you don't mind. His definition of a of conservatism. 46 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:23,840 He said, the conservative principles par excellence are proportion and measure, 47 00:03:25,039 --> 00:03:33,199 self expression through self restraint, preservation through reform, humanism, and 48 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:39,719 classical balance, a fruitful nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux, 49 00:03:41,039 --> 00:03:47,879 and a fruitful obsession for unbroken historical continuity. These principles 50 00:03:47,919 --> 00:03:51,800 create liberty, a liberty built not on the quicksand of 51 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:56,759 adolescent defiance, but on the bedrock of ethics and law. 52 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:02,000 And I love that definition of conservatism. 53 00:04:02,439 --> 00:04:06,960 Speaker 1: I think, I think it. Uh, we've we've lost that 54 00:04:07,159 --> 00:04:09,000 unfortunately in so many circles. 55 00:04:09,479 --> 00:04:13,759 Speaker 2: I totally agree and and and where where he starts 56 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:21,120 in contrasting a uh sort of a leftist from a 57 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:26,920 conservative viewpoint. If you, if you have the instinct to 58 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,399 follow Thomas Paine and Jean Jacques Rousseau, you know, in 59 00:04:32,439 --> 00:04:36,959 the eighteenth century thinkers uh brussa of course romantic thinker, 60 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:42,920 and Pain a Enlightenment thinker. Both of them agreed that 61 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:47,920 human nature was basically good and that it was the 62 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:56,240 human uh ideal and goal to achieve one's own personal 63 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:03,360 potential and there by over overcoming all limits. So they 64 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:09,639 define freedom as as as as overcoming limits, uh, where 65 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:13,439 whereas in the Burkeyan tradition, freedom is always understood through 66 00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:19,439 the lens of limits, through just law and a just order. 67 00:05:20,399 --> 00:05:25,279 And in the Burkean tradition, limits are not limits should 68 00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:27,839 not be seen as a bad thing. They're they're liberating. 69 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,800 Uh So if you're if your disposition is to look 70 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:36,240 at limits as something bad or something to overcome or 71 00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:38,560 something to do away with, you might be a liberal. 72 00:05:39,199 --> 00:05:42,199 But if you're someone who who looks at limits as 73 00:05:42,199 --> 00:05:46,879 being you know, this is actually liberating to to because 74 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:50,639 within those limits I have of just of just order 75 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:53,680 and just law. Then I have the condition set for 76 00:05:53,759 --> 00:05:56,680 me to uh to have human flourishing and to grow 77 00:05:56,720 --> 00:05:59,879 and to and to truly pursue happiness in the in 78 00:06:00,079 --> 00:06:02,680 the sense that it was originally intended to mean in 79 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:06,360 the Declaration independence. So when we think about how do 80 00:06:06,439 --> 00:06:09,959 we get to this point, I think that one of 81 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,560 the answers to that is probably a lot of answers 82 00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:14,040 to that. I think one of the answers to that 83 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:18,399 is that we have sought to, we have sought to 84 00:06:18,399 --> 00:06:22,879 throw off limits, and we've sought to We've believed a 85 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:26,560 lot that individuals can become anything they want to be, 86 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,759 and you can't be anything you want to be. You can't. 87 00:06:32,399 --> 00:06:37,600 That's part of the natural order of things, and limits 88 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:38,920 are part of that. 89 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:44,879 Speaker 1: Yes, biological limits and limits placed on us by a 90 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:51,319 creator which was so instrumental that idea at the founding 91 00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:55,360 of this country. You know, I enjoy the notion of 92 00:06:55,439 --> 00:06:57,879 just thinking about you might be a liberal if it 93 00:06:58,199 --> 00:07:03,199 sounds like Jeff Foxworthy a bit in there, but that's right, 94 00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:07,160 I mean. And you know, some of these great thinkers, 95 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:10,759 great thinkers of liberty, by the way, the Thomas Pains 96 00:07:10,839 --> 00:07:17,759 of the world often you know, withdrew from the idea 97 00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:22,519 or absolutely withdrew from the idea that first there is 98 00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:30,720 God and through God comes liberties, not governments. That's something 99 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:34,600 that the all founders agreed on, no matter what their 100 00:07:34,639 --> 00:07:37,480 faith was, whether they were dis the idea of God 101 00:07:37,639 --> 00:07:42,879 is a clockmaker, that sort of thing Thomas Jefferson, or 102 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:47,879 if they were full you know, Christian faith founders like 103 00:07:48,279 --> 00:07:53,120 John Adams. But you write in your book about the Tookeville, 104 00:07:53,439 --> 00:07:58,720 and how you know he saw America in the early 105 00:07:58,879 --> 00:08:05,920 days of America, the early eighteen hundreds. He said, this 106 00:08:06,079 --> 00:08:11,600 Anglo American civilization is the product of two perfectly distinct 107 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:15,680 elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, 108 00:08:15,839 --> 00:08:20,040 but which in America they have succeeded in incorporating, somehow 109 00:08:20,439 --> 00:08:25,000 into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak 110 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,279 of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom. 111 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:34,879 And that concept that the Topeville got was central to 112 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,840 the creation of this extraordinary nation, was it not. 113 00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:44,759 Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, When when he came to America in eighteen 114 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:49,120 thirty one, he was here from May eighteen thirty one 115 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:52,320 until February of eighteen thirty two, not a long time, 116 00:08:53,039 --> 00:08:55,240 and he was only twenty six years old, which is 117 00:08:55,639 --> 00:08:59,960 unbelievable to me. He was so yeah, and so incredibly insightful, 118 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,720 but he did. He made that statement twice in his 119 00:09:05,799 --> 00:09:09,399 two volume work Democracy in America, which every American should 120 00:09:09,799 --> 00:09:12,279 should read, at least in a bridge edition, if not 121 00:09:12,399 --> 00:09:19,159 the whole thing. Contrasting his native France, that it had 122 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:27,960 a very destructive conflict between religion and freedom because in 123 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,600 the revolution, you know, they sought to throw off restraint, 124 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:36,360 the restraining, the enstraining influence, I should say, of religion. 125 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:39,679 They sought to throw it off, and in doing that 126 00:09:39,759 --> 00:09:41,840 they threw off not only religion, they threw off all 127 00:09:41,879 --> 00:09:47,080 tradition and all prescription, and sought to literally turn their 128 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:51,480 back on history by renaming the calendar and re orienting 129 00:09:51,519 --> 00:09:55,480 the calendar to ignore the past altogether. He wrote about 130 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:59,159 that and his history of the French Revolution, which also, 131 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:05,320 especially today, very relevant book. But in America he found 132 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:08,120 that that wasn't true at all. Had we'd had a revolution, 133 00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,159 and whereas in France they'd had a revolution and political 134 00:10:13,159 --> 00:10:19,519 instability resulted in ultimately the dictatorship of Napoleon, but here 135 00:10:19,519 --> 00:10:23,120 in America we had a revolution that in many ways 136 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:27,639 just as radical changed life, changed life, and social and 137 00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:31,279 political and religious ways in terms of relationships in society 138 00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:36,240 to rearrange you radically. But in America there was political stability, 139 00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:42,840 not anarchy, not dictatorship and tyranny. And he attributed the 140 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,960 very high view of religion among Americans and the influence 141 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:49,759 of religion on the culture what he called the customs 142 00:10:49,759 --> 00:10:53,600 of the morase of culture. The basic assumptions that people 143 00:10:53,639 --> 00:10:59,759 lived by were influenced and were shaped fundamentally by the 144 00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:04,360 care by Christian morality. So you know, when we think 145 00:11:04,399 --> 00:11:07,879 about how we got here today, there's a contrast with 146 00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:11,919 our culture now with the culture back then. And I mean, 147 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:14,000 we're not trying to get back to the eighteen thirties. 148 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:16,440 The eighteen thirties had their own problems that are eating 149 00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:22,240 to their times. But that's to say that if you 150 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:27,679 want to have liberty, true freedom, that is humanistic, and 151 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:29,879 when I use the term humanistic, I want to do 152 00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:32,240 so in the same way that Vierick did in the 153 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:38,919 interest of human flourishing, both as individuals and as a society. 154 00:11:39,039 --> 00:11:41,159 In order to have true freedom, you have to have 155 00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:46,039 you have to have a basis in the transcendent. You 156 00:11:46,039 --> 00:11:48,960 have to have a belief and a basis of law 157 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:54,200 and order in God. Now I'm a Christian, and so 158 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:58,919 I believe that the Bible is true, and I believe 159 00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:02,879 that the biblical uh picture that the Bible gives us 160 00:12:02,879 --> 00:12:06,879 of who God is is the correct one. But Russell 161 00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:09,480 Kirk and his conservative mind, which of course is the 162 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:14,600 classic work and in conservativism, he just says, you know, 163 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:17,440 a belief in the transcendent is what is is the 164 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:22,120 first of the of the six canons for conservativism, and 165 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,000 not just belief in the in the transcendent, but but 166 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:29,679 an ordering of one's life around that belief. And so 167 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:35,440 belief in God and ordering one's life around God is 168 00:12:35,919 --> 00:12:39,120 UH is necessary to freedom. That's that's one of the 169 00:12:39,159 --> 00:12:42,080 things that tofil said, and I think that's also born 170 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:46,639 out in in UH in the conservative tradition in America 171 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:48,120 since since the Founding. 172 00:12:49,159 --> 00:12:55,440 Speaker 1: I believe moving away from that idea has proved to 173 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:58,679 be costly and will continue to be costly for this 174 00:12:58,759 --> 00:13:02,799 exceptional nation. You know, America was founded as a Christian nation. 175 00:13:04,399 --> 00:13:08,720 As you know, that's not a controversial statement. It shouldn't be. 176 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:15,159 But why has that truth become in so many quarters 177 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:16,960 such a controversial statement. 178 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:21,639 Speaker 2: I think there's been an overreaction over the last forty 179 00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:28,000 or fifty years. There's been a there's always been an 180 00:13:28,039 --> 00:13:35,519 American history, a tension between Christian influence on the founding, 181 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:37,759 on the Revolution, on the founding, and on the American 182 00:13:37,799 --> 00:13:41,320 culture over the last two and a half one hundred years, 183 00:13:42,639 --> 00:13:47,240 and the influence of the Enlightenment and Enlightenment thought. And 184 00:13:47,279 --> 00:13:49,879 so some will say, oh, it wasn't the Enlightenment. The 185 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:51,879 Enlightenment had nothing to do with the Founding. It was 186 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:55,840 all it was all Christianity. And then on the left 187 00:13:55,879 --> 00:13:58,759 you have people who say, no, it was a godless constitution, 188 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,159 and that his famous book, that is it, Kramnik wrote 189 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:05,440 Cornell professor Beckham twenty years or so ago, this is 190 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:09,080 a godless constitution and we have a godless secular republic. 191 00:14:09,399 --> 00:14:12,600 And Christianity had nothing to do with the founding. So 192 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:15,759 both both on the right and on the left you've 193 00:14:15,799 --> 00:14:18,679 had these over corrections. But one thing I think it's 194 00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:23,440 lost in that is that, for really, really from the 195 00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:26,960 Founding all the way through into the late sixties and 196 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:32,000 the early seventies, that tension between Enlightenment and thought and 197 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:36,960 Christian thought had always been sort of resolved. But by 198 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:41,399 the fact that the Enlightenment tradition that influences the Founding 199 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:45,399 is not the French or continental Enlightenment, and not the 200 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:50,159 German Enlightenment was caught. It's the English and Scottish Enlightenment 201 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:54,120 that contributes to the American bank. And that stream of 202 00:14:54,159 --> 00:14:58,639 the Enlightenment is is not necessarily not at the very 203 00:14:58,679 --> 00:15:04,080 heart uh mutually exclusive to Christianity. So there is a 204 00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:06,320 tension between the two, but the tensions always sort of 205 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:13,840 resolved in what tofo identified as the mores, that you 206 00:15:13,919 --> 00:15:18,320 have this balance and an order between the needs and 207 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:24,720 the desires of the individual citizen, as that system, you know, 208 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:30,799 seeks to pursue and cultivate talents and gifts and to 209 00:15:31,399 --> 00:15:35,480 and to pursue self improvement and better better his life 210 00:15:35,519 --> 00:15:38,639 and better his family's life with that of the society. 211 00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:44,639 Society has needs and the society has ambitions as well. 212 00:15:44,759 --> 00:15:47,519 And when those two are in balance, which is an 213 00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:51,600 Enlightenment view and a Christian view, they're not in conflict 214 00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:55,600 one another, then you have the conditions for freedom and flourishing. 215 00:15:57,200 --> 00:16:00,960 So America is a does have a Christian founding, There's 216 00:16:01,039 --> 00:16:03,799 no doubt about that. That's a great I'll put a 217 00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:06,080 plug out from my friend Mark David Hall's book, Did 218 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:09,360 America Have a Christian Founding? Which is a fantastic book. 219 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:13,279 I highly recommend it. America did have a Christian founding 220 00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,600 for sure. And when we when we try to overcorrect 221 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:20,480 and say no, it was secular, it just emphasize the secutor. 222 00:16:20,519 --> 00:16:24,639 That's that's another problem, because who wants to who wants 223 00:16:24,679 --> 00:16:28,639 to love a country that's just secular, I mean, because 224 00:16:28,679 --> 00:16:31,639 that's just a that's just a disposable kind of a system. 225 00:16:31,679 --> 00:16:34,559 You can just replace it with something else. But you know, 226 00:16:34,399 --> 00:16:36,320 you know, all you do is read the Declaration of Independence. 227 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:38,200 All you gotta do is read the pream of the Constitution. 228 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:43,200 That America was founded on transcendent ideas, and so religion 229 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:45,279 is always going to be at the very heart of 230 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:48,320 who we are. It's unavoidable. Even if you're an atheist, 231 00:16:48,399 --> 00:16:52,600 you're a secularist, you have to really do some gymnastics 232 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,240 to try to deny that, to transcend it in the 233 00:16:55,519 --> 00:16:58,159 in the not only the founding, but in the whole 234 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:00,919 American culture. Over the course of the last one hundred and fifty. 235 00:17:00,759 --> 00:17:06,799 Speaker 3: Years, is illegal immigration actually breaking emergency care? The watch 236 00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:09,640 Dot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day 237 00:17:09,759 --> 00:17:12,720 Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy 238 00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:15,559 and how it affects your wallet. Illegal immigrants are going 239 00:17:15,599 --> 00:17:18,680 to the er for non emergencies like coal and flu 240 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:21,519 because they have to get treated. What was meant for 241 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:25,440 true emergencies has turned into a system overwhelmed. Whether it's 242 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:27,640 happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting 243 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:28,319 you financially. 244 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:28,920 Speaker 2: Be informed. 245 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,119 Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris 246 00:17:31,160 --> 00:17:34,519 Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 247 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:39,920 Speaker 1: Well, I think that's it. I mean, it's the intellectual, 248 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:45,319 if you will, gymnastics that have gone on, particularly over 249 00:17:45,359 --> 00:17:49,119 the past few decades, a few generations, excuse me, in 250 00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:53,400 this country. Yeah, have been interesting, to say the least. 251 00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:58,000 But there is no doubt that the Enlightenment had a 252 00:17:58,039 --> 00:18:02,880 great deal of influence on this constitution and this republic. 253 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:08,079 It was created, you know, during the Enlightenment. These are 254 00:18:08,559 --> 00:18:11,920 these are folks who were you know, very very much 255 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:17,160 into those political philosophers of the time through the Enlightenment. 256 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:21,319 But it is it is just insane to me to 257 00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:25,559 think that someone would would say, you know, that this 258 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:29,440 is a constitution without God. As you mentioned, read the 259 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:34,319 Declaration of Independence, read the Preamble to the Constitution, and 260 00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:39,640 again everything in it. The root of it is that 261 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:45,799 our inalienable rights are ours because of a God, not 262 00:18:46,039 --> 00:18:50,279 because of the government. That is what is fundamentally so 263 00:18:50,559 --> 00:18:54,079 important about this constitution. Why have we gotten so far 264 00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:55,599 away from that concept? 265 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:02,559 Speaker 2: I think that the rises secularism has had you know, 266 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:04,680 has had such a great deal to do with that, 267 00:19:04,839 --> 00:19:07,359 and it sounds like a kind of an easy and 268 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:11,279 easy sort of an explanation. It's very complex the history 269 00:19:11,279 --> 00:19:13,480 of that, and it doesn't just go back to the sixties. 270 00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,319 I mean, I think you can trace the rise of 271 00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:19,960 secularism back to the period of the Civil War. The 272 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,799 Civil War once the war is over in sixty five 273 00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:27,680 and you have reconstruction until eighteen seventy seven or something 274 00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:34,480 like that. Good historians have argued this is sort of 275 00:19:34,559 --> 00:19:40,119 laying the groundwork for secularism. My friend Alan Galzo and 276 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:43,000 Mark Knoll are two good historians that have put their 277 00:19:43,039 --> 00:19:47,000 finger on that. Gelzo talks about it in terms of 278 00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:50,039 what when the war was over with, because the war 279 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:55,880 was so destructive and so it seemed that death was 280 00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:59,480 so capricious. I mean, if people live with death, you know, 281 00:19:59,759 --> 00:20:05,279 for for forever. But death came. People were used to death, 282 00:20:05,319 --> 00:20:09,440 having come for the for the old, for for young 283 00:20:09,559 --> 00:20:12,519 babies and young children. You get killed in an accident, 284 00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:15,720 you get sick and have a disease. But but in 285 00:20:15,759 --> 00:20:20,680 the war, death was capricious, and death took the lives 286 00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:24,079 of men in there in the flower of their youth 287 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:32,119 and its destruction caused a doubt that had emerged as 288 00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:34,839 a result of the war, a doubt in in providence 289 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:39,640 and a doubt in in, you know, God's fundamental goodness 290 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:44,519 towards us. And that doubt was one of the things 291 00:20:44,519 --> 00:20:48,559 that birthed or at least it opened the door to 292 00:20:48,559 --> 00:20:52,839 to an emerging secularism. So, like Gelza will say, this 293 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:55,119 is when you have the beginning of faculties and higher 294 00:20:55,240 --> 00:21:01,480 education that were not clergymen at Harvard and Yale and 295 00:21:01,559 --> 00:21:04,119 the Ivy leagues. But also you have the founding of JOHNS. 296 00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:07,559 Hopkins University, which is built upon a German research model 297 00:21:07,559 --> 00:21:13,799 which is entirely secular. And then that process of secularism 298 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,079 just works its way through the culture, and it has 299 00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:21,960 fits and starts. It's accelerated especially during the during the 300 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,920 New Years of the world wars, the Depression, and so forth. 301 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,720 So by the time you get to the sixties and 302 00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:32,759 the liberation movements of the sixties, secularisms victory and American 303 00:21:32,799 --> 00:21:34,039 culture is really complete. 304 00:21:34,839 --> 00:21:38,920 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, to the detriment of the culture and society, 305 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:43,319 I would argue, yeah, yeah. Our guest today, John D. Wilsey, 306 00:21:43,559 --> 00:21:47,680 Professor of Church History, and Philosophy and chair of the 307 00:21:47,759 --> 00:21:51,920 Church History Department of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He 308 00:21:52,039 --> 00:21:55,759 is also serving as Senior Fellow at the Center for Religion, 309 00:21:55,799 --> 00:22:00,400 Culture and Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institude. 310 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:05,079 We're talking about John's new book, Fascinating Religious Freedom, a 311 00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:11,200 conservative primer, and that is an interesting point that you 312 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:19,160 raise about where this secularization, this secular movement really took root. 313 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:23,079 And I guess I can understand the faith shaking of 314 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:29,119 the Civil War, you know, just the devastation, and then 315 00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:33,680 I think you follow over the years there have always 316 00:22:33,759 --> 00:22:37,759 been wars, but wars wars of mass destruction. You know, 317 00:22:37,799 --> 00:22:43,000 when we think about World War One, the new methods 318 00:22:43,079 --> 00:22:51,640 of killing men, killing people wholesale, World War Two into 319 00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:57,559 Korea and Vietnam, and I can see where the human 320 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:02,000 mind is shaken, faith is shaken. Do do you think 321 00:23:02,559 --> 00:23:07,480 those subsequent wars also played a large role, because obviously 322 00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:11,279 we see what happened during Vietnam and you know, the 323 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:16,480 absolute secular movement going on on campuses. That was one 324 00:23:16,559 --> 00:23:20,240 of the big issues, you know, the Vietnam War and 325 00:23:20,359 --> 00:23:25,440 all of that of course had you know, its strains 326 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:26,960 of abandoning God. 327 00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:33,759 Speaker 2: Absolutely, because in the nineteenth and twentieth century, at the 328 00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:41,319 beginning of industrial warfare, the whole state is oriented towards 329 00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:46,279 the destruction of its enemies. In the nineteenth century, I 330 00:23:46,319 --> 00:23:48,759 think that gets us back to It gets us back 331 00:23:48,799 --> 00:23:50,759 to You can trace that back to Napoleon and his 332 00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:55,160 army reforms. Once he becomes Emperor of France in eighteen 333 00:23:56,039 --> 00:24:02,720 eighteen oh four. The way that he reorganized his armies 334 00:24:02,839 --> 00:24:07,279 was to build it on a reserve system. So he 335 00:24:07,319 --> 00:24:11,400 would deploy in a battle, he would deploy his troops 336 00:24:11,799 --> 00:24:16,279 along the line to test his enemies weaknesses, and when 337 00:24:16,319 --> 00:24:19,079 he found them, he would pulverize them with artillery, and 338 00:24:19,079 --> 00:24:23,240 then he would send a reserve in and his enemies 339 00:24:23,559 --> 00:24:27,000 would have already committed all of their forces, which was 340 00:24:27,039 --> 00:24:31,200 the traditional eighteenth century way of fighting, so Napoleon couldn't lose, 341 00:24:32,279 --> 00:24:35,440 and that was extended. That reserve system was extended not 342 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:41,240 just to active campaigning and battlefield tactics, it was extended 343 00:24:41,279 --> 00:24:45,880 to include the entire nation. So when Napoleon defeats Prussia, 344 00:24:47,759 --> 00:24:50,440 he insisted that Prussia could only have a forty two 345 00:24:50,519 --> 00:24:55,440 thousand man army, and Prussia could abide by those rules, 346 00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:57,680 they could have a forty two thousand man active army, 347 00:24:58,079 --> 00:25:00,000 but then they could have a couple of hundred thous 348 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:05,440 of men in reserve. And so that reserve army that 349 00:25:05,599 --> 00:25:07,480 was held that you know, you would you would join 350 00:25:07,519 --> 00:25:09,759 the army, you would be you would be trained, you 351 00:25:09,799 --> 00:25:13,680 would serve for a short time, and then you would 352 00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,920 you you would go back to your original career and 353 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,920 you'd be called up. There was an evert emergency, so 354 00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:23,079 that theory was extended to to the whole nation. So 355 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:24,559 by the time you get to the end of the 356 00:25:24,599 --> 00:25:28,960 nineteenth century beginning of the twentieth, the European armies were 357 00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,759 numbered in the millions for the first time, very different 358 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:38,279 from the eighteenth century where the armies were small. Then, 359 00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,359 once you get into the twentieth century and the scientific 360 00:25:41,519 --> 00:25:47,119 developments of flight and strategic bombing which would come from flight, 361 00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,960 of course, and then nuclear technology and biochemical technology. Think 362 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,759 about Agent Orange and Vietnam. What do all these things. 363 00:25:56,559 --> 00:25:57,200 Speaker 1: Do for us? 364 00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:02,000 Speaker 2: What did all these things do to Western civilization? Western culture? 365 00:26:02,039 --> 00:26:07,000 What is Western civilization valued for over the course the 366 00:26:07,039 --> 00:26:10,519 past two thousand years, One of the things is valued 367 00:26:10,599 --> 00:26:17,279 is the imagination and the imagination being the key to 368 00:26:17,319 --> 00:26:22,680 what kind of a person individuals aspire to be and 369 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,319 what a society aspires to be. And I have a 370 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,319 chapter on the conservativism and the imagination in the book 371 00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:35,039 because I want to say that conservativism doesn't start with politics. 372 00:26:35,079 --> 00:26:40,160 It's conservative is a word that it's almost exclusively associated 373 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,559 with politics in our culture today. But I want to 374 00:26:43,599 --> 00:26:46,960 say that conservativism is far extream of politics. It does 375 00:26:47,079 --> 00:26:53,400 involve politics, but it involves politics as logical entailments. If 376 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,319 you have a conservative disposition on life, then that means 377 00:26:57,319 --> 00:27:02,759 that you are you are aspiring to something You're you're 378 00:27:02,799 --> 00:27:07,240 aspiring to the best of Western tradition and the interest 379 00:27:07,279 --> 00:27:11,200 of improving yourself and becoming more virtuous as a as 380 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:16,720 an individual, and by extension, the society becomes more virtuous 381 00:27:16,759 --> 00:27:20,240 as a society as it pursues virtue. And it starts 382 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,000 with the imagination. It starts with who you are, starts 383 00:27:23,039 --> 00:27:27,039 with your private life, and extends outward from there. It 384 00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:32,799 means that that dispositional conservatives in our own culture see 385 00:27:32,839 --> 00:27:39,759 ourselves more and more as people without a country in 386 00:27:39,839 --> 00:27:43,519 some ways, but that doesn't mean we withdraw from society 387 00:27:43,559 --> 00:27:47,480 withdraw from the world. It means that we have a 388 00:27:47,559 --> 00:27:53,640 much keener awareness of our responsibility to the world, and 389 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,440 not necessarily for our own enjoyment, but for the enjoyment 390 00:27:57,519 --> 00:28:00,599 and security and freedom of our children and our grand children. 391 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,000 We're really working for them, not so much for ourselves. 392 00:28:05,279 --> 00:28:09,480 You and I are old men. We've seen we've seen 393 00:28:09,759 --> 00:28:13,200 our lives, We've seen things come and go, we've seen 394 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,880 the decades pass by. But we think about our children, 395 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,440 and we think about our grandchildren who are going to 396 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:25,160 inherit the world that we give them, and we have 397 00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,720 a strong desire for them to be free and then 398 00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,880 them to have an order to society that's predicated on 399 00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:39,400 good things, on eternal things, on things that make life 400 00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:43,400 worth living. And we can do it. That's what a 401 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:48,440 conservative is dedicates himself or herself too, and that's what 402 00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:50,400 we need to get after it and get to be about. 403 00:28:51,279 --> 00:28:55,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is about conserving the best, best ideals 404 00:28:55,279 --> 00:29:00,599 that have made this republic again such an exceptional nation, 405 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,559 constitutional republic, you know, and I particularly think about that, 406 00:29:04,599 --> 00:29:07,519 and I'm sure a number of our listeners do we 407 00:29:07,839 --> 00:29:12,160 all go through this effectively. It's my wife and I 408 00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,279 get ready to send our oldest off to college. Those 409 00:29:15,319 --> 00:29:19,759 are exactly the things that I am thinking about these days. 410 00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:21,880 And as I wanted to ask you, because you have 411 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:24,839 you say this in your book, and I think this 412 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:30,000 ties into what we have seen over the past several generations. 413 00:29:30,079 --> 00:29:34,720 You know, as you talk about the secularism of the 414 00:29:34,759 --> 00:29:40,799 American culture society, if you will, that victory being complete, 415 00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:47,160 you write, people have become inordinately preoccupied with racial diversity, 416 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:52,160 valuing it over competency, and have become obsessed with trivialities 417 00:29:52,200 --> 00:30:00,960 and absurdities like the use of artificially contrived, per usual pronouns. 418 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,000 We have had that battle in America, that cultural battle 419 00:30:05,039 --> 00:30:09,640 for the last several years. But I mean all of 420 00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:16,440 that is the creation of these new concepts in you know, 421 00:30:16,599 --> 00:30:20,880 far left ideologies. And I think about the sixteen nineteen project, 422 00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,680 and you, as a historian, must you know, definitely scratch 423 00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,559 your head about to some of these things that in 424 00:30:29,039 --> 00:30:33,799 critical race theory and so called anti racism, we have 425 00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:38,839 we have really entered a brave new world, a far 426 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:43,319 left thought that is getting farther and farther away from 427 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:50,759 a creator, from a you know, a transcendent view of liberty. 428 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:58,279 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely, And I do ascribe those things to 429 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:05,359 a purely secular outlook, an outlook it's it's not secular 430 00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:11,960 by default, but an intentional turning away and rejection of God. 431 00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,200 And the book is that's that's one of the most 432 00:31:17,279 --> 00:31:19,319 relevant things about the book. That's one of the things 433 00:31:19,319 --> 00:31:21,920 that I try to address in the book, almost more 434 00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:29,480 than anything else. As a as a Christian, we we 435 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,960 we we we see God as the ground of all 436 00:31:33,119 --> 00:31:37,319 things that that are the basis for everything that exists. 437 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,400 And where does this come from? Well, it comes from, 438 00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,440 of course the Bible, but it comes from a whole 439 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,119 tradition of Christian writing that goes back, that goes back 440 00:31:47,119 --> 00:31:50,200 at We could just say to Augustine as an example. 441 00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,000 Augustine is very Pauline in the way that he conceives 442 00:31:54,119 --> 00:31:58,079 of of you know, his his interpretation of the way 443 00:31:58,079 --> 00:32:02,640 the world is, his interpretation of reality. If God is 444 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,960 the ground of all being, then trying to live a 445 00:32:06,039 --> 00:32:09,079 life and trying to establish a society on a basis 446 00:32:09,119 --> 00:32:13,759 that's not based upon God and who he is and 447 00:32:13,799 --> 00:32:15,920 what his will is as he's revealed it to us, 448 00:32:17,799 --> 00:32:22,359 is total folly and it can only result in anarchy 449 00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:27,319 and then tyranny and going back to Topville, the value 450 00:32:27,319 --> 00:32:31,759 of Topville and thinking about religion and conservativism in a 451 00:32:31,839 --> 00:32:38,200 society is topfield. Points are points are our perspective straight 452 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:42,640 to his world. The French Revolution. What does the French 453 00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:47,680 Revolution bring about? It's a desire to have freedom from limits. 454 00:32:48,559 --> 00:32:51,559 And by the way, remember in the twenty twenty four campaign, 455 00:32:53,039 --> 00:32:56,000 the Democrats, it would have us believe that they were 456 00:32:56,039 --> 00:32:58,920 the party of freedom. Remember that was their big that 457 00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,720 was their big thing was freedom, freedom, freedom. 458 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,240 Speaker 1: Freedom, freedom and the defense of democracy. Yeah, yeah, freedom, freedom, 459 00:33:05,359 --> 00:33:08,279 but freedom from what? Freedom from limits? So freedom to 460 00:33:08,359 --> 00:33:13,119 kill your own babies, freedom to define what what gender 461 00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:18,720 you were, freedom to you know, completely throw off all restraint, 462 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:24,400 all natural restraint, constraint and restraint, restraint. That was there 463 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,000 a definition of freedom and that was the definition of 464 00:33:27,039 --> 00:33:29,759 freedom by the Jacobins in the seventeen nineties. That resulted 465 00:33:29,839 --> 00:33:32,200 in the killing of the king publicly, the. 466 00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,519 Speaker 2: Slaughter of tens of thousands of people in the streets 467 00:33:35,519 --> 00:33:40,599 of Paris, throwing off of the Catholic Church, reorienting the calendar. 468 00:33:40,839 --> 00:33:42,519 And what does it all result in? It results in 469 00:33:42,599 --> 00:33:48,279 anarchy and then from there the tyranny of Napoleon. Absolutely 470 00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,319 is that what we want? Is that? Is that the 471 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,759 kind of country we want, and are those of the 472 00:33:52,799 --> 00:33:58,599 kind of people we want to be? No? Absolutely not so. 473 00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:04,880 The critical race theory and and an and an anti 474 00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:11,280 human ethic that not only accepts abortion as a necessary 475 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,360 evil doesn't do that at all. It thinks of it 476 00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,039 as a as a positive moral good. By the way, 477 00:34:17,039 --> 00:34:19,559 that sounds a lot like the way slavery was received 478 00:34:19,599 --> 00:34:23,519 back in the Founding Founding generation accepted slavery as a 479 00:34:23,559 --> 00:34:27,159 moral as a necessary moral evil. But but but a 480 00:34:27,159 --> 00:34:29,679 generation later they thought of it as a positive moral 481 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,920 good and defended it and fought a whole war over it. Well, 482 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,800 that's exactly what the left has done with abortion. And 483 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:41,360 they're doing the same thing with with gender reorientation and 484 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:47,119 all this other nonsense and hogwash. And then it's even 485 00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:50,039 more it's even more alarming when we see the rise 486 00:34:50,079 --> 00:34:53,719 of democratic socialism in America with in New York, and 487 00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,719 I mean, some people welcome that and think that's the 488 00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,559 demise of the democratic part as we know it. We'll 489 00:34:59,599 --> 00:35:03,159 have supermajorities among Republicans for the next fifty years because 490 00:35:03,159 --> 00:35:07,280 of that. I'm not so sure you know, in a 491 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:11,639 secular society, those kind of things that desire for instant 492 00:35:11,679 --> 00:35:15,920 gratification that comes with absolute equality. That's what Toakeville said 493 00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,559 Americans would sacrifice their freedom for. They would rather have 494 00:35:20,039 --> 00:35:24,360 equality because it's short term gain, rather than liberty because 495 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,320 that involves a longer term investment and you don't always 496 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:30,559 see you don't always see the results of it in 497 00:35:30,559 --> 00:35:33,400 your lifetime. So you're always going to go with what's 498 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,480 going to give you instant gratification. Topville is very very 499 00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,039 insightful and very relevant for today and people need to 500 00:35:41,079 --> 00:35:41,559 read them. 501 00:35:42,119 --> 00:35:46,519 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he saw what was was taking shape 502 00:35:46,519 --> 00:35:49,519 at that time and what would ultimately take shape in 503 00:35:49,559 --> 00:35:53,880 this country if it's citizens were not careful, and that's 504 00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,320 where we are. I mean, it goes back to what 505 00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:01,480 we talked about earlier in our conversation. Those dire statistics. 506 00:36:01,679 --> 00:36:03,840 You know, you go back just twenty five years and 507 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,679 you see seventy percent of Americans believed patriotism was very 508 00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,280 important to them. It's thirty eight percent just a couple 509 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,719 of years ago. Sixty two percent in nineteen ninety eight 510 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:20,320 value religion to be considered to be important, very important. 511 00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,159 That number has dropped thirty nine percent. Is it no 512 00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:28,800 wonder that we are here. But here let's delve into 513 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:33,239 perhaps some of the positives that the left is bringing 514 00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:38,639 us unwittingly, and some of that is, you know, this 515 00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,159 what proved to be a massive invasion of this country 516 00:36:42,159 --> 00:36:47,800 of illegal immigrants and obviously the problems and dangers therein. 517 00:36:48,599 --> 00:36:53,239 At the same time, they did bring in a lot 518 00:36:53,599 --> 00:36:58,880 millions of people who come from countries and cultures that 519 00:36:59,159 --> 00:37:04,159 highly value you got then highly value faith and religion. 520 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,519 Do you think some of these things will come back 521 00:37:07,599 --> 00:37:08,639 to bite the left? 522 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:16,880 Speaker 2: Well, I certainly hope so, and I think so. I 523 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,119 think we can see it in recent trends of the 524 00:37:20,159 --> 00:37:25,320 way people have voted. Of course, Trump capturing a greater 525 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:29,840 percentage of Hispanic and African American votes in the last 526 00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:35,199 selection than any Republican in recent memory is a good sign. 527 00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,079 And I think people do when they vote, they cast 528 00:37:38,159 --> 00:37:43,840 not just their a representation of what their policy opinions are, 529 00:37:44,159 --> 00:37:47,320 such as they are. But I think mostly they vote 530 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:49,719 for their values, and I think that that is a 531 00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,480 reflection of what they value. They value they want to 532 00:37:52,519 --> 00:37:57,000 have a culture that's not hurtling headlong into anti humanist 533 00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:02,719 philosophies and practices. They want to have a country that's 534 00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,840 built upon some kind of belief in the transcendent and 535 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,800 the influence of transcendent ideas. I think, generally speaking, I 536 00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,679 think we can come away from what we saw in 537 00:38:13,679 --> 00:38:17,400 the twenty twenty four election with that, but we have 538 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,679 to sustain and build upon that with a conservative by 539 00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:26,800 cultivating a conservative disposition. Because conservatism, as I said earlier, 540 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:28,880 it's not just a political. 541 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:30,360 Speaker 1: It's not how you vote. 542 00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:34,159 Speaker 2: It's not just how you vote, I should say, it's 543 00:38:34,199 --> 00:38:38,679 a it's a way of viewing reality. How ultimately, what 544 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,000 kind of a person do I want to be? What 545 00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:44,480 kind of people do I want my children to be? 546 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,360 And what kind of people do I want to inspire 547 00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,719 others to be? By my own word and my own 548 00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:57,760 presept about my own lie, a person who pursues virtue, 549 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,239 and virtue is not just for virtue's sake. It's not 550 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,000 just an empty slogan like the left views. It's like, 551 00:39:04,079 --> 00:39:06,679 be kind, be compassionate. What does that mean? Well, it 552 00:39:06,679 --> 00:39:09,320 just means agree with me, That's what It's what they say. 553 00:39:09,559 --> 00:39:12,000 When we say virtue, we're talking about, you know, the 554 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,719 theological virtues faith, hope, and love and the and the 555 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:21,079 uh the classical virtues of of temperance and injustice and 556 00:39:21,199 --> 00:39:26,000 courage and uh uh you know. So these these, these 557 00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,360 the virtues are what we aspire to. And those virtues 558 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,760 are all built upon a religious tradition that's been handed 559 00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:40,840 down for thousands of years. It's not just it's not 560 00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,400 just sentimentality, and it takes work and it takes discipline, 561 00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:49,119 it takes order and ordered life in order to cultivate 562 00:39:49,199 --> 00:39:53,440 those virtues. Those are the that's the fountain head of conservativism. 563 00:39:54,119 --> 00:40:01,400 That's where conservativism, conservativism begins. And like like, Viric says 564 00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,639 that fruitful nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux. What 565 00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:10,360 he's talking about is that there's always change in human life. 566 00:40:11,199 --> 00:40:13,599 You just talked about. You're sending your oldest to college. 567 00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,159 You're experiencing a change right now. Your family's going through 568 00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:20,840 a change, and your oldest is going through a change. 569 00:40:21,199 --> 00:40:27,280 Change is part of life, and conservatives understand that. But 570 00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:33,119 change has to be managed and directed. And one of 571 00:40:33,159 --> 00:40:36,599 the ways that you direct change is through being informed 572 00:40:36,599 --> 00:40:39,960 by a good The best of our traditions as a 573 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,360 Western culture and as an American culture, and if we 574 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:50,599 throw away all our tradition, if we commit intellectual suicide 575 00:40:50,639 --> 00:40:55,440 by forgetting who we are as a people, by rearranging 576 00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,239 the curricula in our schools around the sixteen nineteen project, 577 00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:07,320 that's anti American, by tearing down statues and and redefining 578 00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,440 the past along the lines of political ideology, no matter 579 00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,119 what it is. And what we're doing is we're throwing 580 00:41:14,159 --> 00:41:16,960 a right tradition and we can no longer be informed 581 00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,119 by it, and we can't be we can't be conservatives. 582 00:41:20,119 --> 00:41:20,760 We're going to do that. 583 00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,480 Speaker 1: So, John, with all of that said, my final question 584 00:41:24,559 --> 00:41:27,760 for you is that what we're talking about here from 585 00:41:28,039 --> 00:41:34,159 the modern left is in many ways a war on reality. 586 00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:41,280 How can a republic survive a war on reality that 587 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,360 is ongoing and getting more and more intense as the 588 00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:47,800 days pass. 589 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:54,760 Speaker 2: Well, In short, it can't survive a war in reality. 590 00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:59,280 And so what are we to do as conservatives it 591 00:41:59,519 --> 00:42:07,480 It begins the effort to rescue civilization, which is abstract, 592 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:13,400 and conservatives value to concrete over the abstract. We value 593 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,880 life as it is, reality as it is, and we 594 00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:23,760 see ourselves in twenty five in a particular state of 595 00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:30,000 affairs Step one is to look in the mirror. What 596 00:42:30,119 --> 00:42:34,039 kind of a person do I aspire to be? Step 597 00:42:34,079 --> 00:42:36,519 one is ordering our own life and our own family 598 00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:42,159 according to virtuous principles informed by the best of tradition. 599 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:46,400 And I'm a Christian. I recognize that everybody's a Christian. 600 00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:49,559 But if you're a Westerner and if you're an American, 601 00:42:50,679 --> 00:42:55,119 Christian morality is at the very center of tradition for 602 00:42:55,519 --> 00:42:59,599 all of us. And you don't have to be a 603 00:42:59,679 --> 00:43:05,800 Christian and to to you know, to pursue UH temperance 604 00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:11,719 and injustice and courage and UH and wisdom and faith, 605 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,320 hope and love. You don't have to be a Christian 606 00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,000 to want to pursue this thing. So the first step 607 00:43:16,039 --> 00:43:19,400 is to look in the mirror and to focus on ourselves, 608 00:43:19,679 --> 00:43:22,000 to focus on our own cultivation of virtue and be 609 00:43:22,079 --> 00:43:25,440 an inspiration to our those who who live around us. 610 00:43:26,159 --> 00:43:30,519 And that is that action will spread out in concentric circles. 611 00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:36,840 We also have to be realistic and recognize that we 612 00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,199 might not win this battle for civilization in our lifetimes. 613 00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:43,039 We might. We might not. You and I we're about 614 00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:48,639 the same age, and we might you know, we might 615 00:43:48,639 --> 00:43:53,440 not see the promised land like like Moses. But our 616 00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:57,760 prayer is that our children and our grandchildren will that 617 00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,559 they will, that they will even inherit something that we 618 00:44:02,679 --> 00:44:05,440 fought for, even though we might not see it in 619 00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,360 our lifetimes. When you think about the people that went 620 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:14,800 before you, Matt, your parents, your grandparents, they handed they 621 00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:18,159 handed something down to you and mine did to me. 622 00:44:19,079 --> 00:44:25,800 And they're not here anymore. They're gone. But society, as 623 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,440 Edwin Burke said, is a contract between the dead and 624 00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,639 the living and the yet to be born. If we 625 00:44:30,679 --> 00:44:36,679 see society as as as encompassing all all three of 626 00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,199 those groups, then we can take the long view of 627 00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,199 culture and the long view of effort and know that 628 00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:48,599 our efforts do do redown to something good. They do 629 00:44:48,639 --> 00:44:52,920 have consequences that are good, and we can be we 630 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,840 can have inculcate patience and see it as a long 631 00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,679 term investment. And that's what I hope to do for myself. 632 00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:02,960 And that's what I hope that people will take away 633 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:03,519 from the book. 634 00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:08,559 Speaker 1: What you're ultimately talking about here, in my humble estimation, 635 00:45:09,639 --> 00:45:14,760 is the road to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 636 00:45:15,199 --> 00:45:20,519 and that road as a foundation. It is not something 637 00:45:20,639 --> 00:45:23,960 just dangling in the air that can be shattered by 638 00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:31,840 the wind. Built on tradition, built on Christian values, built 639 00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:38,639 on the hope for our children, our grandchildren, our grandchildren's children. 640 00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:39,119 Speaker 2: It is. 641 00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:46,599 Speaker 1: It is a very very good and powerful look at 642 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,599 where we've been and where it suggests we're all going. 643 00:45:49,679 --> 00:45:53,360 Thanks to my guest today, John D. Wilson, author of 644 00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:58,400 Religious Freedom, a conservative primer, you've been listening to another 645 00:45:58,519 --> 00:46:01,320 edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior 646 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,159 Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. 647 00:46:05,599 --> 00:46:09,679 Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the frame. 648 00:46:17,119 --> 00:46:28,079 Speaker 2: Heard the fame, voice the reason, and then it faded away.