American Freedom Like No Other
Os Guinness on America and covenantal politics:
The third volume in the four-part collection of books written by Os Guinness looking at the greatness of the American experiment in liberty, penned to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, has just been released. The first two volumes I have already reviewed on this site. Here are the three books of this quartet so far:
Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds (Kildare, 2024).
America Agonistes: America’s 250th and the Restoration of a Nation in Conflict with Itself and Its Past (Kildare, 2025).
A Freedom Like No Other: America 250 and the Restoration of the American Republic (Kildrare, 2026).
Needless to say, when the fourth and final volume appears, I will write that one up as well. But here I want to discuss A Freedom Like No Other. In it Guinness recognises the great debt the Founding Fathers owed to the Bible in general and the covenants that God had with ancient Israel in particular. In the Introduction Guinness lays out his case:
It is time for freedom-loving people to remember the long and arduous road to where we have come, and to sound the alarm for the American Republic, for the Western world, for the ideals for which they stand at their best, and for humanity at large—but most especially for the American Republic on the milestone occasion of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The American covenant was pronounced “broken” at the time of the 2006 anniversary of the Revolution in 1976. Fifty years have come and gone since then, the fractures and divisions in the country have worsened, and there has not been a single serious attempt to repair and restore the Republic and its covenant. There has certainly been a movement to make America great again, but little has been said of what made the Republic great in the first place and the style of the movement has only served to compound the fractures, widen the divisions, and deepen the crisis. Like the unfinished temple at the low point in Jewish history, after the Babylonian exile and the devastation of the Lost Ten Tribes, America’s broken and forgotten covenant lies as a mute witness to the way in which key parts of the founders’ experiment have been lost in America’s determined rush to become and to prove its power as the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth.
Make no mistake. The hour for the American Republic is striking. Tom Paine’s words at the beginning of the revolutionary year 1776 are equally true, if not even more so, today: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” But who will argue for that claim in today’s world, with understanding and without a shred of bombast? How many more presidents and administrations will come and go before it is too late to restore the Republic and its fate becomes sealed? Considering only the ideas abroad in the land that are hostile to freedom and the rampant levels of corruption in America, the Republic is seriously off course. All the red, white, and blue semiquincentennial celebrations in the world cannot mask that fact. The hour is striking too for a declining Europe and for humanity at large with the coming of artificial intelligence and superintelligence. Each one in its own way is facing an unprecedented crisis of identity.
The 250th anniversary of the Revolution dawns on a younger generation that has little or no idea of what made America great at the beginning, and it dawns amid a mounting series of domestic and global crises in Western civilization. It is time to see whether the present generation of Americans can recover and restore the American Republic and the ideals of its citizenship—or whether “America First” now means only an American desire to enjoy their own American freedom, giving up their mission as the model, the pilot project, and the champion of freedom in the world, content to remain safe, prosperous, and strong in their well-defended homeland and hemisphere. The warning has sounded. The half-visible hand is writing—writing—writing on the wall, and the banqueters must pay attention. Those who have ears to hear must hear. History and events are moving relentlessly, and not under the control of any single human or any single nation. The hour is later than many Americans think. Radical and revolutionary changes are in the air, and time and tide do not wait for sleepwalkers, partygoers, boasters, or TikTokers.
There is no question that America has reached a turning point. (pp. 10-11)
He continues by looking at the covenant relationship the Jews of old had with Yahweh, and how this can be rightly applied to America today. As he writes later in the Introduction:
The impact of covenant on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinking was clear and it can easily be spelled out in terms of the first principles of American freedom, such as the dignity of the person, the sanctity of life, the priority of liberty, the accountability of power, and the integrity of property. But a more comprehensive overview of the Bible’s vision of a covenantal society and a covenant politics of freedom and responsibility is much fuller and richer than many people realize.
What follows is a summary of twelve of the chief principles of the Bible’s covenant politics of freedom and responsibility. The names given to the twelve principles are English words, rooted in Greek and Latin, but the content is what matters, and the content is decisively Hebrew and biblical. (p. 28)
The twelve principles, and the twelve chapters devoted to each, are these: authority, dignity, sanctity, liberty, responsibility, morality, harmony, reciprocity, fallibility, accountability, civility, and fidelity. Guinness offers seven reasons why the covenant principles are so vitally important. The final one is this:
Seventh, for all the benefits of considering covenant politics, a major obstacle confronts anyone who considers these first principles – their source is the Bible. The Bible is the book that made America, without which America quite simply would not be. Yet, following the Enlightenment and the rise of biblical criticism, there has been a massive turning away from the Bible and its teaching – even though, after 300 years, the credibility of the Bible has fared far better than the credibility of the Enlightenment. (p. 31)
As to the twelve principles, consider just one of them: dignity. Guinness begins the chapter on this one as follows:
Second, the covenant politics of freedom and responsibility is built on the irreducible foundation of the unique dignity and worth of the human person—that is, of every single individual human person. Covenant politics therefore starts where the highest aspirations towards a human and humane society must start—on the foundation of a high and securely grounded view of the human person. According to the Bible, the book that made Western civilization and America, the human person has a high and inalienable worth because every single human being without exception is created “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26-27), who Himself is transcendent yet personal. In the light of this Genesis declaration, each human being has supreme value, each is unique and infinitely precious. No two humans are alike. No two human faces are alike. Each has a dignity of difference. Each human person has an inherent dignity and worth, and because of this uniqueness, possesses rights that are inherent, inalienable, and nonnegotiable. Each individual person must therefore be valued, not because they are members of the species Homo sapiens, but as individual persons created in the very image of God.
The Genesis declaration that humans are made in the image and likeness of God is quite simply the clearest, strongest, and most influential statement of the priceless value of the individual human being in all history. That humans are made in the very image and likeness of God, who prohibits absolutely every other image of himself, is the foundation stone of what might be called the Magna Carta of humanity.
It would be a grave mistake for the present generation of Americans to take this high view of human dignity and worth, and the equally strong view of the equality of all human beings, for granted. It deserves the most serious attention. Familiarity has bred carelessness. Many Americans have no idea how rare and how radical these affirmations were and are…. (pp. 39-40)
Each of the twelve points of covenant that he discusses in twelve chapters are well worth exploring. But let me close by sharing from the final paragraphs of the book’s Conclusion:
The year 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Revolution and American independence, is both opportune and providential. In the letter to the Congress before the Proclamation of Emancipation in 1863, Lincoln famously referred to America as “the last best hope of earth.” Humanly speaking, 2026 could well be the last best hope for the last best hope….
The questions raised by this milestone year of the 250th anniversary cannot be ducked. Do Americans understand and appreciate the distinctiveness of the Republic, and why it represents a form of freedom like no other? Do the citizens of the American Republic still have enough of what Saint Augustine called “loved things held in common” to sustain the Republic? The choice before the Republic is clear: truth, human dignity, freedom, and the culture of life versus lies, power, authoritarianism, and a culture of death. Choose truth, choose human dignity, choose freedom, choose life, and choose the faith and the way of life that alone makes them possible. Above all, choose the Author of them all and the Author of life and existence itself.
The hour for the American Republic is later than most Americans think. The present moment for America is a moment that must not be missed. Celebration will not be enough. The time has come for an urgently needed reflection and rededication to America’s fundamental first principles – America’s and the Bible’s covenant principles. Nothing else and nothing less will make America great again. The time has come for America to turn around and to come home. When foundations and first principles are at stake, going back first is always the way to go forward best. The indispensable key to restoring the American Republic is nothing less than a true American homecoming. In the present hour, the call ringing out is simple: “Come home, America.” (pp. 165-166)
This is indeed a crucial hour for the American Republic. We need more voices like that of Guinness to help us as we proceed on the perilous journey of the years to come. I hope that the quotes offered here will entice you to get this volume – and the two others penned before it.
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