Customer Reviews

The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition

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This book challenges the idea that the principles this country was founded on were derived from the Enlightenment philosophers. Evans describes the evolution of concepts like the rule of law, property rights and limits on the power of kings, and traces them back to medieval England even before Magna Carta and demonstrates that these ideas had been very thoroughly discussed, argued and implemented for centuries in England before the first colonies were formed, and written compacts and constitutions of the early colonies reflect this.

Evans convincingly argues that Christianity provided the fertile ground in which these ideas were able to take root and prosper, and provides plenty of quotes and footnotes to back it up. He also makes the point that Christian Europe was the only place in the history of the world where these ideas DID take root, and that even today, freedom is a fairly rare commodity elsewhere in the world.

It is his contention that the idea that all men are created equal was introduced to the world by Christianity, and that it was Christianity that gave feudal nobles the authority to challenge the power of kings.

I'm not a religious person, but am beginning to realize that I had a whole bunch of misguided preconceptions about what the Christian religion is and is not responsible for, and will never swallow the politically correct line again without a healthy dose of skepticism.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the individual liberties our constitution was intended to ensure.

I was assigned this book to read for a master's class several years ago, and how glad I was for it. Evans thoroughly backs up his arguments -- and in my view, his most compelling stance is that the American Revolution was actually a *conservative* one, directly challenging modern "conventional wisdom." How so? In a nutshell, he says that by desiring to uphold decades and centuries of established legal foundations, the Founders were at odds with an England (Parliament) that was more and more acting without lawful permission. A must read for those interested in *true* liberalism ("classic" liberalism), not contemporary liberalism.

Evans has written many successful books, but this is a stunning, path-breaking work. It is a frontal assault on Karl Marx and the economic determinism that underpins Marxism. In place of economic determinism, Evans offers what might be called theological determinism. He demonstrates that free countries are free largely because of religion, rather than despite religion, as liberals claim.

Stanton is one to the few authors that dares to question and rethink widely accepted assumptions on the roots of (America's) liberal tradition. Great thinking and interesting reading. A recommendation for everyone who values freedom and its Christian roots

The Kirkus Reviews review is insulting to our intelligence. Our we supposed to be scared away because "women, minorities... liberals" will be insulted? Of course, what they really mean is that Evans has not re-written history for the sake of making everyone feel included... Which is the standard of scholarship these days evidently. But for those who are interested in learning rather than getting a politically correct mind enema, this is an excellent book. Evans builds on the work of some of the most serious thinkers who have grappled with the Western liberal (libertarian) tradition: Burke, Tocqueville, Acton, Hayek & so forth. His thesis builds on all these great minds to present an integrated view of the role of tradition, liberty & religion in limiting state power & producing the regime of individual liberty that we all value so much. His chapter on "The Uses of Tradition" is particularly brilliant on the role of the common law. The excellent biblographical essay at the end is worth the price of the book alone. I'm sure many will disagree with the bold claims that Evans makes. But no intellectually honest reader will be able to lightly dismiss the book. This is serious, courageous scholarship that, yet, takes many perspectives into account, (if only to thoughtfully disagree with them). It deserves more substantive responses than Kirkus' warning to the faithful.

From the teachings of Jesus Christ and Saint Augustine, to the Magna Carta and Blackstone, and still onward to the Puritans and the American founding fathers, M. Stanton Evans traces the ascendancy of liberty in the West. Evans gives particular attention to the roots of Western liberty, which arose in the fertile soil of Christianity; added focus is given to the Anglo-American common law tradition. This is a prudent piece of scholarship that eschews the Enlightenment conception of history while explaining how religion-specifically the Christian faith-has helped fortify corporate liberty in the West and particularly in Anglo-American civilization. Liberty owes as much to the institutions that progressively developed as it does to political philosophy.

The chapter entitled the Age of Despots explores the collectivist and totalitarian movements whose progenitors Robbspierre and Rousseau helped to inspire countless revolutionaries. Evans makes light of the anti-Christian character of twentieth-century totalitarian ideologies, which are essentially millenarian religions. Hitler stated that Nazis hoped "to eradicate Christianity in Germany root and branch." Mussolini signaled a disdain for objective truth in declaring: "If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an external objective truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity..." For fascists and collectivists, truth was subjective and they were apt to affirm their will to power; they sought to tailor their own collectivist ideology, propel it into the limelight, and espouse it as the Gospel truth. Fascists embraced the sentiments of Thrysamachus in Plato's Republic who defined justice as the will of the strongest. Simply put, might makes right! Evans asks a pressing question: in the absence or refutation of religious and ethical absolutes, who will define the truth and who will define right and wrong? The American Republic must refocus her sight on the first principles of her framers least she succumb to the totalitarian trap and morph into a totalist Enlightenment polity.

If Men were Angels is an exploration into human nature; this chapter drawing from a Madisonian proverb affirms the necessity of government owing itself to original sin and fallen man. A corollary to a mistrust of human nature is a mistrust of power, which is precisely why the framers of the Constitution sought to fortify checks and balances and decentralize power in the United States.

In contrast to pro-Enlightenment interpretations of history, which exalt the French Revolution and mystical belief in progress, Evans finds the ascendancy of Christianity as end to the absolutism of the pagan regimes. While the state exists to restrain evil (i.e. force and fraud), the state itself was to be retrained, because a mistrust of human nature and concentrated power. The Calvinist belief in man's depravity played no small role in the development of the Anglo-American polity. The proteges of Jean-Jacques Rousseau do not acknowledge sin, but rather characterize society as sick and men as being perfectable if freed from the shackles of sick society. M. Stanton Evans does a remarkable job at explaining the debt that Americans owe to Christianity in the political developments that made the West free. He offers prescriptive wisdom against Enlightenment ideologies promising absolute freedom, which usually results in an absolutist state. Likewise, he eschews the Byzantine symbiosis of church and state, in favor of Protestant conceptions of sphere sovereignty, which acknowledges the God ordained sovereignty of the ecclesiastical and civil governments in their respective sphere. All things considered, this book is an impressive contribution to political science by capturing the interplay of religion, politics and tradition in the last few centuries.

A special thanks to my former political science professor Dr. S.A. Samson for introducing me to Evans' book.

Veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans begins THE THEME IS FREEDOM by describing what he calls the "liberal history lesson": The freedom and intellectual progress that existed in the ancient world was snuffed out by the Middle Ages only to be reborn in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It came to fruition in the United States, whose founders created a secular nation based on enlightenment ideas. They enshrined this in the first amendment, creating a "separation of church and state" justifying federal court intervention in everything from prayer in school to the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property. Who knew that a bunch of dead white guys could turn out to be such a progressive lot.

As Evans tells it, this view is almost entirely wrong. Religion (specifically Christianity) has had a positive role in western culture. The Middle Ages were in fact times of advancement in both science and politics, in which decentralized control was the norm. The Puritans combined the medieval ideas of decentralized control with representative government. Evans cites studies showing that the Puritans in New England permitted a much larger percentage of the population to vote than any European nation.

Evans' discussion of the founding of the United States and the drafting of the first amendment may be most interesting to readers, since church-state issues pop up from time to time. Evans, relying on the work of M.E. Bradford, argues that most of the founders belonged to orthodox churches. He also argues that at the time of the revolution most of the states had some form of established or semi-established churches. Many also required voters or office holders to hold religious beliefs. Since the first amendment applied to the federal government only ("Congress shall make no law . . .") the intent of the first amendment was to prevent the federal government from interfering with state establishments of religion. I find Evans' discussion generally persuasive, but the evidence is subject to different conclusions. If in fact the majority of the states had established religions (and religious requirements to hold office) then one might see the first amendment constituting a rather clear break with precedent. Even more so, the religious test ban (Article 6) was fairly radical for its time. Church membership is somewhat nebulous as well, since membership doesn't always mean agreement. It is certainly the case that many of the leading lights of the founding period weren't fully orthodox believers, on the other hand only a relatively few were probably deists. Evans didn't have the space to discuss whether the fourteenth amendment applies the first amendment's restrictions to the states, but does direct the reader to the important work of the late Raoul Berger.

Sadly, the people who need this book most, students of modern academia, won't read it. Also, I wish it had more writings from those who preceded Burke, Jefferson, et al. like Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, who first laid down many if not most of the ideas that illuminated the Age of Enlightenment.

As noted in the title, this is a brilliant book with many solid facts that provide an excellent starting point in describing the American political system forming the basis of the United States Constitution. The author cuts through many misconceptions in a convincing fashion that should excite any objective or fair historian or lay reader. Though I think the author is correct, that doesn't mean, however, that further historical investigation would find no flaws whatsoever. That said, the book does seem to confirm my own personal research using other sources.

All in all, this book is essential reading for everyone, especially our political, judicial and educational leaders.

I read this several times many years ago. My now grown kids read it, at my suggestion, while in high school. They have been the scourge of their liberal instructors and professors since then. If I could mandate one book that had to be read and understood before you graduated from high school this would be it. I wish somebody would do an audiobook of it as I would love to listen to it while traveling.