The Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Traditions [Hardcover]

Stanton Evans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 1994

Splendidly argued and intensely interesting, especially to modern conservatives and also to liberals who like to have their assumptions challenged.--Booklist

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

That there is conflict over the accepted place of religion in our public life and institutions goes without saying. Journalist Evans argues that we have erroneous notions about the origins of our country, institutions, and freedoms. He finds many of these mistakes to be the product of an accepted "liberal history lesson." For example, Evans opposes the common belief that there must be a "wall of separation" between church and state. Like Stephen Carter in The Culture of Disbelief (LJ 9/1/93), Evans believes that religion is wrongly subordinated to other elements of modern American culture and that religion and religious faith should be significant parts of our public life. Carter's book is the more scholarly and principled, Evans's the more polemical. Recommended for public libraries.
Jerry Stephens, U.S. Court of Appeals Lib., Oklahoma City
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Like the generally liberal historian Page Smith in Rediscovering Christianity , Evans shows that the roots of U.S. liberties lie in the Christian understanding of the Bible. He uses a rather different set of authorities--namely, our political founding fathers and their English forebears more than the clerics (Luther, Calvin, etc.), whom Smith preferred to cite (both men appeal crucially to St. Augustine, though). His aims in reestablishing that the U.S. is definitely a Christian nation differ from Smith's. Smith stressed the disjunction of Christian principles and the spirit of capitalism, whereas Evans strives to convince us "that religious belief and its associated values are conceptually indispensable to a regime of freedom." So doing, Evans also argues that modern political liberalism undermines freedom as it undermines religion, and here he sometimes comes a cropper, as when he views the gay lifestyle as a pagan resurgence that is antilibertarian. But most of the book is splendidly argued and intensely interesting, especially to modern conservatives and also to liberals who like to have their assumptions challenged. Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc.; 1St Edition edition (October 13, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895264978
• ISBN-13: 978-0895264978
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #981,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Traces our founding principles back to the middle ages., May 15, 1998

By 

Cynthia Loyd (Los Angeles, U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition (Paperback)

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.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, November 24, 2001

By 

Dave Huber (Delaware, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition (Paperback)

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the 25 most important conservative books, August 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Traditions (Hardcover)

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.