Freedom Without Faith Will Falter

Without faith, freedom can’t survive, and the American republic will collapse, according to Os Guinness. He offered singularly brilliant commentary on this notion at a recent Socrates in the City event hosted by Eric Metaxas in Washington, D.C.

America’s deepest roots are covenantal, found in the Bible’s book of Exodus, where God revealed himself at Mount Sinai. The United States was shaped by two cities—Athens and Rome—and the desert, Guinness said, when God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. God engineered the Sinai revolution to set humans free. America has carried that revolution forward, but we’ve lost sight of it.

Though many advocate for making America great again, we don’t ask what made it great initially, Guinness said. “For many people the forgotten key is the way the American republic owes everything to the rediscovery of the Hebrew republic.” This is the premise of Guinness’s book, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom.

Christian pastors and churches largely fail to teach their congregations about America’s covenantal origins, which Guinness finds appalling. He acknowledged that most Americans are entirely unaware of the vital role Sinai played in America’s founding. It will be to our great detriment, as the world careers toward authoritarianism. “Where is the counter? In the American republic,” he said.

As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we must “go back to the foundations of freedom, and not just say how great the republic is, but, ‘What do we need to put right?’” Guinness explained. “It’s an urgent time. I don’t see a lot of people responding. Here, living in Washington—celebration? Yes, a lot of it. Reflection? Not very much. Self-examination? Even less. And confession? Hardly at all.”

For more about Os Guinness, visit his website. For more about Socrates in the City, see this link.