Book Write-Up: Last Call for Liberty, by Os Guinness

Os Guinness. Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat. IVP, 2018. See here to purchase the book.

Os Guinness is a leading Christian thinker. This book, Last Call for Liberty, reflects on the preservation of liberty in the United States of America.

For Guinness, a variety of concepts are significant in the preservation of liberty. First, there is the idea of covenant: that Americans historically made a covenant to be a nation of freedom. Guinness cites quotations from early American history that stress the biblical concept of covenant in America’s institution. Guinness is critical of football players who refuse to stand for the national anthem to protest injustice, for he believes that they are disavowing America’s covenant, thereby sawing the branch on which they are sitting.

Second, there are religious faith and personal morality. Guinness denies that America was founded as a Christian nation, but he states that the founders believed that freedom works best when the people are religious and moral. According to Guinness, a belief in God provides a basis for human worth and dignity that atheism does not. Freedom should also have a telos rather than existing for its own sake: when God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, for example, God delivered them unto something. Of particular importance to Guinness is religious freedom, which Guinness believes the Obama Presidency and the PC-police have undermined. Guinness also calls for civility in public discourse.

Guinness frequently draws a contrast between the American revolution, which he favors, and the secular, anti-religious, mob-like French revolution, which he thinks is echoed by the radical Left today. In the course of this book, Guinness is critical of utopianism, noting that it has led to totalitarianism, and he promotes instead a realism about human nature that checks the power of government. Guinness also is critical of looking to technology to attain personal immortality, likening that to the Tower of Babel.

The book has its advantages. It is thoughtful and eloquent. Guinness makes a lot of informative historical allusions, as when he notes that Voltaire, a skeptic about religion, still acknowledged the importance of religion in providing non-elites with a moral basis. Guinness’ perspective seems conservative, overall, but not knee-jerk conservative, for he is critical of drone warfare, denies that America was founded as a Christian nation, and mentions a time when he was at odds with the religious right. Some of Guinness’ arguments also make a degree of sense. Although America has its share of hypocrisy, as Guinness acknowledges, freedom is still a part of its heritage, and freedom works well when people are ethical.

In terms of critiques, I have a few. For one, the sorts of points that Guinness makes have been made elsewhere, so there was little that was earthshakingly new in this book. This is something to keep in mind if you are deliberating about devoting your time to reading it. Second, Guinness did not really flesh out what freedom is and why it is so valuable. Third, the book is short on solutions. Okay, freedom works best when people are religious. But what if a number of them are not?

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.