Kerby Anderson

A recent issue of World magazine asks, “Can Classical Liberalism Be Saved?” We are talking about classical liberalism that began with the Magna Carta and is found in its purest expression in the U.S. Constitution.

Jenny Lind Schmitt attended the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference and wrote about it in this article. She heard from speakers like Arthur Brooks, Os Guinness, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (all who have been on my radio program to talk about similar issues).

The problem facing America and the West was best described in Patrick Deneen’s book, Why Liberalism Failed. Liberalism (whether classical or progressive) focuses on an individual’s free choice. In the context of our founding and in early America, this meant the individual had the choice to do what is right. Doing good meant doing what was right not only for the individual but for the community.

As her article mentions, and the book explains, liberalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. Our culture has abandoned biblical principles and the Judeo-Christian belief in civic virtue. “Self-interest as a guiding principle begets greed, nihilism, and eventually social collapse.”

The solution would be to return to the bedrock Christian principles upon which Western society was formed. But that is no easy matter apart from a true revival and reformation. Millions of Americans no longer attend church and have little interest in biblical principles. Millions more may attend church but aren’t thinking and living according to biblical principles.

This is the challenge for America and the Western world. Liberalism probably cannot be saved without a return to biblical values.