The Continuation of Freedom

During the week following the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Paolo Di Luca and I made one of our traditional trips to Pittsburgh, PA. Among our regular stops on such a trip is a bookstore located on Pittsburgh’s south side. During this most recent visit, my attention was captured at the bookstore by an anthology of writings of the late Russell Kirk (1918-1994). Edited by Michael Lucchese, the volume is titled On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776. Among the Kirk writings included in this timely publication is a section under the title, “Renewing a Shaken Culture,” adapted from material Kirk produced during the last decade of the 20th century.

Addressing the subject of order in society, Kirk wrote the following: “What is called order . . . has two    aspects. . . . The first of these is order in the soul: what is called moral order. The second of these is order in the commonwealth: what is called constitutional order. In both its aspects, order stands endangered today, requiring vigorous defense” (33, emp. added). The preceding statement has crucial implications regarding the necessity and nature of Classical Christian Apologetics. Stating his objective as setting forth “symptoms of neglect of [our] common inheritance of America,” Kirk observed: “It is by no means certain that our present moral and constitutional order is providing sufficiently for its own future. Modern men pay a great deal of attention to material and technological means, but little attention to the instruments by which any generation must fulfill its part. . . . [T]hey contribute little . . . except in technology and applied sciences, toward the preservation of a tolerable order, let alone its improvement” (34, emp. added).

Remember! The above observations were made during the last decade of the 20th century. Honestly, does any one of us have any doubt regarding what this scholar would say about our present moral order in America in this third decade of the 21st century? Significantly, the first symptom that Kirk identified in his “Renewing a Shaken Culture” is the weakening of religious faith. He wrote, “Religious faith . . . seems enfeebled in the United   States . . . at the expense of the transcendent ends of religion and of any personal obedience to moral teachings” (35). What a price there is to be paid for the weakening of true religious faith in individuals, families, churches, and nations! The price will include both 1) the loss of transcendence in some sense in the minds of the people, and 2) the loss of personal obedience to absolute moral teaching. Ultimately, unless the tide is turned, the result can include the loss of freedom and the loss of the soul.

As a 20th century defector from Communism, Whittaker Chambers, wrote: “External freedom is only an aspect of internal freedom. . . . Religion [God] and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul, there is no justification for freedom” (Witness, 16).

  Powerful, relevant, and, above all, true are the following words of George Washington from his inaugural address as the first President of the United States of America:

[T]he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. . . . I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction . . . since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the . . . course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness . . . the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. . . . (Fellow Citizens, 6).

With the foundation of pure and immutable principles of private morality; the truth found in the course of nature; indissoluble union between true virtue and true happiness; and a national regard for the eternal rules of order and right, herein, by the grace of God, is the path to the continuation of freedom.

Charles C. Pugh III
Executive Director

Works Cited:

Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. 1952. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1980.

Lucchese, Michael, ed. Russell Kirk on America. Nashville: Creed & Culter, 2026.

Remini, Robert V., and Terry Golway, eds. Fellow Citizens: The Penguin Book of U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses. New York: Penguin, 2008.