Religion & Liberty Online Archives

History

January 22, 2021

The death and resurrection of ‘The 1776 Report’ (full report text)

While I was reading The 1776 Report, it disappeared. The publication commissioned to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States,” which found itself memory-holed by one of the initial executive orders President Joe Biden signed during his first day in office, expertly explains the American philosophy of liberty and applies it to the most threatening modern-day crises. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2021

Today is Lord Acton’s 187th birthday. His philosophy should guide our next two centuries

Sunday January 10, 2021, is Lord Acton’s 187th birthday. This difficult era of a global pandemic, a crisis in institutions, and civil unrest seem strange times indeed to look back on the life and legacy of a Victorian historian of ideas – but, as Lord Acton himself remarked, “if the Past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and surest emancipation.” Continue Reading...
December 24, 2020

Christmas replaces Utopia with the kingdom of Heaven

While researching another article, I was taken aback to read a political organization refer to its platform as a “new covenant.” The feeling of unease deepened with each plank of its revolutionary and highly divisive program to remake society de novo (about which, more later). Continue Reading...
November 11, 2020

Life in exile: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on ‘creative minorities’

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks recently passed away from cancer at the age of 72, completing a rich life and establishing a legacy as one of Judaism’s leading public intellectuals. As former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and a member of the House of Lords, Sacks had a unique ability to weave together Jewish insights across a range of intersecting areas – from philosophy and theology to economics and politics – leading to a distinctive moral witness amid the rise of secularization. Continue Reading...
November 10, 2020

America remains

From the ancient Greeks and Romans – from Heraclitus and Polybius to Livy – Western civilization came to accept the idea that all governments, but especially free ones, go through distinct organic and biological stages. Continue Reading...