Review of America Agonistes: America's 250th by Os Guinness

Dr. Os Guinness is a highly regarded Christian philosopher and cultural commentator. In this second of four planned volumes, he delves into America's "agonistes" or struggle with itself and its heritage, a self-destructive conflict that could literally bring the nation to its nadir. Guinness's concern is the preservation of freedom. America became the leading nation in the free world not due to race or class but because of its intentions and ideals, it’s belief that humanity was created in God’s image, that God bestowed our human rights, that individual life and liberty were sacrosanct. It is these founding ideals that are now under attack from within. Guinness is optimistic but he believes nothing less than a return to these founding ideals will result in a restoration of what really makes America great. I recommend this book. For more Christian commentary, see my website at www.rexmrogers.com or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers. #freedom #OsGuinness #liberty #unalienablerights

Transcript

On the cusp of a special birthday, America is in polarizing turmoil, so is our future one of pessimism or optimism?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #230 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Dr. Os Guinness has long been one of my favorite Christian philosophers and cultural commentators, and his latest book America Agonistes: America’s 250th and the Restoration of a Nation in Conflict with Itself and Its Past(2025), did not disappoint. 

First, let’s deal with the title. “Agonistes” means “a person engaged in a struggle” or “a person enduring an inner struggle.” Perhaps Dr. Guinness drew this word from the poem, “Samson Agonistes,” a tragic drama by John Milton that appeared with the publication of Milton's Paradise Regained in 1671? In any event, Dr. Guinness’s writings are noteworthy for their expansive vocabulary.

It reminds me of a time early in our marriage when my wife, Sarah, gave me a gift of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All Four Novels/All Fifty-Six Adventures. I had begun reading these stories and eventually read them all. This was back before the internet or cell phones, and I remember reading his stories with a large dictionary nearby, for he invariably used words I had never encountered. I can’t think of another author who comes close, except maybe Dr. Os Guinness.

Dr. Guinness’s book is the second in a quartet of books he plans focusing upon the United States of America’s challenges. The first book was Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds (2024) examined “the crisis of Western civilization with a wide-angle lens,” while America Agonistes “is a closer look at the intense and self-destructive conflicts now playing out in the world’s lead society…the American people, blinded and convulsed with self-destructive forces in open conflict with themselves and their past.” 

Guinness is optimistic, but he’s a realist too. He sees the best and greatest of America’s persona and achievements, even as he acknowledges its failures even from the beginning remarkable generation of Founders like no other.

America did not achieve its expansive freedom and blessings of opportunity and well-being because of a given race, ethnic group, or even the country’s abundant natural beauty and resources. America became the leading nation in the free world because of its intentions and ideals, it’s belief that humanity was created in God’s image, that God bestowed our human rights, that individual life and liberty were sacrosanct because of this, not because of government, power, nationality, social class, or riches.

Guinness is worried that Americans, including the current presidential administration, do not really know what made America great in the first place, so the question becomes, will America work to return to and restore its founding ideals? The jury is out.  This is our civilizational moment. 

Dr. Guinness said, “Yet the heart of America's crisis lies deeper still. If America had become great primarily through economic and military means, then a successful restoration of the economy and the military might be enough to make America great again. But that is not how it happened. "Man does not live by bread alone" is the reminder of both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).” “Humanity has always been more than the "economic Man," and the "new American man" (and woman) of the era of the American Revolution was certainly much more. Neither economic prosperity nor national security are ends in themselves. Unless they serve a higher human end, they will only generate animosity against themselves, as the troubling trend towards socialism shows currently. But if, as the history of America's founding surely shows, the secret of America's freedom and greatness was spiritual, moral, cultural, and constitutional in character too, then the crisis must be addressed accordingly. It requires a much deeper analysis, taking such essential elements into account. Unless that happens, America's crisis will only be exacerbated. America will fight the crisis using weapons of power without principle, which will only transform the Republic into the very character of the enemy it fights. In setting out to fight what Americans see as monsters they will either risk failure or indeed become monsters in the process. In truth, the success or failure of the movement to Make America Great Again will pivot on its success or failure in recognizing and restoring what made America great in the first place— the politics and culture of covenantal freedom that lies at the heart of the American Republic. The decisive issue for America today is the restoration of the American Republic and of citizenship, and the vision of freedom that this means.”

Did you hear that? Restoration of commitment and culture to the founding ideals is the only way to assure an America that is great in the future. 

Again, Guinness observes, “To have defeated the Left-leaning Democrat Party in the election is one thing. To overcome the Left and its full arsenal of cultural Marxism across the board and restore a nationwide commitment to the first principles of the American experiment is quite another, though not yet attempted. 

But to restore the great majority of Americans to be citizens capable of playing their role as fully responsible and participating partners and stakeholders in republican freedom is the supreme challenge in making America great again.”

So, for Dr. Guinness, what will make a golden age possible “requires profound renewal of the meaning and responsibilities of citizenship among all Americans of every persuasion.” 

The Founders ingeniously recognized that for freedom to work, it needed both a government with a built-in system of checks and balances, and a citizenry who possessed civic virtue, the inner moral character that sustains liberty. Citizens with civic virtue place the common good above their private interests, exercise self-restraint, and possess moral integrity and public spirit. This is what Dr. Guinness believes is now largely lost to American culture and which must be systematically rebuilt for America to survive and thrive as a truly free nation.

Guinness notes what Americans no longer understand; that is, “as the first great modern nation, the United States never was linked by natural racial, ethnic, or linguistic ties as most other nations were…America was diverse almost from the beginning, and thus America was, and is, a nation by intention and by ideas.” E pluribus unum.

Because civic education or even American history are no longer taught in public schools, many within Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, do not understand how or why America became a free country, nor what it takes to sustain this rare and precious experience called freedom. This makes many of them easy dupes for Marxist Critical Race Theory or radical multiculturalism or morally relative postmodernism or any of a number of leftist ideas.

Who would have predicted that the front-runner for Mayor of New York City is an on-record antisemitic, Democratic Socialist, who talks constantly about affordable living, by which he means hand out more freebies paid by someone’s taxes?

In his book, Dr. Guinness notes that, “rightly understood, the freedom of the American Republic is a vision of freedom like no other. It stands as the world's most powerful alternative to the authoritarian forces in the world.”

To address the American agonistes, Guinness believes “every American is responsible for the American Republic, and the condition of the American Republic is the health of the relationships of American citizens at large. Like the Hebrew Republic, the American Republic should always be cherished with the strength of liberty, loyalty, and love. Nationalism can be idolatry and truly dangerous and should always be watched and guarded against. But patriotism as love of one's homeland is natural and good. Indeed, the American Republic will only last so long as its citizens love their homeland, understand how their nation works, and support it with their whole hearts, even when they must criticize the nation's shortcomings in challenging it to live up to its ideals.”

Guinness says, “I will argue strongly for the necessity and possibility of renewal, and therefore for hope, but Americans should take seriously the possibility of decline.” A sobering thought. 

“Spiritual and moral disobedience always lead to physical or cultural disorder, dislocation, and displacement…America, having broken its founding covenant, now finds itself on the verge of losing— perhaps forever —the distinctive freedom that was its American birthright. Yet according to the…Jewish and Christian understanding, Decline need not lead to Fall because Exile can lead to Return”

From my perspective, Dr. Os Guinness, now in his 80s, is one of our best Christian cultural critics. I highly recommend this book.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

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