Littlejohn of The Davenant Institute is an avowed disciple of the Doug Wilson sect and offers his appreciation to not only Wilson and Douglas Jones, but Peter Leithart. This reveals a great deal in terms of his formation.
The interview deals with the question of freedom and how (according to Littlejohn) the understanding of the concept has gone astray. Appealing to John Adams, he argues for a public morality that rests on private morality. In other words people must be morally rooted on an individual level for there to be a public morality. I think it safe to say that other thinkers might refer to this as a social consensus. This is pretty basic and hard to disagree with.
He then argues that when private morality collapses there can be no freedom. The loss of public morality will lead the state to intervene in order to prevent chaos and the like.
But then here's where it gets interesting - while he dislikes the idea of a state-enforced public morality and the loss of freedom it entails, he's supportive of the state enforcing or cultivating private morality. This will in turn (we may assume) create the conditions for a public morality to re-emerge and give it a basis for existence and sustainability.
Now, he may only commit to the idea of the state making moral proclamations, supporting moral causes and refusing to support immoral ones. But those familiar with history will know this kind of programme leads directly to authoritarianism - the state deeply involved in regulating private life - and ultimately the elimination of that private life. Years ago, former Pennsylvania senator and failed presidential candidate, Rick Santorum was quite candid - he wanted the state in the bedroom.
Such measures inevitably lead to surveillance, secret police, informers, threat, intimidation, self-censorship, and the like - the exact opposite of freedom by anyone's measure.
In other words we will need an authoritarian regime in order to save freedom. We will need to destroy freedom in order to save it.
Now, I will be the first to agree that the Scriptural concept of freedom is in no way the same as freedom in the context of Classical Liberalism - the framework of the American Founders. Unfortunately too many Christians have confused these concepts and its has in turn generated no small degree of ethical chaos.
But the kind of freedom Littlejohn is talking about - freedom from the confines of sin, and the 'within the boundaries of the community' freedom (such as operating within an orchestra or on a sports team) that may or may not be what Scripture sometimes alludes to, is not actually the liberty or freedom the Founders were trying to pursue.
The Scriptures (which are almost completely absent from this discussion) do not teach anything like Enlightenment concepts of individual rights. The fundamental assumptions of the Founders - such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or even Locke's property are nowhere found or supported in the New Testament. We may enjoy social and civic liberty and we may be able to own property and pursue our own desired courses in life, but these are not rights that we can claim. There's no basis to suggest we can call upon the power (and thus violence) of the state to secure these 'rights' for us, nor are we encouraged or permitted to take up arms for these causes. Quite the contrary. As such the claim that they are from God is simply false - a contrivance made by misguided men who would put words in God's mouth.
Littlejohn is faced with the phoney patriot dilemma - he wants to celebrate America but fundamentally denies the premise of the Founders and what they sought to create. That's fine, I too reject the Founders - perhaps for different reasons that Littlejohn. Unlike him I do not promote authoritarianism and I do not believe the state can enforce Christian morality. He has evidently completely misread Romans 13 as well as numerous other state-related statements in the New Testament.
But as a result I don't wave the flag nor pretend to be patriotic. I don't pretend America is in any sense a Christian nation - or my home. I don't stand for the anthem. I will not say the pledge. I do not vote or sit on juries - or use the courts, or call on law enforcement. I live as a second-class citizen because my only loyalty and citizenship is to Zion - the Kingdom of Heaven.
Freedom is a pragmatic good with great dangers attached as it's so very easy to confuse the model that allows us to 'flourish' with being something Christian. When this pragmatic good (with dangers) that requires vigilance is transformed into an ideological or theological good, then the freedom itself becomes a danger. And this is something we've seen over and over again throughout the history of the American Church and its confused allegiance to the state.
And we should also add that the loss of freedom can result in a situation that is pragmatically bad and yet this may result in good. Persecution winnows the Church - removing the chaff. It costs something to be a Christian and so those that remain are serious. It has its dangers as well - it can promote despair for some or stoke rage and violence in others. Either way freedom is dangerous. To simply celebrate it or indulge in it is sheer folly and sadly Church leaders have played a major role in fostering this dangerous delusion. Libertarian individualist freedom is particularly destructive and is playing a significant role in the decadence and collapse that so characterizes American culture in the 21st century. Restraint and responsibility are not words or concepts that Americans easily embrace.
The turn to authoritarian solutions is plain enough at this point. This is the unspoken strategy of the conservative movement in American politics. Having lost the social consensus the only way to 'save' and promote their agenda is through an authoritarian presidency and judicial activism and this is exactly what we see with the likes of Donald Trump. There were hints of it under GW Bush as well but we're now seeing it taken to a new level.
The job of the theologians who would support this move is to create a public theology and ethical imperative that supports it. Littlejohn is but one of many using their pen in service of this goal. The confusion is furthered by officials, judges, politicians, and theologians claiming to be concerned about this or that issue - even while they pursue the same. They will proclaim to care about this issue or these institutions - even while they labour to undo and destroy them. Mendacity characterizes the debate and this too adds to the overall confusion.
Ultimately I found the discussion to be not only a disappointment - it was rather lame, uninformative, and unhelpful.
The lack of Scripture, the nebulous concepts of freedom, the ad hoc creation of categories to support this contrivance were all evidence of the flimsy foundation upon which Littlejohn builds his argument.
I kept thinking of David Hackett Fischer and Albion's Seed, along with its summary and expansion, Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement. These volumes touch on these questions and how concepts of freedom differed a great deal among the various immigrant communities that formed colonial America. The concept Littlejohn seems to be advocating for was found in Colonial Virginia - where people had their place in a highly structured social order and were able to function within its confines. While this model of freedom certainly appealed to someone like Washington, there were others that thought it to be no freedom at all.
Likewise Hamilton was influenced more by Puritan and urban/coastal Presbyterian ideas about freedom where the state wields a heavy hand and takes on a pedagogical role. As those familiar with the history will know, Hamilton and Washington were more or less in agreement on these questions - and at opposite poles from someone like Jefferson.
But then there's another category of liberty found among groups like the Quakers and many of the German immigrants. This is often more individualist and yet with clear concepts of community, duty, and restraint.
The Scots-Irish were something else entirely. Their ideas were more akin to what we now call Libertarianism and clashed severely with not only the Quaker-German models but the Virginia-New England models as well. We see this re-emerge in the many debates over the drafting of the Constitution.
And it's worth pointing out that people fought in the American Revolution for different reasons and were motivated by different ideals. Words like 'tyranny' were thrown about but clearly they meant different things to different people. Tyranny to a Scots-Irish pioneer in the back-country was something very different than how someone like Washington or Hamilton would have understood it. And a German Reformed or Lutheran farmer in the Shenandoah would also think about freedom in way wholly different than either Hamilton, Madison, or Jefferson.
The conversation is much more complicated than what was presented in this interview but at the same time the position advocated by Littlejohn is ultimately at odds with the Founders and more importantly the Scriptures.
The Puritans certainly pursued state intrusion or 'cultivation' in the realms of private morality but they were authoritarians. They had no regard for the kind of freedoms being advocated in the 18th century by the Founders - and the Founders were well aware of this. The later romanticisation of the Puritans has confused the issue as they are viewed by many as if they are in some sort of continuity with the Founders. They are not. Nor are they the dour misanthropes they are often presented to be in pop culture caricatures.
The Enlightenment Liberal ideology that undergirds the Declaration, Constitution, and was the basis for the Revolution itself is categorically opposed to Puritan ideas about society and the role of the state, as well as these related questions concerning personal freedom and even economics. It was only when New England abandoned the theology of the Puritans that it began to produce thinkers that espoused Enlightenment ideals - even while many retained an intuitive desire and conviction for a more heavy-handed pedagogical state. This is why the New England states are they way they are. They are in many respects the heirs of the Puritans - but highly secularized. The end result is not very appealing.
Is Littlejohn trying to argue his views are Scriptural? If so, he failed to make the case and indeed cannot. Is he trying to argue they are historically rooted? If so, he must repudiate the Founders and he needs to realize (and be candid) he is advocating not for reform but rather a kind of revolution. Is he arguing on a philosophical level? In a manner of speaking, but if so, it's both dishonest and nebulous as it cannot find any kind of referent or means of grounding the argument. The freedom of the Founders is not the freedom of the Scriptures, the Puritans, or the Magisterial Reformers. The historical precedent is really found back in pagan Greece and Rome.
If he's failing in all these categories, then just what is he doing? He's trying to promote an agenda and provide a justification for it. But upon closer examination the great ideological structure he's trying to build is revealed to be little more than a fig leaf attempting to cover up a power grab and top-down imposition of conformity by means of state violence. That's what this is really all about and this is why social conservatives have abandoned their principles and ethics and have embraced Donald Trump.
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