One of the great benefits of American citizenship is being under a political arrangement that John Adams described as “an empire of laws, and not of men.”[1] While it is true that twentieth-century developments such as Wilsonian managerial governance, the New Deal, and the Great Society have moved our nation away from the Founders’ political order in significant respects, we are still, de jure if not always de facto, a people governed by our own consent. As America celebrates its semiquincentennial anniversary, we should be grateful for the extent to which our liberal[2] order secures natural rights and upholds justice. However, the secularization that has taken place in recent decades presents Christians with significant challenges as we participate in our nation’s governance. How can we best pursue our calling to seek the welfare of our society while also maintaining our identity as sojourners and exiles whose ultimate citizenship is in heaven (Jer. 29:7; Phil. 1:27, 3:20; 1 Pet. 2:11–12)?

In recent decades, liberalism has increasingly come to be conceived as a polity that promotes the unconstrained exercise of individual freedom. This has led to the legalization and promotion of a wide array of ideas and practices that are antithetical to human well-being and the common good. In addition to being quite illiberal (as evident in the rise of identity politics and cancel culture), this libertine version of liberalism, which was prefigured in the French Revolution of 1789, is not at all what the Founders intended. As George Washington stated in his First Inaugural address, “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.”[3] Nevertheless, some prominent Christians have responded to the libertinism of our time by being reluctant to confront ideas and practices in the cultural mainstream that run contrary to the natural moral order. The assumption of such figures seems to be that taking an empathetic stance toward the culture will gain a hearing for the gospel. The problem with this is that it often ends up misrepresenting Christianity. While we should always be respectful and reasonable, we should not attempt to come across as nice by downplaying aspects of the truth that run afoul of prevailing cultural orthodoxies. At the very least, if we are ever put in a position where we are compelled to express our support (either explicitly or implicitly) for things that are false and immoral, we must not do so. Consider the tragic example of former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins. Though an evangelical, Collins celebrated Pride month,[4] funded research that used tissue and organs from aborted babies,[5] and engaged in a number of pernicious and underhanded actions amid the Covid crisis.[6] It should go without saying that Christians are neither being faithful to the Lord nor seeking their society’s well-being when they go along with things that are false and evil and engage in practices that are worldly.

Other Christians are calling for a polity of Christian Nationalism[7] to replace liberalism, contending that the latter contained the seeds of its own demise. In his widely mentioned book on the subject, author Stephen Wolfe defines Christian Nationalism as “a totality of national action, consisting of civil laws and social customs, conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation, in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ.”[8] At the heart of Wolfe’s program is a strong and highly-esteemed leader, a “Christian prince,” who uses the office of the civil magistrate to “resolve doctrinal conflicts” and regulate outward religious practices.[9] One criticism of Wolfe’s approach is that it is not sufficiently constrained by the abiding reality of human fallenness, a reality that extends to the reasoning, actions, and foresight of Christians themselves as they exert political power. Another criticism is the failure to reckon with the limited competency of political institutions when it comes to the pursuit of goods that by their very nature require that they be freely chosen rather than coerced. After a substantial analysis of Wolfe’s book, historian John Wilsey offers this summary assessment:

The logic that Wolfe uses can only lead in the same direction as Hegel’s did for Marx and Heidegger—the totalizing of the state and the degradation of the Christian faith that Wolfe holds dear. . . . [W]hy would a reasonable person seek to correct the weaknesses of classical liberalism—many of them real—with authoritarianism at best, and totalitarianism at worst? How does the abuse of freedom justify the jettisoning of freedom?[10]

While liberalism has its weaknesses, some of the suggested cures may very well be worse than the disease. In the words of Professor Vincent Philip Muñoz, “Prudence dictates that we should be cautious about embracing the new and unknown over what is most noble in our own civic inheritance.”[11]

We should not overlook the significant strengths of the Founders’ liberalism. As Calvin Coolidge noted in a speech delivered to mark the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.[12]

The principles expressed at the Founding attest that true liberty is not unbridled but is ordered towards objective moral goods that are known to all men through the natural law. Historian Wilfred McClay puts it this way: Everything in the Declaration “relies either implicitly or explicitly on a conception of nature that is normative, one that embraces the idea of nature as a positive ordering force, that directs the development of all things, material and immaterial, toward particular ends.”[13] The challenge that we face in our present context is that the prioritization of individual feelings and desires[14] has resulted in the loss of “the conviction that there is a fixed and intelligible order in the cosmos, outside our will, that supplies a permanent ground of morality and justice.”[15] This loss has created a dangerous void. When there is no objective standard to adjudicate the inevitable conflicts that arise between different people’s desires and feelings, it simply boils down to which side has more power.

Our society needs a transcendent basis for morality, and this is obviously something that Christianity can provide. However, prudence suggests that Christianity’s leavening influence needs to come about in other ways rather than through the kind of official state sanctioning proposed by Wolfe, which would likely have unintended effects. However, this does not mean that religion needs to be kept entirely out of the public square. On the contrary, as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once noted, America distinguishes “between official encouragement of religion, which was always practiced, and official favoritism of particular religious sects, which was prohibited.”[16] This is consistent with WCF 25.2, which says that Christians engaged in the execution of the office of the civil magistrate “ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth.” Along these lines, consider Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that one of America’s distinctive features is the way “the spirit of religion” and “the spirit of freedom” harmonize so well with one another:

Religion sees in civil freedom a noble exercise of the faculties of man. . . . [I]t knows that its empire is all the better established when it reigns by its own strength alone and dominates over hearts without support. Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its own duration.[17]

This is not a description of a society that relegates religion to the private sphere. In fact, one could argue that the situation Tocqueville describes is reflected in something like the recent decision of the state of Texas to include Bible readings in its educational curriculum. Such is the contention of historian Miles Smith when he writes,

Reading the Bible is certainly a religious act for Christians and Jews, but the Bible is also a major source of the moral framework of Western Civilization that gives modern Americans the freedoms we enjoy. The reason it is good for Texas’ public school children to know the Bible is the same reason it’s good they know Homer; it’s an important part of the Western canon and a vital piece of the catechesis that creates cultural literacy necessary for liberal democracy.[18]

Perhaps the Texas decision will backfire. But it is a far cry from an attempted revival of Christendom. Given that one of the uses of God’s law is to restrain evil in society, it behooves Christians to respond to the moral nihilism of our day by looking for ways to point our fellow citizens to the source of our nation’s moral framework.

One further thing to note is that, amid our society’s extreme politicization (much of which amounts to little more than online outrage[19]), one of the most important influences Christians can have is to carry out our lives in the real world and to do so in a manner that attests that our hope does not rest upon any of the things of this world. As C. S. Lewis put it, “We shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.”[20] This is how we bear witness to the transcendent basis of the moral order that is the standard of justice for political communities.

While many assume that our country is in decline, past generations of Americans have also had reasons to fear that this might be the case. George Washington wrote the following in a 1786 letter to James Madison: “No morn ever dawned more favourable than ours did—and no day was ever more clouded than the present!”[21] Political analyst Yuval Levin points out that the aspirational ideals of the Founding have proved to be a source of renewal at many points in our nation’s past,[22] and I hope for my children’s sake that this pattern is repeated yet again. One thing we know for certain is that, for as long as God continues to gather and perfect his saints through the church’s ministry, he will sustain this fallen world through familial and societal vocations and through the laws and mores that political communities establish and maintain (Gen. 9:1–17). This should lead us to carry out our vocations with diligence and hope, to cherish and preserve what is good about America, and to promote customs, conventions, and policies that are aligned with the natural moral order.

Endnotes

[1] Cited in David McCullough, John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001), 102.

[2] In the political realm, “liberal” and “liberalism” are often used to refer to left-wing/progressive ideology. This is not how I am using these terms in this essay. Instead, I am using it in reference to the polity of ordered liberty that was enshrined at the American Founding, sometimes referred to as classical liberalism.

[3] Cited in Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of Our Declaration of Independence (Encounter, 2025), 209.

[4] See Nate Fischer, “Present, but How Faithfully?” American Reformer, October 7, 2021, https://americanreformer.org/2021/10/present-but-how-faithfully/. Note the contrast between Collins’s actions and the courageous decision of four San Francisco Giants pitchers not to participate in their team’s “Pride Night” celebration in June 2026.

[5] See Carl R. Trueman, “The Failure of Evangelical Elites,” First Things, November 2021, https://firstthings.com/the-failure-of-evangelical-elites/.

[6] See Wesley J. Smith, “How Collins and Fauci Shattered Our Trust in Public Health,” National Review, May 21, 2024, https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/how-collins-and-fauci-shattered-our-trust-in-public-health/.

[7] Christian Nationalism belongs to a broader category known as postliberalism, another prominent strand of which is Catholic Integralism. The term “Christian Nationalism” can encompass a spectrum of views, some of which are compatible with liberalism. For a taxonomy and assessment, see the report of the PCA study committee on Christian Nationalism, available at https://pcaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AICReport_CN.pdf. The OPC erected its own study committee on Christian Nationalism at its 2026 General Assembly.

[8] Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Canon, 2022), 9.

[9] Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism, 313, 356–57.

[10] John Wilsey, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (Eerdmans, 2025), 140–41, 143.

[11] Vincent Philip Muñoz, “The Founders and the Common Good,” First Things, August/September 2026, 38.

[12] Amity Shlaes and Matthew Denhart, eds., The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, (ISI, 2021), 228–29.

[13] Wilfred M. McClay, “Year 251,” Law & Liberty, July 1, 2026, https://lawliberty.org/forum/year-251/.

[14] This has been identified by the term expressive individualism, which Carl Trueman defines as “a prioritization of the individual’s inner psychology—we might even say ‘feelings’ or ‘intuitions’—for our sense of who we are and what the purpose of our lives is.” Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020), 23.

[15] Glenn Ellmers, The Narrow Passage: Plato, Foucault, and the Possibility of Political Philosophy (Encounter, 2023), 48.

[16] Antonin Scalia, “A Nation Under God,” First Things, April 9, 2019, https://firstthings.com/a-nation-under-god/.

[17] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. and ed. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 43–44.

[18] “The Battle over America’s Moral Foundation Is Back,” Miles Smith, The Daily Wire, July 14, 2026, https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-over-americas-moral-foundation-is-back.

[19] “When everyone can participate in the full cycle of contemporary activism without ever getting up from the couch, how politicized can we really be?” “Mad as Hell,” Robert Bellafiore, First Things, Aug./Sept. 2026, 59.

[20] C. S. Lewis, The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (HarperCollins, 2017), 112.

[21] Cited in Matthew Mehan, The American Book of Fables (Sophia Institute, 2026), ii.

[22] See “Against Decline,” Yuval Levin, Law & Liberty, July 22, 2026, https://lawliberty.org/forum/against-decline/.

Andrew S. Wilson is pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Laconia, New Hampshire. Ordained Servant Online, November–December, 2026