This Brilliant Beautiful Thing
Why Peggy Noonan Loves America, Why An Obscure Baptist Still Matters, and Economic Help for Families
Just before Christmas break, I finished a flurry of writing projects, some of which now have been published. First, I accepted an opportunity to write a review of Peggy Noonan’s latest book, A Certain Idea of America for the Acton Institute. It didn’t take much convincing. I can’t be neutral about Noonan. I’ve been reading her my entire life, from her days as a Reagan speechwriter through her poignant columns after 9/11 into the present era, which she has chronicled with her characteristic grace. Here’s an excerpt of my review:
I was a day shy of my eighth birthday when the reassuring words of President Reagan crackled over my family’s radio. Like all Americans, we were traumatized by the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which carried, among her passengers, 38-year-old social studies teacher Christy McAuliffe. We had followed her story in the newspapers and were proud of the opportunity afforded this civilian hero, chosen from among 11,000 applicants to a special “Teacher in Space” program.
The president’s words—delivered at a time when presidents still knew how to deliver reassuring words in crisis—were poignant and powerful:
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
This was my introduction to the creative pen of Peggy Noonan, working then as a speechwriter for the 40th president. And I’ve been reading Noonan ever since, from the apt prose she crafted for Reagan to the eyewitness account of her time in the White House, What We Saw at the Revolution. Noonan’s tribute to Reagan, When Character Was King, was a key text in my political journey, while her how-to book on the delicate craft of communication, On Speaking Well, is a guide I recommend and often require as I teach future writers.
For the last quarter century, Peggy Noonan has been a weekly fixture at the Wall Street Journal, where her column, “Declarations,” is a must-read. Like an unofficial political poet laureate, she has put words to the feelings Americans have experienced in this tumultuous century. Consider this column, written the Thanksgiving after 9/11:
We . . . learned we are stronger than we knew. A nation that had spent the past few decades trying to decide what kind of cashmere slippers to buy found out it was, still, tough as old boots. We found some things that had been lost. Our love of country, for instance. Not everyone found it because not everyone had lost it but some had. They hadn’t thought in a long time about why America is worthy of their love and protectiveness.
Or her reflection on the trauma of 9/11, just one year later: “And then the buildings fell. That was the thing, they heaved up and groaned to the ground and brought a world with them. We could have taken it if the buildings didn’t fall.” In 2015, Noonan published an anthology of her Journal columns published to that point, The Time of Our Lives. And now she’s back with a collection of her works in the decade since, entitled A Certain Idea of America.
You can read the whole thing here.
I wrote on religious liberty and contemporary debates for the Southwestern Journal of Theology. I’m pretty proud of my title: Backus to the Future. My friend, the very fine scholar, Malcolm Yarnell, kindly left my title as is. Approximately 50 people in the whole world will get that pun, all of them older than 40 and academic in nature. A graph or two:
Three centuries after the birth of Isaac Backus, the country he helped to found faces its own challenges. The United States of America requires a robust Baptist political theology that both draws on our historic inheritance and is applied to new threats against freedom of conscience.
One threat comes from the collision of religious liberty with the sexual revolution, whereby individual Christians and Christian organizations are pressed to violate their consciences. One example includes the forcing of Christian foster care and adoption agencies to abandon their beliefs about marriage to help place children in healthy families. Another example includes Christian institutions of higher education being pushed to modify their beliefs on sexual ethics to receive accreditation or participate in student loan programs. In a sense, these reflect attempts to establish a new religious orthodoxy, one that violates historic Christian beliefs.
Thankfully, the twenty-first century has witnessed successful jurisprudence, at the Supreme Court level, to maintain the social space that the Founders intended for people of faith. Yet Baptists must be vigilant and continue to be active in defending the rights, not only of Christians, but of all faiths, to practice freely.
Another threat comes from the small, but persistent chorus of self-proclaimed Christian nationalists11 and Catholic integralists12 who, dissatisfied with the fruits of modernity and decaying cultural norms, grow wistful for a new social arrangement with a more robustly Christian form of government. Many of these conversations are confined to the academy and niche online audiences, but they are gaining purchase among a younger generation of pastors and academics. Baptists should meet this challenge, not with rank hostility to the genuine problems raised by our interlocutors, but with both a vigorous defense of religious liberty and an articulation of what robust citizenship looks like in an increasingly pluralistic age.
The final threat is related. While Baptists are rightly hesitant to claim the American experiment in ordered liberty makes the United States a “Christian nation,”13 we should not hesitate to accept that Christian ideals played a major role in shaping America.14 Furthermore, Baptists must not shy away from encouraging a sober yet active engagement in the culture in order to shape laws that affect the flourishing of our neighbors.15 Baptists cannot merely stand athwart the culture and yell “Backus.” We must be active in preserving, as “salt” and “light” (Matt. 5:13-16), the democracy bestowed upon us.
Ultimately, however, our culture will not “Christianize” through public policy, however important that is. Instead, we must be committed, through faithful obedience, to fulfill our God-given responsibility in the Great Commission. Evangelism, church planting, and discipleship in the power of the Spirit will prompt the most transformative renewal of American life.
You can read the whole thing here.
Lastly, I am back in National Review with Leah Libresco on some proposals and ideas to help strengthen families economically. We’re optimistic, based on some of the things we’ve heard from the incoming Trump administration.
Pocketbook issues delivered Republicans their trifecta, and they remain central for many mothers who are grappling with the choice between a trip to the abortion clinic or a prenatal appointment. To honor the trust of the voters who put them in power, Republicans must prioritize pro-family tax policies. By building on a successful approach from Trump’s first term, they can deliver meaningful support to vulnerable mothers and families when it matters most.
Read it all here
That’s all for now. A few resources that might interest you:
If you are starting your Bible reading year in Genesis, my book on the first eleven chapters, The Characters of Creation might interest you.
Or if you are getting ready for Lenten season—will be here sooner than you think—check out The Characters of Easter.