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The Daily Signal
New Book Offers Vision for ‘American Restoration’ Beginning at Home
Greg Scott
July 10, 2019
In an age of moral outrage and endless Twitter war, a more refreshing
and hopeful vision of America’s future is a rare and welcome blessing.
A new book, “American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal
Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation,” by Timothy Goeglein and Craig Osten is
just such a blessing, and it comes at an opportune time, having just
celebrated our nation’s founding.
A History Channel TV series—also coincidentally called “American
Restoration”—tells stories of antique-restoration experts from across
the country “as they not only restore pieces of America’s history, but
create new and awe-inspiring works from vintage items.”
In much the same way as these antique hunters apply their craft to
uncover the underlying beauty of pieces from our cultural past,
Goeglein and Osten reintroduce readers to the treasures—some all but
buried—of self-governance, civil society, and personal virtue that our
Founders left us, presenting these treasures in their original
brilliance with a bright finish for tomorrow’s retelling.
While the authors don’t completely avoid “back in the good old days”
sentimentality, they do openly acknowledge and lament the sins of our
country’s history, many that linger still today.
This balance allows two deeply patriotic men, who rightly see our
country as a force for good, to urge readers to look ahead, rather than
behind, and to re-embrace the ideas that have sustained history’s
longest-surviving experiment in liberty without being shackled to a
sanitized retelling of our past.
Each succinct chapter offers a panoramic flyover of some of the crucial
cultural, political, and spiritual issues facing our country.
Most of the warnings are familiar—about dwindling respect for religious
freedom, free speech, and the sanctity of life, along with a crumbling
education system and an unraveling of America’s Judeo-Christian
consensus—but are foundational in understanding what problems the
authors mean to help us solve and how.
The strength that sets “American Restoration” apart from other
offerings in the genre is its simple and practical advice. Instead of a
garment-rending rehearsal of all that ails us, the authors instead
elegantly and accessibly identify big problems and guide the reader to
“own” their part in the American restoration.
>>> Listen to or read Timothy Goeglein’s interview with The Daily Signal
Recalling former House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill’s famous maxim that
“all politics are local,” the authors insist that all politics are
really, really local.
While they do believe that massive structural, spiritual, and cultural
change is needed, Goeglein and Osten appeal to the reader to start from
the inside, to inculcate virtue and character in the home with one’s
own family, to love and fellowship with one’s neighbors, and to perform
acts of service and mercy in one’s community.
Instead of a revolution that razes existing institutions from the top
down, the authors envision a restoration that raises future generations
to make change for good from the bottom up.
The authors offer numerous examples of Americans who have transformed
their esteem for our republic into actions intended to “keep it”—some
quietly in their communities in small ways and some at great personal
and professional risk on the national stage.
The authors themselves take some risks, as their proposed remedies are truly countercultural.
They warn that radical individualism and demands for the customization
of everything will not create a nation of contented citizens who have
gotten exactly what they want. They argue that this continued trend
fosters greater division and feeds contempt for those outside the
“tribe.”
To say in a most narcissistic age that self-fulfillment is not the
ultimate end, but rather a toxic pursuit, may be a new and dangerous
idea for a generation brought up on the idea that its every thirst must
be slaked—and now.
Goeglein and Osten urge readers to look inside themselves not to
inquire of their appetites, but to subordinate them in favor of seeking
good for their neighbors. We should restore virtue. We should even
raise our boys to be gentlemen.
“Virtuous people are those who have learned to put the needs of others
above their own, while moderating their behavior in a manner that keeps
them from making poor moral choices that would not only negatively
impact them, but would impact society as a whole,” they write.
Virtuous people, the authors say, are the key to inaugurating the
restoration of community, cohered by the “little platoons” represented
by strong families.
And this is where the authors say that Christians should play a leading role.
Regular attendees of biblically orthodox churches have not abandoned the model of family life that nurtures virtue.
Additionally, churches represent some of the last remaining strong
community-centric institutions. So, churches and their members have a
special responsibility to reintroduce these blessings to a hurting
world that desperately needs such a witness.
In the final analysis, “American Restoration” is so hopeful because the
authors’ “it starts with you” advice for cumulative cultural change at
the most local level is so doable.
And if enough Americans in their homes, churches, communities, and
civic organizations make it their mission to reignite the spirit that
made our nation that “shining city on the hill,” Goeglein and Osten are
optimistic that we will indeed see an American restoration.
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