John Wilsey's Apology for Ordered Liberty
In recent times there has been a flurry of discussion over the question of whether those on the political right should maintain any kind of allegiance to the principles of classical liberalism. An increasing number of voices are giving strident answers in the negative. In Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer, historian John Wilsey offers a dissenting view.[i] Although the title of his book suggests that its contents are focused on the topic of religious freedom, Wilsey’s study is really a wide-ranging argument that the American tradition of ordered liberty is still worth preserving. The role of religion and the freedoms connected to it certainly play a crucial part in the book, but several other topics are also discussed. What ties them all together is Wilsey’s aim to make a conservative case for upholding the historic ideals of the United States.
For Wilsey, a true conservative living in twenty-first century America will be someone who wants the United States to retain the hallmarks of its founding, including its commitment to the civil liberties set forth in the Constitution. Those who believe these freedoms have paved the path to degeneracy and should be left behind for the sake of some sort of right-wing authoritarianism are not truly conservative but radical. Instead of appreciating and cultivating the inheritance of American liberty and democracy, such people wish to see a new and very different political reality take shape among us. In such a scenario, liberty—having been deemed problematic—would not be balanced or integrated with order but would be displaced by it. Given the pervasive sinfulness of human beings and the results of past experiments with authoritarianism, Wilsey holds that the effects of such a development would most likely be tragic for nearly everyone involved.
Wilsey is not blind to the tremendous erosion of order that has occurred since the origin of the United States, especially in recent times. He acknowledges that the liberal principles of the founding have been misused to undermine moral truths and common sense, and he recognizes that cultural shifts have made it more difficult for the vision of the founders to speak to the present. The harmony between liberty and order has been lost in many respects, and license has become inordinate. However, he believes these classic American ideals are still more promising for the future and beneficial in the present than any alternatives. Therefore, conservatives should not respond to these challenges by jettisoning these founding principles. They should not combat the abuse of freedom by seeking to abolish it. They must rather seek to rehabilitate the value of civil liberties by doing what is possible to restore a corresponding influence of order and restraint. In other words, they should attempt to reestablish the harmony proposed at the founding. Wilsey remarks that “too much order results in tyranny, and too much liberty results in anarchy. Balance between order and liberty must be maintained for society to flourish.”[ii]
Those engaged in the project of restoring the balance between order and liberty adhere to what Wilsey calls an “aspirational” or “measured” conservatism.[iii] This species of conservatism is committed to promoting and defending truth, goodness, and beauty in human life. It recognizes that change is inevitable but is engaged in “finding meaning in the permanent beneath the flux.”[iv] Aspirational conservatism, Wilsey writes, “is a standpoint looking up to the eternal, behind to the past, round about in the present, and ahead to the future—in that order—but always with the good of the human person at the forefront.”[v] Such a conservatism is oriented to the traditions of the past because it understands that the past contains an indispensable storehouse of wisdom. However, it also sees that the past is not free from sin and error and that the lessons of the past must serve human welfare in the present. This being so, the past, like the present, must always be subject to critical evaluation in light of transcendent truths. Any ideas or practices that do not truly serve the human good should be rejected.[vi] This belief in the value and necessity of criticism requires a commitment to freedom, in that when freedom is lost the ability to appeal to enduring truths for the sake of assessing ideas and actions is also taken away. Aspirational conservatives thus perceive the necessity of maintaining civil liberties; they see an unbreakable link between the freedoms a people enjoys and their access to important goods.
Aspirational conservatism has been the predominant form of conservatism in American history. A key element of this disposition is the belief that religion and religious freedom are both necessary to societal flourishing. Religion is required because it generally promotes virtue and inhibits vice. It also orients people to those transcendent truths that provide the criteria for evaluating earthly developments. Religious liberty is needed because it enables religious groups to remain true to their convictions and focused on those doctrines and practices that they consider essential. It also permits them to exercise a prophetic function in society, in that they can decry all forms of idolatry, corruption, and injustice. [vii] When religious liberty is curtailed, and religious activity is overseen or regulated by the state, then religious institutions generally become compromised and no longer serve spiritual ends. As a result, their moral authority is forfeited and they cease to promote the values and practices that are needed for a culture of ordered liberty to survive.[viii]
The primary alternative to aspirational conservatism is an extreme or reactionary conservatism that uncritically seeks to return to the status quo of some past idealized age. Because this reactionary conservatism fails to acknowledge and reject the evils and shortcomings of the historical setting it seeks to resurrect, it fails to exercise moral responsibility and rarely promotes human well-being. Adherents of such an outlook are “utopian in the same way that revolutionaries are because the society they envision is predicated on obscurantist nostalgia, which is just as abstract as the leftist revolutionaries’ dreams of a perfected society.”[ix] Although progressives often describe all conservatives as if they held these reactionary tendencies, Wilsey points out that this is highly misleading.
Although extreme conservatism has never had much influence in American society, its popularity has been growing of late. This has led to widespread discussion of the topic of “Christian nationalism.” There is much confusion over the meaning of this term, and many contradictory ideas circulate about what Christian nationalism involves. For some progressives, any Christian conservative is rightly labeled a Christian nationalist. But as we have seen, conservatism is far from monolithic, and conservative Christians often have very different ideas about what political goals are worth pursuing. Many conservative Christians would deny that they are interested in promoting nationalism. It is therefore necessary for any scholar or critic to focus on specific proposals and definitions and avoid generalizations.[x]
In Wilsey’s estimation, the most substantive argument for Christian nationalism currently available appears in Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism. Wolfe believes the American constitutional tradition has been a failure and needs to be renounced. People cannot be trusted to use freedom well. In the place of our constitutional republic, a new Christian state should be erected that orders society according to an explicitly Christian conception of man’s highest good. In such a society, a Christian prince will have the power to exercise ideological control over the populace, and freedoms of speech and religion will be severely limited. Wolfe is therefore not an aspirational conservative in any sense, but a reactionary conservative who would like to see all modern political developments rolled back.
Wilsey believes that Wolfe is right about one thing, namely that “cultural Christianity”—the widespread influence of Christian values in society—is a good thing that should be promoted by American institutions, including the government.[xi] However, he has multiple objections to other elements in Wolfe’s theorizing. One is that he believes Wolfe misunderstands the proper end of government. A government’s role is not to direct people to their ultimate end by mandating that all members of society adhere to a specific form of religion. “Government,” Wilsey writes, “is not competent to define the highest good of the people, but it is competent to secure the common goods of citizens as they pertain to liberty and order in society. Government is to provide for ordered liberty, and the churches will then define the heavenly good through their ministry of proclamation and mercy.”[xii] Wolfe’s view of the purpose of government makes the state totalitarian.
Another issue he takes with Wolfe’s proposal is that it appears naïve. Wolfe assumes that his Christian princes will generally rule well and wisely, given their Christian faith. But considering the depths of human sinfulness and the tendency of unchecked power to corrupt individuals, this optimism appears unfounded. History is not lacking for examples of malevolent leaders who were ostensibly Christian. Even if some princes are noble and just, others will inevitably be wicked. If each has nearly unlimited power, the results of an evil prince’s reign will be catastrophic.[xiii]
A further concern is that making the church reliant on the supervision and protection of the state will subvert the true mission of the church and generate anti-religious hostility. Wilsey affirms that “in any alliance of religion and politics, politics loses nothing and religion loses everything. That is, religion loses its credibility and influence in society because it becomes too closely associated with fleeting political trends of the day.”[xiv] He discusses Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations on this topic and agrees with the Frenchman’s insight that “religion cannot share the material strength of those who govern without burdening itself with a portion of the hatreds caused by those who govern.”[xv]
Given these problems, Wilsey does not believe that Wolfe’s brand of Christian nationalism provides a promising way forward for Americans. He asks, “why 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?”[xvi] Instead, Wilsey believes the best hope for us is to renew an aspirational approach to politics and culture.
In sum, Wilsey’s book is a profound study of the many connections between conservatism, liberty, religion, and American history. His case for the enduring value of the American constitutional tradition is both cogent and inspiring. He takes a hard and honest look at the political, social, and religious realities of our time and shows that even though our situation may be dire and troubling, it is not hopeless. The ideals of the founding are still beacons by which conservatives can seek to orient our nation. The perversions of freedom that we have often witnessed in recent decades can still be resisted. If our fundamental liberties are someday inundated by some despotic deluge, whether from the left or the right, it will not be because the liberalism enshrined in the Constitution was always self-defeating. No, our liberties will be lost because the harmony between liberty and order was not adequately protected by American citizens and institutions. There are no historical or ideological necessities here, only contingent facts that could be otherwise. Given the abundant blessings that our freedoms have granted us, Wilsey is correct that we ought to still diligently contend for them.
[i] See John D. Wilsey, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (Eerdmans Publishing, 2025).
[ii] Ibid., 118.
[iii] Wilsey sees this type of conservatism as originating in the thought of Edmund Burke (1729-1797).
[iv] Ibid., 56.
[v] Ibid., 33. Later, Wilsey describes a progressivism as someone “who rejects the reality or authority of the transcendent, turns his back on the past, and rushes toward the future with the certainty that progress is inevitable.” Ibid., 41.
[vi] Wilsey remarks that “when we employ prudence, we see that some traditions are worthy of conservation but others are not.” He adds: “aspirational conservatives revere tradition but avoid traditionalism, that is, turning tradition per se into an absolute authority.” Ibid., 163.
[vii] It is of course true that religions sometimes promote conflict and disorder and that religious pluralism typically has negative effects on social cohesion. The answer to these problems, however, is not to remove religious liberty. It is rather to carefully manage immigration and closely monitor groups who have a high likelihood of committing violent acts. This obviously will not prevent all problems caused by religion, but it will mitigate many of them.
[viii] We see examples of this in many European countries where churches are operated by the state.
[ix] Ibid., 48.
[x] Wilsey writes, the “thorny problem of complexity is also evident when trying to figure out what exactly ‘Christian nationalism’ is. There is no single satisfying definition, but the term is almost always treated as if there were one prevailing, clear, and recognizable idea of ‘Christian nationalism’ to assail. The problem is not that ‘Christian nationalism’ does not exist. The problem is that ‘Christian nationalism’ takes different forms for different reasons to serve various purposes, and each separate expression must be taken in historical context to fully understand its dynamics.” Ibid., 104.
[xi] Wilsey asserts that “civil law ought to comport with the second table of the Ten Commandments but ought not to seek to enforce the first table. The synergy between a body of civil law consistent with the second table and a civil religion (or cultural Christianity) that promotes mores that correspond with and aim toward the Christian faith is something I desire to see, especially in the context of a world that seems to be going completely crazy.” Ibid., 129.
[xii] Ibid., 124. Wilsey notes that “in the American tradition, the role of government is not to define and orient people to the highest good. The role of government is to protect natural rights of the citizens and thus, secure their liberties. . . . Entailed in such a conception is that the common good is best pursued in a society of ordered liberty in which religious people, through their institutions like churches and synagogues, which are disestablished, define the highest good and not the state.” Ibid., 131.
[xiii] See ibid., 141.
[xiv] Ibid., 187.
[xv] Alexis de Tocqueville, quoted in ibid., 188.
[xvi] Ibid., 143.
Nathan Greeley is the managing editor of The Conservative Reformer.