To Truly Make America Great Again

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

In his latest contribution to Fox, the host wrote a review of J.D. Vance’s book.  I have not seen the book yet, but the host says it is the story of “the vice president’s journey into the welcoming pews of the Catholic Church.”  Given that this is the season in which presidential candidate books begin to show up, that sounds like a most unusual such book.  I look forward to reading it.  But not having read it, I will at least begin to sink my teeth into one argument from its pages the host concentrated upon.

Quote the host:

The collective sigh of relief and joy over the liberation of tens of millions when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the USSR dissolved in 1991 may have, indeed, blinded those in the front rank of the fight as well as those at the tail end that the struggle to preserve “Western Christian civilization” had not ended with the fall of the wall, and that the rules of that long twilight battle may have changed if not evaporated. The recent and ongoing battle with Iran’s fanatical theocrats is a sharp reminder of the never-ending effort to preserve that treasury of that civilization unique to the West, one anchored in the Judeo-Christian worldview, but the threats it and its senior partners, China and Russia, are at least different in degree and maybe in kind.

I read that paragraph and I wondered whether the problem was really that we sat on our laurels after the fall of the USSR or whether the problem was something deeper.  Please take note of the phrase “one anchored in the Judeo-Christian worldview” as it will matter a great deal as we move forward.

In order to defeat the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan rallied American Christianity to the cause.  Evangelicals in particular rose to the occasion.  Leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell assembled great armies of believers to aid the cause.  But Evangelicals were not alone.  Pope John Paul II, having escaped the the Soviet Bloc, became an ally of President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher in the fight.  The results are obvious – victory.

But at what cost?  In the wake of these events, for many, faith and politics became inseparable.  To be a faithful follower of Christ was to be a red-blooded, patriotic American.  While this movement did not rise to the level of the “Christian nationalism” boogeyman that so many today stand up as a straw man, there was a real sense that to be Christian meant you had to be conservative.  (For the record there are real Christian nationalists out there, but they are rare and insignificant.)  In response, many branches of the faith, mostly those already left-leaning, moved radically leftward, adopting clearly unbiblical standards – it would seem simply for the sake of not being associated with “them.”

The result has been a loss of just what that Judeo-Christian worldview actually is. Regardless of what side of the political aisle a specific Christian may be, that side tends to define their faith as much or more than the faith itself.  And so I am forced to wonder if the problem is really the laurel-sitting or if it is that we have lost sight of just what we are preserving.  The ship is adrift because the anchor is missing.

Which takes me back to the unusual nature of what is presumably the Vice President’s campaign book and why I am so anxious to read it.  Most such books try to sell a candidate.  But it sounds as if this book is trying to re-anchor the nation.  Such would be my prayer.