With presidential ceremonies, an inauguration, and, most important, a flurry of championship football games since Christmas, we’re hearing many versions of The Star-Spangled Banner’s “land of the free and the home of the brave.” The National Anthem always stirs humility, devotion, and national pride.
But what is freedom? Humankind has always yearned for it. (Richie Havens at Woodstock linked there.) And why is freedom the most talked about, agreed upon, and, perhaps, sacred word in American political culture, though nowhere else in the world outside the West?
Guess what. According to Dr. Littlejohn, it wasn’t political philosophers in America, Britain, or France who most shaped freedom over the last 300 years, it was Christ and Christians over the last 2,000.
Brad is quite correct here.
Going into the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays 2024 and since, I read the four books shown in the picture below. Last month’s Book of the Month, Andrew Walker’s Faithful Reason (2024), sits at bottom of the picture pile. Brad Littlejohn’s book just published on January 15 and briefly reviewed here sits at the top.
Not to sound like the demon-possessed (possibly Zuul) Lewis Tully in Ghostbusters, but “I can tell you” that these four books outline the future of Christianity in America and Europe for the next at least ten years. Remember, you heard it from Praxis Circle first.
Called to Freedom
If you want the most readable, clear, and efficient treatment available on the timely and vital subject, Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License (2025) by Brad Littlejohn is your answer. I know of no other book describing freedom with such elegance in only 152 pages (not including an excellent Bibliography, Subject Index, and Scripture Index).
Whether you’ve studied this complicated subject carefully for decades or just want a terrific introduction filled with essence on the topic, this is the book for you.
Called to Freedom is the result of fifteen years of focused attention from of one of the most talented young theologians and philosophers in America. Brad is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute in Washington, DC, the President Emeritus and Founder of the Davenant Institute in South Carolina, and a very well-known intellectual within the space. He is close to Andrew Walker.
There’s general agreement across America today that well-ordered political freedom created the most wealthy and powerful country on earth. The 20th century is regarded as the American Century.
Yet many also believe freedom in the U.S. has become dysfunctional, if not totally out-of-control. (That’s exactly why President Trump was elected and is moving so fast.) Once there were only “diminishing returns” of radical freedom, but for at least the last decade it has fostered purposelessness, anxiety, despair, suffering, and even evil via a growing acceptance of radical material secularism.
Called to Freedom offers Christians and humanists an antidote to such nihilism.
Author Background and Book Overview
Brad is among a growing cadre of leading, young Christians who understand orthodox Christianity across denominations and churches and are applying their knowledge in new, evangelical ways to solve practical social problems all Americans face. It is extremely exciting to see Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians (Rod Dreher in the above pile second from the top) working together for Christ and their nation, also as devoted citizens.
As Brad highlights, freedom seems simple—just do what you want—but there are over 200 types of freedom catalogued, and they often conflict. Initially, he explains why no human is totally free, then defines freedom by addressing three fundamental tensions: negative vs. positive freedom, individual vs. corporate liberty, and inward vs. outward liberty (“freedom” and “liberty” used interchangeably).
After the introductory overview, Brad offers three chapters in their logical and most useful order—spiritual, moral, and political freedom—followed by three more chapters examining the most important Western problem-areas for freedom today as case studies: technological freedom, economic freedom, and religious freedom.
Final Comments
The whole presentation seems so simple, right?
Well, others would have thought of it, too, but they ran out of breadth of knowledge and research, clarity of reason and understanding, and time invested in making their presentation clear to the average, well-educated, and concerned reader. The result is a comprehensive survey of the best thinking on the subject pulled from the last 2,000 years.
If you buy the book, you will have your starting reference point for any further research on the West’s approach to Christian and secular freedom, as determined by our greatest theologians and philosophers. The same is true for Andrew Walker, Faithful Reason, and natural law. Indeed, to quote Forrest Gump, Littlejohn and Walker go together and fit the intellectual West “like peas and carrots.”
Called to Freedom describes a biblically-based positive freedom focused on a relationship with Christ that begins with you and then should permeate all of Christian and related society. It doesn’t dictate a set form of government (as does Doug Wilson in the book second from the bottom, the form of government our American Founders designed so brilliantly), but it does maximize human freedom in furtherance of the good and a minimization of evil.
America’s Classical Judeo-Christian-based, positive freedom can help you fulfill your purpose in life, and it maximizes human flourishing according to individual, family, church, corporate, national, and universal purposes. The last link offers a highly recommended overview of CJC by Dennis Praeger.
Now, I read a short article once that said every good book review must say at least something critical. After all, no one, accept Him, has ever been perfect.
Well, neither Brad nor Andrew quite nail the subject of Christian freedom and economics (economic freedom) dead in the center of the target’s bulls-eye. This is extremely difficult if not impossible for any “academic” who has never spent at least 20 years working full-time in Sherwood Forest’s private sector. Even the Christian world is filled with bears, leprechauns, witches, Gozerians, and Gollum-like creatures.
Rather than hit the bulls-eye of “economic freedom,” instead, these two Robin Hoods nick the feather of the prior arrow resting in freedom (Brad) and natural law (Andrew) that did hit the perfect center. I cannot explain this comment now, but maybe we can address it later in 2025. I look forward to that.
In the meantime, they may continue robbing from the rich, radical, material secularists and giving to we normal peasants, the People.
Set Yourself Free with Brad
In conclusion, like light, water, air, and salt, freedom isn’t the purpose of life; instead, it’s a necessary condition for the maximization of Christ-like love. So, buy Brad’s, again, extremely readable book and let’s begin on page 1, Chapter 1, “What Is Freedom?”
It’s first quote:
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” — Galatians 5:1
This is our Christian duty.
Now, let Brad take you brilliantly the rest of the way from Christ and St. Paul to now, and even well into a most hopeful Western and universal future that lies before America, especially as of November 2024.
