Book Review: Religious Freedom by John Wilsey
Must we choose between persuasion or coercion in an effort to recover ordered liberty?
Wilsey, John D. Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. Grand Rapid, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2025. 222 pages.
Introduction
John D. Wilsey is Professor of Church History and Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Church History and Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.[1] He is academically and experientially one of the best possible authors for a book like this, an introduction to American conservatism. His writing style and content are top quality among non-fictions works today. I think this book is a must-read for those interested in one of the most critical debates of our time – religious liberty in America.
Recovering the Tocquevillian Spirits
In Wilsey’s own words, this is a book about “how to think about and maintain a uniquely American tradition: the harmony between liberty and religion that each generation [of Americans] has received as an inheritance from the generations preceding it.”[2] Wilsey believes Alexis de Tocqueville observed this “predominant tradition” when he wrote “[Anglo-American civilization] is the product… of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere are often at odds. But in America, these two have been successfully blended, in a way, and marvelously combined. I mean the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty.”[3] A recovery of the value and distinction of these two spirits in American life is what Wilsey is after. In his conclusion, Wilsey says, “we have wisdom to gain from Tocqueville’s observations of how [the American] public spirit mediated between religion and liberty in the early nineteenth century.”[4] Indeed, this is Wilsey’s call to his American reader, a call to salvage harmony and distinction between religion and liberty.
With impressive breadth and compelling depth (especially for a book this size), Wilsey offers a philosophical and historical introduction to one perspective of conservatism in America. Helpfully, one of the responsibilities Wilsey accepted in writing this book was that of defining his terms – especially “American” and “conservative.” These are both complicated and disputed terms in the contemporary conversation, but Wilsey provided a rationale and an explanation for each. He noted five “traits” or “attributes” which he believes are common among Americans of every generation and “also worthy of emulating.”[5] These are “aspiration,” “intention,” a good “sense of humor,” devotion to “faith, family, and flag,” and placing the highest of value on “liberty.”[6] For Wilsey, the American spirit is embodied by those who exhibit these traits, whatever their ethnicity or original nationality.
Most of the book is devoted to describing the philosophy, history, and activity of Wilsey’s brand of conservatism. In fact, he lists thirteen categories of “conservatism” (borrowing twelve from Matthew Continetti) that have existed since 1945.[7] Nevertheless, Wilsey prefers to create a label of his own – aspirational conservatism (yet another category). This, Wilsey says, is a commitment “to the effort of conserving the harmony between the spirit of liberty and the spirit of religion for the long haul.”[8] A “retrieval” of this kind of conservatism is, according to Wilsey, “necessary to stave off the implosion of Western and American civilization as we have known it since Washington’s inauguration in 1789.”[9]
Same Appraisal, Different Strategies
Conservatives of various sorts and some on the political right who despise the label “conservative” agree with Wilsey’s appraisal that Western and American civilization are in peril. The decline in morality, marriage, children, and religion are some of the major indicators that all is not well in the West. Wilsey devoted nearly all of chapter 4 to a critique of Stephen Wolfe’s 2022 publication The Case for Christian Nationalism, wherein Wolfe decried some of the same civilizational losses as Wilsey has done. Wolfe is representative of a small (but growing?) number of Christians in America who share Wilsey’s laments, but who do not care for Wilsey’s strategy (i.e., persuasion without coercion). The differences are tactical; Wolfe and others are not interested in resuscitating liberalism or encouraging pluralism.
Where Wolfe wants to use political will and power in the recovery of civic virtue and order, Wilsey wants to “cultivate public spirit… patriotism… [and] well-ordered love of country.”[10] Where Wolfe wants to animate existing civil structures to impose Christian ethics on an indifferent or even hostile citizenry, Wilsey wants to “continue voluntarily associating for civil and religious causes,” to “support the separation of church and state,” and to “create a culture that values religion and religious people.”[11] In sum, Wilsey calls for a strategy of persuasion and exemplary living, urging aspirational conservatives to live well and make the public case that others would benefit from doing the same. Wolfe and others seem to agree that these tactics are needed, but they also want to do more - namely, employ civil and political action.
Conclusion
If the reader agrees with Wilsey’s appraisal of Western and American civilization, the reader must decide if his strategy seems plausible. Does the current civil and cultural climate of American society seem likely to reverse course from its general hostility to Christianity or its desire for a stronger state? Maybe it will, but this seems implausible to many Christians in America. Just ask those Evangelicals in Colorado who are battling for fundamental parental and Christian rights against a hostile state.
So too, the reader must consider the possibility that another approach might a refusal of the either-or proposition. Must we choose only one or the other – persuasion or coercion? Many Christians in America (including at least some of those who participated in the founding of the nation) have employed both strategies in an overall effort to establish and maintain ordered liberty. Some are arguing today that Wilsey’s strategy is not undesirable, but it cannot succeed alone. Maybe what we need are both persuasion and coercion, individual piety and political action.
[1] “John D. Wilsey,” The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, accessed April 30, 2025, https://www.sbts.edu/faculty/john-d-wilsey/.
[2] p. 1.
[3] p. 2.
[4] p. 215.
[5] p. 7.
[6] pp. 7-9 n. 22
[7] p. 30.
[8] p. 32.
[9] p. 62.
[10] p. 220.
[11] pp. 220-221.