From the Nov/Dec, 2025 issue of *Touchstone*

Editorial

How Firm a Foundation?

Greatness Comes from Above
by James M. Kushiner

Those who argue for conservative politics and economics as the means for the restoration and preservation of Western civilization are wasting their time from our point of view.

First, politics and economics today are understood as secular concerns in which religious forces have no significant role. Second, and consequently, our common public square is closed to religious discourse. No surprise there.

Yet, absent religious discourse, such secularized thinking about society is sterile if not toxic for humanity. We insist that the only possible path to revitalization of both politics and economics runs through, not around, religious belief and discourse. If we avoid that path, there is no hope. There are no detours.

Why do we insist on this?

First, politics: The American Founders wrote a Constitution that they knew would not work absent a strong religious citizenry:

“We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” —John Adams

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to a political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” —George Washington

Significantly, they grounded the legal basis for the Constitution and for the union of the states in the Declaration of Independence, which speaks theologically. It asserts that all the rights that we uphold are endowments from the Creator, that all men are created equal. This is a fundamentally religious statement that informs our founding politics, not the other way around.

Second, economics: Just as sound political life is grounded in theological commitments, so is economic vitality. Consider Adam Smith, the so-called founder of modern economics, who wrote The Wealth of Nations. Italian scholars Sebastiano Nerozzi and Pierluigi Nuti, in a 2008 article on “Adam Smith and the Family,” conclude:

Given the crucial role assigned to family affection in [Smith’s] system of moral philosophy we can better appreciate Smith’s own concern for the possible menaces which life in commercial societies may impose on family life and parental bonds. The need to reinforce these bonds by a proper education and the need to trace out a protected space where the seek[ing] of profit and market mechanisms are not allowed to enter, shows how far Smith was aware not only of the advantages but also of the risks associated with the rapid process of social transformation which was underway. While he decidedly favored the development of capitalistic and commercial society, he was convinced that this new form of social organization [i.e., modern mercantile capitalism] could survive itself only if supported by a system of public morality and of non-market social relationships which had their foundation in family life and affection. (https://ideas.repec.org/p/frz/wpaper/wp2008_04.html; my emphasis)

Religion Not Optional

James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.

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