Book Review: A Conservative History of the American Left

In our modern Western culture, the move is to do away with religion’s involvement with society. Governments are not to be influence by religion in any form or fashion has become the crying motto of those on the left. And while I am not comfortable at all with politics and the Church of Jesus Christ, I don’t believe that people of faith should simply be branded as unfit for office whether they be a true disciple of Jesus, a Mormon, or a Buddhist. I agree with the United States Constitution that the government should not recognise one religious group over another as done in many European nations such as the United Kingdom (the Church of England), Germany (Lutheran), or Italy (Roman Catholic) and especially as done by many Middle Eastern nations such as Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many other Arab states that promote Islam at the point of death for any converts. However, a secular state devoid of any religious presence is equally as bad as in China, Imperial Japan, and the former Soviet Union and its allies.

In the United States we are seeing a rise in attacks on three main areas of our culture. Those three attacks are against the family unit, private property, and religion (particularly Christianity since it is the dominate faith). We are further seeing a rise in a socialistic government with both Barak Obama and John McCain calling for more governmental affairs in our lives from health care to higher taxes. Gone are the days of hard work, mind your own business, and the government exists only to defend and protect the people of the United States.

Where did liberal left come up with the ideas of attacking the family unit (such as gay marriage), attack private property ownership and business, and religion? Daniel Flynn has written an excellent book that I highly recommend for you all to read entitled, A Conservative History of the American Left.

The book begins by showing that ironically the current American left comes from a history that begin with people who professed to be proclaiming the true faith of Christ in the 17th century among the Puritans as the first genuine communist and socialist. The early Puritans in America were fixed on creating a society where they all were equal before God, shared each others things, lived in the same towns and villages, and all shared the same values with the clergy overseeing this “kingdom.” In the early Puritans minds, the communal living was best to serve the whole society. All of them failed.

Flynn’s book is not an attack on the modern rhetoric of the American right versus the American left. This is not a personal attack on liberalism but is a history book. It traces the left leaning thoughts from the early days of America’s history to the modern era and shows that the modern left is not saying anything new but is repeating history and its many failures.

My favorite part of the book is the history of 19th century Scot Robert Owens. Owens was a wealthy Scottish business man who did much good in Scotland before coming to the United States. He raised factory wages, fought against children having to work many hours (from 14 down to 11 when Owen left), and his passion to build a community that we would feed, supply, and provide for all the companies workers. Owens wanted equal sharing, treatment, and provision. Owens came to the United States though with radical views on three institutions. Owens hated the traditional family unit, despised private ownership of farms, factories, etc. and hated religion of any kind (although he himself practised spiritism near the end of his life so he could speak to the dead Benjamin Franklin). Owen preached his social gospel before a packed Congress twice and even paid $100,000 for Harmony, Indiana where he would put his gospel into action. Owens named his town, New Harmony. The town was to be a communist haven with no private property ownership, equal amounts of food, clothing, and no money was needed. There was to be no family units with dozens of people sleeping in the same buildings. Each person would work for other. Owens’ followers were the first to use the term “socialist” about their society where everyone worked for the social group. No religion was allowed in New Harmony.

New Harmony lasted two years and ended in complete failure. Owens learned the hard way that capitalism works for men who like to work and socialism works for those who don’t. In a funny note about Owens, he was influenced strongly by Calvinism in his homeland of Scotland although he claimed he hated all religions. Owens denied free will and believed instead that corrupt man needed someone other than himself to make his decisions for him which in this case would be the all-loving, most gracious, and all-knowing government instead of God.

The book shows the major flaws in the thinking of liberalism. As I read the book I was struck how often Flynn brings up Christianity. Flynn points out that the 19th century abolition movement (which was liberal based at the time) begin from a social gospel context and abolitionist often used biblical language to denounce slavery. Flynn points out that the current liberal movement decries the use of “Bible” language especially with President George W. Bush but their own founders not only used biblical language but claimed to be bringing back the true teachings of Jesus.

The current emergent church was found all through this book as well. Flynn shows the major flaws of the social gospel when not mixed with genuine Christianity.

Overall this is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. I breezed through this book in one sitting at Borders Book Store so it is quite easy reading, heavy on footnotes, and provides an amazing view of history that is indeed repeating itself with the rise of Obama, the socialist movement, and the emergent church.