U-Turn
The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life, that it would be literally — I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally — impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all of the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. (President Teddy Roosevelt, as quoted in U-Turn.)
I read an excerpt from this book in a magazine over a month ago, and it was so good I was convinced that I needed to read it. The article was about restoring the church in America. But the book has a broader focus on family, church and government.
Completing it at last, I have a mixture of responses. U-Turn has taken me about three weeks to read, partly because we are ridiculously busy, and partly because it’s so depressing. I kept having to close it and decompress. It contains a wealth of statistical evidence detailing the demise of the three institutions it examines — too much, in fact, to absorb. I could have done with fewer lists and tables. Part of the reason for that, though, is that I am not someone who needs convincing. The decline of America by most every measure that matters to me (and to my children’s future) is already painfully obvious. In that sense, this book was preaching to the choir. I wanted to get to solutions.
Politically, the solutions offered involved greater civic participation and responsibility. We have to hold our elected officials accountable to the Constitution that sets limits on their activities, U-Turn reminds us. If we see them abusing their role, our recourse is to vote them out. Yet it seems to me that the informed population did this, loud and clear, in the last midterm election. But it has made almost no difference at all. It’s unreal — or surreal, like a dream. There is little in our political life that goes undocumented in this book, which takes up issues of national security, basic freedoms, welfare, taxation, legislation, health care and judicial activity. The overall sense of an utterly corrupt political process accelerating an already dizzying descent left me with a familiar sense of outrage and helplessness.
Yet the book has borne some positive fruit for me as well. Though I am not comfortable calling America “God’s chosen nation” as some have done, our founding ideals, morality, and vision of human dignity are drawn from Scripture. U-Turn provides abundant evidence that the Bible was deeply and consciously embedded in the motivating beliefs of our founding fathers (and of many influential public figures since). Reading this book dissolves once and for all the myth that “separation of church and state” means a secular outlook in governing officials. Despite the sorrow of seeing how far out of favor Christianity has fallen in America’s public life, I found it inspiring to see how it animated the men who laid the foundation for America. It gave me a glimmer of hope.
I also found the book’s many accolades to the Bible motivating. Though I have a longstanding, regular Bible-reading habit, I felt a desire to increase my time in the Bible and in prayer. I’ve stepped up my reading, hoping that taking it in bigger bites each day may renew my mind in important ways and aid me in prayer. People speak of bringing medication up to “therapeutic level” in the bloodstream — the level at which the medicine begins to have a real and measurable effect on the body. I hope that God’s word will reach therapeutic level, fighting against the temptation to despair about our future and igniting real hope in God’s power to work through his church.
This review feels a little too personal, but then reading can be that way; a book can hit nerves. For a detached estimate of the literary value of U-Turn, someone else will have to do the job. I can testify to it as an almost unbearably frustrating reading experience, but one that bore positive fruit in the end.
