On Christendom’s Far Shore: The United States and the Western Tradition

On Christendom’s Far Shore describes and explains American society by first illuminating its foundational stones: the traditional western (Judeo-Christian) faith in God and the West’s once common understanding of the natural order and the nature and destiny of man. It explores the biblical concepts of faith, paradox, tragedy and grace, time, gender relations, love, work, play, individual and communal responsibilities, freedom, and the Kingdom of Heaven. The book illustrates how these ideas and values underlie more specifically American values and American social and governmental patterns and structures, such as the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, the creation of families and larger social groups and communities, the mentoring of future generations, and people’s understanding of self-governance and how to relate to other nations. On Christendom’s Far Shore depicts the present as a time of twilight with the United States caught up in a cataclysmic clash between a traditional understanding of man and of a God-centered universe and a post-modern, existential, man-centered, multicultural worldview that rejects the old values and structures and determinedly seeks a vast restructuring of the nation’s social and political order and character.