Weekend Conversation: Cut flowers, first principles

NICK EICHER, HOST: You’re listening to a special weekend edition of The World and Everything in It. I’m Nick Eicher.

Early in the new documentary Truth Rising—about fifteen minutes in—the film returns Os Guinness to a small study center in the Swiss Alps … that shaped a generation of Christian thinkers more than half a century ago. It’s a brief segment, about two minutes, but it frames much of what follows.

CLIP: It was nearly sixty years ago when I first drove up into the Alps and walked through the doors of L’Abri. … L’Abri was where my faith was deepened and expanded … where I was mentored by the Christian visionary, Francis Schaeffer… . It was where I met my beautiful and beloved wife, Jenny. I spent countless hours in these mountains—hiking, thinking, debating, praying—and it is here that my faith, my family heritage, and my own sense of calling all came together.

Our guest this weekend is Os Guinness—author, social critic, and co-host of Truth Rising … alongside the Colson Center’s John Stonestreet. Os Guinness was just out of college when he traveled to L’Abri. And for five decades he would help Christians think about culture, freedom, and the future of the West, writing widely on the ideas that shape public life.

And in this conversation, we cover quite a lot: the long march of ideas that now shape the West, today’s appetite for strong leaders, the forgetting of first principles, and what he calls our “cut-flower civilization.” But we begin right where the documentary does, in Switzerland—those formative years, and what they reveal about the challenges of our own moment.

That’s coming up … right after this.

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EICHER: How would you compare today to your days at L’Abri? What seems familiar and what seems completely new?

GUINNESS: Well, the 1960s when I met Schaeffer and went out to L’Abri were quite extraordinary decade, the most extraordinary cultural decade in the 20th century. And Schaeffer was so distinctive. He wasn’t a scholar. He was a thinker. He took the Lord passionately seriously, people passionately seriously, and truth passionately seriously. And always there was a debate in what was happening and what was the significance.

So many of the things of the 60s have, of course, gone. Great filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman—we went to see his films every year. People don’t even know who he is now. But many of the ideas launched in the 60s—for example, the so-called long march through the institutions.

My first visit to this country was 68, and that was the high point of all the anti-Vietnam protests and so on. But the radicals knew they wouldn’t win in the streets, and so they called the radical cultural Marxists for a long march through the institutions—win the colleges and universities, win the press and media, win Hollywood and entertainment, and then sweep around and win the whole culture.

Now, 50-odd years later, they’ve done it. And that long march through the institutions, the rise of Cultural Marxism and wokeism, or more recently, the emergence of democratic socialism—you can see how profoundly that has taken over so that many, many Americans no longer believe in the American experiment. Many of these things were rooted in the 60s.

EICHER: But now you’ve made the argument that we live in a crisis of truth. What is it that convinces you of that today—whether it’s disinformation or social media echo chambers—or is there something deeper in the modern imagination that convinces you of this crisis of truth that we all talk about?

GUINNESS: Well, the philosophical roots go way, way back. And you can start, for example, in the 1880s with Nietzsche and his so-called re-evaluation of all values, including truth. So he was against the Christian view of truth and its subversion of power, and he wanted to put back in its place the pre-Christian, the pagan and Roman view of power, where power is everything.

His very last words are striking in his posthumous book The Will to Power: “Do you want a name for my world?” he said. “This world is the will to power, and nothing else besides.” Now, of course, that’s Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, but it’s also in the West: postmodernism and the ruling out of truth in favor of power, or Social Darwinianism, the survival of the fittest. Power, power, power, power.

Now, the American experiment coming out of the Bible is the beginning of a sustained critique of the abuse of power. Take separation of powers and many, many other things in the Bible. They are forgotten today.

So even the current administration—Make America Great Again—it doesn’t ask what made it great in the first place. And in the absence of saying what made it great in the first place—in other words, principles—it puts in power.

Take, say, Doge. So dear old Elon Musk—what’s his symbol of Doge? A chainsaw: sheer raw power. And the tariffs and many other things are rather like that, and they will backfire because they are not the heart of the American experiment, and they’re a betrayal of it, sadly.

So without truth, you’ll only have lies and deception and power.

EICHER: I’d like to pull on that thread of resurgent nationalism that we see not just here in the U.S., you do see it in Europe. That appeal of strong leaders—you were talking about President Trump. He’s an obvious person to point to, and evangelicals largely support Donald Trump. But populism isn’t just a phenomenon on the right; you have it on the left … in the mayor-elect of New York City. He is a Eugene Debs-quoting socialist, wide open about that. How do you interpret the yearning for power in light of the biblical vision of authority?

GUINNESS: This is not unique to America. The problem is right across the West. There’s a gap between the elites and the people, the populists. And in England it’s to do with Brexit; in Hungary, Viktor Orbán; in Italy, Meloni and so on. This is not American only, but it is very dangerous because clearly the elites have a very different idea from the people, and the elites are far more radicalized, both with the extreme left like Cultural Marxism and things you’re talking about like democratic socialism.

So that’s a very fateful gap. And of course, as Christians, we do not believe in that elite-populist gap, and we should overcome it. And sadly, many evangelical leaders just follow the two sides of the gap rather than trying to heal it.

So Donald Trump’s strength is he’s the champion of the forgotten people, and that’s the populist side. So at the moment, things are flowing the populist way. But overall, the gap itself is dangerous.

Now, that institutional gap is only half of the problem. There’s also an ideological polarization between those who understand America from the perspective of the American Revolution and those who understand America from the perspective of ideas coming down from the French Revolution. Because postmodernism, radical multiculturalism, critical race theory—all that—they come from the French Revolution, not the American Revolution. And that’s an even deeper gap.

And you can see that America is a deeply polarized, divided nation. So Lincoln says in the 1850s, “A house divided,” quoting Jesus, “cannot stand.” You can’t be half slave, half free. And I would say to America today, as a great admirer of this country, you can’t be half 1776 and half 1789. You’ve got to choose between them.

And so the Christian voices must be like Moses or like Elijah: you can’t follow, you can’t sit on the fence. Do you want to follow Baal or do you want to follow Yahweh? Do you want to go back to the first principles of the American experiment, which came largely from the Hebrew Republic? Many people don’t know that the most quoted book for most of the 18th century was not John Locke or anyone like that. It was the book of Deuteronomy—Exodus and Deuteronomy—the founding of God’s nation.

And we’ve got to go back to those basic principles now, not because they’re traditional or they’re historically the beginning of America, but because they are the best ways of freedom today and for what I call a human-friendly future.

So we’re facing an authoritarianism all around the world—in the West, soft despotism, as the scholars put it. What’s the counter to authoritarianism, to totalitarianism? The counter is the biblical way, including its critique of the abuse of power. And we’ve got to be unashamed in standing for the biblical way, not just as the best way to understand the American Revolution, but the best way for humanity to go forward today.

EICHER: So I do want to stay in this area and pick up on something that you said several minutes ago: that America is at risk of forgetting what made it great. We talk about “Make America Great Again,” but your concern is that we forget what made America great. So talk about the practices or virtues you say might help to recover that genuine strength?

GUINNESS: Well, part of the problem is, every year in Washington, you go to the State of the Union: “The State of the Union is strong.” Now they say that because there’s a campaign speech, but also because there’s no history, and you need a measure by which to look where we are today.

And I think next year, the 250th anniversary, is a wonderful opportunity, because you’ve got a baseline—the Revolution—and you’ve got a benchmark 250 years later.

And you can see—take, say, at the time of the Bicentennial—Robert Bellah wrote a very famous book The Broken Covenant. Going back to the American beginning, it had been lost. Not a single leader has tried to repair that covenant in the 50 years since then. The covenant is still broken.

Most Americans haven’t a clue what covenantalism is and how it’s a much richer way of freedom than sheer democracy. And you go on down the line. There are eight or nine different principles of covenantalism that are absolutely wonderful, and Christians above all should know what they are and know how to stand for them today.

Because my hope is that there will be, next year, something of a national rededication. There will be a call of leaders—I don’t know who—to call America back to its first principles.

So President Biden used to talk about “restoring the soul of America.” He never said what the soul was. President Trump talks about “making America great again.” He never says what made it great in the first place. And it was not the economy and it was not the military. It was principles.

America is a nation by intention and by ideas, and those ideas are biblical, and we’ve got to re-explore them, including pastors all across the country—not turning their pulpits into political statements but just showing people what are the biblical ways of a free and just society.

EICHER: One way to say it … maybe we need the question answered from the pulpit, how should we then live? With all respect to the man who sought answers to that crucial question, right?

GUINNESS: Dear Francis Schaeffer, absolutely so.

EICHER: In your writings, you’ve used a metaphor “cut-flower civilization.” If you were to describe Western culture today—after COVID, after the acceleration of technology, now with fresh tensions over free speech and freedom of religious practice—is that still right? Are we truly a cut-flower civilization?

GUINNESS: Absolutely. What is the central foundation, inspiration, dynamism—call it what you like—of the West? It’s the Christian faith rooted in Judaism. In other words, the Bible. The Bible made it.

See, take an example. Next year, the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” You carry on, Nick: “…that all men are created equal.” Self-evident? That would be nonsense to Plato and Aristotle—some are born to rule, some are born to be ruled. That would be nonsense to Alexander and Julius Caesar and Napoleon. That would be nonsense to Hinduism—the Brahmins are one thing, the Dalits, the untouchables, are something else.

That is a biblical idea: the sanctity of life and the dignity of everyone, including the most vulnerable, the most powerless. That is an incredible idea, and we’ve lost it.

Now, we talked earlier of truth: without a biblical view of truth rooted finally in the Lord, we’re open to lies, we’re open to power, and so on.

You go on down the line. Or take freedom—have you ever thought there’s not a single leading atheist who has a strong view of freedom? All the great atheists—Marx, Freud, Spinoza, Richard Dawkins, Jacques Monod—go on down—they’re all determinists. There’s no freedom. Sam Harris—the front cover of his book is a puppet. Freedom is an illusion.

Where does freedom come from? It’s a biblical idea.

You go on down the line. Without the biblical foundations, we are a cut-flower civilization. And cut flowers can look beautiful in a vase for a while, but they die quickly—and then they stink.

EICHER: Now another idea that you’ve written about is the notion of decline and fall, and contrasting that with exile and return—the latter of which much more hopeful. Where do you think the West stands in that arc right now between decline and fall versus exile and return? Talk a bit about that.

GUINNESS: Well, the iron-clad pairing of decline and fall is made popular, of course, by people like Edward Gibbon. But if you’re an atheist, there’s no alternative to it. If you decline, you will fall. That’s the end of it.

Not Biblically. In other words, Biblically the pairing is exile and return. Now, I think we’re clearly at that point. This is what Christopher Dawson calls a civilizational moment—when a civilization loses touch with its inspiration and there’s no alternative strong enough to fill the vacuum. Then you’re faced with a simple choice: do you renew the inspiration? Can you replace it with something else? Or do you decline?

And there’s no question: at the moment, the Christian faith has been repudiated for a long time by the intellectuals—now increasingly by much of ordinary people across the Western world. So we’re at that moment. The West will decline. The American Republic will decline—unless there’s a return to the Lord.

But freedom means a freedom even in repentance. There are, sadly, some evangelicals who have such a heavy view of predestination, they’re almost theological determinists too. You can see in the Bible there’s a freedom to repent. And as the Lord says—or rather Moses says in the Lord’s name, and many other prophets do—“If you return to me,” says the Lord, “I will return to you and restore your fortunes.”

And that, of course, in Christian history is the story of revival. Think of how the First Awakening led to the American Revolution. Think of how the First Awakening saved England, as historians have said, from the French Revolution. The Second Awakening—an incredible impetus for reforms, including slavery.

In other words, we are realists. We look at reality unblushingly and realistically, and we will decline unless there’s a massive return.

Now, we’ve seen revivals in small areas. I make a distinction between renewal and resurgence—things that can be explicable sociologically. I remember in the 80s there was a headline in The Washington Post: “Boomers Turn to God.” By that they meant they wanted values for their children. It was real, but it was socially explicable.

But the awakening is something when the Word speaks in power and conviction, and the Spirit comes down in power and conviction, and there’s an incredible transformation.

You know, my great-great-grandfather was one of the preachers in the Irish revival at the age of 23 in 1859, and in that whole region of Ireland—Ireland was united then—there was only one recorded crime the year after the revival. That’s the sort of thing revivals do. Millions of pounds’ worth of stolen goods returned to factories, and so on.

In other words, profound spiritual conviction and profound social and ethical implications.

EICHER: Now, you spoke movingly in the documentary Truth Rising about the next generation. And, you know, between where we sit today and the time that the documentary was done, there was a significant next-generation leader assassinated right in front of the audience as he was engaging with people who disagreed. Of course I’m talking about Charlie Kirk. Could you talk about the kind of leadership or imagination that you hope that this next generation will bring, even as they experience something as horrific as this—a guy who was a very hopeful young man?

GUINNESS: I only knew Charlie in a very small way. He’d read many of my books, and he thanked me for them when we met. But he was a man of courage who addressed the issues of the day, but always rooted clearly in his faith. And that courage and that confidence is what we all need, and especially the next generation.

Now, I’m very encouraged. You know, a few years ago people were talking about the mental health crisis of Gen Z. It wasn’t a mental health crisis—for a few people it was—but it was a meaning crisis because of the nihilism philosophically in much of the West.

But you can see even in France and certainly in England—in other words, two very secular countries—and also in this country, a real new opening among the younger generation. In other words, there’s a hunger for meaning, for belonging, for purpose. And the deepest answer, of course, is that in the gospel.

So this is an incredible moment for people to address the younger generation, and for the younger generation to speak up with courage and with confidence in the gospel. The gospel is not only the good news—it is the best news ever.

I’m a great believer in the little old phrase: contrast is the mother of clarity. When you see where the alternatives lead to, then you see the wonder of the truth of the gospel. And that’s where we are, because so many of the other crazy ideas people are following have gone to the edge. They’ve hit the wall. And so people are turning round.

This is an incredible moment.

EICHER: So talking about some of the issues that continue to this day, let’s talk about a few of them that continue on. Pro-lifers fought and fought for half a century to see Roe v. Wade overturned … and that happened in the Dobbs decision … restoring abortion policy back to the states, and the battle shifted more strictly to persuasion instead of policymaking. Another instance of the Supreme Court dictating policy … same sex marriage. Just recently we saw a legal challenge fail … a concept with zero precedent in the world, now considered settled law in present-day USA. Feels as entrenched as Roe v. Wade was. How can Christians, do you think, regain credibility as persuaders in a culture that sees nothing wrong with any of this?

GUINNESS: Well, we’ve got to know how to persuade first of all. Too many people think that to be faithful, we have to absolutely state the gospel—blurt it out if necessary, bluntly and boldly—and that’s it.

No. Biblically, part of persuasion—judgment in the Scripture—is often God’s pushing people or leading them to the logic of their own settled choices. And persuasion is driving people toward the logic of their settled choices.

So Elijah on Mount Carmel—he didn’t say, “Come back to God or Israel will fall apart.” He had the whole royal court and 800 prophets against him and the people sitting on the fence. He doesn’t say, “Come back to God.” He says, “If Baal is god, follow Baal.”

How can he do that? Well, he knows Baal is not God. So when they try to follow Baal—and Baal is only an idol—they hit their head against the wall. And then, with the vacuum, what was he going to say? He pours water on the altar and so on, and the fire falls.

Now, we’ve got to do something similar. And that’s where C.S. Lewis used to say, “Press people out to the absolute ruddy end.” A very English way of putting it. Francis Schaeffer used to say, “Push them to the logic of their presuppositions—their assumptions.” In other words, if people are true to what they believe, at some point they will see the problem.

You can see that with transgenderism. Or let me put it in terms of same-sex marriage. There’s an incredible loneliness and longing among many of the same-sex marriages I’ve known because they can’t have children.

Now, the wonderful thing about children is: when two people love each other, they can create in their image. Love creates in their image. As men and women make love and they have children, that’s impossible. And that’s part of the loneliness of same-sex marriages and so on.

Now, they can fill it up with other families and alternative families. Often problems there. But some of the simple biblical truths are so human that when they’re neglected, there are consequences—sad consequences.

EICHER: Before we go—and this will be the last question—I was very tempted to talk a little bit about some of the technology that I see on the horizon, where that issue may even be overcome in the same-sex context. Technology that perhaps will allow same-sex couples essentially combine their DNA, I mean, that seems the stuff of science fiction—but it’s being openly and seriously talked about.

GUINNESS: They certainly are, and we have to follow these things—AI in general—and really monitor them, or we’ll be outsourcing our humanity to technology in all sorts of ways.

Okay to outsource our muscle power? Yeah. But when you start outsourcing your heart—say people are having relationships with AI-driven women—that is no real answer down the line. And we’ve got to see again and again how when we outsource our humanity, there are profound problems to us, as well as things can become disastrous in the kind of Frankenstein possibilities that are created.

No—we need to be ethically really up to date with all the advances. Not with fear, but just with responsibility.

EICHER: I do want to end on an up note and ask you, last, if you were to issue a call to renewal in this year of our Lord 2025, what would that call to renewal sound like? Is there a single truth you think that our civilization most needs to recover?

GUINNESS: Well, I would add before the openness is: “Yes—have no fear.” That’s the strongest biblical refrain, and too many people do have fear today. We need to remember God is greater than all—it’s heaven that rules. He’s greater than all situations. We need to have faith in the Lord and have no fear.

But if you ask me, what would be my hope—I said earlier, I think it was—that the challenge of faith against modernity is rather like David and Goliath. Do we go out in Saul’s armor or with Goliath’s spear and buckler and all that? Or do we go out with the equivalent of David’s sling and five stones?

I think the challenge is to let God be God. Too many people think they have to make their faith private and keep it purely spiritual, and they don’t bring it out into the ordinary world in their thinking and their acting. And we’ve got to do that, or we will become secularized. And that’s the trouble.

We’ve got to let God be God and trust the gospel, trust the Lord. And I think people need to go back—ponder Genesis 3, the incredible revelation at Mount Sinai: “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” and all that this means.

Too many evangelicals only talk about the New Testament and not realize the New Testament is the fulfillment of the whole Bible, including the Old Testament. And we’ve got to start with the robustness and the toughness and the glory of God we see at things like Mount Sinai.

And so I think the central challenge today is Luther’s great phrase: Let God be God—in our thinking, in our acting, in our lives individually, in our lives together. We’ve got to do it humbly. We’ve got to do it persuasively. We certainly can’t do it angrily and hatefully. No.

But if we let God be God, and we do it together as the people of God, the power of salt and light under the Holy Spirit will be remarkable. That would be my challenge to share with people: Let God be God.

EICHER: What treasure you have shared over these few minutes here. It’s an honor to be able to speak with you—genuinely, it is. I know your time is so valuable, and I just want to thank you for giving us some of it.

GUINNESS: My pleasure, Nick. Thank you. And I have an enormous admiration for the great things WORLD has done in so many areas. Thank you.

EICHER: This has been a special weekend edition of The World and Everything in It. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with us.

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Have a wonderful weekend—and Lord willing, we’ll talk to you on Monday.

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