March 24, 2020 POSTPONED: America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding
Out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to postpone this program and will reschedule for a later date. Please continue to refer back to www.heritage.org/events as more information becomes available.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
The Heritage Foundation
Lehrman Auditorium
Featuring author
Robert Reilly
Hosted by
Description
The founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country’s moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy.
In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason.
These concepts were further developed by thinkers in the Middle Ages, who formulated the basic principles of constitutional rule. Why were they later rejected by those claiming the right to absolute rule, then reclaimed by the American Founders, only to be rejected again today? Reilly reveals the underlying drama: the conflict of might makes right versus right makes might. America’s decline, he claims, is not to be discovered in the Founding principles, but in their disavowal.
~ Books will be available for purchase and to be signed by the author. ~
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