{"id":6737,"date":"2026-04-23T20:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T20:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gospelinlife.com\/?post_type=article&p=6737"},"modified":"2026-04-24T21:05:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:05:44","slug":"a-political-case-study-four-americas-ideologies-idolatries-part-1-of-a-2-part-series","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/gospelinlife.com\/article\/a-political-case-study-four-americas-ideologies-idolatries-part-1-of-a-2-part-series\/","title":{"rendered":"A Political Case Study: Four Americas, Ideologies & Idolatries (Part 1 of a 2-Part Series)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recently, George Packer wrote Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal,<\/em>\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [1] George Packer, Last Best Hope: American in Crisis and Renewal<\/em> (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).<\/span>\n<\/span> summarized in an article in The Atlantic <\/em>(\u201cHow America Fractured into Four Parts,\u201d July\/August 2021).\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [2] George Packer, \u201cHow America Fractured into Four Parts,\u201d The Atlantic,<\/em> July\/August 2021, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2021\/07\/george-packer-four-americas\/619012\/.<\/span>\n<\/span> He outlines four recent U.S. political movements that employ moral visions of a good society. He concludes that they are all inadequate and that he does not want to live in any of the four \u201cAmericas\u201d that the political movements are seeking to establish.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over eight decades ago Reinhold Niebuhr addressed an assembly of world church leaders in Oxford, UK. In 1937, as the clouds were darkening before a World War, he outlined four \u201cidols\u201d which were the basis of four political ideologies that were headed for a terrible, bloody conflict. This was later published as \u201cThe Christian Church in a Secular Age\u201d and is now found in The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses<\/em>.\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [3] Reinhold Niebuhr, \u201cThe Christian Church in a Secular Age,\u201d in The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses<\/em>, ed. Robert McAfee Brown (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 79-92.<\/span>\n<\/span> The similarities of Packer\u2019s and Niebuhr\u2019s schemas are remarkable and are instructive if compared. Even more interesting is to cross-reference these two essays with David T. Koyzis\u2019 Political Visions and Illusion: A Survey of and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies<\/em>\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [4] David T. Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusion: A Survey of and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies<\/em> (2nd edition, Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 2019).<\/span>\n<\/span>\u2014which I will do briefly below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reinhold Niebuhr’s Four Idolatries<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The impossibility of strict, irreligious secularism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr, December 4, 1927<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Niebuhr begins his talk with an eye-opening claim: \u201cStrictly speaking there is no such thing as secularism. An explicit denial of the sacred always contains some implied affirmation of some [other] holy sphere.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [5] Niebuhr,The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 79.<\/span>\n<\/span> In other words, because human beings were made for the worship of God, if we aren\u2019t worshipping the true God we must worship some<\/em>thing. We will elevate something in our lives or culture to being not merely a good thing but an unquestioned, sacred, all-healing, ultimate thing.\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [6] Compare C.S. Lewis: \u201cThe defiance of the good atheist hurled at an apparently ruthless and idiotic cosmos is really an unconscious homage to something in or behind that cosmos which he recognizes  as infinitely valuable and authoritative: for if mercy and justice were really only private whims of his own with no objective and impersonal roots, and if he realized this, he could not go on being indignant. The fact that he indites heaven itself for disregarding them means that at some level of his mind he knows they are enthroned in a higher heaven still.\u201d<\/span>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niebuhr continues to apply this idea\u2014that everyone necessarily must base their lives on faith in some way of knowing and some standard of value that they cannot prove and so they rely on a religious faith. \u201cEvery explanation of the meaning of human existence must avail itself of some principle of explanation which cannot be explained. Every estimate of values involves some criterion of value which cannot be arrived at empirically.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [7] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 79.<\/span>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally he says \u201cConsequently the avowedly secular culture of today turns out upon close examination to be either a pantheistic religion which identifies existence in its totality with holiness, or a rationalistic humanism for which human reason is essentially god, or a vitalistic humanism which worships some unique or particular vital force in the individual or the community as its god, that is, as the object of its unconditioned loyalty.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [8] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 80.<\/span>\n<\/span> He then goes on to identify four \u201cgods\u201d that various contemporary, supposedly secular cultures worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> Romanticism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romanticism makes an idol out of the individual. This has been called expressive individualism\u2014the idea that the highest good is for us to follow our hearts, express ourselves and fulfill our deepest dreams and longings. Niebuhr says this \u201cworships some unique or particular vital force in the individual \u2026. It is the old religion of self-glorification.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [9] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 80.<\/span>\n<\/span>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> Rationalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rationalism makes an idol out of science, technology, and reason. While romanticism thinks the answer to all things is free self-expression, this sees science as our \u201csavior.\u201d \u201cHumanistic rationalism, forgetting that human reason \u2026 is a derived, dependent, created reality \u2026 believes that its gradual extension is the guarantee of the ultimate destruction of evil in history.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [10] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 80-81.<\/span>\n<\/span>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong> Nationalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalism makes an idol out of one\u2019s race and nation. Niebuhr mentions the slogan of \u201cBlut und Boden,\u201d <\/em>the Nazi slogan promoting one race (blut: <\/em>\u201cblood\u201d) and land (boden: <\/em>\u201csoil\u201d). Fascism idealized rural people as the \u201creal nation\u201d as opposed to the cities filled with foreigners. Niebuhr calls this the \u201cself-glorification of race \u2026 and nation\u201d rather than of the individual.\n\n\n []<\/a>\n Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 81.<\/span>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.<\/strong> Socialism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Socialism makes an idol out of the State and the perspective and actions of the oppressed (\u201cthe proletariat\u201d). Niebuhr writes about \u201cMarxism\u201d that \u201cthis very philosophy which [rightly] sees the pretensions of all \u2018the wise, the mighty, and the noble\u2019 \u2026 [then regards] the life of the proletariat as having some mystic union with the absolute.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [12] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 82.<\/span>\n<\/span> Niebuhr shows his preference for socialism over nationalistic fascism (remember it was 1937) but he rightly adds, \u201cAs every culture which is not confronted with the one holy God, the creator, lord, and judge of the world, [Marxism] also ends in the sin of self-glorification.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [13] Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr<\/em>, 83.<\/span>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Koyzis\u2019 Four Ideologies<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ideologies as \u201credemptive stories\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his introductory chapter, Koyzis makes the same basic argument as Niebuhr. He speaks about clashes of ideologies in the 20th<\/sup> century. What is an ideology? In common use it means a very strongly held (\u201cdogmatic\u201d) set of ideas. But \u201cideology\u201d also sounds like idolatry, and Koyzis says, \u201cI view ideologies as modern manifestations of that ancient phenomenon called idolatry, [each with] their own stories of sin and redemption.\u201d\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [14] Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusion<\/em>, 5.<\/span>\n<\/span> Koyzis\u2019 description of these four political ideologies align well with Niebuhr\u2019s.\n\n\n []<\/a>\n [15] Koyzis names a fifth ideology: \u201cDemocratism\u201d of \u201cMajoritarianism.\u201d This is the political outworking of Utilitarianism\u2014”the greatest good for the greatest number.\u201d This ideology makes public\/majority opinion the only standard of good\u2014leading, obviously, to the possibility of the abuse of minorities. Koyzis treats this ideology on pages 120-150, and it is important material; but whereas the other four ideologies are relatively discrete and different from the others, Majoritarianism can be combined with and used by any of the others, though it is especially conducive to neo-liberalism.<\/span>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neo-Liberals<\/strong> (\u201cThe Free Individual\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLiberalism\u201d is a society based on individual freedom of choice. The best society is seen not as one united by common religion or cultural values (as in nationalism) but a society united by only one value\u2014the freedom to live as you see fit as long as you don\u2019t harm others. Classic liberalism had become so dominant in the West since the mid-20th<\/sup> century defeats of fascism and communism that it broke into two branches to vie with each other. One is called \u201cconservatism\u201d and one is called \u201cliberalism,\u201d but they are both liberalism in that they assume the primacy of the autonomous self and want a meritocratic society. (See P. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.<\/em>) The two branches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Conservatives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservatives make an idol of \u201cthe market\u201d and entrepreneurship.<\/strong> They believe strongly that the best society has very free capital markets and free competition with little government regulation and taxes. They believe each individual is wholly responsible for his or her situation\u2014if you are poor in a free country it is your fault. The field: business.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Liberals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberals make an idol of \u201cscience\/expertise\u201d and self-expression.<\/strong> They believe all<\/em> relationships are now transactional, reduced to contracting individuals maximizing their own self-interests\u2014the \u201ctriumph of the therapeutic.\u201d They believe also that science and technology is the way to handle all problems. The field: elite cultural institutions
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Nationalists<\/strong> (\u201cOur People\u201d and \u201cThe Nation\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both civic and ethnic nations can become invested with too high a status, and this is where idolatry makes an entrance. It begins with \u201cairbrushing\u201d one\u2019s national history. The idol of nationalism always demands that the people give their highest loyalty to their motherland, to \u201ctheir people.\u201d It means that those deemed \u201cnot our people\u201d are ostracized and excluded in one of several ways: elimination (they are driven out), domination (they are allowed to be present but are given fewer rights and may be terrorized), assimilation (they are refused admission to most circles unless they lose their cultural distinctives), or abandonment (their basic needs are willfully ignored).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Socialists <\/strong>(\u201cRacial, Gender, Sexual Identity\u201d and \u201cThe State\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as liberalism sees our condition as solely due to individual choice, so socialism believes that crime and poverty are not mainly due to choice or individual action. Freedom of choice and speech and thought are ruses by which the powerful keep their power. Today modern progressives believe that gender, race, and sexuality does this as well\u2014so our main identity is not individual but social. Unequal outcomes between groups are never due to internal factors\u2014never the result of the individual effort or group culture. Inequalities are always the result of external, systemic social factors all the way down. The solution is never education, or self-improvement or stronger family life\u2014it is social policy and transfer of power. The only way forward is to discredit beliefs and discourses that accrue power for social groups and, through the State, to re-distribute power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problems with each ideology<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

1. Each of them idolizes something that\u2019s good-but-fallen<\/strong>: for Nationalists it\u2019s the people; for Conservatives it\u2019s the market; for Liberals it\u2019s individual freedom and reason; for Progressives (also referred to as Socialists) it\u2019s racial\/gender\/sexual identity and the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Each of them demonizes something that\u2019s good-but-fallen<\/strong>: for Nationalists it\u2019s the other races\/cultures; for Conservatives it\u2019s the State and big organizations; for Liberals it\u2019s moral authorities like religion and family; for Progressives it\u2019s the free market of money and ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Each of them tends to exclude and marginalize<\/strong> classes of people they see as enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Each of them tends to idolize<\/strong> people they see as saviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All offer simplistic solutions not only to society but to individuals. All these secular hopes will fail because they don\u2019t fit the complexity of good-but-fallen reality.<\/div>