from Christian Today
Eric Metaxas is a Christian conservative commentator and author of several books, including the bestselling Bonhoeffer.
Drawing on themes from his latest title, Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World, he made the case at this year’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference that Christianity was both central to the founding ideals of the United States, and remains essential to understanding and sustaining liberty today.
He speaks to Christian Today about why questions of faith are returning to public life and – and why they are key to the restoration of the West.
We’ve heard a lot at ARC about the “deconstruction” of Western civilization. What is your understanding of deconstruction and why do you think the West is in the state it’s in now?
I don’t see deconstruction as anything but a nihilistic Marxist project to undermine truth and reality, which amounts to an attack on God. Once those foundations are torn down, they are replaced with something diabolical and unhealthy, like critical race theory and the other critical theories. That in a nutshell is what deconstruction is.
Do you think that the Church has contributed to that deconstruction – or perhaps not done enough to stop it?
Yes. I think the Church, especially the Western Church, is extremely naive when it comes to evil and the nature of Communism and Marxism. That naïveté, combined with forgetting Jesus’ injunction to be wise as serpents, has indeed greatly contributed to the ability of deconstruction to make headway and to do many destructive things.