Os Guinness: The Case for Civility

Guinness takes on the contemporary threat of the excesses of the Religious Right and the secular Left, arguing that we must find a middle ground between privileging one religion over another and attempting to make all public expression of faith illegal. If we do not do this, Guinness contends, Western civilization as we know it will die. Always provocative and deeply insightful, Guinness puts forth a vision of a new, practical "civil and cosmopolitan public square" that speaks not only to America's immediate concerns but to the long-term interests of the republic and the world." (taken from the publishers description of The Case for Civility).

Commenting on this book, Dr. Doug Groothuis writes, "While writing as a Christian, Guinness charts a course for "a civil public square" in which citizens of any religion or of none are allowed and encouraged to let their voices be known and to respect those of others. He argues against both "the sacred social square" (where pluralism is defrocked and one religion dominates at the expense of others) and "the naked public square" (in which religious citizens are not allowed to participate socially and politically on the basis of their deepest convictions).

Guinness grounds his reflections on a profound understanding of The First Amendment and its entailments. Contrary to many, he argues that civility is a higher virtue than mere tolerance. Moreover, civility requires knowledge and discipline; it is not the fruit of relativism, which despairs of objective moral knowledge and the pursuit of objective truth."

On the program today, my guest will be Dr. Os Guinness.

Os Guinness is an author and social critic.