Os Guinness Quotes
Augustine says that you don't understand a nation by the throw weight of its military or the strength of its research universities or the size of its population, but by looking at what it loves in common. To assess a nation, you look at the health and strength of its ideals. And there's no question that the common love in America is freedom.
Guinness, Os. A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future. InterVarsity Press, 2012, p. 28.
His belief is that the vast majority of Americans have a set of values in common including tolerance of alternative religions. In this sense, he considers the common values as an American Religion.
At the time, there was very little national news in most newspapers and almost none about local areas and peoples other than the newspaper’s town. With the exception of New York and a few other cities, there was no news on the radio and TV had not yet been deployed. Most of the nation was very insular. It would not be until the Eisenhower administration that the national highway system was built. Most American spent their entire lives within 90 miles of their home and knew little about anywhere else other than NY, Chicago, Hollywood, Washington, and San Francisco.
Os Guinness is an English author and social critic. He has lived in the United States since 1984.
