The Roots of the American Founding and the Seeds of Renewal

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy joined us to discuss how Dutch and English Whiggish principles birthed by Anglo Protestantism created ordered liberty and self government. These principles are not static but dynamic. And once shaping society they are not easily erased. Confidence about tomorrow can come if we recall and better live out these principles. They remind us that we each bear God’s political image and are stewards of His creation. And they point us away from nostalgia or temptations towards authoritarianism and instead towards enriched democracy amid providential hope.

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency and is a graduate of Georgetown University. In 1994 he joined IRD to found its United Methodist project (UMAction) and became IRD President in 2009. He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church (2008), Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century: From William McKinley to 9/11 (2012), and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War (2015). He has written for The Wall Street Journal, World, Law and Liberty, National Review and other publications.