Russell Kirk defended the principles of the founding of America as a debater, writer, historian, lecturer, and storyteller. His best-known book, The Conservative Mind (1953), was a major force in revitalizing American politics.

Though not an orthodox Christian, he stood as an ally against the secularism and relativism of the modern age. Kirk argued that democracy is the best expression of Christian political ideals, and he recognized the leavening effect of Christianity in all political systems. His words offer an encouraging reminder that the Church transforms any culture.

Christianity prescribes no especial form of politics. The Church has co-existed with monarchies, autocracies, aristocracies, oligarchies, republics, democracies, and even some of the twentieth-century totalist regimes. Yet if Christian belief be general among a people, then any political domination is affected by Christian teachings about the moral order. That moral order works upon the political order. Christian concepts of justice, charity, community, and duty may transform a society without any abrupt alteration of governmental framework. The worth of the person, the equality of all men before the judgment-seat of God, the limitations upon all earthly authority—such Christian convictions as these would shape the American Republic.1
Footnotes:
1

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974), 175.

article adapted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located one and a half miles from Rt. 222.