R.R. Reno > Quotes

“Yale University is famous for its Sex Week. It does not have a Dignity of the Worker Week or even a Save the Planet Week. This self-involved focus speaks volumes about the preoccupations of today’s ruling class.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“This, then, is the freedom for which Christ has set us free: to have the law of Christ engraved on our hearts. His way is the perfect law, which is the law of liberty (James 1:25).”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“By my reckoning, a false view of freedom as unimpeded choice and self-definition has led to a deregulation of culture more consequential than market deregulation. This deregulation has benefited the strong and hurt the weak. I outline how and why the seemingly innocent expansion of lifestyle choices has been so harmful. Today’s progressivism is waging a war on the weak. Putting an end to that war is the most important social justice issue of our time. We”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Almost all (93 percent) say that they invest a great deal of effort in shaping the moral character of their children. Their ideology may be permissive, but their actual practice conforms to many old-fashioned values that give them strong families.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that’s no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith’s indomitable resolve.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“The Democrats, traditionally the party of labor unions, have become the party of the top 20 percent—specifically, those successful people who prefer expert, technocratic management of society. The Republicans may get votes from religious and social conservatives, but they too have become the party of the top 20 percent—specifically, those who like free markets.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Atomized, isolated individuals adrift in a deregulated moral culture are easily dominated, whether by political manipulators or the directionless leadership of mass culture. A”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Like a community with a private, coded language, upper-middle-class parents discipline their children while outwardly observing the pieties of nonjudgmentalism. Murray”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Our ongoing insistence on nonjudgmentalism—in spite of the obvious harm it does to the poor and vulnerable—reveals the heartless underside of American society.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Stephen Greenblatt applauds Lucretius’s spirit of critique, “speaking the truth to power” as they say. But materialism is attractive to people like him because it justifies the status quo. There are no higher truths to serve. Accept things as they are, for they can’t be otherwise.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society

“Postmodern humanism may not be Promethean, but it most certainly is not Christian. In order to understand this new humanism, we need to examine its defensive posture. Two features are very much in evidence: a fear of authority and flight from truth. Both are integral to the strange way in which postmodern culture seeks to serve humanity by saving it from any and all power, by protecting us from the ambitions and demands that lead to change.”
― R. R. Reno, In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity

“I persevere in my conviction that most Americans, including those in power, want a culture of hospitality and freedom, not denunciation and servitude.”
― R.R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society