I talk with Rusty Reno about the collapse of the postwar “open society” ideal and the return of people’s need for strong loyalties, meaning, and transcendence. We discuss how we got here after the world wars decimated Western civilization: emergent post-war social narratives and identities like nationalism, globalism, politics, “progress”, environmentalism, and transhumanism. Finally we discuss the crisis of masculinity and our ultimate hope in Christ.

Rusty Reno is the editor of First Things, a journal aimed at "advancing a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". He is the editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on Scripture series and the author of several books, most recently Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism and the Future of the West. For twenty years Reno taught theology at Creighton University.

YouTube version of this interview: https://youtu.be/NwTYsZfU2ak

Rusty’s book, Return of the Strong Gods: https://www.amazon.com/Return-Strong-Gods-Nationalism-Populism/dp/1621578003

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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson: https://matthewwilkinson.net/

483 - R.R. Reno - The Return of the Strong Gods

The Symbolic World

483 - R.R. Reno - The Return of the Strong Gods