Zero Hour America: History's Ultimatum over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give

by Os Guinness

Overview

America has lost its way. And America will fall—unless.

Revolution? Oligarchy? Or homecoming? Americans are approaching a "zero hour" for the republic and its distinctive view of ordered freedom. America is caught between two revolutions and alternately suppresses and squanders freedom with a prodigal carelessness, with little understanding of the responsibilities that freedom requires.

Os Guinness warns that if America abandons its distinctive ideals and ideas, we will have carved into the chronicles of history yet another example of the failure of a free society. Like other crucial times in world history, the present crisis is a "civilizational moment" and also a pivot point that could lead to national renewal. Outlining seven key foundation stones of freedom, Guinness lays out a pathway for defining and ordering freedom, righting national wrongs, and passing freedom's baton from generation to generation.

Human freedom is precious and rare, and citizens who prize it must do what it takes to renew and sustain societies that are free for all of their members. America's window of opportunity is brief, and the alternative to renewal is bleak. The present moment must not be missed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781514005897
Publisher:	InterVarsity Press
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Os Guinness (DPhil, Oxford) is the author or editor of more than thirty books, including Fool's Talk, Renaissance, The Global Public Square, A Free People's Suicide, Unspeakable, The Call, Time for Truth and The Case for Civility. A frequent speaker and prominent social critic, he has addressed audiences worldwide from the British House of Commons to the U.S. Congress to the St. Petersburg Parliament. He founded the Trinity Forum and served as senior fellow there for fifteen years. Born in China to missionary parents, he is the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. After witnessing the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to England where he was educated and served as a freelance reporter with the BBC. Since coming to the U.S. in 1984, he has been a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was the lead drafter of the Williamsburg Charter, celebrating the First Amendment, and has also been senior fellow at the EastWest Institute in New York, where he drafted the Charter for Religious Freedom. He also co-authored the public school curriculum Living With Our Deepest Differences. Guinness has had a lifelong passion to make sense of our extraordinary modern world and to stand between the worlds of scholarship and ordinary life, helping each to understand the other - particularly when advanced modern life touches on the profound issues of faith. He lives with his wife, Jenny, in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Part One: The Urgency of the Hour
1. America Will Fall—Unless
2. Under Our Own Vine and Fig Tree
3. No Political Masterpiece?
4. The Completest Revolution of All?
5. An Offset for the Reset?

Part Two: Freedom's Foundation Stones
6. Set Free to Be Free
7. Understood Upward
8. The Essentials of Life
9. Ordering Freedom
10. Freedom the Greatest Enemy of Freedom
11. Righting Wrongs
12. Passing the Baton

Part Three: Ultimatum
13. Zero Hour for America

Index

What People are Saying About This

Steve Daines

"Os Guinness is the Paul Revere for this generation, warning America to wake up before it's too late. With his keen insight and characteristic wisdom, Os diagnoses the root cause of the threats to our freedom and prescribes a look back and inward. In his helpful and engaging style, Os persuasively explains why knowing history and understanding virtue are prerequisites for the restoration of true freedom."

Mollie Hemingway

"While many have commented that the loss of faith and virtue are responsible for the precipitous decline of freedom and prosperity in America, few have explained the problem with the dazzling insight and gusto that Guinness provides. Zero Hour America is a bracing and powerful book that demands reading."

Steve Forbes

"A must-read for anyone hoping to grapple with the decline of the United States, and who longs to see it return to the grand vision of its founding ideals."

Editorial Reviews

"Os Guinness is the Paul Revere for this generation, warning America to wake up before it's too late. With his keen insight and characteristic wisdom, Os diagnoses the root cause of the threats to our freedom and prescribes a look back and inward. In his helpful and engaging style, Os persuasively explains why knowing history and understanding virtue are prerequisites for the restoration of true freedom."

Steve Daines

"A must-read for anyone hoping to grapple with the decline of the United States, and who longs to see it return to the grand vision of its founding ideals."

Steve Forbes

"While many have commented that the loss of faith and virtue are responsible for the precipitous decline of freedom and prosperity in America, few have explained the problem with the dazzling insight and gusto that Guinness provides. Zero Hour America is a bracing and powerful book that demands reading."

Mollie Hemingway