The Magna Carta of Humanity ~: Sinai’s revolutionary faith and the Future of Freedom
by Os Guinness IVP, 2021 250 pages £14 ISBN 978 0 830 847 150
Available on Kindle
The overarching theme of this magnum opus is freedom.
Os Guinness explores the maelstrom of areas in which freedom is certain to be found and where it is
often abused. Freedom, unrestricted, may easily lead to license and license may then descend into
anarchy.
There is no shortage of apposite quotes about the deeply-felt human desire for freedom of one kind or another.
Heinrich Heine, the German 19th century poet, wrote, “Since the Exodus, freedom has spoken with a Hebrew accent”
Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist wrote “What will one not give up for freedom”
Solzhenitsyn, in a warning to the West, said, “You have forgotten the meaning of liberty”
In a speech in 1941, President Roosevelt identified four basic freedoms – freedom of speech, of
worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
These four freedom were subsequently incorporated into the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights by the United Nations in 1948, adopted but not unanimously.
Here, the author starts with the divine limits on freedom given to Moses by God on Mt Sinai.
This, for Os Guinness, is the basis for true freedom for the whole human race.
In keeping with its deep roots in the history of God's chosen people, the Jews, quotes from Jewish
writers abound, especially Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel.
The American Revolution and the French Revolution are particular settings for discussions about
violent revolutions in which freedom was the watchword.
The two revolutions are contrasted, the one where the Constitution was based on Biblical principles;
the other where reason, not revelation, was the guiding principle.
Os Guiness describes the meeting of God with Moses on Mount Sinai as a revolution but not after}
the style of the French Revolution of 1789. The story recounted in Exodus chapter 20 is the highest,
richest, deepest vision for freedom in human history.
The choice for America and the West, according to Os Guinness, is between Sinai and Paris – either
faith in a sovereign God of history or trust in reason and the technical prowess of humankind.
The 2 pages of named sources as well as the 17 pages of notes bear ready testimony to the wideness
of the author's reading and research.
This is a powerful argument for the positives as well as the dangerous negatives facing the future of
our culture as we have known it, based either on the Sinai or the Paris revolution.
Os Guinness sounds an alarm echoing the cry of Joel chapter 2.
Here we find the wisdom of the ages according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, still proclaimed,
far and wide.