COMING HOME By Bruce Frohnen

Coming Home: Reclaiming America's Conservative Soul

Co-Authored By Bruce P. Frohnen

In COMING HOME: Reclaiming America's Conservative Soul, Prof. Bruce Frohnen asks where conservatism went wrong. How did we go from the optimism of Ronald Reagan to today's identity politics and hatred of America? 

Americans have been forced from their homes. Their jobs have been outsourced, their neighborhoods torn down to make room for freeways, their churches shuttered or taken over by social justice warriors, and their very families eviscerated by government programs that assume their functions and a hostile elite that deems them oppressive. Conservatives have always defended these elements of a rooted life as crucial to maintaining cultural continuity in the face of changing circumstances. Unfortunately, official “conservatism” has become fixated on abstract claims about freedom and the profits of “creative destruction.”

In COMING HOME, you'll learn...

·    How we can rebuild conservatism and our country.

·    When things began to go wrong in America. Was it the New Deal? Progressivism? The '60s? What changed?

·    What exactly conservatism is. Is it even fair to say that conservatism belongs in an individualistic country like America?

·    What it means to say that Americans are homeless. If we really have lost our history, our traditions, and our sense of place - of hearth and home - how can we possibly rebuild all of that?

Conservatism has never been the only voice in America, but it is the most distinctively American voice, emerging from the customs, norms, and dispositions of its people and grounded in the conviction that the capacity for self-governance provides a distinctly human dignity. Emphasizing the ongoing strength and importance of the conservative tradition, the authors describe our Constitution’s emphasis on maintaining order and balance and protecting the primary institutions of local life. Also important here is an understanding of changes in American demographics, economics, and politics. These changes complicated attempts to address the fundamentally anti-traditional nature of slavery and Jim Crow, the destructive effects of globalism, and the increasing desire to look on the federal government as the guarantor of security and happiness.

To reclaim our home as a people, we must rebuild the natural associations and primary institutions within which we live. This means protecting the fundamental relationships that make up our way of life. From philosophy to home construction, from theology to commerce, from charity to the essentials of household management, our ongoing practices are the source of our knowledge of truth, of one another, and of how we may live well together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Prof. Bruce P. Frohnen is Professor of Law at Ohio Northern Law. Prior to joining ONU Law in 2008, he served as a legislative aide for a United States senator, as a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and as secretary and director of program at the Earhart Foundation. He has held visiting posts as Charles Evans Hughes professor of jurisprudence at Colgate University and as Thomas Bahnson and Anne Bassett Stanley professor of ethics and integrity at the Virginia Military Institute.