America’s Secession Threat

It happened before. Can it happen again?

I’m talking about secession. That’s the question that animates David French’s new book, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation (St. Martin’s Press). I’m pretty skeptical about books that oversell such catastrophic outcomes. It seems like scare tactics to sell books. But the way French sets up the book, I hadn’t realized the scenarios that might make secession politically advantageous for both parties. And I have to admit French’s imagination has haunted me ever since, as I discussed in my review of the book. The death last week of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has only heightened tensions.

Divided We Fall is about how to avoid secession. And if you’re familiar with French’s writing as senior editor of The Dispatch, you’ll recognize his appeal to pluralism as our way forward. French joined me on Gospelbound to discuss how Christians can coexist peacefully beside neighbors with quite different notions of a life well-lived. And how we can introduce them to Jesus.