Category: Political Theology
Christianity Against the Civilizational State(s)
In his book Return of the Strong Gods, First Things editor Rusty Reno suggests that we are nearing the end of the long 20th century and, with it, the end of the American-centric global order that defined the latter stage...
Resistance and Rebellion
(Excerpted from Protestant Social Teaching published by the Davenant Institute. Used with permission.) As the Reformation took hold throughout Europe, much ink and blood was spilt over the question of what is right to do when the government is wrong....
Kichijiro Was Right
You’ve probably heard this one before: a masked gunman bursts into church one day and fires a few rounds into the ceiling. “Everyone who believes in Jesus is getting shot today! Everyone who wants to deny Him can leave!” He...
Orbanism and the Revolution
One of the chief difficulties about the conversation between the Augustinian Liberal Christian Right and the Reactionary Christian Right to this point has been a lack of clarity about the actual political principles and norms that reactionary conservative evangelicals affirm.
Calvinism and Liberty
If you had to summarize Calvin’s teaching on resisting tyrants it would be: don’t. Even as his Protestant compatriots, the Huguenots, faced persecution and he fled France to Geneva, Calvin was firmly on the side of maintaining political order. He...
A Baptist Third Way for Political Theology
Author’s note: The following article is the first half of a chapter I have contributed to a book tentatively titled Explorations in Baptist Political Theology, edited by Thomas Kidd, Paul Miller, and Andrew Walker, to be published by B&H Academic...
Puritans and Theonomy, Reconsidered
Joseph Boot, The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society, 2nd ed. (2014; Toronto: Ezra Press, 2016), 978-0-9947279-0-9, 683 pages. Many Christians do not have a worked out political theology. We are aware of the importance of being...
Visions of Exile: Christian Communitarianism, Christian Secularism, and Faithful Presence
How can Christians live faithfully in an ever-changing and increasingly pluralistic world? How can we maintain that faithfulness, both over the course of our own lives and from generation to generation? What sort of formation do we and our children...
Punishment and Exchange
It seems to some the very epitome of a “mere” orthodoxy in the worst sense — too juridical for God’s mercy and too arbitrary for God’s justice — even to those who are not in the habit of yielding too...
What Theonomy Gets Wrong About the Law
Theonomy talk has resurfaced. Perhaps, this is the Protestant-evangelical concomitant to the Integralist debate presently occupying politically astute Catholicism. I welcome it. If nothing else, it means that Christians are taking politics (and public morality) seriously again. A robust debate...