Category: Political Theology
In Praise of Uncertainty
Imagine that you are a young man and one day your father commands you to find the donkeys that have wandered off, like poor young Saul was commanded to do in 1 Samuel. How will you do this? To find the...
Romans 13, Jeff Sessions, and Separating Families at the Border
In Dr. James Dobson’s Letter from 2012 predicting the dire consequences of an Obama election, he included the possibility of homeschooling families being forced to flee to Australia or New Zealand to continue educating their children at home. Imagine, if you...
Stanley Hauerwas: Modern American Puddleglum
The scene is despairing: four adventurers have lingered far too long in a subterranean city. Slowly, under the enchantment of an evil witch, they have begun to forget that there is life beyond the cavern she rules imperiously. With the...
The Crisis in Christian Discipline and the Opportunity Before Us
We are long overdue for a sustained argument about the purpose and means of church discipline as well as the broader role of Christian discipline in the life of individual Christians and Christian communities. By church discipline, I mean some...
Christendom in 1200 Words (Give or Take)
The first foundation of Christendom is that reality is grounded in God. Even if one locates the foundation of political order specifically in natural law, this law reveals the God who created nature and mankind in the first place. Second,...
Notes on Edgardo Mortara from a Protestant Onlooker
Last week First Things, as the colloquialism earthily says, stepped in it. The occasion for this unpleasantness was the publication of an essay by Romanus Cessario, O.P., arguing that the church was within its rights when Pope Pius IX abducted Edgardo Mortara,...
The Problems Two Kingdoms Don’t Solve
By Simon Kennedy and Ben Saunders The church in the West is facing a significant cultural crisis. Aggressive secularisation and rapidly declining religious influence combine to bring a sense of despair in the Christian’s relationship with society. In the United...
On the City and the Gods: A Lost Chapter of Aristotle
By Greg Forster Having considered Socrates’ proposals in the Republic for the community of women and property, and his somewhat modified proposals in the Laws, we now consider his fanciful proposal in the less well-known dialogue Glaucon for a city...
Book Review: The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed by Brad Littlejohn
I’m pleased to publish this guest review by the Rev. Kyle Dillon. American churches today have become divided over the question of what it means to live as Christians in an increasingly post-Christian society. Should our approach toward secular culture...
In Praise of Cultural Christianity
I’m pleased to publish this guest editorial from Stephen Wolfe. Cultural Christianity is frequently an object of scorn in American evangelical Christianity. Though elsewhere even atheists claim to be culturally Christian (e.g., Richard Dawkins), in the United States the term...