Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Christian Social Thought

July 19, 2024

We Need More Cosmopolitan Christians

If there’s one particular type of person that the world’s most important cities—New York, Washington, D.C., London—need more than any other it’s … the saint. Of course, we need saints everywhere, but the cruciality of our cities as centers of culture means we have a special need for virtuous Christians to be in cities—first to sanctify them but also to take advantage of the abundance of resources and learn from the innovations found there. Continue Reading...
January 26, 2024

St. Augustine Speaks to the Suicide of a Civilization

Americans are killing themselves in record numbers. According to a study published in August by the Kaiser Family Foundation, between 2011 and 2022, more than half a million lives were lost to suicide, with 2022 showing the highest number of deaths on record, an increase of 16%. Continue Reading...
May 16, 2023

Why the Anglican Communion Matters

As an ecclesial model, Anglicanism has until recently managed controversy and diversity better than almost any other. The generous boundaries of the tradition have space for a wide spectrum of expressions, from low-church evangelical to the Anglo-Catholicism of the Oxford Movement to charismatic, nonliturgical modern worship in individual parishes like London’s Holy Trinity Brompton to local expressions influenced by the best parts of regional culture throughout Africa and Asia. Continue Reading...
April 28, 2023

Jacques Maritain and Art for Beauty’s Sake

On this particular day … we had just said to one another that if our nature was so unhappy as to possess only a pseudo-intelligence capable of everything but the truth, if, sitting in judgment on itself, it had to debase itself to such a point, then we could neither think nor act with any dignity. Continue Reading...
January 12, 2023

What Is Protestant Social Teaching?

The point of departure for Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction is an observation set forth by Stephen J. Grabill in the pages of the Journal of Markets & Morality: “Neither magisterial Protestants nor evangelicals have a theologically unified body of social teaching.” Continue Reading...
January 10, 2023

Faith and Reason in the Life and Work of Benedict XVI

With the December 31 passing of Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church, Christianity, and the world lost one of the most significant and insightful minds of the last century. Certainly, within the Church, Joseph Ratzinger was among the most influential and esteemed theologians of the second half of the 20th century, all the way through his pontificate in the early 21st, to include the period of the Second Vatican Council, to which he was an important adviser. Continue Reading...