Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Christian Social Thought

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...
November 02, 2022

The Christian’s Hard Affluence and Easy Hardship

From sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton’s worries over “moral therapeutic deism” in their 2005 book, to the Pew Research Center’s documentation of the growing trend of religious “nones” (people who claim no religious affiliation), to common claims that we now live in a “post-Christian” culture, the idea that religion and modern affluence cannot coexist has deep roots. Continue Reading...
April 27, 2022

John Calvin and God’s civil government

John Calvin (1509–1564) was a towering figure of the Protestant Reformation. The author of the magisterial Institutes of the Christian Religion, published in numerous editions between 1536 and 1559, Calvin was a second-generation Reformer. Continue Reading...
March 25, 2022

The Incarnation: The basis for a free and virtuous society

In the Genesis account of creation, we read that God “looked at all he had made and found it very good.” Today’s feast, which celebrates the Annunciation to Mary and the Incarnation of the Son of God, reminds us that no matter how fallen and foolish human nature may be, what God has made good remains good. Continue Reading...
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