Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'protestantism'

December 18, 2008

Milton’s Religious Vision of Liberty

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton, best known for his masterpiece, Paradise Lost. An essay by Theo Hobson, author of the newly-released Milton’s Vision: The Birth of Christian Liberty (Continuum, 2008), well summarizes Milton’s integrated theological, political, and social vision (HT: Arts & Letters Daily). Continue Reading...
March 05, 2008

The Faith: We ask, Chuck answers

As part of our participation in the blog tour for Chuck Colson’s book The Faith, we got to submit a question for Chuck to answer. Here’s our exclusive Q&A: PowerBlog: You talk about the history of the faith and tradition in your book a great deal. Continue Reading...
February 28, 2008

Some problems with Protestantism

Following up on our discussion of the Pew survey on the American religious landscape, I have a few thoughts as to what plagues American Protestantism, particularly of the evangelical variety, and it has to do precisely with the “catholicity” of Protestantism. Continue Reading...
December 15, 2006

‘Reforming Natural Law’

The January 2007 issue of First Things features a lengthy review of Stephen Grabill’s new book on Protestant natural law thinking (no link to the review, unfortunately). J. Daryl Charles, an assistant professor at Union University, has this to say about Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Eerdmans, 2006): Grabill’s examination of theological ethics in the Protestant Reformed mainstream is utterly compelling, and it represents a shot across the bow of theological ethics, as it were. Continue Reading...
July 17, 2006

Protestants and Natural Law, Part 5

In Part 4, we saw that post-Enlightenment philosophical currents such as Humean empiricism, utilitarianism, and legal positivism are the real culprits in the demise of natural law and not theological criticism from within Reformation theology, as many today take for granted. Continue Reading...
June 29, 2006

Protestants and Natural Law, Part 2

In Part 1, we saw that the infrastructure of Protestant social teaching is not nearly as sophisticated as Roman Catholic social teaching and that natural law has often been viewed as a bridge between the church and the world. Continue Reading...
June 27, 2006

Protestants and natural law, part I

So, why don’t Protestants like Natural Law? The short answer is: there isn’t a short answer. So starting now, and continuing for who knows how long, I plan to tell the story of the Protestant struggle over natural law, from complete rejection by Karl Barth in the 1930s to the recent hint of renewed interest among Protestant intellectuals. Continue Reading...