We thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of our past interviews in the 20th Anniversary issue of Religion & Liberty. The responses selected represent a range of timeless truths of the Gospel, the importance of human liberty, and the importance of religion and moral formation in society. R&L: In some Christian circles, social action has taken precedence over evangelism. I am here thinking of the way that the pursuit of social justice has taken the place of...

John 8:12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ Martin Luther called this announcement by Christ, “The language of presumption that stops all mouths.” Luther is right. One must stop and take heed of the word of Christ here and the authority of his teaching. The theologian Thomas C. Oden says of the “I am”...

Grasping the authentic significance of Centesimus Annus requires two approaches. First, one must read the encyclical on its own merits, independently of previous papal teaching. As objectively as possible, one can exegete its various passages to discern its thrust and priorities. Then one must read the document in the context of previous social pronouncements by the magisterium over the past 100 years and see what new themes, developments, and directions the present encyclical initiates. When read for its own...

From 1925 to 2010. One of the most significant and courageous contributors to the cause of liberty and individual responsibility in Latin America, Manuel F. Ayau was a classic example of someone who made a difference. From an early age, Ayau, affectionately known as “Muso” to his many friends, decided that he would do whatever he could to create the conditions that promote liberty and therefore, the opportunity for authentic human flourishing. Born in Guatemala City, Ayau undertook his...

This article is excerpted from Lester DeKoster’s Work: The Meaning of Your Life—A Christian Perspective, newly made available in a second edition. The Power We know, as soon as reminded, that work spins the wheels of the world. No work? Then nothing else either. Culture and civilization don’t just happen. They are made to happen and to keep happening—by God the Holy Spirit, through our work. Imagine that everyone quits working, right now! What happens? Civilized life quickly melts...

Think back to the last time you heard someone from the pulpit in your church talk about money, the Bible, and your spiritual life. On those occasions when pastors venture into this area, the focus is often, and rightly, on matters of the heart and one’s attitude toward money and possessions. But in that emphasis often lies an unexamined assumption that goes something like this: Given that the Bible focuses on attitude, not accumulation per se, that materialism is...

We should always look to drink deeply from the rich wells of Christian tradition and Thomas C. Oden helps us to do exactly that. Oden mitted much of his work to lifting up the voice of the Church Fathers. John Wesley, who is the founder of Oden's own Methodist tradition, proclaimed, The Fathers are the most mentators on Scripture, for they were nearest the fountain and were eminently endued with that Spirit by whom all Scripture was given. Wesley...

Review of: Carl R. Trueman, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2010), ISBN: 978-1-59638-183-4. Carl R. Trueman is academic dean of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and an academic historian of the first-order. In this brief book, however, Trueman brings his considerable analytical powers to bear on the contemporary situation of the evangelical church in North America. Specifically, Trueman’s accessible work is an outgrowth of his “belief that the evangelical church in America is in...