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, plete rejection by Karl Barth in the 1930s to the recent hint of renewed interest among Protestant intellectuals. My view is that natural law is a forgotten legacy of the Reformation — one that contemporary Protestants desperately need to rediscover. Along...

Related to Stephen’s last post, the result of this Googlefight speaks for itself: Emil Brunner versus Karl Barth. By the way, Wipf and Stock Publishers have reprinted the classic exchange of the Barth/Brunner debate, Natural Theology: Comprising “Nature and Grace” by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the Reply “No!” by Dr. Karl Barth. ...

The Supreme Court is in the midst of its busy season. Important decisions recently handed down include the death-penalty case, Kansas v. Marsh, and the campaign finance case, Randall v. Sorrell. Jonathan Adler offers an interesting analysis of the decision in a pair of cases, Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. United States, which involved the the scope of the federal government’s regulatory jurisdiction over wetlands. Given the Court’s ambiguous record of protecting private property rights (see Kelo), Adler’s...

GoodSearch is a Yahoo!-powered search engine that allows you to designate a recipient charity of your choice. Once you pick a charity, each time you use GoodSearch that group will receive one cent. GoodSearch was founded by a brother and sister who lost their mother to cancer and wanted to find an easy way for people to support their favorite causes. The Acton Institute is now an option and can be designated as your GoodSearch recipient. Simply type in “Acton...

An article in today’s New York Times, “Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria Falters,” coincides nicely with Acton’s newest ad campaign (see the back cover of the July 1 issue of World). The article attacks government mismanagement of allocated funds in the global fight against malaria. Celia Dugger, the author, writes: Only 1 percent of the [United States Agency for International Development’s] 2004 malaria budget went for medicines, 1 percent for insecticides and 6 percent for mosquito nets....

A host of Christian and mentators have trumpeted the similarities between Superman and Jesus Christ in light of the ing movie, Superman Returns. Many Christians embraced the Superman hero when a trailer for the new movie was released using the words of Superman’s father Jor-El, voiced by Marlon Brando: “Even though you’ve been raised as a human being you’re not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to...

David VanDrunen’s new monograph, A Biblical Case for Natural Law, is a must read for Christians who are perplexed about the biblical standing of natural law. It makes a biblical case for the existence and practical importance of natural law. Through his examination of the redemptive-historical context of natural law, professor VanDrunen is helping to shift debate away from the badly caricatured doctrine of sola scriptura toward a fuller understanding of the biblical theology underlying natural law. As Protestants rediscover...

The newest edition of the Journal of Markets & Morality is now available online to subscribers (the print version should be along shortly). The newest issue features a “symposium” in which several authors discuss the “Dynamics of Faith-Based Policy Initiatives” (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). The editorial for this issue is available to the general, non-subscribing, public and can be read online. “The Economics of Information Control” examines the rising demand for free academic scholarship and literature,...

This from the official Google blog: “We’ve always recognized the importance of copyright, because we believe that authors and publishers deserve to be rewarded for their creative endeavors. And we specifically designed Google Book Search to respect copyright law – never showing more than two or three snippets around a search term without the publisher’s prior permission, which they can give through our Partner Program.” ...

Ron Sider, The Scandal Of The Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like The Rest Of The World? (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), 144 pp. “Summing Up Sider’s Legacy” Ron Sider’s recent book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, is a noteworthy achievement. One the one hand, it represents an plete shift away from left-leaning government-oriented solutions to social and economic problems that characterize the first edition of his popular Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. This movement...

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. Historically, natural law has been used as a bridge category to appeal to people of all races, classes, cultures, and religions. Its public value stems, in part, from its ability to speak beyond those who share a mitment to sacred Scripture...

“If you look at all the discussions surrounding biotechnology, I feel that we are clearly focusing too much on ethics.” Toine Manders, Dutch liberal member of the European Parliament, on discussions in the European Parliament about stem cell research. From “Debate on stem cells holds back EU research drive,” Financial Times, June 14, 2006. (HT: WorldMagBlog) “It is because the moral sciences tend to show us such limits to our conscious control, while the progress of the natural sciences constantly...