A Review of: Politics After Christendom: Political Theology in a Fractured World
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“Almost the entirety of the book hinges on whether the reader accepts VanDrunen’s …thesis: the ‘Noahic covenant’ of Genesis 8:21–9:17 is the foundational principle of any Christian political theology.” - Ehrett
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Conservative Theologically, but Liberal Politically?
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“In Europe, ‘liberal’…means free market economics and liberty in general. Which is why the ‘Liberal Party’ in Australia is actually what Americans would describe as the conservative party. Whereas in the United States, ‘liberal’ has come to mean progressivism, openness to change of every sort, and left-leaning ideologies.
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Should Protestants Reject Natural Law? Responding to Common Objections
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“Even according to Protestant traditions with the gravest views of sin, fallen human beings do not get everything wrong when thinking about morality. Since Scripture itself affirms that the created order reveals God’s moral law, Christians should not turn their backs on natural law for the sake of promoting biblical teaching.” - Public Discourse
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Why Not Socialism?
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“…millions of well-meaning people think it’s a virtual synonym for compassion. But socialists themselves are constantly retreating from their own handiwork. It’s socialism until it doesn’t work, then it was never socialism in the first place.” - IFWE
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The State of Social Conservatism and the Role of “Public Discourse”
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“Join a political movement if you like, but don’t confuse it with an intellectual movement. To the extent that you wish to pursue intellectual authenticity in public, you will need to give up on direct political influence.” - Daniel Burns
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“Civic virtue is not a pleasant abstraction.... It is a necessity if we are to have an open and transparent government based on trust and cooperation.”
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“When trust fails, the virtuous circle turns vicious, and then the state has to find other ways to encourage or compel cooperation in order to function….
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“Mohler argues that the civil law, which has been dechristianized by secularization, needs to be rechristianized”
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“He ought to know that he is playing with fire. When he demands we rechristianize the civil laws, he owes us an account of why our Christian ancestors were wrong for almost a thousand years as they built Western civilization on a natural law tradition that culminated, and logically must culminate, in political liberalism.” - Law & Liberty
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USA as a “Failed Social Experiment”?
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“That’s coming from the Left. But prominent figures from the Right have been saying something similar. …Some conservatives are saying that our ideology of freedom has led to the destruction of the morality that is necessary for any society….Some conservative intellectuals have gone so far as to advocate a non-democratic authoritarian government.” - Gene Veith
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“...civil society—not the state—is where our ideas of the common good develop; even the state must draw such ideas from civil society”
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“The second fallacy is that before the state takes charge of our morals, it must be morally superior to us, and there’s no evidence it is. Quite the contrary: the record shows that when government takes command of personal morality, both the people and the state end up less moral, not more.” - Timothy Sandefur
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