Why Evangelicals are Drawn to the Alt-Right

I. With the denunciations of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest beginning to subside and our attention turning to reflect on how we got here, I’d like to offer some thoughts on why some Christians, particularly evangelicals, are drawn to the alt-right, white nationalism, and even white supremacy. Like the aftermath of the Trump victory, …

Junius and Althusius on the Theologian’s Role in Politics

Franciscus Junius If any theologian labors concerning the matters relating to the ordering of society, he wastes himself and does the most serious injury to the God who calls him, to the church for whose sake he has been called, and to her calling, by being a busybody and meddling in others’ business, which is …

Natural Rights and the Calvinist Political Tradition (1)

In the last couple decades, many scholars have recognized the contribution of Calvinist theologians and political theorists to the formulation of natural rights. Prior to this, largely due to Leo Strauss, Calvinists were lumped in with the pre-modern notions of objective natural rights. These, according to Strauss, …are doctrines [that] taught the duties of man; …

Calvin and Winthrop Between the Ages: Medievalism, Hierarchy, and Modernity (Part 2 of 4)

This is Part 2 of a series on Calvin and modernity. This post covers Calvin’s two-kingdom theology and his theology of work. I show that Calvin’s thought cannot be the foundation of modernity and that his thought is a modification of medieval thought, not a radical break from it.                                 Chillon Castle, near Geneva, Switzerland …

Fudging Aristotle: A Digression (Part 5): The Starting Point

In this series, and following the work of Richard Muller (“Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics”), I’ve been making the claim that the Reformed Orthodox writers, who wrote in the two centuries following the Reformation, borrowed from Aristotle’s methods, but not much at all from his own lines of thinking. As a reference for those who may be …

A Brief History of the Thirty Year’s War

The Thirty Year’s War represents another attempt at the compulsion of belief, this time in the lands that make up modern-day Germany. The war was far too long and far too involved even to list its major events [here]. However, it was crucial for several reasons. First, it was another step in the marriage of …