Wholly Citizens addresses the relation between the church and the world in light of the Reformation teaching of the two realmsespecially as presented by Luther. Rather than exploring again the usual texts of Luther from the 1520s, this book begins with a careful reading of Luthers Commentary on Psalm 81 (1531), and then considers subsequent interpreters of Luther, both faithful and otherwise, and the dubious legacy they have left the church. The book argue...

The story of "natural law" - the idea that God has written a law on the human heart so that ethical norms derive from human nature - in twentieth-century Protestant ethics is one of rejection and resurgence. For half a century, luminaries like Karl Barth, Carl F. H. Henry, and Cornelius Van Til cast a shadow over natural law moral reflection because of its putative link to natural theology, autonomous reason, associations with Catholic theology, and ethical witness devoid of special revela...

Over the last several decades, perceptive observers of Western civilization have documented what virtually everyone has perceived: as the old foundations of society have toppled, morality and personal character have been set adrift and often vanished altogether. How can character be cultivated when it seems no one is willing or able to provide a definitive description of character to which humans should aspire?While the reasons for this are many and complicated, one of the more pot...