Social and political theory is widely and, quite often, grossly misunderstood. What we call conservatism today, at least in several very important ways, was once called federalism, or classical liberalism. A central idea of this federalism was that the state should be built from below, not from above. Numerous orthodox Christian thinkers, both Catholic and Protestant, have explained and defended classical liberalism over the course of the past two or three centuries. Acton Institute’s marvelous Web site regularly demonstrates this via its wonderful home page located at www.acton.org. (I borrow several of the quotes I use below from this source.)

It is in this sense that Pope Benedict XVI is also a classical liberal, as was the Dutch giant Abraham Kuyper, when it comes to the philosophy of the state (See also my March 31 blog on Deus Caritas Est).

One of the leading twentieth-century Protestant defenders of classical liberalism was Emil Brunner (1889–1966), the Swiss Reformed theologian. Drawn to religious socialism as a young man, Emil Brunner had a profound change of mind after seeing […]

Afghanistan’s parliament demanded Wednesday that the government prevent a man, who faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity, from being able to flee the country after his release from prison on Monday. The charges against him are simple: “apostasy from Islam.” His whereabouts are unknown but he is likely still within the country. The Italian government has granted asylum after Muslim clerics had openly and strongly called for his death.

It seems someone always forgets to tell the Afghans, in their rush toward democracy, that freedom of religion is a basic human right in normal democracies. I doubt that any of these new Muslim governments will allow such real freedom any time soon, thus making me less than impressed with all that we have done to spread “freedom” to that part of the world. We so easily forget that our form of freedom is rooted in both Enlightenment political thought and modern Christian advance and that this approach took Europe centuries to develop. The leaders in these Middle East “democracies” are oblivious to this part of freedom. Christians who believe […]

“What Would Jesus Do” has increasingly become more than an evangelical movement, equipped with wrist bands, urging young people to exercise better ethical choices. Some conservative Republicans have previously suggested that they know Jesus would be a card-carrying Republican and thus support things like opposition to labor unions and certain liberal government programs designed to assist the poor. (I also oppose some of these same programs but not because I know what Jesus would do in this case. My views are rooted in a political philosophy that I believe is the best one; thus I believe my views are the ones that best offer a reasonable opportunity for the poor to actually succeed.) Many on the political left have justly criticized this iconic use of the name Jesus by the Republican right. I strongly agree with this criticism.

I wonder, however, what these same folks on the left will now do since Hillary Clinton has made it clear that Jesus would favor illegal immigrants flooding into America as a demonstration of real compassion. She told a press gathering today that she thinks […]