A Journal of
Protestant Letters
A publication of the Davenant Institute
WEB EXCLUSIVES
The Last Liberal Conservative Pt Deux: The French Connection
Liberal conservatism is most often associated with the United Kingdom, but liberal conservative...
Why Liturgy Makes Better Preaching
At a basic level, good liturgy is an insurance policy against bad preaching.
On Being a Christian in Late Modernity (Part 3: How Mankind Discovered “Going to Work”)
9. If our point of departure in understanding modernity is “that moment in which some humans...
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FROM THE PRINT EDITION
Fear and Trembling and “Stoner”
It is disorienting to realize one’s sympathies lie with an adulterer. How can Søren Kierkegaard make sense of it?
La Vita Nuova
On learning to love Dante.
Ver Erat Aeternum
Both Christian and pagan alike sense that spring is the original state of the world. Fall, on the other hand, comes from the Fall.
“The Decline of the Novel” by Joseph Bottum: A Review
What does the decline of the novel have to do with Protestantism?
Common Prayer: An Interview
An interview with the editors of the new 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition
The Return of the Vigilante: An Essay on the Possibility of Political Judgment
The first of two essays reflecting on judgment and justice in conversation with Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight".
THE ARCHIVES
A Humble God? Wilcoxen’s Bold Proposal
Matthew Wilcoxen’s Divine Humility: God’s Morally Perfect Being stands out among modern accounts of the doctrine of God, drawing out and expanding upon a neglected dimension within the tradition.
Will All Be Saved? David Bentley Hart on Universal Salvation
Few topics are more likely to cause a stir among Christians than universal salvation, or apokatastasis—the view that no person will ultimately experience eternal estrangement from God. Although the universalist view is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the authoritative teaching of most Christian churches, it is not consistently considered heresy on the level of, say, denying the Trinity or the hypostatic union in Christ. But the concept of hell as “eternal conscious torment” has undoubtedly been a part of the Christian theological fabric for centuries, and from the perspective of the broader Church catholic, the burden of proof is probably on any challenger wishing to disrupt that consensus.
“Nursing Fathers”: The Magistrate and the Moral Law
Not many passages in the New Testament speak directly to political order. The first part of the thirteenth chapter of Romans is perhaps the most famous. I would like to focus in this essay on vv. 3-4, which may appear prima facie to be something of an interpretive crux. Are these verses descriptive or prescriptive? That is, are they simply declarative, or are they imperatival, telling us what magistrates ought to do?
James Wilson and the Common Sense Theory of the Common Law
When Thomas Paine published Common Sense in 1776, his was not the only commonly held sense of the term “common sense.” Ironically, the term was already complicated at the American founding.