Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction

Do Protestants have answers to the pressing questions of the day?

For over one hundred years, the Roman Catholic Church has steadily curated a body of papal encyclicals, classic texts, and go-to answers on pressing moral issues of the day, that has come to be known as “Catholic Social Teaching.” Meanwhile, in Protestantism, mainline churches have steadily jettisoned nearly every historic Christian moral teaching in an effort to make the faith more “relevant” and progressive, while evangelicals, though still committed to Scripture, have often done little better in holding fast to the norms that used to guide faithful Christian discipleship when it came to love, war, and everything in between. However, Protestants too have a rich heritage of social teaching, if only they knew their own tradition, a heritage that dovetails on many points with Roman Catholic teaching, but is also inflected by the Reformation’s emphasis on the goods of the family and the nation.

Now, for the first time, we are planting a flag for “Protestant social teaching,” a coherent, catholic, biblical set of convictions about what it means to love one’s neighbor in both personal and political life. The essays in this volume span the breadth of human life, from birth to death, from work to welfare, while providing a clear moral compass on hot-button issues like abortion, just war, and environmental care. This volume brings together contributions from a dozen authors who have deeply studied these diverse moral issues from a classical Protestant standpoint, distilling their biblical and historical insights into short, accessible chapters that can guide the reflections of every pastor or Christian leader.

270 pages.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Steven Wedgeworth

PART ONE: LAW, JUSTICE, AND PUNISHMENT

I: Law and the Christian
E. J. Hutchinson

II: The Civil Magistrate
Bradford Littlejohn

III: Resistance and Rebellion
Glenn Moots

IV: Just War
Mark LiVicche

PART TWO: MARRIAGE, LIFE, AND DEATH

V: Procreation and Children
Matthew Lee Anderson

VI: Abortion
Steven Wedgeworth

VII: Sex, Marriage, and Divorce
Onsi Aaron Kamel & Alastair Roberts

VIII: Death and Dying
John Wyatt

PART THREE: PROPERTY, WEALTH, AND POVERTY

IX: Work and Labor
Joseph Minich & Colin Redemer

X: Private Property
Eric Enlow

XI: Taxation and Welfare
Allen Calhoun

XII: Environmental Care
Jake Meador