Brad Gregory (Unintended Reformation) emphasizes the role of Christian division in the formation of modern institutions and ideologies. But he also shows at several points that the modern efforts to head off the unintended consequences of the Reformation failed or even made the disease worse.
Natural law was one of the solutions to interminable theological debates. Confessional divisions could not be reconciled; nature could transcend because it was shared by all.
It didn’t turn out that way: both the notions of natural law and natural rights “had stimulated a welter of rival truth claims that replicated the open-ended indeterminacy of the Protestant appeal to scripture, without any impartial means of adjudicating among them. . . . Natural laws or natural rights were supposed to provide a consensual and uncontroversial basis to settle disputes. Instead, like appeals to reason, recourse to them created new disputes and new things about which to disagree, without prospects of rational resolution” (221).
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
