"If Catholic and Protestant ethicians were asked to name a single theologian who was qualified to write a comprehensive overview of the historical divergences of Catholic and Protestant positions on ethical questions, the bases for those divergences in fundamentally different philosophical and theological perspectives, and the possibilities for future convergences of the traditions, my guess is that James Gustafson would be the one. . . . This brilliant and tightly argued book . . . will be the most important book on moral theology to appear this year."—John Coleman, National Catholic Reporter

The apostles and early Christians believed and worshiped in unity-in doctrine and practice following Jesus' wish that "they may be one" (John 17:21). But today, Christianity is splintered by the Reformation and its 500-year legacy of division, with Protestant groups divided among themselves and separated from Catholicism by a set of seemingly non-negotiable differences. Traditionally, Catholic apologetics has tried to bridge that separation by using Scripture, history, and logic to help Protestants see the truth of Church teaching. In With One Accord, former Evangelical professor Douglas Beaumont takes another approach: working for accord with Protestants by reasoning from the things they already believe and do. Using principles that orthodox, Bible-believing Protestants broadly affirm, he arrives at particulars of Catholic belief, showing that in many cases the division isn't as wide or deep as we thought. Splitting the difference between ecumenism and apologetics, With One Accord is a sign of hope for Christian unity and a great resource Catholics looking to have friendly and productive conversations with their Protestant friends. Book jacket.

We live in a profoundly spiritual age, but not in any good way. Huge swaths of American culture are driven by manic spiritual anxiety and relentless supernatural worry. Radicals and traditionalists, liberals and conservatives, together with politicians, artists, environmentalists, followers of food fads, and the chattering classes of television commentators: America is filled with people frantically seeking confirmation of their own essential goodness. We are a nation desperate to stand of the side of morality--to know that we are righteous and dwell in the light. In An Anxious Age, Joseph Bottum offers an account of modern America, presented as a morality tale formed by a collision of spiritual disturbances. And the cause, he claims, is the most significant and least noticed historical fact of the last fifty years: the collapse of the mainline Protestant churches that were the source of social consensus and cultural unity. Our dangerous spiritual anxieties, broken loose from the churches that once contained them, now madden everything in American life. Updating The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism, Max Weber's sociological classic, An Anxious Age undertakes two case studies of contemporary social classes adrift in a nation without the religious understandings that gave them meaning. Looking at the college-educated elite he calls "the Poster Children," Bottum sees the post-Protestant heirs of the old mainline Protestant domination of culture: dutiful descendants who claim the high social position of their Christian ancestors even while they reject their ancestors' Christianity. Turning to the Swallows of Capistrano, the Catholics formed by the pontificate of John Paul II, Bottum evaluates the early victories--and later defeats--of the attempt to substitute Catholicism for the dying mainline voice in public life. Sweeping across American intellectual and cultural history, An Anxious Age traces the course of national religion and warns about the strange angels and even stranger demons with which we now wrestle. Insightful and contrarian, wise and unexpected, An Anxious Age ranks among the great modern accounts of American culture.

The Failure of Denominationalism and the Future of Christian Unity One of the unforeseen results of the Reformation was the shattering fragmentation of the church. Protestant tribalism was and continues to be a major hindrance to any solution to Christian division and its cultural effects. In this book, influential thinker Peter Leithart critiques American denominationalism in the context of global and historic Christianity, calls for an end to Protestant tribalism, and presents a vision for the future church that transcends post-Reformation divisions. Leithart offers pastors and churches a practical agenda, backed by theological arguments, for pursuing local unity now. Unity in the church will not be a matter of drawing all churches into a single, existing denomination, says Leithart. Returning to Catholicism or Orthodoxy is not the solution. But it is possible to move toward church unity without giving up our convictions about truth. This critique and defense of Protestantism urges readers to preserve and celebrate the central truths recovered in the Reformation while working to heal the wounds of the body of Christ.

In an aged response to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Michael Novak discusses how the powerful cultural influence Catholicism has had throughout the world is necessary in any vision of the future of capitalism. Drawing on the major works of modern Papal thought, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism demonstrates how Catholic tradition has come to reflect a richer interpretation of capitalist culture. Novak offers an original and penetrating conception of social justice and applies a newly formulated notion of social activism to the urgent worldwide problem of ethnicity, race, and poverty. With this fresh rethinking of the Catholic ethic, Novak presents timely research that will challenge citizens in the West seeking a realistic, moral vision and those living in the two historically Catholic regions of the world—Eastern Europe and Latin America—as they take their first steps as market economies.

Is knowledge of right and wrong written on the human heart? Do people know God from the world around them? Does natural knowledge contribute to Christian doctrine? While these questions of natural theology and natural law have historically been part of theological reflection, the radical reliance of twentieth-century Protestant theologians on revelation has eclipsed this historic connection. Stephen Grabill attempts the treacherous task of reintegrating Reformed Protestant theology with natural law by appealing to Reformation-era theologians such as John Calvin, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Johannes Althusius, and Francis Turretin, who carried over and refined the traditional understanding of this key doctrine. Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics calls Christian ethicists, theologians, and laypersons to take another look at this vital element in the history of Christian ethical thought.

First published in 1985 as Les sources de la morale chrétienne by University Press Fribourg, this work has been recognized by scholars worldwide as one of the most important books in the field of moral theology

Some Christians decry the deism of our Founding Fathers, claiming that outright anti-Christian principles lie at the heart of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, crippling from birth our beloved republic. Here philosopher Timothy Gordon forcefully disagrees, arguing that while anti-Catholic bias kept them from admitting their reliance on Aristotle, Aquinas, and the early Jesuits, our Protestant and Enlightenment Founding Fathers secretly held Catholic views about politics and nature. Had they fully adhered to Catholic principles, argues Gordon, the Catholic republic that is America from its birth would not today be on the verge of social collapse. The instinctive Catholicism of our Founders would have prevented the cancerous growth of the state, our subsequent loss of liberties, the destruction of families, abortion on demand, the death of free markets, and the horrors of today's pervasive pagan culture. In Catholic Republic, Gordon recounts our nation's clandestine history of publicly repudiating, yet privately relying on, Catholic ideas about politics and nature. At this late hour in the life of the Church and the world, America still can be saved, claims Gordon, if only we soon return to the Catholic principles that are the indispensable foundation of all successful republics.

Despite their rich tradition of social concern, Protestants have historically struggled to articulate why, whether, and how to challenge unethical social structures. This book introduces Protestants to the biblical and historical background of Christian social ethics, inviting them to understand the basis for social action and engage with the broader tradition. It embraces and explains long-standing Christian reflection on social ethics and shows how Scripture and Christian history connect to current social justice issues. Each chapter includes learning outcomes and chapter highlights.