New Books in Christian Studies

Kody W. Cooper and Justin Buckley Dyer, "The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics: Political Theology, Natural Law, and the American Founding" (Cambridge UP, 2022)


Listen Later

America’s religious and political public forum is no longer confined to debates between liberals (be they Catholics or Protestants) and socially conservative evangelicals and traditional Catholics—with atheists condemning all of the above. There is now among some Catholic intellectuals and academics a movement called integralism that calls for the United States to move towards an integration of church (the Catholic Church) and state. This movement in turn, is opposed by other conservative Catholics who regard integralism as not only unworkable but also undesirable, especially in the robustly pluralistic America of our day.

Meanwhile, on both the Woke left and the alt-right there are essentially neo-Pagan movements which reject the American founding’s identification of ethical monotheism as the foundation of fundamental rights and political and personal moral obligations.

Enter scholars with a call to rediscover and revivify the classical and Christian sources of the founding. In The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics: Political Theology, Natural Law, and the American Founding (Cambridge UP, 2022), Justin Buckley Dyer and Kody W. Cooper argue that this political philosophy, pre-dating Aristotle and continuing through thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas to Lincoln to Martin Luther King to scholars of our own day, offers a way forward towards a just society built on a strong, rich, easily grasped moral framework.

The book we will discuss today with one of its coauthors, Professor Cooper, shows that many of the leaders of the American founding were steeped in the natural law tradition and that this tradition, while often developed and nurtured by Catholic thinkers, was also drawn upon and embodied by Protestants of the period of the American Revolution and the earliest days of the Republic such as John Jay, James Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, James Otis and John Dickinson.

The authors write that many of the founders, imbued with the tenets of classical and Christian natural law thinking, believed in, “a moralistic God of justice who favored the side of liberty such that the revolutionary actors saw themselves carrying out the divine will on the world historic stage in obedience to the dictates of right reason.” The emphasis on reason is a key component of natural law thinking of all types and Cooper and Dyer argue in their book that a reexamination of the writings and belief system of the founding generation shows that far from being religious skeptics bent on creating a new world order that discarded faith in God, many the founders were in fact motivated in their rebellion against the British by their belief that revolt was called for when their ability to move their society in a moral direction based on the idea of natural rights bestowed by God was being hampered by diktats of the British king and parliament.

Let’s hear from one of the two authors of this study, Kody W. Cooper.

Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

New Books in Christian StudiesBy Marshall Poe

  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4

4

16 ratings


More shows like New Books in Christian Studies

View all
New Books in History by Marshall Poe

New Books in History

209 Listeners

New Books in Psychoanalysis by Marshall Poe

New Books in Psychoanalysis

193 Listeners

New Books in Military History by Marshall Poe

New Books in Military History

162 Listeners

New Books in Economics by Marshall Poe

New Books in Economics

26 Listeners

New Books in African American Studies by New Books Network

New Books in African American Studies

161 Listeners

New Books in Anthropology by New Books Network

New Books in Anthropology

49 Listeners

New Books in Environmental Studies by Marshall Poe

New Books in Environmental Studies

23 Listeners

New Books in Philosophy by New Books Network

New Books in Philosophy

110 Listeners

New Books in World Affairs by New Books Network

New Books in World Affairs

25 Listeners

New Books in Intellectual History by New Books Network

New Books in Intellectual History

61 Listeners

New Books in Biblical Studies by Marshall Poe

New Books in Biblical Studies

33 Listeners

Theology in the Raw by Theology in the Raw

Theology in the Raw

1,433 Listeners

BibleProject by BibleProject Podcast

BibleProject

18,921 Listeners

OnScript by Matthew Bates, Matthew Lynch, Erin Heim, Dru Johnson, Amy Brown Hughes, & Chris Tilling

OnScript

609 Listeners

Kingdom Roots by Kingdom Roots

Kingdom Roots

284 Listeners

The Bible For Normal People by Peter Enns and Jared Byas

The Bible For Normal People

3,268 Listeners

Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith & Culture by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University / Sean McDowell & Scott Rae

Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith & Culture

1,235 Listeners

Ask NT Wright Anything by Premier Unbelievable

Ask NT Wright Anything

1,981 Listeners

The Biblical Mind by centerforhebraicthought

The Biblical Mind

198 Listeners

Advisory Opinions by The Dispatch

Advisory Opinions

3,784 Listeners

The Dispatch Podcast by The Dispatch

The Dispatch Podcast

3,184 Listeners

Gospelbound by The Gospel Coalition, Collin Hansen

Gospelbound

338 Listeners

Life and Books and Everything by Clearly Reformed

Life and Books and Everything

626 Listeners

Good Faith by Good Faith

Good Faith

1,898 Listeners

Confronting Christianity with Rebecca McLaughlin by Rebecca McLaughlin

Confronting Christianity with Rebecca McLaughlin

303 Listeners