Class Handouts
Week 3 Handout: What Are Governments For? A Biblical Theology of Civil Authority
Week 4 Handout: The Political Visions of Augustine & Aquinas
Additional Resources
Why do governments exist in the first place? How are Christians supposed to relate to them? If you'd like to dig deeper, consider listening to these talks from Dan Doriani (Professor of Theology at Covenant Seminary) and Barry Henning (Executive Pastor at New City Fellowship in St. Louis).
In this short article, "Principles for a Just Pandemic," David Henreckson (of Valparaiso University) highlights the trade-offs and tensions inherent to public life. How should we—and our civil leaders—navigate competing priorities, all of which are real and important? You won't walk away with easy answers, but plenty of food for thought.
If you're interested in spending more time with Augustine or Aquinas, you can find Augustine's City of God here, and Aquinas' Summa Theologica here. For our purposes, the most significant sections are books four and nineteen of City of God, and questions 90-108 in part two of Summa Theologica.
In this 1985 piece for Christianity Today, "The Bible's Guide for Christian Activism," J.I. Packer outlines a number of pitfalls and opportunities Christians face when entering the public sphere. It's as relevant today as it was when it was first published.
If you're interested in spending more time with primary sources, you can click here for the Schleitheim Articles, here for Luther's "On Temporal Authority," and here for relevant sections of Calvin's institutes.
On October 16, 2020, Trinity Forum partnered with Duke Divinity School for a great conversation on "Christianity and the Case for Democracy." Well worth your time and engagement. You can find a recording here!
In our polarizing political moment, more and more us are finding ourselves tired of taking sides and longing to move beyond the “culture of outrage” that seems to have taken over our public discourse. But many of us are left unsure how to actually do so. In this short talk, Scott Sauls (Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville) seeks to clear a hopeful path forward.
The Tim Keller article, “How Do Christians Fit Into the Two Party System? They Don’t.”
One of the questions we've talked about is how we might partner and pursue common goals even with those who don't share our beliefs. In this short article, George Robertson (now pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis) looks at the difference between "allies" and "co-belligerants" and talks about how we might do this well.
“A Liturgy for Election Day,” by AE Graham.