Hopeful Realism: Renewing Evangelical Political Morality
Throughout the twentieth century, American evangelicals have neglected the natural law tradition, leaving us without a serious and coherent grounding for our political deliberations and judgments. We need a theologically grounded framework that articulates our principled and prudential convictions, provides us the language with which to deliberate about them amid disagreement, and helps find commonality around real goods. We believe that a revitalized Augustinian natural law theory can help provide such a framework for evangelical Christians.
In today’s Long Read—our monthly in-depth essays that dive deep into a current topic, debate, or conversation—three leading Christian scholars of political science, Jesse Covington, Bryan McGraw, and Micah Watson, lay out a roadmap for evangelical engagement in public life. On Monday, we will feature responses from three writers who critically engage with this essay.
Conventional wisdom has it that evangelical politics in the United States leaves much to be desired. In terms of practical political successes, neither the moral reforms of the evangelical right nor the social activism of the evangelical left have delivered meaningfully on their stated goals. While there has been significant movement on abortion (particularly given the recent Dobbs decision) and some criminal justice reform, the exceptions may prove the rule.
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