In 2011, a conference on evangelical political thought and the natural law was held at Westmont College. The fruit of that conference has ripened into the present volume, an impassioned plea for evangelicals to take seriously the natural law as a necessary component in their efforts at political theory. Evangelicals have sought to exercise a greater political sway in the public sphere in America, but without a unified political theory or even a lengthy discussion of the political theory or theories that would be appropriate for use in a modern liberal democracy by Protestant evangelicals. The contributors advocate the use of the natural law, or at least the New Natural Law popularized by Germain Grisez and John Finnis, as a framework fraught with possibilities.

The volume diagnoses the problem for American evangelical political thought as the incongruity of its demonstrated political potency with that community’s lack of articulation of a “coherent, theologically rooted political theory” (p. ix). It argues that natural law is particularly apposite for evangelicals, as it accepts the normativity of certain goods and denies the relativism of many other political theories presently circulating. The introduction notes that evangelicals have eschewed the natural law as a basis for political theory for several reasons: Natural law is seen as a relic of medieval Catholicism, it holds out a belief in a common ground between Christian believers and nonbelievers, and it is inherently optimistic about human reason.

To accomplish their task, the contributors examine and answer the traditional evangelical rejection of the natural law, pointing out the natural affinities that would seem to exist between evangelicalism and natural law. To answer the first point, a number of the contributors seek to answer the idea that natural law is a remnant from medieval or scholastic Catholicism. This is done in a variety of ways. Bryan McGraw finds Carl Henry, an important twentieth-century evangelical, using natural law concepts. Daryl Charles points out that classical reformers such as Luther and Calvin took no issue with the natural law. David VanDrunen argues that Paul in the New Testament depends upon natural law frameworks as he considers the Mosaic law. The volume has an easier time with the second point, that natural law holds out a vision of politics that places believers and nonbelievers on common ground. In a pluralistic society, that problematic is transformed into a positive feature: Finding a way for evangelicals, nonevangelicals, and those who are not working from a faith basis to engage one another in the public sphere is a necessity.

Finally, there is a sustained effort across the articles to take on the arguments of those theologians who have maintained that the natural law is incompatible with Christian faith. Chief among these are Karl Barth and Stanley Hauerwas. One of the volume’s questionable choices lies here, because Reinhold Niebuhr represented another strand of political thought, Christian realism, that denied the possibility of the natural law. Further, Niebuhr is particularly bound up with American history and politics, and so his absence is questionable, to say the least. Both Barth and Hauerwas presented the “antithesis” argument, that Christianity is naturally opposed to the natural law because of two factors. The first is the reality of sin—a factor so devastating in traditional Protestantism that it affects not only the will but also human reason. The second is the concept that Christ’s covenant with his followers makes a new law—that Christian ethics is completely fulfilled by simple obedience to God’s commands. In response to these arguments, the volume marshals several arguments. The first is that the doctrine of sin does not entail a total destruction of the human nature, only its corruption. Most Christian natural law thinkers have implicitly maintained that human reason remains largely intact. Second, the volume argues exegetically that particular passages of scripture demand the natural law, though by other names. Paul’s argument in Romans 1 is frequently cited at this point. Finally, the volume contends that the polemic claim that Christians must ethically only follow the Lord is aporetic, dissolving in its own logical contradictions.

Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought is an excellent resource, presenting a very strong case for the editors’ point that evangelicals should consider adopting the natural law as an organic political-theoretical home. It ends with a chapter by J. Budziszewski that clearly was written as a response to the gathered chapters – and his attention to detail allows this review to attend to some of the larger issues.

I see three problems that make the volume less comprehensive in answering criticisms of the natural law than it could have been. The first is exegetical, the second is historical, and finally there is a question of Protestant confession. First, exegesis. Time and again, the contributors point out that the Bible demands the natural law. That is not as unqualifiedly true as they purport. Certainly Paul does include in Romans 1, as many contributors cite, a passage that claims that even the Gentiles know and are convicted by a more general knowledge of truth, a claim that does look like natural law by another name. But Paul also wrote I Corinthians 1, which claims that human wisdom has been made foolish by God. Further, much of the critique of the antithesis theory in the volume has to do with the necessity of God’s actions making rational sense to believers. But Paul denies that God can be judged by humans in Romans 9. The entirety of the book of Job repudiates the concept of humans judging God. One can defend the natural law exegetically, but the biblical weight is not as one-sided as it is presented.

Second, the volume depends at times on a questionable history. Contributors assert that magisterial reformers accepted the natural law, but it seems more likely that they simply did not question it. Paul DeHart considers a difference between Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas – but that debate did not happen. Instead, Luther’s debate partner was Erasmus, and the issue at stake was absolutely salvation theory, not politics. Sacrificing Luther’s position entails grave theological consequences for the primacy of grace that most evangelicals claim. Augustine of Hippo is frequently mentioned, but mostly for his treatise The City of God. But at some point, political theory must lead to political action, and Augustine was not an ivory-tower academic. Instead, he was able to justify the use of Roman coercive force to attempt to destroy the Donatists, a rival church in North Africa. As evangelicals consider how to approach the public sphere in a pluralistic society where some factions fear theocratic coercion, the specter of a history of claims to divinely ordained persecution must be dealt with openly.

Finally, and I recognize the problematic here, are the editors and contributors setting out on a course that leads to religious conversion? Budziszewski notes that one of the possible consequences to which the desire to adopt the natural law leads is a break with the theology of the Reformers, a break he calls a “wholesale rejection” (p. 255). Over the past two decades, there has been an effort at rapprochement between evangelicals and Catholics. Sometimes, this has suggested a cooperative model, such as Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s publication of Is the Reformation Over? (2005), a book that explored the ways that the historical chasms between evangelicals and Catholics seem to be lessening. But in some cases, these efforts at dialogue and cooperation have become conversion, as invited by Christian Smith’s How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps (2011). Does this engagement with the natural law involve a paradigm shift away from American evangelicalism? Given the sources and arguments made here, the claim that this does not entail a shift to Catholicism is unconvincing.

These issues notwithstanding, Natural Law presents the best sustained theoretical treatment of American evangelicals and natural law political theory to date. For those interested in that topic, or any of the associated loci, this will be an excellent guide.