Protestant Social Teaching Launch Party
organized by the davenant institute
Date
Thursday, October 27
Location
Hosted at the Institute on Religion and Democracy
1023 15th St NW, Suite #200, Washington, DC
Time
6:30-9:00 PM
Schedule
6:30-7:15 PM:
Refreshments
7:15 Pm-8:00 PM:
Presentations from panelists
8:00-8:30 PM:
Questions from the audience
8:30-9:00 PM:
Book signings
Planting a flag for “Protestant social teaching”
A free event to celebrate a groundbreaking volume
For over one hundred years, the Roman Catholic Church has steadily curated a body of papal encyclicals, classic texts, and go-to answers on pressing moral issues of the day, that has come to be known as “Catholic Social Teaching.” Meanwhile, in Protestantism, mainline churches have steadily jettisoned nearly every historic Christian moral teaching in an effort to make the faith more “relevant” and progressive, while evangelicals, though still committed to Scripture, have often done little better in holding fast to the norms that used to guide faithful Christian discipleship when it came to love, war, and everything in between. However, Protestants too have a rich heritage of social teaching, if only they knew their own tradition, a heritage that dovetails on many points with Roman Catholic teaching, but is also inflected by the Reformation’s emphasis on the goods of the family and the nation.
Now, for the first time, we are planting a flag for “Protestant social teaching,” a coherent, catholic, biblical set of convictions about what it means to love one’s neighbor in both personal and political life. The essays in this volume span the breadth of human life, from birth to death, from work to welfare, while providing a clear moral compass on hot-button issues like abortion, just war, and environmental care. This volume brings together contributions from a dozen authors who have deeply studied these diverse moral issues from a classical Protestant standpoint, distilling their biblical and historical insights into short, accessible chapters that can guide the reflections of every pastor or Christian leader.
Join us at the Institute on Religion and Democracy for night of celebration and discussion as we introduce this new volume with presentations from the authors. RSVP below if you would like to attend. Alternatively, you can catch the livestream on YouTube.
In the meantime, Protestant Social Teaching is available for pre-order from our bookstore HERE.
Our Speakers
Marc Livecche
Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.
Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.
Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on Twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.
jake meador
Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy and is a writer and editor from Lincoln NE. His work has been published in First Things, National Review, Books & Culture, Commonweal, Plough Quarterly, Christianity Today, Front Porch Republic, and the University Bookman. He holds a BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Jake lives in Lincoln NE with his wife Joie, daughter Davy, and three sons, Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. His first book, In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World, was published by InterVarsity Press. His second book is scheduled to be published summer of 2021, also from IVP. Find him on Twitter @jake_meador.
Brad Littlejohn
Dr. Bradford Littlejohn (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh) is the Founder and President of the Davenant Institute. He also works as a Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and has taught for several institutions, including Moody Bible Institute-Spokane, Bethlehem College and Seminary, and Patrick Henry College. He is recognized as a leading scholar of the English theologian Richard Hooker and Has published and lectured extensively in the fields of Reformation history, Christian ethics, and political theology. He lives in Landrum, SC with his wife, Rachel, and four children. Follow him on Twitter at @WBLITTLEJOHN
Donate
If you cannot attend but would still like to contribute toward this event, click here to make a donation.