Natural Law and Religious Freedom ― The Role of Moral First Things in Grounding and Protecting the First Freedom

Every generation finds a new reason for the study of natural law. Current interest in the natural law may well be due to a pervasive moral pessimism in the Western cultural context and wider contemporary geopolitical challenges. Natural Law and Religious Freedom aims to address what is relatively absent from the literature by demonstrating the importance of natural law ethics in both establishing and preserving basic human rights, of which religious freedom has pride of place. Probing contemporary challenges to natural law thinking that are both internal and external to religious faith, and examining the character and constitution of natural law ethics, Natural Law and Religious Freedom will be of interest to theologians, ethicists and philosophers as well as policy analysts, politicians and activists who are concerned to anchor human rights policy considerations in an enduring way.

Dr. J. Daryl Charles teaches in the Fellows Program of the John Jay Institute and served as a 2013/14 visiting professor in the Honors Program at Berry College. He is author, co-author, or editor of 14 books, including The Just War Tradition: An Introduction (ISI Books, 2012), Thriving in Babylon (Wipf & Stock, 2011), Retrieving the Natural Law (Eerdmans, 2008), The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism (IVP, 2003), and Virtue amidst Vice (Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), and is translator (German to English) of Claus Westermann, Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994 = Wurzeln der Weisheit. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). Most recently he is co-editor (with Mark David Hall) of America’s Wars, currently under review with Columbia University Press. In 2003/4 he served as Visiting Fellow, Institute for Faith & Learning, Baylor University, and was the 2007/8 William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion & Public Life, James Madison Program, Princeton University. Before entering the university classroom, Charles did public-policy research in Washington, DC, with a focus on criminal justice. His research interests include religion and the public sphere, natural law ethics, the ethics of war and peace, humanitarian intervention, Christian social ethics, and bioethics. His work has been published in a wide array of both scholarly and popular journals, including Journal of Religious Ethics, Books and Culture, First Things, Pro Ecclesia, Journal of Church and State, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Cultural Encounters, Philosophia Christi, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, The Weekly Standard, Touchstone, and Christian Scholar’s Review.