Reformed Social Ethics: Perspectives on Society, Culture, State, Church, and the Kingdom of God (Reformed Ethics)

“The social media age has not been kind to Christian social ethics. The kind of short form, fragmentary thinking—always performed before an aggressive and divided audience—normalized in that setting risks turning the Christian social ethicist into a cybergladiator whose bombastic views are largely determined by his need not to be his nemesis. Herman Bavinck warned against such reactionary dogmatism. In the works brought together as Reformed Social Ethics, we find an example often missing in our day: a Christian ethicist thinking carefully about complex issues in the light of Scripture and tradition rather than in the blue light of a smartphone.”

“Our debt of gratitude to John Bolt for reintroducing Bavinck to the Anglophone world continues to grow with this companion to the Reformed Ethics. Here, Bavinck’s writings on matters of deep moral interest are not only translated for the first time but, where they are incomplete, Bolt provides his own learned judgments to amplify or develop arguments in keeping with the spirit of Bavinck’s thought. Readers will find here not only matters of historical interest but also an exemplary model for a Reformed engagement with perennial social issues.”