Liberty for All: Defending Everyone's Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age

by Andrew T. Walker, Robert P. George (Foreword by)

Overview

2021 Book Award Winner, The Gospel Coalition (Public Theology & Current Events)

Southwestern Journal of Theology 2021 Book Award (Honorable Mention, Baptist Studies)

Christians are often thought of as defending only their own religious interests in the public square. They are viewed as worrying exclusively about the erosion of their freedom to assemble and to follow their convictions, while not seeming as concerned about publicly defending the rights of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists to do the same.

Andrew T. Walker, an emerging Southern Baptist public theologian, argues for a robust Christian ethic of religious liberty that helps the church defend religious freedom for everyone in a pluralistic society. Whether explicitly religious or not, says Walker, every person is striving to make sense of his or her life. The Christian foundations of religious freedom provide a framework for how Christians can navigate deep religious difference in a secular age. As we practice religious liberty for our neighbors, we can find civility and commonality amid disagreement, further the church's engagement in the public square, and become the strongest defenders of religious liberty for all. Foreword by noted Princeton scholar Robert P. George.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587434495
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew T. Walker (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of Christian ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and executive director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement in Louisville, Kentucky. He previously served as senior fellow in Christian ethics at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Walker is the author of God and the Transgender Debate, named the best book in public theology in 2017 by The Gospel Coalition, coauthor of Marriage Is: How Marriage Transforms Society and Cultivates Human Flourishing, and coeditor of the Gospel for Life series. He has written for National Review, Time, The Gospel Coalition, Public Discourse, First Things, and Christianity Today and speaks frequently all over the country.

Table of Contents

Foreword Robert P. George ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: You Get to Decide What to Worship, Not Whether to Worship 1

1 Religious Liberty as a Christian Social Ethic 9

Part 1 Eschatology

2 The Reign of Jesus Christ and Religious Liberty 23

3 Religious Liberty and Christian Secularism 49

Part 2 Anthropology

4 The Imago Dei and Religious Liberty 81

5 That They Should Seek God 111

Part 3 Missiology

6 Religious Liberty as Christian. Mission 145

7 Moral Ecology and Christian Mission 175

Conclusion: Retrieving a Tradition for the Common Good 213

Epilogue: Liberal Democracy and Religious Liberty 219

Appendix: How Religious Liberty Made Me a Baptist 227

Notes 235