Brad Littlejohn

Fellow

Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping public leaders understand the intellectual and historical foundations of our current breakdown of public trust, social cohesion, and sound governance. His research investigates shifting understandings of the nature of freedom and authority, and how a more full-orbed conception of freedom, rooted in the Christian tradition, can inform policy that respects both the dignity of the individual and the urgency of the common good. He also serves as President of the Davenant Institute.

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Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping public leaders understand the intellectual and historical foundations of our current breakdown of public trust, social cohesion, and sound governance. His research investigates shifting understandings of the nature of freedom and authority, and how a more full-orbed conception of freedom, rooted in the Christian tradition, can inform policy that respects both the dignity of the individual and the urgency of the common good. He also serves as President of the Davenant Institute.

A scholar and writer in the fields of Christian ethics, historical theology, and conservative political thought, he earned his PhD in Theological Ethics at the University of Edinburgh in 2014, where he studied the relationship of freedom and authority in the English Reformation. He is the author of The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty and The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed, among other books, as well as numerous peer-reviewed and popular-level articles and book chapters on topics ranging from freedom of conscience to the nature of property rights to the moral architecture of digital technology.

In 2013 he founded the Davenant Institute, an organization dedicated to retrieving and renewing the Protestant theological and ethical tradition, and frequently writes, speaks, and teaches for their publications, conferences, and courses. He has also taught at Moody Bible Institute and Patrick Henry College, and served as Headmaster of Loudoun Classical School.

Most recently, he worked as a Senior Fellow of the Edmund Burke Foundation as lead author on multi-year project entitled “Foundations of Liberty: Rediscovering the Anglo-American Conservative Tradition.” His essays arising out of this research have appeared in journals such as National Affairs, American Affairs, The American Conservative, First Things, and Modern Age.

He is also a weekly Opinion Contributor at WORLD Magazine, and publishes regularly on questions of Christian ethics and political theology for outlets such as The Gospel Coalition, American Reformer, Desiring God, and Mere Orthodoxy.

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Biden heads an administration, not a “regime”

Brad Littlejohn

The murder of Alexei Navalny shows what a real tyranny looks like.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 26, 2024

The French disconnection

Brad Littlejohn

France’s attempts to raise birth rates won’t work, and we may be going down the same road.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 22, 2024

Confronting the reality of age

Brad Littlejohn

It’s not “ageist” to recognize the natural limits that accompany growing old.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 16, 2024

Thanks, Elon, for making us cyborgs

Brad Littlejohn

The announcement this week that Elon Musk’s Neuralink had succeeded in implanting the first-ever computer chip in a live human brain represents the latest reminder that yesterday’s science fiction is rapidly becoming reality.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / February 2, 2024

Pope Francis says something clear … and good

Brad Littlejohn

We need to speak with moral clarity about the commodification of human bodies through surrogacy.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / January 26, 2024

Rest for Restless Hearts

Brad Littlejohn

Samuel D. James’s Digital Liturgies is a refreshingly hopeful Christian response to the challenges of our digital age.

Articles

Plough / January 23, 2024

Book Review: Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brad Littlejohn

Although the central theme of the book is life together in Christian community, Bonhoeffer begins with the crucial reminder that the Christian life may not always be a life together.

Articles

9Marks / January 16, 2024

The perils of an election year

Brad Littlejohn

If we do face Trump v. Biden 2.0 in November—a prospect few Americans want to see—the contest will take place amongst even more fraught conditions than those of pandemic-era 2020.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / January 11, 2024

Truthful, impartial, merciful

Brad Littlejohn

Christians should avoid simplistic rhetoric about crime.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / January 5, 2024

A blank check won’t happen

Brad Littlejohn

Congress has debated continued military funding for Ukraine over the past couple weeks, with Republicans staunchly insisting that any such aid must be tied to a bill strengthening border security on the chaotic U.S.-Mexico border.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / December 20, 2023

Europe’s Islam problem

Brad Littlejohn

Nations depend upon shared histories, customs, languages, and religious practices in order to sustain the mutual understanding that prevents politics from descending into a warfare of rival clans.

Articles

WORLD Opinions / November 29, 2023

The Tyranny of Seeing Only Power

Brad Littlejohn

Without authority, every constraint is felt to be oppressive, from gun licensing laws to my work schedule to the biological sex of my own body. Within a healthy understanding of authority, any number of constraints may be experienced as liberating.

Articles

Mere Orthodoxy / November 29, 2023