
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.
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.
Christian Nationalism or Christian Commonwealth? A Call for Clarity
Brad Littlejohn

Amid current confusion and controversy, we must chart a better vision for a Christian politics.
Articles
Ad Fontes / December 12, 2022
Nationalism Must Reject Racism
Brad Littlejohn

It’s a dangerous mistake to build politics on any form of racial ideology
Articles
WORLD Opinions / December 6, 2022
Slippery, selfish, and successful
Brad Littlejohn

Why the language of rights beat the pro-life cause at the ballot.
Articles
WORLD Opinions / November 29, 2022
Against ‘Religious Liberty:’ The Inescapability of Public Religion
Brad Littlejohn

The aim of politics is living well together. To live well, we must pursue virtue, and to pursue virtue, we must have a concept of the highest good.
Articles
American Reformer / November 29, 2022
A Divorce of Medicine from Healthcare
Brad Littlejohn

Will the government force doctors to do bodily harm to transgender patients?
Articles
WORLD Opinions / November 25, 2022
The Stubborn Persistence of Conservative Religion in American Public Life
Brad Littlejohn

Hollinger lionizes the mainline Protestant elites of earlier generations as prophets of tolerance and global concord, while warning of the mindless and exclusionary faith of their evangelical supplanters.
Articles
American Affairs Journal / November 22, 2022
The Piety of Patriotism: A Reply to Susan Hanssen
Brad Littlejohn

Unless we can recover a certain generosity towards those who came before us, we will find ourselves with nothing to pass on to those who come after.
Articles
The Public Discourse / November 9, 2022
A Battle of Philosophies
Brad Littlejohn

Rival visions of history are on the ballot today.
Articles
WORLD Opinions / November 8, 2022
Promising the Moon
Brad Littlejohn

Politicians keep making promises they cannot keep when we urgently need straight talk.
Articles
WORLD Opinions / October 28, 2022
National Conservatism and Protestant Ecclesiology
Brad Littlejohn

Our Protestant forefathers invested great effort in developing a theological, ethical, and political framework that would enable the believer to navigate these treacherous paths with confidence and care.
Articles
Theopolis / October 25, 2022