John Witte, Jr., on Christianity and Law

Abstract

This paper explores John Witte, Jr.'s contribution to the study of law and Christianity. Over time, Witte has spearheaded a bold and far-reaching project that aims to encompass the relationship between law and Christianity, in which more than five hundred scholars from six continents are collaborating, making him one of the leading scholars in the field. He is working on this contribution from three perspectives: a relational one, a biographical one, and a jurisprudential one. Despite already bearing much fruit, the project requires greater methodological clarity and maturity. Witte is an instinctual and experimental thinker; he maps the scholarly and methodological path as he goes along, letting his sources and intuitions guide and inspire him. He still needs to produce an extensive programmatic series of publications that create a paradigm for studying the relationship between Christianity and law in modern pluralistic societies. Witte knows this and is working on it. The theoretical and jurisprudential part is fundamental to consolidating and completing his life-long project. This theoretical part could be based on the four alliterative triads that I now suggest, inspired by Witte’s works: a) Christianity, community, culture; b) creation, covenant, conscience; c) law, liberty, love; and d) sovereignty, society, solidarity.

Keywords: John Witte, Jr., Christianity, Law, Religion, Religious Freedom, Liberty, Covenant, Law, Love