I’ve compiled a bibliography/reading list of key resources on Christianity and law which makes no attempt to be exhaustive. Additions and suggestions welcome.
“Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law: The Lord of Heaven and Earth. A Joint Statement by Evangelical and Catholic Legal Scholars,” Journal of Christian Legal Thought 3, no. 1 (2013): 2–10.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power (Thames and Hudson, 1956).
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Lectures on Modern History (Macmillan, 1906).
Rex Ahdar and Ian Leigh, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed 2013).
Owen Anderson, The Natural Moral Law: The Good after Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Nicholas Aroney and Ian Leigh (eds), Christianity and Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2003).
Emil Brunner, Justice and Social Order, trans Mary Hottinger (Lutterworth Press, 2002).
J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010).
J H Burns (ed), The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450 (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
J H Burns and Mark Goldie (eds), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2011)
J Daryl Charles, Retrieving the Natural Law: A Return to Moral First Things (Eerdmans, 2008).
Robert F. Cochran Jr. and David VanDrunen, eds., Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013).
Robert F Cochran, and Zachary R Calo (eds), Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law? (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Charles Norris Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture; A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (Oxford University Press, 1980).
Edward S Corwin, ‘The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law’ (Pt 1) (1928) 42 Harvard Law Review 149; (Pt 2) (1929) 42 Harvard Law Review 365.
Michael Bertram Crowe, The Changing Profile of the Natural Law (Nijhoff, 1977).
Dawson Christopher, The Judgment of the Nations (Catholic University of America Press, 2012).
Norman Doe (ed.), Christianity and Natural Law: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Rafael Domingo and John Witte, Jr (eds), Christianity and Global Law (Routledge, 2020).
Daniel L Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, Great Christian Jurists in American History (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Daniel J Elazar, Covenant and Commonwealth: From Christian Separation through the Protestant Reformation (Transaction Publishers, 1996).
Daniel J Elazar, Covenant and Constitutionalism: The Great Frontier and the Matrix of Federal Democracy (Transaction Publishers, 1998).
Daniel J Elazar, Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel: Biblical Foundations and Jewish Expressions (Transaction Publishers, 1995).
Daniel J Elazar and John Kincaid (eds), The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism (Lexington Books, 2000).
A P D’Entreves, Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy (Hutchinson & Co, 1970).
John Neville Figgis, Studies of Political Thought From Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625 (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed, 1916).
Carl J Friedrich, Transcendent Justice: The Religious Dimension of Constitutionalism (Duke University Press, 1964).
Robert P George, In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 1999).
Johann Gerhard, On the Law, trans. Richard J Dinda, ed. Benjamin T G Mayes and Joshua J Hayes (Concordia Publishing House, 2015).
Otto Friedrich von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age (University Press, 1900).
Stephen J Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
Knud Haakonssen, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
R H Helmholz, The Ius Commune in England: Four Studies (Oxford University Press, 2001).
R. H. Helmholz, The History of the Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, 597–1649 (Oxford University Press, 2003).
M Hill. and R. H. Helmholz (eds), Great Christian Jurists in English History (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
T J Hochstrasser, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: A Critical Edition with Modern Spelling, edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge (Princeton University Press, 1998).
Steven J Jensen, Knowing the Natural Law: From Precepts and Inclinations to Deriving Oughts (Catholic University of America Press, 2015).
Franciscus Junius, The Mosaic Polity, edited by Andrew M McGinnis, translated by Todd M Rester (Grand Rapids, CLP Academic, 2015).
Ernst H Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton University Press, 1957).
Donald R Kelley, The Human Measure: Social Thought in the Western Legal Tradition (Harvard University Press, 1990).
Peter J Leithart, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (IVP Academic, 2010).
Matthew Levering, Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Frederic William Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (Cambridge University Press, 1911).
Jacques Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law, translated by Doris C Anson (Gordian Press, 1971).
Jacques Maritain, Natural Law: Reflections on Theory and Practice, edited by William Sweet (St Augustine’s Press, 2001).
Brian M McCall, The Architecture of Law: Rebuilding Law in the Classical Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018).
Charles Howard McIlwain, Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern (Cornell University Press, Revised ed, 1947).
David McIlroy, A Biblical View of Law and Justice (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2004).
Michael W McConnell, Robert F Cochran, Jr, and Angela C Carmella (eds), Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale University Press, 2001).
John Milbank, Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People (Wiley Blackwell, 2013).
John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Wiley-Blackwell, 2nd ed, 2006).
John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).
Edmund S Morgan, Puritan Political Ideas, 1558–1794 (Hackett Pub. Co., 2003).
Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard University Press, 2010).
Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (Yale University Press, 2010).
Francis Oakley, Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights: Continuity and Discontinuity in the History of Ideas (Continuum, 2005).
Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300–1870 (Oxford University Press, 2003).
Francis Oakley, The Mortgage of the Past: Reshaping the Ancient Political Inheritance (1050–1300) (Yale University Press, 2012).
Francis Oakley, The Watershed of Modern Politics: Law, Virtue, Kingship, and Consent (1300–1650) (Yale University Press, 2015).
Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, Theology of Law and Authority in the English Reformation, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion 1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991).
Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004).
Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan (eds), From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, 100–1625 (Eerdmans, 1999).
Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (University of California Press, 1993).
Stephen C Perks, A Defence of the Christian State: The Case Against Principled Pluralism and the Christian Alternative (Kuyper Foundation, 1998).
Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
Jean Porter, Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority (Eerdmans, 2010).
Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Great Christian Jurists and Legal Collections in the First Millennium (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Rousas John Rushdoony, The Foundations of Social Order: Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early Church (Ross House Books, 1998).
Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1973).
Michael P Schutt, Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).
Timothy Shah and Allen Hertzke (eds), Christianity and Freedom Volume 1, Historical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Barry Alan Shain, The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1994).
Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1978).
Francisco Suárez, “A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver”in Selections from Three Works, ed. Thomas Pink, trans. Gwladys L. Williams et al (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2015).
Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150–1625 (Eerdmans, 1997).
Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Brill, enlarged ed, 1998).
Brian Tierney, Religion, Law and the Growth of Constitutional Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (Olive Wyon trans, George Allen & Unwin, 1931).
David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2010).
David VanDrunen, Divine Covenants and Moral Order: A Biblical Theology of Natural Law (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2014).
David VanDrunen, Politics After Christendom: Political Theology in a Fractured World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020).
Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (University of Chicago Press, 1952).
Eric Voegelin, Order and History (Louisiana State University Press, 1956).
Andrew T. Walker, Faithful Reason: Natural Law Ethics For God’s Glory and our Good (Brentwood: B&H Academic, 2024).
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Harvard University Press, 1982).
John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander, eds., Christianity and Law: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
John Witte, Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
John Witte, The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
John Witte, God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2006).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love (Eerdmans, 2011).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
A S P Woodhouse (ed), Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647–9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents (University of Chicago Press, 1951).
David Wootton (ed), Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England (Penguin, 1986).
Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton University Press, 2003).
Girolamo Zanchi, On the Law in General, translated by Jeffrey J Veenstra (Grand Rapids, CLP Academic, 2012).
Saeculum: government, law and culture 
Leave a comment