Can libertarians and social conservatives find common ground?

Ronald Reagan As the standard bearer for American conservatism for two decades, Ronald Reagan effortlessly embodied fusionism by uniting Mont Pelerin style libertarians, populist Christians, Burkean conservatives, and national security voters into a devastatingly successful electoral bloc. Today, it is nearly impossible to imagine a candidate winning both New York and Texas, but Reagan and that group of fellow travelers did.

by Hunter Baker

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper’s life began in the small Dutch village of Maassluis on October 29, 1837. During his first pastorate, he developed a deep devotion to Jesus Christ, spurring him to a deep commitment to Calvinist principles, which profoundly influenced his later careers.

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Johannes Althusius

Johannes Althusius was born in Diedenshausen in Westphalia in 1557. Beyond a record of his birth, little is known about his early life. Upon receiving his doctorate in both civil and ecclesiastical law at Basle in 1586, he accepted a position on the faculty of law at the Reformed Academy at Herborn.

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Hugo Grotius

In the United States’ Capitol, twenty-three marble relief portraits of historical figures central to the principles of American law oversee the House Chamber. These portraits include Moses, Pope Gregory IX, Sir William Blackstone, and Hugo Grotius. In truth, Grotius’s jurisprudence was considered authoritative by the American Founders.

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Saint Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas displayed remarkable acumen in his early education and, to the dismay of his parents, resolved to embrace the religious life. He received the Order of Saint Dominic sometime between 1240 and 1243, and continued studying under Europe’s greatest scholars, including Albertus Magnus.

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Luis de Molina

Born in Spain in 1535, Luis de Molina was one of the most accomplished, learned figures in the sixteenth-century revival of Scholasticism on the Iberian peninsula. A member of the Jesuit Order, Molina spent twenty-nine years of his life in Portugal–first as a student, then as a professor of theology, law, and philosophy.

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William Perkins

William Perkins, Cambridge scholar and preacher, was one of the most popular theologians of the Elizabethan age, eventually outselling even John Calvin.

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien was professor of Anglo-saxon and English language and literature from 1925-59 at Oxford University.

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Noah Webster

The great American lexicographer Noah Webster was born in pre-Revolutionary New England to a Puritan family. He embarked on a career in law after the completion of his studies at Yale College in 1778, which were interrupted by a swift tour of duty in the Revolutionary War.

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William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone, British statesman and prime minister, was perhaps the most eminent of eminent Victorians. During his studies at Oxford he felt strongly drawn to the ministry, and had his father not insisted he enter the political arena, Gladstone would have sought a lifelong position as a church leader.

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Edmund Burke

Born, raised, and educated in Ireland, Edmund Burke was one of the most well-known British statesmen and political philosophers of the eighteenth century. After gaining early recognition for his literary skills, Burke entered Parliament in 1766 and remained there for the next two decades.

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Joseph Addison

In early eighteenth-century English coffeehouse culture, no patron was as distinguished a conversationalist or as delightful an essayist as the Oxford-educated Joseph Addison.

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