Journal of Law and Government

The Western world was originally shaped by the fine arts and philosophy of Greece, the architecture and law of Rome, and the faith, morality, and prophetic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. As the West loses the religious bond that generated its culture, careful attention should be given to reclaiming and rebuilding this moral and spiritual infrastructure.

Numerous indices measuring social capital and community challenges at the local level exist, but none attempt to offer a measure of community health as an independent variable in comparison to community challenges as a dependent variable. Therefore, we propose the Covenantal-Noncentralization Index (CNI) in an effort to provide a more nuanced understanding of social capital at the local level as well as to differentiate between an independent variable index consisting of family stability, religious adherence, non-profit activity, and charitable giving and dependent variables representing various community challenges: violent crime, childhood poverty, STD rate, high school diploma completion, GDP, and unemployment. Data for all of the above-mentioned variables were collected for each county in the United States. Using simple correlation for step 1, we found that four of our variables of interest are significantly correlated with our index: violent crime, childhood poverty, STD rate, and high school diploma. We then used Pearson’s correlation to compare the relationship between the CNI and an index of the above-mentioned community challenges. The R2 for this correlation was 0.192, indicating that 19% of the variance in the community challenges index can be explained by the CNI index. We discuss opportunities for further enhancing the CNI, including a score for Dillon’s Rule versus Home Rule.

This paper explores covenantal environmental administration as a significant framework for contemporary public governance within faith-based environmental nonprofits (FENs). As New Public Management (NPM) reforms increasingly shape nonprofit administration through efficiency and performance metrics, covenantal governance emerges as an alternative rooted in mutual obligation, ethical leadership, and spiritual stewardship, concepts deeply embedded in Judeo-Christian traditions exemplified by loving fulfillment. Contrary to perceptions of incompatibility between ethical-spiritual values and data-driven accountability, this study argues that integrating covenantalism with New Public Management practices can enhance organizational performance, stakeholder trust, and ecological outcomes. Employing theoretical analysis and empirical tools (notably the Covenantal Empowerment Diagnostic) this research demonstrates that covenantal governance not only complements secular administrative strategies, but also actively enriches them. This paper further illustrates the transformative potential of covenantal principles, suggesting their broader applicability in addressing complex environmental and administrative challenges, such as environmental impact, moral stewardship, and community resilience. Moreover, the covenantal framework positions nonprofit leaders and public administrators as accountable stewards guided by relational ethics and sacred obligations, offering a robust model for a just, sustainable, and compassionate approach to public administration.

The questions of whether the American Revolution was biblical and whether it was just may be necessarily intertwined. If it was biblical, then it was just. If it was unbiblical, it was necessarily unjust. If it was merely non-biblical, that is, if the Bible does not speak to the question, then it could be either just or unjust by some human standard. For the purposes of this paper, the question of whether it was just by a merely human standard will be addressed independently of, and in addition to, the infinitely more important question of whether it is biblical. We will begin with the biblical question.

In his essay, Mark David Hall presents an overview of Christian scholarship on the question of whether the War for American Independence is biblical and just. He then considers Romans 13 and shows that Protestants, especially Calvinists, came to interpret these verses to permit active resistance to tyrannical rulers. Finally, he discusses the conflict in light of the just war tradition and contends that the patriots had excellent reasons to believe their active resistance was biblical and just.