Jesus the Philosopher, Natural Law, and the Second Inaugural

This is a great piece tracing the natural law philosophy that was ever-present in the language and argumentation of Bush's Second Inaugural. While many articles attempting to unearth Bush's religiosity say all the same things, this offers a glimpse at its philosophy in particular--a philosophy that the author feels has now become a core means of expression in current conservative thought. The Second Inaugural address:

signals the emergence of a single coherent philosophy within the conservative movement. Natural-law reasoning about the national moral character gradually disappeared from America in the generations after the Founding Fathers, squeezed out between a triumphant emotive liberalism, on the one side, and a defensive emotive Evangelicalism, on the other. Preserved mostly by the Catholics, natural law made its return to public discourse primarily through the effort to find a nontheological ground for opposition to abortion. And now, three decades after Roe v. Wade, it is simply the way conservatives talk--about everything.