Alumni College Fellow

Ryan Hackenbracht

Government and Grace: The Reformation of Sovereignty from Hobbes to Locke

How did the Protestant Reformation change what it meant for a ruler to be sovereign? This project uncovers the religious texture of political philosophy in seventeenth-century England, as Hobbes, Harrington, Milton, and Locke appropriated biblical narratives in the interest of political theorizing. Basing their models of sovereignty on Christ's ministry, these writers transformed the exercise of power into an expression of grace, in which sovereigns imitated Christ by bringing peace, order, and healing to a chaotic world. In this regard, Government and Grace reveals the Bible's centrality to ideas of political authority that have come to shape the modern world today.

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