“The Majesty of the Law” ft. Emory University’s John Witte, Jr. I Saturdays at Seven Ep. 45 (The Legal Vocation: Part Two of a Six Part Series)

In the forty-fifth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with John Witte, Jr., the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, McDonald Distinguished Professor, and Faculty Director of Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Witte begins by discussing how the 3 Fs – faith, freedom, and family or the things for which people would die – serve as the connective threads between his otherwise diverse expressions of the academic vocation. He then unpacks how those threads are woven into a sample of his books including From Sacrament to Contract, Law and Protestantism, and The Reformation of Rights. Ream and Witte talk about Witte’s education at Calvin College and Harvard University along with texts and mentors who left a great impact upon him. Those influences then found another form of confirmation in the invitation Witte recently received to serve as a bicentenary Gifford lecturer, delivering “A New Calvinist Reformation of Rights.” Ream and Witte then close their conversation by discussing Witte’s appreciation for the academic vocation, the virtues which make the expression of such a vocation possible, and the vices against which legal scholars must guard.