Abstract
The recent promulgation of the social encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI brings to the fore a host of critical issues confronting all Christians and people of good will in the struggle to address the economy, the defense of life, the promotion of truth, and the witness of love in the pursuit of integral human development. For sympathetic Protestant and evangelical observers of Catholic social doctrine, it also raises the issue of the ongoing need for theological definition and cultural engagement by Protestant and evangelical writers of the concerns that the pope touches on in Caritas in Veritate. There is a problem, however, and it is systemic in nature. Neither magisterial Protestants nor evangelicals have a theologically unified body of social teaching.