Book Review: Jean Porter, Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority Porter Jean , Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010). xvi + 368 pp., £19.99/US$30 (pb), ISBN 978-0-8028-6563-2

Jean Porter has written an important book. The last decade has taught us that the secular jurisprudence of today, which underpins the contemporary understanding and practices of the law and political authority, is inadequate. Under the utilitarian pressure to secure the state from terrorist threats, courts struggled to find grounds to hold back authority that reached beyond what many saw as its moral boundaries, legislatures handed over sweeping powers to the executive, and then that authority was used to license even torture. If ever there was a time for a renewed engagement with a tradition that could ground the limits to authority, it is now. Porter provides such an account but also far more.