From Irenaeus to Grotius
From Irenaeus to Grotius

Author: Oliver O'Donovan

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 1999-11-17

Total Pages: 868

ISBN-13: 9780802842091

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A reference tool that provides an overview of the history of Christian political thought with selections from second century to the seventeenth century. From the second century to the seventeenth, from Irenaeus to Grotius, this unique reader provides a coherent overview of the development of Christian political thought. The editors have collected readings from the works of over sixty-five authors, together with introductory essays that give historical details about each thinker and discuss how each has contributed to the tradition of Christian political thought. Complete with important Greek and Latin texts available here in English for the first time, this volume will be a primary resource for readers from a wide range of interests.

A Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought, Volume I
A Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought, Volume I

Author: Matthew Rowley

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-01

Total Pages: 752

ISBN-13: 1040031889

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This first volume of A Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought provides a window into the early Protestant world, and the ways in which Protestants wrestled with politics and religion in the wake of the Reformation. This period saw political authorities and church hierarchies challenged and defended by scholars, clerics, and laypeople alike. The volume engages the full spectrum of Protestants, with reference to theology, geography, ethnicity, historical importance, socio-economic background, and gender. This diversity highlights how Protestants felt pulled towards differing political positions and used several maps to chart their course – conscience, custom, history, ecclesiastical tradition, and the laws of God, nature, nation, or community. On most important issues, Protestants lined up on opposing sides. Additionally, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox political thought, as well as interactions with Jewish and Muslim texts and thinkers, profoundly influenced different directions taken in the history of Protestant political thought. Even as our own time is fraught with deep disagreement and political polarisation, so too was early modern Europe, and we might read it in the anxieties, uncertainties, hopes, and expectations that the sources vividly express. This sourcebook will enrich both research and classroom teaching in politics, theology, and history, whether geared towards general political or religious history, or towards more specialised courses on colonialism, warfare, gender, race or religious diversity.

Worshiping Politics
Worshiping Politics

Author: Luke J. Goble

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2017-05-08

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1498225896

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It is not a secret that the political system in the United States is broken. Unfortunately, many Christians are ambivalent about, or worse yet, contributors to that dysfunction. Many know they should do something but don't know what to do or how to do it. Drawing on insights from history, theology, and culture, Worshiping Politics reframes the relationship between faith and politics as one of intentional formation instead of divisive decision-making. When we focus on how we are formed as people and the church in relationship to our various communities instead of what we think and believe in relation to culture and society, it changes the way we engage the world. Unlearning our faulty emphasis on the power of our own intellect and learning how to be formed in grace and love for the world through our everyday lives just might make a different kind of politics possible.

Christianity, Politics, and the Predicament of Evil
Christianity, Politics, and the Predicament of Evil

Author: Bradley B. Burroughs

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1978700520

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Christianity, Politics, and the Predicament of Evil overcomes a defining divide in contemporary Protestant political ethics created by two contrasting conceptions of politics. The first, exemplified in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, construes politics as a matter of statecraft that utilizes the power of government to secure the greatest possible order and justice for society as a whole. The second, most prominently articulated by Stanley Hauerwas, maintains that politics concerns itself with the cultivation of virtue; consequently, it finds not the “well-ordered state” but the church to be the exemplar of politics. Not only illuminating the divide between politics-as-statecraft and politics-as-soulcraft but also redeveloping the conceptual space between them, this book reconceives politics within a theological framework in which the eschatological City of God, rather than the well-ordered state or the faithful church, functions as the paradigm of political life. At the same time, it simultaneously recognizes that the existence of evil, which corrupts individual wills and social structures, inhibits human beings from building the City of God in this world. Analyzing, criticizing, and drawing resources from Niebuhr and Hauerwas, as well as looking beyond to Augustine, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, this book specifies the respective roles of soulcraft and statecraft in a political ethic capable of guiding Christians as they witness to God’s eschatological intention to establish the City of God in a world currently mired in the predicament of evil.

The Good of Politics (Engaging Culture)
The Good of Politics (Engaging Culture)

Author: James W. Skillen

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2014-03-18

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1441244999

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In this addition to the acclaimed Engaging Culture series, a highly respected author and Christian thinker offers a principled, biblical perspective on engaging political culture as part of one's calling. James Skillen believes that constructive Christian engagement depends on the belief that those made in the image of God are created not only for family life, agriculture, education, science, industry, and the arts but also for building political communities, justly ordered for the common good. He argues that God made us to be royal stewards of public governance from the outset and that the biblical story of God's creation, judgment, and redemption of all things in Jesus Christ has everything to do with politics and government. In this irenic, nonpartisan treatment of an oft-debated topic, Skillen critically assesses current political realities and helps readers view responsibility in the political arena as a crucial dimension of the Christian faith.

Social Selves and Political Reforms
Social Selves and Political Reforms

Author: C. Melissa Snarr

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2007-09-20

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0567026035

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Snarr's book explores and evaluates five different visions of the social self from five key ethicists (Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, Hauerwas, Harrison, and Townes).

Christianity and the Political Order
Christianity and the Political Order

Author: HImes, Kenneth R.

Publisher: Orbis Books

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 1608332969

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“A must-read and indispensable guide for those concerned with the bread-and-butter issues of church-and-state relations. . . .” – Peter C. Phan

“The breadth of historical development, the depth of theological and ethical analysis, and the clarity of thought and expression by Kenneth Himes make Christianity and the Political Order an excellent textbook.” – Charles Curran

Beyond electoral campaigns and government structures, the relationship between the political realm and Christianity has always involved the important questions of how we ought to live together, and how we should organize and govern our common life. As the author notes, politics—and the political choices we make—must be "guided by considerations of national and global justice and peace and, for Christians, by the teachings of Jesus," as interpreted by tradition.
Himes examines the relationship between Christianity and politics from the teachings of the Old and New Testaments through the patristic and medieval eras, and from the age of reform to the age of revolution, and throughout the twentieth century into the third millennium. He takes on questions of the role of the church in politics, responsible voting, concerns of globalization, and issues of human rights and war and peace.
With discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, Christianity and the Political Order is a timely and compelling review of the relationship between Christian faith and the political realm both past and present in a classroom-friendly text.

For the Sake of the World
For the Sake of the World

Author: Jonas Ideström

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1498272088

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The church exists for the sake of the world. The crucial ecclesiological question that this book raises is How? How does the church exist for sake of the world? One can describe the theological reflections in this book as a form of concrete ecclesiology--critical theological reflections on the way the church is manifested in social and historical contexts as a social body. By using concepts like body, queer, human rights, practices, social process, and space, the manifestations of the concrete church are critically and constructively analyzed from a theological perspective. The arguments in the articles were presented at a symposium in Sweden. The purpose of the symposium was not to reach consensus but to stimulate creative and critical discussions concerning theology, politics and the identity of the church with a focus on Church of Sweden. American theologian William T. Cavanaugh, who has made himself known as a distinct voice in the discussion of ecclesiology and politics, participated and contributes with critical and constructive reflections on the relationship between church and state. This book offers important arguments and reflections into the discussion on ecclesiology and politics that has relevance far beyond the Swedish context. Contributors: JONAS IDESTROM, WILLIAM T. CAVANAUGH, ARNE RASMUSSON, HENRIK WIDMARK, GORAN GUNNER, NINNA EDGARDH, ANTJE JACKELEN, and OLA SIGURDSON.