In this freshly updated, comprehensive study, political scientist David Koyzis surveys the key political ideologies of our era, unpacking the worldview issues inherent to each and pointing out essential strengths and weaknesses. Writing with broad international perspective, Koyzis is a sensible guide for Christians working in the public square, culture watchers, and all students of modern political thought.
This is a book about freedom. Above all about the idea that there is often no greater obstacle to freedom than the assumption that it has already been attained. What prison, after all, could be more secure than that deemed to be "the world," where boundaries of action and thought are assumed to define not the limits of the permissible, but the limits of the possible. In the past we have been prisoners of tyrants and dictators, and consequently have needed to win our freedom in very concrete, physical terms. We now need to free ourselves not from a slave ship or a concentration camp, but from many of the illusions fostered in our democratic society. "[A] wise and acute analysis of the way our minds are controlled, not in a totalitarian state, but in a 'democratic' one. Edwards also suggests how we can escape this control in a self-help book which, unlike other books of this genre, connects our inner world of alienation with the world outside."--Howard Zinn "[A] treatise on what freedom truly means.... Burning All Illusions is an important philosophical and psychology text that should be on every political science curriculum reading list!"--Wisconsin Book Watch
In this tightly organized collection of essays, sixteen distinguished political theorists explore Shklar's intellectual legacy, focusing both on her own ideas and on the broad range of issues that most intrigued her. The volume opens with a series of varied and illuminating assessments of Shklar's conception of liberal politics. The second part, with essays on Descartes and Racine, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Laski, emphasizes the relation between individual freedom and moral psychology in modern political thought. The third part addresses contemporary issues, such as the role of hypocrisy, offensive speech, and constitutional courts in liberal democracies. The book concludes with an autobiographical essay by Shklar that provides a vivid sense of her singular voice and personality.
Are all governments—east and west, Muslim and secular, authoritarian and constitutional, Republican and Democratic—fundamentally the same, all of them under the extraordinary, growing power of “technique” and bureaucracy? Is all politics, then, just an illusory affair of lies, deception, propaganda, partisan passions, and chaos on the surface of government and party? In his vast and penetrating writings, Bordeaux sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) points in those directions. Political Illusion and Reality is a collection of twenty-three essays on Ellul’s political thought. Veteran as well as younger Ellul scholars, political leaders, activists, and pastors, discuss aspects of Ellul’s thought as they relate to their own fields of study and political experience. Beginning with his 1936 essay “Fascism, Son of Liberalism,” translated and published here in English for the first time, Ellul and these authors will provoke readers to think some new thoughts about politics and government, and think more deeply about the main issues we face in our politically divided and troubled times.
In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant contemporary version of liberalism, John Kekes challenges political assumptions shared by the majority of people in Western societies. Egalitarianism, as it's widely known, holds that a government ought to treat all citizens with equal consideration. Kekes charges that belief in egalitarianism rests on illusions that prevent people from facing unpleasant truths.Kekes, a major voice in modern political thought, argues that differences among human beings in the areas of morality, reasonability, legality, and citizenship are too important for governance to ignore. In a rigorous criticism of prominent egalitarian thinkers, including Dworkin, Nagel, Nussbaum, Rawls, Raz, and Singer, Kekes charges that their views present a serious threat to both morality and reason. For Kekes, certain "inegalitarian truths" are obvious: people should get what they deserve, those who are good and those who are evil should not be treated as if they had the same moral worth, people should not be denied what they have earned in order to benefit those who have not earned it, and individuals should be held responsible for their actions. His provocative book will compel many readers to question their faith in liberalism.
In recent years, the rise of fundamentalism and a related turn to religion in the humanities have led to a powerful resurgence of interest in the problem of political theology. In a critique of this contemporary fascination with the theological underpinnings of modern politics, Victoria Kahn proposes a return to secularism—whose origins she locates in the art, literature, and political theory of the early modern period—and argues in defense of literature and art as a force for secular liberal culture. Kahn draws on theorists such as Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt and their readings of Shakespeare, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Spinoza to illustrate that the dialogue between these modern and early modern figures can help us rethink the contemporary problem of political theology. Twentieth-century critics, she shows, saw the early modern period as a break from the older form of political theology that entailed the theological legitimization of the state. Rather, the period signaled a new emphasis on a secular notion of human agency and a new preoccupation with the ways art and fiction intersected the terrain of religion.
Most academics agree with Peter Berger that pluralism theory appears more accurate than secularization theory in accounting for the societal changes that accompany modernization. Yet Berger’s earlier book Many Altars of Modernity gives limited attention to the implications of the pluralist paradigm for religious discourse, in particular for evangelicals. According to Berger—who wrote the first chapter in this book—while pluralism leads to less certainty about faith and creates “secular spaces,” it also, more positively, clarifies the importance of trust in God, highlights the nature of religious institutions as voluntary associations rather than birth rights, and challenges Christians to know what they believe in. Subsequent chapters respond to the first. Four responses are theoretical (e.g., challenging the concept of secular spaces, exploring social constructionism) and four are contextual (e.g., describing anti-pluralist forces in India, challenging feminists to pluralism, examining women’s responses to pluralism, and exploring values in Brazil and China). The ideas are easily accessible to the lay reader and are intended to initiate a much-needed conversation about the implications of pluralist theory. We conclude that pluralism is challenging for Christian faith but, as Peter Berger says, in most ways it is “good for you.” With contributions from: Peter Berger Bruce Wearne Roger Olson Paul Brink James Skillen Tal Howard Ruth Groenhout Ruth Melkonian-Hoover Si-Hua Chang Taylor-Marie Funchion
Pastor, politician, and Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian Abraham Kuyper's lectures on the role of Christian faith in politics, science, and art have become a touchstone of contemporary Reformed theology. Revisiting these lectures, Jessica and Robert Joustra bring together theologians, historians, scientists, and others to consider Kuyper's ongoing importance and complex legacy for today.
