The Contested Public Square
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| Author | : Greg Forster |
| Publisher | : InterVarsity Press |
| Total Pages | : 255 |
| Release | : 2010-02-28 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0830879099 |
Christian thinking about involvement in human government was not born (or born again!) with the latest elections or with the founding of the Moral Majority in 1979. The history of Christian political thinking goes back to the first decades of the church's existence under persecution. Building on biblical foundations, that thinking has developed over time. This book introduces the history of Christian political thought traced out in Western culture--a culture experiencing the dissolution of a long-fought-for consensus around natural law theory. Understanding our current crisis, where there is little agreement and often opposing views about how to maintain both religious freedom and liberal democracy, requires exploring how we got where we are. Greg Forster tells that backstory with deft discernment and clear insight. He offers this retrospective not only to inform but also to point the way beyond the current impasse in the contested public square. Illuminated by sidebars on key moments in history, major figures and questions for further consideration, this book will significantly inform Christian scholars' and students' reading and interpretation of history.
| Author | : Os Guinness |
| Publisher | : InterVarsity Press |
| Total Pages | : 241 |
| Release | : 2013-05-20 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0830895655 |
Recognizing that tyranny takes on secular as well as traditional guises, Os Guinness seeks a return to the first principles of religious and political freedom. Hearkening back to the "soul liberty" of English Puritan Roger Williams, Guinness argues that a society's greatest bulwark against abuse lies in its people's freedom of conscience.
| Author | : Clarke Forsythe |
| Publisher | : ReadHowYouWant.com |
| Total Pages | : 602 |
| Release | : 2010-06 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1458755010 |
With a level-headed voice, leading policy strategist Clarke Forsythe speaks clearly into the fray of political striving. Here he campaigns for a recovery of a rich understanding of the virtue of prudence, and for its application by policymakers and citizens to contemporary public policy. As Forsythe explains, prudence, in its classical sense, is the ability to apply wisdom to right action. In this book he explores the importance of applying the principles of prudence--taking account of limitations in a world of constraints and striving to achieve the greatest measure of justice under current circumstances--to the realm of politics, especially that of bioethics. In particular, Forsythe applies these concepts to the ongoing debate among pro-life advocates regarding gradual versus radical change as the most effective way to achieve political and legislative goals. Drawing on the Bible, philosophy, and the wisdom of historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce, he makes a strong case for a strategy of seeking to achieve the maximal change possible at a given time--or political prudence. As such, it has broad implications for political scientists and strategists both within and beyond the pro-life context.
| Author | : Miroslav Volf |
| Publisher | : Brazos Press |
| Total Pages | : 192 |
| Release | : 2011-08-01 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1441232079 |
Covering such timely issues as witness in a multifaith society and political engagement in a pluralistic world, this compelling book highlights things Christians can do to serve the common good. Now in paperback. Praise for the cloth edition Named one of the "Top 100 Books" and one of the "Top 10 Religion Books" of 2011 by Publishers Weekly "Accessible, wise guidance for people of all faiths."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Highly original. . . . The book deserves a wide audience and is one that will affect its readers well after they have turned the final page."--Christianity Today (5-star review)
| Author | : P. C. Kemeny |
| Publisher | : InterVarsity Press |
| Total Pages | : |
| Release | : 2009-09-20 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0830874747 |
Abortion. Physician-assisted suicide. Same-sex marriages. Embryonic stem-cell research. Poverty. Crime. What is a faithful Christian response? The God of the Bible is unquestionably a God of justice. Yet Christians have had their differences as to how human government and the church should bring about a just social order. Although Christians share many deep and significant theological convictions, differences that threaten to divide them have often surrounded the matter of how the church collectively and Christians individually ought to engage the public square. What is the mission of the church? What is the purpose of human government? How ought they to be related to each other? How should social injustice be redressed? The five noted contributors to this volume answer these questions from within their distinctive Christian theological traditions, as well as responding to the other four positions. Through the presentations and ensuing dialogue we come to see more clearly what the differences are, where their positions overlap and why they diverge. The contributors and the positions taken include Clarke E. Cochran: A Catholic Perspective Derek H. Davis: A Classical Separation Perspective Ronald J. Sider: An Anabaptist Perspective Corwin F. Smidt: A Principled Pluralist Perspective J. Philip Wogaman: A Social Justice Perspective This book will be instructive for anyone seeking to grasp the major Christian alternatives and desiring to pursue a faithful corporate and individual response to the social issues that face us.
| Author | : Richard John Neuhaus |
| Publisher | : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 300 |
| Release | : 1986 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 9780802800800 |
Underlying the many crises in American life, writes Richard John Neuhaus, is a crisis of faith. It is not enough that more people should believe or that those who believe should believe more strongly. Rather, the faith of persons and communities must be more compellingly related to the public arena. "The naked public square"--which results from the exclusion of popular values from the public forum--will almost certainly result in the death of democracy. The great challenge, says Neuhaus, is the reconstruction of a public philosophy that can undergird American life and America's ambiguous place in the world. To be truly democratic and to endure, such a public philosophy must be grounded in values that are based on Judeo-Christian religion. The remedy begins with recognizing that democratic theory and practice, which have in the past often been indifferent or hostile to religion, must now be legitimated in terms compatible with biblical faith. Neuhaus explores the strengths and weaknesses of various sectors of American religion in pursuing this task of critical legitimation. Arguing that America is now engaged in an historic moment of testing, he draws upon Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish thinkers who have in other moments of testing seen that the stakes are very high--for America, for the promise of democratic freedom elsewhere, and possibly for God's purpose in the world. An honest analysis of the situation, says Neuhaus, shatters false polarizations between left and right, liberal and conservative. In a democratic culture, the believer's respect for nonbelievers is not a compromise but a requirement of the believer's faith. Similarly, the democratic rights of those outside the communities of religious faith can be assured only by the inclusion of religiously-grounded values in the common life. The Naked Public Square does not offer yet another partisan program for political of social change. Rather, it offers a deeply disturbing, but finally hopeful, examination of Abraham Lincoln's century-old question--whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
| Author | : Varughese John |
| Publisher | : SAIACS Press |
| Total Pages | : 203 |
| Release | : 2013-11-12 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 8187712317 |
Christians in the Public Square is a collection of essays from the 2nd SAIACS Consultation that took place during November 2011 at SAIACS, Bangalore. The articles are about Christian engagement in the arena where politics and religion, environment and ethics, leadership and education, all collide. Th e authors of these essays come as scholars and practitioners and they address various issues related to the South Asian context from a Christian point of view. The 11 articles featured here include a wide range of topics such as Business as Mission, Christians in Government, Justice and Law, Public Religion, Education, and Environment.
| Author | : Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani |
| Publisher | : Humanities and Public Life |
| Total Pages | : 222 |
| Release | : 2019-01-03 |
| Genre | : Architecture |
| ISBN | : 1609386108 |
Layered SPURA -- Walking the neighborhood -- In practice #1: crisis and teaching -- Three words: community, collaboration, and public -- In practice #2: alternative space -- The next fifty
| Author | : Christine Shepardson |
| Publisher | : University of California Press |
| Total Pages | : 312 |
| Release | : 2019-05-14 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0520303377 |
From constructing new buildings to describing rival-controlled areas as morally and physically dangerous, leaders in late antiquity fundamentally shaped their physical environment and thus the events that unfolded within it. Controlling Contested Places maps the city of Antioch (Antakya, Turkey) through the topographically sensitive vocabulary of cultural geography, demonstrating the critical role played by physical and rhetorical spatial contests during the tumultuous fourth century. Paying close attention to the manipulation of physical places, Christine Shepardson exposes some of the powerful forces that structured the development of religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the late Roman Empire. Theological claims and political support were not the only significant factors in determining which Christian communities gained authority around the Empire. Rather, Antioch’s urban and rural places, far from being an inert backdrop against which events transpired, were ever-shifting sites of, and tools for, the negotiation of power, authority, and religious identity. This book traces the ways in which leaders like John Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Libanius encouraged their audiences to modify their daily behaviors and transform their interpretation of the world (and landscape) around them. Shepardson argues that examples from Antioch were echoed around the Mediterranean world, and similar types of physical and rhetorical manipulations continue to shape the politics of identity and perceptions of religious orthodoxy to this day.
| Author | : Steven D. Smith |
| Publisher | : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 405 |
| Release | : 2018-11-15 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1467451487 |
Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their beliefs in order to participate in public life. This situation is not new, says Steven D. Smith: Christians two thousand years ago faced very similar challenges. Picking up poet T. S. Eliot’s World War II–era thesis that the future of the West would be determined by a contest between Christianity and “modern paganism,” Smith argues in this book that today’s culture wars can be seen as a reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the Roman Empire. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing ideas continue to clash today. All of us, Smith shows, have much to learn by observing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today’s most controversial issues.
