Synopses & Reviews
Two of today's leading experts on the Christian political tradition plumb significant moments in premodern Christian political thought, using them in original and adventurous ways to clarify, criticize, and redirect contemporary political perspectives and discussions. Drawing on the Bible and the Western history of ideas, Oliver and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan explore key Christian voices on "the political" -- political action, political institutions, and political society. Covered here are Bonaventure, Thomas, Ockham, Wycliff, Erasmus, Luther, Grotius, Barth, Ramsey, and key modern papal encyclicals. The authors' discussion takes them across a wide range of political concerns, from economics and personal freedom to liberal democracy and the nature of statehood. Ultimately, these insightful essays point to political judgment as the strength of the past theological tradition and its eclipse as the weakness of present political thought.
Table of Contents
History and Politics in the Book of Revelation / Oliver O'Donovan -- The Political Thought of City of God 19 / Oliver O'Donovan -- Christian Platonism and Non-proprietary Community / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- The Theological Economics of Medieval Usury Theory / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- The Christian Pedagogy and Ethics of Erasmus / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- The Challenge and the Promise of Proto-modern Political Thought / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- The Justice of Assignment and Subjective Rights in Grotius / Oliver O'Donovan -- Government as Judgment / Oliver O'Donovan -- Subsidiarity and Political Authority in Theological Perspective / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- Karl Barth and Paul Ramsey's "Uses of Power" / Oliver O'Donovan -- Nation, State, and Civil Society in the Western Biblical Tradition / Joan Lockwood O'Donovan -- The Loss of a Sense of Place / Oliver O'Donovan.