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Assumptions and institutions that we have taken for granted for
fifty years are proving inadequate for the world now emerging.
Moreover, mono-casual explanations of rapid global change do not
work. Religious as well as economic dynamics, cultural as well as
political forces, environmental as well as military constraints,
are frequently working at cross-purposes in shaping a globe we
cannot yet fathom. The essays in this volume reach beyond the mere
description of phenomena to explore deeper currents of
institutional breakdown and competing cultural drives that are
radically reshaping our world. Covering topics ranging from the New
Silk Road to changes in school governance around the world, the
authors offer a critical, historically-informed assessment of the
diverse dynamics that are undermining or nullifying current
paradigms of thought and action. Drawing on their diverse
backgrounds in economics, international affairs, ethics, history,
education, and religion, the authors share the conviction that
long-standing assumptions about a state-centered, secular-tending,
economically converging world are in large measure mistaken. A
paradigm shift is required if we are to understand and
constructively shape the twenty-first century world.
Assumptions and institutions that we have taken for granted for
fifty years are proving inadequate for the world now emerging.
Moreover, mono-casual explanations of rapid global change do not
work. Religious as well as economic dynamics, cultural as well as
political forces, environmental as well as military constraints,
are frequently working at cross-purposes in shaping a globe we
cannot yet fathom. The essays in this volume reach beyond the mere
description of phenomena to explore deeper currents of
institutional breakdown and competing cultural drives that are
radically reshaping our world. Covering topics ranging from the New
Silk Road to changes in school governance around the world, the
authors offer a critical, historically-informed assessment of the
diverse dynamics that are undermining or nullifying current
paradigms of thought and action. Drawing on their diverse
backgrounds in economics, international affairs, ethics, history,
education, and religion, the authors share the conviction that
long-standing assumptions about a state-centered, secular-tending,
economically converging world are in large measure mistaken. A
paradigm shift is required if we are to understand and
constructively shape the twenty-first century world.
Christianity and Civil Society responds to the crisis of American
democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher
Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite
their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common
theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once held to
be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these
institutions-such as the family, neighborhood, church, and civic
associations-one finds a disturbingly reduced socio-political
stage, dominated by an abstract triumvirate of the individual,
state, and market as prime actors. Whether taking their inspiration
from the political theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and papal
encyclicals or from John Calvin and his heirs in the Reformed
traditions, the authors assembled here find the doctrinal resources
of Christianity indispensable to defending the irreducible identity
and value of the social institutions that serve as the connective
tissue of a political community. By drawing upon a treasury of
social thought little known to most Americans, Christianity and
Civil Society offers a fresh vantage point from which to assess the
crisis of our polity as well as the best prospects for its renewal.
The events of 9/11, followed by the Bush administration's actions
in Afghanistan and Iraq, have fueled a new debate about America's
foreign and defense policies in the post-Cold War world. The debate
has produced a torrent of books. This book argues that current
policy making and reactions to terrorism cannot be understood
properly without going back to the roots of America's
civil-religious nationalism as well as to the Muslim roots of
radical Islamism. After setting that stage in Chapters One and Two,
the book goes on in the next three chapters to uncover the
political and religious roots of the modern state, a western
invention now dominant throughout the world. Chapters Six through
Eight focus on the United States-at its founding, in the era of
Woodrow Wilson and World War I, and today, post-9/11. The aim here,
at the core of the book, is to show how a modest, constitutionally
limited state became the carrier of a grandiose, civil-religious,
nationalism (city on a hill; redeemer nation; American
exceptionalism) that accounts for much of the ambivalence of
America's approach to international relations to the present day.
Chapter Nine focuses on contemporary questioning of just war
doctrine, and Chapter Ten argues for a new priority of
international institution building in America's approach to world
affairs.
This is a series of eight essays on diverse public policy concerns
that asks the questions: What does racial justice, or environmental
protection, or family policy look like when approached from a
Christian-democratic perspective? And what about the civil-society
questions of welfare, education, and political participation? The
author, James W. Skillen, argues that the roots of a
Christian-democratic approach are neither liberal nor conservative,
but pluralistic, opening the way to a healthy regard for both
social complexity and government's responsibility to uphold
political community. Published in cooperation with the Center for
Public Justice
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The Problem of Poverty (Paperback)
Abraham Kuyper; Translated by James W. Skillen; Epilogue by Roger D. Henderson
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R322
Discovery Miles 3 220
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The text, translated and introduced by James Skillen, was
originally a speech by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) that opened the
first Christian Social Congress in The Netherlands on 9 November
1891. His words not only illuminate with stark simplicity many of
the enduring problems of poverty, they also bring a strong and
pointed biblical message that has outlived Kuyper's time and place.
Roger Henderson's essay "How Abraham Kuyper Became a Kuyperian" is
included in the appendix.
Should welfare be abolished because it fosters dependency, or
should it be expanded to offer more effective help? Are people poor
due to their own irresponsibility or as a result of social
injustice? Is the key welfare problem non-work or illegitimacy?
Should government help the poor, or is aid a job for the church?
Such polarized questions have hampered the quest for constructive
welfare reform and have left Christians criticizing each other as
mere advocates of a bogus compassion or of a "tough love" that
actually lacks love. This book moves beyond such polarities by
developing a fuller biblical understanding of personhood, the
multiple institutions of society, and the limited yet constructive
responsibilities of government. It argues that assistance should
aim to restore people and institutions to their diverse
responsibilities in a healthy society. For shalom to replace
poverty and social decay, families, churches, schools, government,
and other institutions must each fulfill its own responsibilities.
The topics range from family dysfunction to global economic
restructuring, from constitutional disputes about government
support for faith-based charities to social science's confusion
about causation, and from welfare program changes to policy
initiatives to revitalize civil society.
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