Robert Benne elaborates a basic theological-ethical framework for engaging the Christian vision with its surrounding public environment-political, ethical, cultural, and intellectual. He assesses the nature and challenge of Christian public policy at the dawn of the twenty-first century, defines his paradoxical vision and its legacy in modern America, and then describes practical ways in which religious traditions do, in fact, engage the public environment.

Theologian and ethicist Robert Benne addresses the Christian life in its religious and moral dimensions by writing about the vocation of the Christian in daily life. With clarity and authority, he discusses Christian identity, the call of God, moral development, and marriage and family life, among other topics. This fully revised edition includes a study guide for use in classrooms and church study groups.

In this book, Benne describes and analyzes the wrong ways to relate religion and politics and offers a better way.
Benne calls the two main bad ways of relating religion and politics separationism and fusionism. Secular separationists decry all involvement of religion in politics; religious separationists, on the other hand, advocate abstaining from politics in the name of religious purity. Fusionism comes in many types, but the type that most concerns Benne is the use of religionin this case Christianityfor political ends, which turns religion into an instrument for purposes other than its own main reason for being. Rejecting these bad ways of relating religion and politics, Benne offers a better way that he calls critical engagement which derives from the Lutheran tradition, with a few tweaks to adapt the tradition to deal well with the new challenges of our present situation.
As Benne points out, The question is not so much whether American religion will have political effects. It most definitely will. The more serious questions are: Should it? How should it? In this book, Benne offers a clear and useful guide to a subject too often characterized by confusion and loud rhetoric.

Learn to think deeply about the relationship between church and state in a way that goes beyond mere policy debates and current campaigns. Few topics can grab headlines and stir passions quite like politics, especially when the church is involved. Considering the attention that many Christian parachurch groups, churches, and individual believers give to politics--and of the varying and sometimes divergent political ideals and aims among them--Five Views on the Church and Politics provides a helpful breakdown of the possible Christian approaches to political involvement. General Editor Amy Black brings together five top-notch political theologians in the book, each representing one of the five key political traditions within Christianity: Anabaptist (Separationist: the most limited possible Christian involvement in politics) - represented by Thomas Heilke Lutheran (Paradoxical: strong separation of church and state) - represented by Robert Benne Black Church (Prophetic: the church's mission is to be a voice for communal reform) - represented by Bruce Fields Reformed (Transformationist: emphasizes God's sovereignty over all things, including churches and governments) - represented by James K. A. Smith Catholic (Synthetic: encouragement of political participation as a means to further the common good of all people) - represented by J. Brian Benestad Each author addresses his tradition's theological distinctives, the role of government, the place of individual Christian participation in government and politics, and how churches should (or should not) address political questions. Responses by each contributor to opposing views will highlight key areas of difference and disagreement. Thorough and even-handed, Five Views on the Church and Politics will enable readers to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the most significant Christian views on political engagement and to draw their own, informed conclusions.

Many colleges with historical church ties experience significant tension between the desire to compete in the secularised world of higher education and the desire to remain connected to their religious commitments and communities. In this history of one such school, Roanoke College, Robert Benne not only explores the school's 175-year tradition of educational excellence but also lays bare its complicated and ongoing relationship with its religious heritage. Benne examines the vision of ten of Roanoke's presidents and how those visions played out in college life. As he tells the college's story, Benne points to specific strengths and weaknesses of Roanoke's strategies for keeping the soul in higher education and elaborates what other Christian colleges can learn from Roanoke's long quest.

Seeing is Believing demonstrates that serious dramatic films usually express deeply-running visions of life, designated as Christian, Greek, American or skeptical. The author provides a narrative analysis that investigates these "deep structures," the mythic elements embedded in the films, while paying close attention to the comprehensive meaning of the whole film, not just the themes or implications that may be identified in the film's discrete parts. His analysis introduces a new and exciting method of film interpretation that developed succinctly through a narrative style that shows how the concepts are applied to films, relying more on understanding than memorization. The author also includes appendices that list effective questions for use in discussing movies, and a list of movies that work well with the book's method of analysis.