Category: Political Theology
Ideological Politics and the Possibility of Pragmatism
Conor Friedersdorf responds to Ross Douthat’s latest column: Douthat concludes his column by writing that “we need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and...
Mere-O @ Acton U
I’m currently in Grand Rapids, Michigan attending the Acton Institute’s “Acton University”—an annual four-day conference focused, broadly, around two topics: Religion and Liberty. Acton is often pegged as a free-market think-tank, but after two days of discussion, it is evident...
The Defense of the Garden
Peter Leithart: If Adam was posted as guard, then he was supposed to resist. Even in an unfallen world, Adam had to resist evil; my argument in Defending Constantine is that the fall was, among many other things, Adam’s failure to resist....
Blaming Terry Jones
Once you’re done amusing yourself on this lovely Friday afternoon, give Christopher Tollefsen’s interesting argument against Terry Jones’ (the infamous Koran burning pastor) a read. Tollefson’s basic point is that Jones is morally culpable for being lethally reckless, on grounds...
“Civil Societarianism” and the Place of the Church
Erik Kain: I view civil society as inherently cooperative rather than competitive. Whether you view government as a weed or not, privatizing traditionally public services by handing them over or contracting them out to for-profit institutions is a mistake. Picture...
Oliver O’Donovan on the American Political Environment
In light light of Andrew’s excellent interviews with Craig Carter, I thought you all might be interested in an interview with Oliver O’Donovan by the folks over at the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology (may their tribe increase)....
Hunter on the Power of Politics
While rereading To Change the World, I came across this passage, where Hunter almost anticipates my remarks: Some argue that what we need is a redefinition of politics, one that is more capacious and capable of absorbing actions, ideas, and...
Expecting to Change the World
What if political conservatism, properly understood (as it almost never is) not as the propagation of ideology, but as ideology’s negation, naturally avoids James Davison Hunter’s critique of over-politicized Christianity, and, furthermore, absorbs some of Hunter’s best insights? This was,...
Arguing with George William Curtis
I’d never heard of George William Curtis before this past Saturday. A quote of his popped up on my friend’s facebook wall, in what I assume to be a strange way of pepping himself up for the US/Ghana World Cup...
Government according to O’Donovan
I have written plenty about Oliver O’Donovan’s political theology. Or not so much “written” as quoted. In many ways, I’m still in the midst of the long process of digesting his project in a way that allows me to reformulate...