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Title: The Contested Public Square: The Crisis of Christianity and Politics By: Greg Forster Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 280 Vendor: IVP Academic Publication Date: 2008 | Dimensions: 9.00 X 6.00 (inches) Weight: 15 ounces ISBN: 083082880X ISBN-13: 9780830828807 Stock No: WW828807 |
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.
Greg Forster (Ph.D., Yale University) is director of the Program in American History, Economics Religion in the Kern Family Foundation. He is the author of John Locke's Politics of Moral Consensus (Cambridge University Press) and has contributed to several scholarly journals. He is also a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
"This is a learned and lucid exploration of the origins, development and contemporary state of the political ideas of natural law, church and state, and religious toleration. To understand how the public square became what it is today, Forster's book follows the twists and turns in the triumphs and disappointments of these political ideas in Western civilization. By concentrating on certain Christian themes and thinkers in a sweeping historical analysis, Forster's The Contested Public Square provides a much-needed correction for the introductory study of Western political theory." Lee Trepanier, associate professor, Saginaw Valley State University
"This book is an astonishing achievement. With a mastery of the historical material and a keen appreciation of the changing forms of the problem through the centuries, Dr. Forster illuminates for Christians and others the present crisis of public virtue and just government." Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief, First Things
"This is a good introduction to the history of Christian political thought---and not just for evangelical readers. In the author's own words: 'I could not explain Madison without explaining Luther; I could not explain Luther without explaining Aquinas; and I could not explain Aquinas without explaining Augustine, Peter, Paul, Aristotle and Plato.' Well-done!" Michael Novak, author of On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding
"The Contested Public Square is a comprehensive and readable history of Western political thought that gives particular attention to the influence of Christianity. A major theme is the importance of natural law for the development of ideas of religious freedom, constitutionalism and human rights. Students and teachers of political theory will be particularly interested in Professor Forster's controversial but convincing argument that Augustine, William of Ockham, Luther and Calvin were natural law thinkers." Paul E. Sigmund, professor of politics, Princeton University
"A quarter-century after Richard John Neuhaus's Naked Public Square, Greg Forster has given readers a guide in The Contested Public Square: The Crisis of Christianity and Politics. Like Neuhaus, Forster has documented the decline of natural law thinking. But beyond that declension, Forster offers an ambitious survey of the rise of Christian political thought from its inception some two millennia ago to its present 'crisis.'" Jeffry H. Morrison, associate professor of government, Regent University
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.
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