The Mystical as Political
Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy
Publication Year: 2012
Published by: University of Notre Dame Press
Cover
Title Page, Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
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pp. ix-x
I want first to thank John Witte Jr. and Frank Alexander, co-founding directors of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, for inviting me to be a senior fellow of the center, and to participate in the Christian Jurisprudence II project...
Introduction
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pp. 1-12
The Christian theological notion of theosis, usually translated as deification, is not intuitively associated with political theology. In fact, some might argue that theosis gets in the way of a Christian political theology, as it focuses attention on the individual striving for a mystical, nonhistorical, world-denying...
1. Orthodox Political Theology through the Centuries
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pp. 13-54
It is quite a remarkable fact that in the history of theology in the Christian East, there exists a core and guiding principle that is never challenged within the movement of the tradition: the principle of divine-human communion. This principle may sometimes be ignored, or often under-emphasized, but there...
2. Eucharist or Democracy?
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pp. 55-86
When Roman Catholics immigrated to the United States, it was not at all clear whether they could accept American democracy, together with its separation of church and state, without compromise. Among others, John Courtney Murray emerged to convince Catholics and non-Catholics alike that Western democracy...
3. Personhood and Human Rights
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pp. 87-130
This chapter will continue the immanent critique of the Christian theological assault on modern liberal democracy. The focus will be on the modern liberal notion of human rights, and the theological ground will shift from ecclesiology to theological anthropology, even if the two are theological mutually...
4. Divine-Human Communion and the Common Good
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pp. 131-161
The last two chapters engaged in an immanent critique of Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian attacks against modern liberal democracy and the modern liberal notion of human rights. Taking for granted Orthodox understandings of a eucharistic ecclesiology and relational notions of personhood, I argued...
5. Truth-Telling, Political Forgiveness, and Free Speech
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pp. 163-194
The previous chapters explored the implications of the principle of divine-human communion for Christian thinking on both the form of political community and the performance of Christian politics. Though still anchored in the principle of divine-human communion, this chapter will deal less with the form...
Conclusion
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pp. 195-200
Since the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, the world’s focus has shifted to Islam. There has been much discussion on whether Islam is mutually exclusive with Western liberal democracy. While it seemed that a universal consensus existed, especially after Vatican II, on the compatibility between liberal democracy...
Notes
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pp. 201-226
Index
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pp. 227-238
E-ISBN-13: 9780268089832
E-ISBN-10: 0268089833
Print-ISBN-13: 9780268038960
Print-ISBN-10: 0268038961
Page Count: 232
Illustrations: NA
Publication Year: 2012
