Christianity and Liberal Society
Robert Song
Abstract
Liberalism forms the dominant political ideology of the modern world, but despite its pervasive influence, this is the first book-length treatment of liberal political thought from a Christian theological perspective. The book discusses the different aspects and interpretations of liberalism with reference to the critiques of three 20th-century theologians: the American Protestant Reinhold Niebuhr on the liberal progressivist philosophy of history; the lesser-known Canadian George Grant on the threat of technology to fundamental liberal values, as articulated in the recent work of John Rawls; ... More
Liberalism forms the dominant political ideology of the modern world, but despite its pervasive influence, this is the first book-length treatment of liberal political thought from a Christian theological perspective. The book discusses the different aspects and interpretations of liberalism with reference to the critiques of three 20th-century theologians: the American Protestant Reinhold Niebuhr on the liberal progressivist philosophy of history; the lesser-known Canadian George Grant on the threat of technology to fundamental liberal values, as articulated in the recent work of John Rawls; and the French Thomist Jacques Maritain on the defence of political pluralism. Further to this, The book explores the implications of this political theology for the issues in fundamental constitutional theory raised by a bill of rights and judicial review of legislation, and concludes with an account of the critical but supportive stance of liberalism Christian theology should take.
Keywords:
liberalism,
Reinhold Niebuhr,
George Grant,
John Rawls,
Jacques Maritain,
political pluralism,
political theology,
Christian theology
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198269335 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198269335.001.0001 |