The Family in Christian Social and Political Thought
Brent Waters
Abstract
The book provides a critical and constructive overview of historic and contemporary themes on the family in Christian social and political thought. The principal historic sources examined include Greco-Roman and biblical texts, patristic and medieval literature, and selected Reformation, Puritan, and 19th century authors. The development of modern liberal thought on marriage and family is subjected to extensive scrutiny by surveying the works of some of its leading founders, proponents, and contemporary critics, including a range of Christian theological responses. The chief weakness of late l ... More
The book provides a critical and constructive overview of historic and contemporary themes on the family in Christian social and political thought. The principal historic sources examined include Greco-Roman and biblical texts, patristic and medieval literature, and selected Reformation, Puritan, and 19th century authors. The development of modern liberal thought on marriage and family is subjected to extensive scrutiny by surveying the works of some of its leading founders, proponents, and contemporary critics, including a range of Christian theological responses. The chief weakness of late liberalism is that it promotes a voluntaristic vision of civil society, which portrays human associations solely as the outcome of the corporate will of autonomous individuals. The central constructive argument of the book is that such a vision has effectively eroded an understanding of the family as the most basic and natural form of human association, thereby diminishing contemporary Christian social and political thought. In order to rectify this situation, the philosophical and ideological presuppositions of late liberalism is subjected to critical analysis regarding its understanding of the nature of human associations in general, and the familial association in particular. Building upon this analysis, an alternative set of philosophical, theological, and moral presuppositions are developed, which provide the basis for developing a normative account of the family in opposition to that offered by late liberalism. This alternative account in turn may be used to inform contemporary Christian social and political thought.
Keywords:
civil society,
family,
human associations,
liberalism,
marriage,
moral theory,
political theory,
social theory,
theology
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199271962 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271962.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Brent Waters, author
Director, The Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values, and Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Author Webpage
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