Beyond Suspicion

The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion-the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, the present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant political theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom.

O'Donovan's political theology, written from within the British Anglican tradition, is a bold project in which he attempts to push back the horizons of commonplace secularist politics and open it up theologically, a move that he believes will offer crucial resources for thinking about justice and the common good. A related response is presented by Yoder, who, as an American Mennonite, represents Anabaptism. From this more marginal ecclesial location, Yoder's thought stands both as a challenge to regnant liberal notions of the relation of church and state, and as an important interlocutor for O'Donovan's political theology. Yoder argues that political theology entails a particular kind of focus on the church, where the very shape of the church in the world is a public witness for the world, and not first of all a withdrawal from the world.

The critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, as are their views on the legitimacy of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic Pacifism.

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Beyond Suspicion

The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion-the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, the present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant political theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom.

O'Donovan's political theology, written from within the British Anglican tradition, is a bold project in which he attempts to push back the horizons of commonplace secularist politics and open it up theologically, a move that he believes will offer crucial resources for thinking about justice and the common good. A related response is presented by Yoder, who, as an American Mennonite, represents Anabaptism. From this more marginal ecclesial location, Yoder's thought stands both as a challenge to regnant liberal notions of the relation of church and state, and as an important interlocutor for O'Donovan's political theology. Yoder argues that political theology entails a particular kind of focus on the church, where the very shape of the church in the world is a public witness for the world, and not first of all a withdrawal from the world.

The critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, as are their views on the legitimacy of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic Pacifism.

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Beyond Suspicion

Beyond Suspicion

by Paul G Doerksen
Beyond Suspicion

Beyond Suspicion

by Paul G Doerksen

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Overview

The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion-the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, the present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant political theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom.

O'Donovan's political theology, written from within the British Anglican tradition, is a bold project in which he attempts to push back the horizons of commonplace secularist politics and open it up theologically, a move that he believes will offer crucial resources for thinking about justice and the common good. A related response is presented by Yoder, who, as an American Mennonite, represents Anabaptism. From this more marginal ecclesial location, Yoder's thought stands both as a challenge to regnant liberal notions of the relation of church and state, and as an important interlocutor for O'Donovan's political theology. Yoder argues that political theology entails a particular kind of focus on the church, where the very shape of the church in the world is a public witness for the world, and not first of all a withdrawal from the world.

The critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, as are their views on the legitimacy of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic Pacifism.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781608994397
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date: 01/01/2010
Series: Paternoster Theological Monographs
Pages: 246
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Paul G. Doerksen teaches Christian Theology and Ethics in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and holds a PhD in Western Religious Thought from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Table of Contents

Foreword P. Travis Kroeker xiii

Acknowledgements xv

Introduction 1

Political Theology 7

Chapter 1 "God is King": The Hebrew Scriptures in the Theopolitical Thought of John Howard Yoder Oliver O'Donovan 15

Introduction 15

Reading The Bible: Yoder's Ecclesial Epistemology 17

'Stance' 18

Bible As Story 20

'Biblical Realism' 21

Reading The Bible: O'Donovan's Theological Epistemology 28

Thinking From Scripture 29

The Search For Political Concepts In Scripture 30

The Hebrew Scriptures in Yoder's Theopolitical Thought 36

God As King 36

Ambivalence To The Human Monarchy In Israel 40

The Sad, Tragic Prophet: The Jeremian Shift 42

The Hebrew Scriptures in O'Donovan's Theopolitical Thought 50

God's Kingship As The Basis Of Authority 51

Political Themes Drawn From The Claim That God Is King 53

Juridical Authority And Prophetic Tradition 57

Six Political Theorems For Political Theology 59

Comparative Observations 63

Chapter 2 A Political Rendering of the Claim that Jesus is Lord: Yoder and O'Donovan's Theopolitical Reading of the New Testament 69

Introduction 69

The Logic of Cross and Resurrection 71

The Vindication of the Way of the Cross: Yoder's Logic of Cross and Resurrection 72

The Vindication of Creation: O'Donovan's Logic of Cross and Resurrection 78

The Life, Teaching, and Ministry of Jesus 85

The Politics of Jesus: Yoder on Jesus' Earthly Life, Teaching, and Ministry 86

God's Rule Displayed in Christ: O'Donovan on Jesus' Earthly Life, Teaching, and Ministry 94

Eschatology 98

Yoder: Eschatology and the Powers 99

O'Donovan: Eschatology and the Powers 104

Ecclesiology 108

Yoder: Body Politics 109

O'Donovan: The Church as Political Society 117

Political Authority and the State 119

Yoder: 'No State as Such" 120

O'Donovan: Separate Authorization of Secular Power 123

Jesuology and Christology in Political Theology 126

Chapter 3 The Secular and the Eternal: A Contested Reading of Christendom 128

Introduction 128

Christendom: Great Reversal or Great Tradition? 130

Yoder and the 'Constantinian Shifts' of Christendom 135

O'Donovan and the Temptations of Christendom 139

Yoder's Conflation of Constantinianism and Christendom 141

O'Donovan's View of Christendom as Church on Mission 149

The Visibility of the Church 150

Theology of History 156

Yoder's Apocalyptic Historiography 156

O'Donovan's Contested History 160

Christian Political Responsibility 163

Chapter 4 The Just War Revisited: The Just War Rejected 171

Introduction 171

The Nature of the Disagreement between Yoder's Pacifism and O'Donovan's Just War 172

Judgment and Justice 176

Eschatology 185

Ecclesiology 192

Peace, War, and Responsibility 200

Concluding Reflections on Post-Christendom Christian Political Theology 208

Appendix 217

Bibliography 219

General Index 229

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'This study of O'Donovan and Yoder demonstrates more common ground between them than one might have suspected. Doerksen provides a fair and balanced treatment of the Reformed and Anabaptist theo-political traditions in the two persons of two of those traditions' strongest proponents. It deserves careful reading by anyone interested in social ethics done from outside the dominant traditions of political theology.'
— Craig A. Carter, Professor of Religious Studies
Tyndale University College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

'I often observe if there is any alternative to Yoder it is Oliver O'Donovan. So we are in Doerksen's debt for putting Yoder and O'Donovan in conversation. His careful exposition of these thinkers helps us better see the challenges before the church in the world in which we find ourselves.'
— Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke University Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina

'In this fine, critical analysis of two very different theological ethicists—the Anglican Oliver O'Donovan and the Anabaptist-Mennonite John Howard Yoder—Paul Doerksen rescues 'political theology' from its ideological distortion on the right (fascism), on the left (socialism), and in the centre (liberalism), grounding theo-political ethics squarely in scripture and the church as alternative political community. This is an important contribution to the growing literature in politics and theology, one in which political thought and action are grounded in sound biblical theology.'
— A. James Reimer, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo, and Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario Canada

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