Faith, Reason, and Political Life Today

by Dale McConkey (Editor), Michelle E. Brady (Contribution by), Paul A. Cantor University of Virginia (Contribution by), Thomas Darby (Contribution by), Henry T. Edmondson III (Contribution by)

Overview

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics. These tensions are explored through the works of such eminent thinkers as Aristotle, Augustine, and Tocqueville, but the contributors engage a wide variety of texts from popular culture, American literature—Flannery O'Connor receives notable attention—and social theory to create a remarkably comprehensive, if far from harmonious, introduction to political philosphy today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739102220
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	03/21/2001
Series:	Applications of Political Theory
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.26(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Peter Augustine Lawler is Professor of Government at Berry College. Dale McConkey is Associate Professor of Sociology at Berry College. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Sociologist, and the coeditor of Social Structures, Social Capital, and Personal Freedom (with Peter Augustine Lawler, 2000).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Autonomy and Community in Aristotle
Chapter 2 Shakespeare in the Original Klingon: Star Trek and the End of History
Chapter 3 On Spiritual Crisis, Globalization, and Planetary Rule
Chapter 4 Stoics and Christians: Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor on the Moral Contradictions of Southern Culture
Chapter 5 Leo Strauss, America, and the End of History
Chapter 6 End of History 2000
Chapter 7 The Ascent from Modernity: Solzhenitsyn on "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations"
Chapter 8 Trevanian's Shibumi: The Perfect Postmodern Tale
Chapter 9 Aristoteles Revivus: Pierre Manent's Reflections on "The Contemporary Political World"
Chapter 10 A Postmodern Augustinian Recovery of Political Judgment
Chapter 11 Tocqueville, Girard, and the Mystique of Anti-Modernism
Chapter 12 Christianity's Epicurean Temptation: Reflections on Kenneth Craycraft's The American Myth of Religious Freedom
Chapter 13 Flannery O'Connor's Teaching on the Nature of Evil in " The Lame Shall Enter First"

What People are Saying About This

Ann Hartle

Ann Hartle Emory University
Lively, thought-provoking essays on the relevance of Christianity and classical thought to the crisis of modernity and the challenges of postmodernism. The voices of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, de Tocqueville, Solzhenitsyn, Manent, O'Connor, Percy, Murray, and Strauss transcend both secular optimism and pessimism in their encounter with the American identity and Kojeve's end of history.

Editorial Reviews

For the authors in this volume—as it was for Tocqueville and Nietzsche before them—a homogeneously democratic epoch would be one permeated by narcissistic self-satisfaction and moral degradation. Anyone troubled by these unintended byproducts of the democratic age—and hoping to find resources with which to resist them—will relish the serious and sober essays collected in this volume.

First Things

Offers challenging and often brilliant examples of what moral and political reflection must be today, as the history of human striving for meaning seems to be finding its end in the satisfactions of technology.....

Ralph Hancock

Lively, thought-provoking essays on the relevance of Christianity and classical thought to the crisis of modernity and the challenges of postmodernism. The voices of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Tocqueville, Solzhenitsyn, Manent, O'Connor, Percy, Murray, and Strauss transcend both secular optimism and pessimism in their encounter with the American identity and Kojève's "end of history."

Ann Hartle

With the Applications of Political Theory series, professors Peter Lawler and Dale McConkey offer a fine assorttment of essays in two complementary volumes, making a considerable contribution to that dialogue...Together, they constitute an impressive cross-section of research and reflection friendly to saving a place for religion in American politics.

Perspectives On Political Science

With the Applications of Political Theory series, professors Peter Lawler and Dale McConkey offer a fine assorttment of essays in two complementary volumes, making a considerable contribution to that dialogue...Together, they constitute an impressive cross-section of research and reflection friendly to saving a place for religion in American politics.

Perspectives on Political Science

The collection... describe[s] interesting new directions that liberated and pluralistic scholarship can take.... Individual essays... resonate deeply with readers' own academic projects.... There are many good reads here.

American Political Science Review

For the authors in this volume-as it was for Tocqueville and Nietzsche before them-a homogeneously democratic epoch would be one permeated by narcissistic self-satisfaction and moral degradation. Anyone troubled by these unintended byproducts of the democratic age-and hoping to find resources with which to resist them-will relish the serious and sober essays collected in this volume.

Lively, thought-provoking essays on the relevance of Christianity and classical thought to the crisis of modernity and the challenges of postmodernism. The voices of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Tocqueville, Solzhenitsyn, Manent, O'Connor, Percy, Murray, and Strauss transcend both secular optimism and pessimism in their encounter with the American identity and Kojève's "end of history."

Offers challenging and often brilliant examples of what moral and political reflection must be today, as the history of human striving for meaning seems to be finding its end in the satisfactions of technology.

The collection... describe[s] interesting new directions that liberated and pluralistic scholarship can take.... Individual essays... resonate deeply with readers' own academic projects.... There are many good reads here.

With the Applications of Political Theory series, professors Peter Lawler and Dale McConkey offer a fine assorttment of essays in two complementary volumes, making a considerable contribution to that dialogue...Together, they constitute an impressive cross-section of research and reflection friendly to saving a place for religion in American politics.

From the Publisher