Beyond Suspicion

by Doerksen, Paul G.

• ISBN13: 9781608994397
• ISBN10: 1608994392
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub

Summary

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.

Author Biography

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. xiii
Acknowledgements	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Political Theology	p. 7
"God is King": The Hebrew Scriptures in the Theopolitical Thought of	p. 15
Introduction	p. 15
Reading The Bible: Yoder's Ecclesial Epistemology	p. 17
'Stance'	p. 18
Bible As Story	p. 20
'Biblical Realism'	p. 21
Reading The Bible: O'Donovan's Theological Epistemology	p. 28
Thinking From Scripture	p. 29
The Search For Political Concepts In Scripture	p. 30
The Hebrew Scriptures in Yoder's Theopolitical Thought	p. 36
God As King	p. 36
Ambivalence To The Human Monarchy In Israel	p. 40
The Sad, Tragic Prophet: The Jeremian Shift	p. 42
The Hebrew Scriptures in O'Donovan's Theopolitical Thought	p. 50
God's Kingship As The Basis Of Authority	p. 51
Political Themes Drawn From The Claim That God Is King	p. 53
Juridical Authority And Prophetic Tradition	p. 57
Six Political Theorems For Political Theology	p. 59
Comparative Observations	p. 63
A Political Rendering of the Claim that Jesus is Lord: Yoder and O'Donovan's Theopolitical Reading of the New Testament	p. 69
Introduction	p. 69
The Logic of Cross and Resurrection	p. 71
The Vindication of the Way of the Cross: Yoder's Logic of Cross and Resurrection	p. 72
The Vindication of Creation: O'Donovan's Logic of Cross and Resurrection	p. 78
The Life, Teaching, and Ministry of Jesus	p. 85
The Politics of Jesus: Yoder on Jesus' Earthly Life, Teaching, and Ministry	p. 86
God's Rule Displayed in Christ: O'Donovan on Jesus' Earthly Life, Teaching, and Ministry	p. 94
Eschatology	p. 98
Yoder: Eschatology and the Powers	p. 99
O'Donovan: Eschatology and the Powers	p. 104
Ecclesiology	p. 108
Yoder: Body Politics	p. 109
O'Donovan: The Church as Political Society	p. 117
Political Authority and the State	p. 119
Yoder: 'No State as Such"	p. 120
O'Donovan: Separate Authorization of Secular Power	p. 123
Jesuology and Christology in Political Theology	p. 126
The Secular and the Eternal: A Contested Reading of Christendom	p. 128
Introduction	p. 128
Christendom: Great Reversal or Great Tradition?	p. 130
Yoder and the 'Constantinian Shifts' of Christendom	p. 135
O'Donovan and the Temptations of Christendom	p. 139
Yoder's Conflation of Constantinianism and Christendom	p. 141
O'Donovan's View of Christendom as Church on Mission	p. 149
The Visibility of the Church	p. 150
Theology of History	p. 156
Yoder's Apocalyptic Historiography	p. 156
O'Donovan's Contested History	p. 160
Christian Political Responsibility	p. 163
The Just War Revisited: The Just War Rejected	p. 171
Introduction	p. 171
The Nature of the Disagreement between Yoder's Pacifism and O'Donovan's Just War	p. 172
Judgment and Justice	p. 176
Eschatology	p. 185
Ecclesiology	p. 192
Peace, War, and Responsibility	p. 200
Concluding Reflections on Post-Christendom Christian Political Theology	p. 208
Appendix	p. 217
Bibliography	p. 219
General Index	p. 229
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