Good & bad ways to think about religion & politics

"There is nothing greater than indignation to stimulate a writer to write," says Robert Benne, "and my outrage has been stirred mightily by reading so many wrongheaded 'takes' on how religion and politics ought to be related." Benne's anger has compelled him to present this clear argument for a more reasonable approach to the inevitable relationship between religion and politics. Secularists may call for a complete separation of church and state; left- and right-wing Christians alike may zealously (though often unintentionally) fuse them together -- but neither approach really works. Benne's alternative -- "critical engagement" -- encourages church bodies and individual believers to step beyond the confusion and noisy rhetoric. He offers practical help in identifying core Christian convictions, deciding which of these can and should influence public policy, and translating those convictions into political action.

Publisher: Eerdmans
Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9780802863645

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Robert Benne is Jordan Trexler Professor Emeritus at Roanoke College and founder of the Benne Center for Religion and Society. His other books include Good and Bad Ways to Think about Religion and Politics and Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions.

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"Although this is a small book, it is packed with real insight. Benne wisely navigates between several extremes while always mindful that, though the Christian is a citizen of two kingdoms, it is in only one of them that he can find the eternal source of all that could possibly be good and true in the other." Francis J. Beckwith, Baylor University