A Politics of Grace: Hope for Redemption in a Post-Christendom Context

by Christiane Alpers

Overview

Christiane Alpers discusses the contribution and role Christian theology plays in developing of the democratic life in post-Christendom societies. She discusses the three major approaches to this debate – public theology, Radical Orthodoxy, and post-liberal Protestantism – in order to illustrate the shared assumption that such an enhancement should be understood in terms of solving existing political problems.

The volume builds on and combines public theology's aspiration to craft a non-triumphant political theology, fit for a post-Christendom context, Radical Orthodoxy's hesitancy to embrace secularism as neutral centre for present democracies; as well as post-liberalism's Christocentric outlook. Alpers engages with a wide variety of thinkers, such as John Milbank, Graham Ward, John Howard Yoder, Kathryn Tanner and Edward Schillebeeckx; to suggest that a political theology in the post-Christendom context could build on the faith that Christ alone has redeemed the whole world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567679864
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/19/2018
Series:	T&T Clark Studies in Edward Schillebeeckx
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	399 KB

About the Author

Christiane Alpers is Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany
Christiane Alpers is Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1
Public Theology: Solutions for Political Problems in Post-Christendom Societies

Chapter 2
Radical Orthodoxy: A Christian Social Order as Solution to the Political Problems of Post-
Christendom Societies

Chapter 3
Post-liberal Christocentrisms: A Non-Dominating Christianity as Principled Solution to the Problem of Christendom

Chapter 4
Edward Schillebeeckx's Christology of Redemption: A Realistic Grace Optimism despite Political Problems

Chapter 5
Without Promise: A Non-Dominating Political Theology for post-Christendom Societies

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Alpers disrupts received oppositions between church and world by recognizing both grace already given and the distorting power of sin. She provocatively urges Christians not to take on God's work for themselves, but instead to recognize the hope that grace brings to a fallen world and to attend to its signs. An important intervention in both public theology and systematic theology.

This is the best book on Edward Schillebeeckx's theology that I have read. Alpers demonstrates that Schillebeeckx presents a starting point for political theology today, in our secular age, that can stand up against the alternatives on offer. Combining theoretical rigor and theological sophistication, with this book Alpers establishes herself as a leader among her generation of political theologians.

Wide-ranging but sharply focused and clearly argued, this is an important contribution to systematic theology. In a way that few of us manage to do, Alpers takes seriously the significance of the doctrine of sin for the practice of theology itself.

From the Publisher