The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice

by Kathryn Tanner

Overview

How is it that the same Christian beliefs can be used both to bolster an oppressive regime and rally opposition to it? Are there any norms intrinsic to Christian belief that dictate its political import? Delving into the complex aspects of Christian beliefs in their historical, theological, and social diversity, Tanner here offers a rigorous and sustained analysis of the relations of belief to attitudes and action. She centers her analysis on God and Creation and brings a much-needed clarity to notions of hierarchy, transcendence, dualism, and oppression. She constructs a typology of how doctrines can relate to each other, to social systems, and to ethical behavior.

In arguing that Christian beliefs about God and the world can be disengaged from complicity with social forces of reaction and oppression, Tanner discloses the radical potential of Christian beliefs and realigns them with efforts to bring about a just society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800626136
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	09/01/1992
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Kathryn Tanner is Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. She is the author of numerous books, including Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity; Economy of Grace; Theories of Culture; and Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism.

Table of Contents

Preface

Beliefs, Actions, Attitudes

Doubts and Complexities

Beliefs as an Influence on Attitudes and Actions

The Gap between Beliefs and Proposals of Attitude and Action

Bridging the Gap

An Example of Factors at Work

Proper and Improper Attitudes and Actions

A Look Ahead

Self-Critical Cultures and Divine Transcendence

The Possibility of Self-Critical Cultures

Two Types of Culture

Structural Features of the Two Types

Religion and the Two Types of Culture

The Ambiguities of Divine Transcendence

Sociopolitical Critique and Christian Belief

The Doctrine of Creation and Sociopolitical Critique

Sin and Sociopolitical Critique

Despair and the Possibility of Aimless Critique

Christianity's Critical Potential Affirmed

Christian Belief and the Justification of Hierarchy

The Model of an Intradivine Order

Chain-of-Being and Chain-of-Command Justifications of Hierarchy

Hierarchy Based upon Created Differences or a Divine Mandate

The Model of God's Relation to the World

Christian Belief and Respect for Others

The Dialectic of Idolatrous Self-Aggrandizement and Self-Contempt

A Caveat

Respect for Others as Creatures of God

Inferences to Treatment

Rights Possessed by Creatures

Social Consequences

What this Vision of Society Leaves Undecided

Christian Belief and Respect for Difference

Forms of Toleration and a Christian Respect for DifferenceUniversal Standards and the Value of ParticularityIdentity and Difference and Respect for Others as God's Creatures

Social Consequences

Christian Belief and Activism

Nonidolatrous Self-Esteem as Grounds for Activism

Nonidolatrous Self-Esteem and Inclinations to Self-Development

Relative Judgments and Particular Commitments

Activism and the Recognition of Finitude

Conclusion

Index

Editorial Reviews

Tanner (religious studies, Yale) critiques the relationship between theology and political commitments in order ``to show how Christian beliefs about God and the world may be disentangled from a history of use in support of a status quo of injustice and reconstituted as a resource for commitment to progressive social change.'' Tanner grounds her progressive political beliefs in traditional, rather than radical or liberation, theology. She finds traditional theology more open to self-criticism; views of a transcendent God provide correctives that views of an immanent God cannot; and traditional theology does not usurp the place of sociopolitical analysis as revisionist theology sometimes does. Recommended for all seminary and large academic libraries.

Library Journal