Christianity And Civil Society
Christianity and Civil Society responds to the crisis of American democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once held to be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these institutions—such as the family, neighborhood, church, and civic associations—one finds a disturbingly...
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A work of contemporary Christian political thought, this volume addresses the crisis of modern democracy evident in the decline of the institutions of civil society and their theoretical justification. Drawing upon a rich store of social and political reflection found in the Catholic and Neo-Calvinist traditions, the essays mount a robust defense of the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions_family, neighborhood, church, civic association_that serve as the connective tissue of a political community.
Acknowledgments viiForeword Jean Bethke Elshtain ixIntroduction Jeanne Heffernan Schindler 1Social Pluralism and Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Doctrine Russell Hittinger 11The Subsidiary State: Society, the State and the Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought Kenneth L. Grasso 31Civil Society and The State: A Neo-Calvinist Perspective Jonathan Chaplin 67The Pluralist Philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd James W. Skillen 97Resources for a New Public Philosophy: The Individual, Civil Society, and the State in Catholic Social Thought Jeanne Heffernan Schindler 115Christian Democracy in America? Timothy Sherratt 137Why Should Washington, DC, Listen to Rome and Geneva About Public Policy for Civil Society? Stanley W. Carlson-Thies 165Index 189About the Contributors 197
\ December 2009 Theological StudiesQuestions concerning the place of faith in American civil society have in recent elections assumed a new visibility, and many scholars have enlivened the debate by invoking the aid of institutional religion along with the institutions of family, labor unions, and other mediating entities and relations . . . Here, Schlinder gathers several unabashedly confessional essays that speak usefully to these current debates out of the particularity of Catholic social thought and neo-Calvinism. In their appeals to notions such as the common good, subsidiarity, and sphere sovereignty, the two traditions illustrate the value of attending to specific nonuniversal perspectives in public debates.\ \ \ \ \ J BudziszewskiOne of the big stories of Western social thought is the discovery of civil society—the growing appreciation of the fact that to understand the relationship between the individual and the state we have to understand the vast social ecosystem between the two poles. Jeanne Schindler's book breaks a second big story: in exploring this human rain forest, Catholic and Protestant thinkers are way ahead of the secular pack.\ \
