The Politics of God
Christian Theologies and Social Justice
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The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice
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.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9780800626136
- Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5
- Pages 272
- Publication Date September 1, 1992
Endorsements
"Kathryn Tanner's exceptional analytical skill and theological acumen continue, now in the crucial theological questions of social justice. An acute and important study."
— David Tracy, The Divinity School University of Chicago
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 Difference Universal Standards and the Value of Particularity Identity 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