Theology And The Soul Of The Liberal State

Introduction
Leonard Kaplan And Charles Cohen
PART ONE – THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT

Chapter 1. Naked In The Public Square: Depth Of Commitment In The Liberal State Today
Lenn E. Goodman
Chapter 2. Social Contract In Modern Jewish Thought: A Theological Critique
David Novak
Chapter 3. Justices Story And Holmes In The Realm Of The “Brooding Omnipresence”
Ann Althouse
Chapter 4. Theology, Society And The Vocation Of The University
Arnold M. Eisen
PART TWO – THEOLOGIES OF THE MARKETPLACE

Chapter 5. St. Augustine, Markets, And The Liberal Polity
Elizabeth Mensch
Chapter 6. When Markets And Gambling Converge
David A. Skeel, Jr.
PART THREE – EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

Chapter 7. A Theological Case For The Liberal Democratic State
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Chapter 8. Preserving The Natural: Karl Barth, The Barmen Declaration: Article V, And Dietrick Bonhoeffer’s Ethics
Carl J. Rasmussen
Chapter 9. Materialism And Transcendence
John Milbank
PART FOUR – ASIAN PERSPECTIVES

Chapter 10. A Jewish And Democratic State: A Normative Perspective
Aviezer Ravitzky
Chapter 11. In The Shadows Of Modernity? Theology And Sovereignty In South Asian Islam
Ayesha Jalal
Chapter 12. A Constitutional Analysis Of The Secularization Of The Tibetan Diaspora: The Role Of The Dalai Lama
Lobsang Sangay
PART FIVE – RELIGION AND TERROR

Chapter 13. Grave Images: Terror And Justice
Regina M. Schwartz
Chapter 14. Compassion, Knowledge And Power: A Tibetan Approach To Politics And Religion
John D. Dunne

Additional Info
Rising calls in both the United States and abroad for theologizing national agendas have renewed examinations about whether liberal states can accommodate such programs without either endangering citizens’ rights or trivializing religious concerns. Conventional wisdom suggests that theology is necessarily unfriendly to the liberal state, but neither philosophical analysis nor empirical argument has convincingly established that conclusion. Examining the problem from a variety of perspectives including law, philosophy, history, political theory, and religious studies, the essays in Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State suggest the possibilities for and limits on what theological reflection might contribute to liberal polities across the globe.

Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State develops these issues under five headings. Part One explores “The Nature of Religious Argument” as it can inflect discussions of public policy, political theory, jurisprudence, and education. Part Two, “Theologies of the Marketplace,” notes that theology can by turns be highly critical, neutral, or even inordinately supportive of market operations. Part Three, “European Perspectives,” reviews and develops arguments from Abraham Kuyper, Karl Barth, and French post-modernists concerning how one might integrate theological discourse into the public sphere. Part Four offers Israel, Pakistan and Tibet as “Asian Perspectives” on how theology may comport with liberalism in recently created states (or, in the last case, a diasporic government-in-exile) where powerful religious constituencies make “secular” civil action extremely problematic. Finally, Part V, “Religion and Terror,” probes the vexed relationship between conceptions of divine and human justice, where the imperatives of theology and state confront each other most nakedly. Collectively, Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State suggests that the liberal state cannot keep theology out of public discourse and may even benefit from its intervention, but that their intersection, if potentially beneficial, is always fraught.

List of Contributors
Ann Althouse; Charles Cohen; John D. Dunne; Arnold M. Eisen; Lenn E. Goodman; Ayesha Jalal; Leonard Kaplan; Elizabeth Mensch; John Milbank; David Novak; Carl J. Rasmussen; Aviezer Ravitzky; Lobsang Sangay; David A. Skeel, Jr.; Nicholas Wolterstorff; Regina M. Schwartz.