Stephen Pickard, Theological Foundations for Collaborative Ministry (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) 248 pp. £17.99. ISBN: 978-0-7546-6835-0 (pbk)

The ‘return of religion’ in the public sphere and the emergence of postsecular societies have propelled the discourse of political theology into the centre of contemporary democratic theory. This situation calls forth the question addressed in this book: Is a democratic political theology possible? Carl Schmitt first developed the idea of the Christian theological foundations of modern legal and political concepts in order to criticize the secular basis of liberal democracy. He employed political theology to argue for the continued legitimacy of the absolute sovereignty of the state against the claims raised by pluralist and globalized civil society. This book shows how, after Schmitt, some of the main political theorists of the 20th century, from Jacques Maritain to Jürgen Habermas, sought to establish an affirmative connection between Christian political theology, popular sovereignty, and the legitimacy of democratic government. In so doing, the political representation of God in the world was no longer placed in the hands of hierarchical and sovereign lieutenants (Church, Empire, Nation), but in a series of democratic institutions, practices and conceptions like direct representation, constitutionalism, universal human rights, and public reason that reject the primacy of sovereignty.

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Collaborative Ministry and Its Pastoral Consequences

Contact ◽

10.1080/13520806.1989.11758644 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 100 (1) ◽

pp. 25-27

Author(s):

Denis Gardiner

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Ministry

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Theological Foundations for Modern Science?

Dialogue ◽

10.1017/s0012217300017091 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 36 (3) ◽

pp. 597-606 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Catherine Wilson

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Positive Relationship ◽

Natural Philosophy ◽

Modern Science ◽

Philosophical Foundations ◽

Theology And Science ◽

Theological Foundations ◽

Recent Collection ◽

Scientific Imagination

It is often said that philosophy in the seventeenth century returned from a Christian otherworldliness to a pagan engagement, theoretically and practically, with material nature. This process is often described as one of secularization, and the splitting off of science from natural philosophy and metaphysics is a traditional figure in accounts of the emergence of the modern. At the same time, the historiographical assumption that early modern science had religious and philosophical foundations has informed such classics as E. A. Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1932), Gerd Buchdahl's Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (1969), and Amos Funkenstein's Theology and the Scientific Imagination (1986). A recent collection testifies to continuing interest in the theme of a positive relationship between theology and science.

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Family as Domestic Church: Developmental Trajectory, Legitimacy, and Problems of Appropriation

Theological Studies ◽

10.1177/004056390506600305 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 66 (3) ◽

pp. 592-604 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Joseph C. Atkinson

Keyword(s):

Vatican Ii ◽

Developmental Trajectory ◽

Domestic Church ◽

The Family ◽

Theological Foundations

[The identity of the family as the domestic church is not self-evident yet it has sustained serious theological development since Vatican II. The question is whether or not the trajectory it has followed has always been legitimate. With greater acceptance, the problems of authentic appropriation have emerged. This essay will examine the trajectory which the domestic church has taken, its theological foundations, its seminal emergence at Vatican II, and the ecclesial and christological axes that have been proposed as constitutive of its nature.]

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