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 reduced socio-political stage, dominated by an abstract triumvirate of the individual, state, and market as prime actors. Whether taking their inspiration from the political theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and papal encyclicals or from John Calvin and his heirs in the Reformed traditions, the authors assembled here find the doctrinal resources of Christianity indispensable to defending the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions that serve as the connective tissue of a political community. By drawing upon a treasury of social thought little known to most Americans, Christianity and Civil Society offers a fresh vantage point from which to assess the crisis of our polity as well as the best prospects for its renewal.
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 reduced socio-political stage, dominated by an abstract triumvirate of the individual, state, and market as prime actors. Whether taking their inspiration from the political theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and papal encyclicals or from John Calvin and his heirs in the Reformed traditions, the authors assembled here find the doctrinal resources of Christianity indispensable to defending the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions that serve as the connective tissue of a political community. By drawing upon a treasury of social thought little known to most Americans, Christianity and Civil Society offers a fresh vantage point from which to assess the crisis of our polity as well as the best prospects for its renewal.
Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 Chapter One: "Social Pluralism and Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Doctrine" Chapter 4 Chapter Two: "The Subsidiary State: Society, the State, and the Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought" Chapter 5 Chapter Three: "Civil Society and the State: A Neo-Calvinist Perspective" Chapter 6 Chapter Four: "The Pluralist Philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd" Chapter 7 Chapter Five: "Resources for a New Public Philosophy: The Individual, Civil Society, and the State in Catholic Social Thought" Chapter 8 Chapter Six: "Christian Democracy in America?" Chapter 9 Chapter Seven: "Why Should Washington, D. C. Listen to Rome and Geneva About Public Policy for Civil Society?"
Jeanne Heffernan Schindler is assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions at Villanova University.
Questions 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.
*Theological Studies, December 2009*
One 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.
*J Budziszewski, University of Texas, Austin, and author of What We
Can't Not Know: A Guide*
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