Christian thinkers have defined tyranny as the use of power to advance one’s own interests rather than the common good.A tyrant doesn’t have to be particularly powerful. A small-town mayor who manipulates the town council to help herself and her friends is a tyrant, albeit a petty one.A . . . . Continue Reading »
Like Thomas, Erasmus (The Education of a Christian Prince, 27-8) focuses attention on the differences between tyranny and good rule, and like Thomas he follows Aristotles claim that the foundational difference is between devotion to private interests versus devotion to the public good. Like Thomas, . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not a product of the digital world that everyone under thirty seems to take for granted. When I started watching television, we had seven channels. Three of them had bad reception some of the time, and the other four had bad reception most of the time. There was no remote control and the . . . . Continue Reading »
In one of the earliest of the Carolingian specula regiae, Jonas of Orleans (780-842) begins with a Gelasian summary of the relation between king and priest. Bishops are responsible for the spiritual health and salvation of all, including the king, and thus the bishop is higher than the king. Quoting . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 1987 essay in The Review of Politics, Glenn Tinder draws on Pascal, and Tocqueville, to describe what he calls the “diversional welfare state.” By that he means that the welfare state distracts us from what is truly important - God: “the welfare state of today may be . . . . Continue Reading »
Many of the disciples of Menno Simons are pacifists, and many are chary of any use of political power. Menno’s own politics were far more in the mainstream of Christian political thought. Heexhorted magistrates to listen to the demands of God laid out in Scripture. Oppress not the stranger, . . . . Continue Reading »
Good kings should imitate Constantine by preserving true religion and suppressing heresy and schism, argues Jacques Bossuet in his 1679 treatise on Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture(206).Heresy and schism are easy to identify, he thinks. Antiquity is the mark of true religion, . . . . Continue Reading »
Wolterstorff points out (Justice in Love, 71-2) that in Niebuhr’s thought “conflict among self-interested parties was always up front . . . when he thought about justice.” Conflict is the clue that one should “go with justice rather than love” because “lovee is . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m still away from home and still having my linking issues, so here is the link for a Wall Street Journal article on attempts by the Republican establishment to strengthen its position within the party. Read it and come back to me. I’ll wait. . . . . Continue Reading »
Within current political discourse, “rights-talk” is individualist and liberal, while “responsibility” is communitarian. As Wolterstorff points out (Justice in Love,86-7), though, the concept of “rights” is as inherently social as the concept of . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
