Before Church And State A Study Of Social Order In The Sacramental Kingdom Of St Louis Ix

The prevailing narrative of human history, given to us as children and reinforced constantly through our culture, is the plot of progress. As the narrative goes, we progressed from tyranny to freedom, from superstition to science, from poverty to wealth, from darkness to enlightenment. This is modernity’s origin myth. Out of it, a consensus has emerged: part of human progress is the overcoming of religion, in particular Christianity, and that the world itself is fundamentally secular. In The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics, Andrew Willard Jones rewrites the political history of the West with a new plot, a plot in which Christianity is true, in which human history is Church history. The Two Cities moves through the rise and fall of empires; cycles of corruption and reform; the rise and fall of Christendom; the emergence of new political forms, such as the modern state, and new political ideologies, such as liberalism and socialism; through the horrible destruction of modern warfare; and on to the plight of contemporary Christians. These movements of history are all considered in light of their orientation toward or away from God. The Two Cities advances a theory of Christian politics that is both an explanation of secular politics and a proposal for Christians seeking to navigate today’s most urgent political questions.

For far too long the Bible has been studied as just one among many historical and cultural documents from ancient history. That it is a foundational text for Western civilization is clear. What is too often forgotten or ignored in academic discussions, however, is that the Bible has also inspired the lives of countless saints throughout history; men and women who sought to love God and love neighbor to the point of offering heroic sacrifices, sometimes giving up their very lives. Much of biblical scholarship over the past two centuries, however, has reduced the Bible to a dead historical document with little-to-no relevance for today, beyond intellectual curiosity. This, in part, lies at the root of the tragic separation of theology from biblical studies. That theology and biblical exegesis are at an impasse has become a commonplace in academic discourse. Liturgy and Sacrament, Mystagogy and Martyrdom is an attempt to bridge the gap between theology and exegesis. It seeks to develop a theological interpretation of Scripture relying upon the best of traditional Christian exegesis and modern biblical scholarship, so that the Bible can serve, once again, as the wellspring of Christian life.

Prince Evgenii Trubetskoi (1863-1920), one of Russia's great philosophers, exemplified what was best in the Russian religious-philosophical tradition. His lifelong pursuit was "integral knowledge." This ideal affirmed that faith was integral to reason and that inner experience (moral, religious, aesthetic), and not just external sensory experience, offered truthful testimony to the nature of reality--precisely contrary to the reductive positivism and scientism of Trubetskoi's day and ours. Following Vladimir Soloviev he developed the concept of Bogochelovechestvo (divine humanity)--the free human realization of the divine principle in ourselves and in the world (deification)--and found in it the very meaning of life. Trubetskoi strikingly combined religious philosophy with an unwavering commitment to the main principles of liberalism: human dignity, freedom of conscience, the rule of law (based ultimately on natural law), and human perfectibility (progress). He worked tirelessly for a liberal, constitutional Russia. This is the first book in English devoted to Evgenii Trubetskoi's life and thought. It includes a comprehensive introduction, six chapters on his religious-philosophical worldview, and six chapters on an area of religious studies that he inspired--the philosophy of the icon.

Modern biblical scholarship is often presented as analogous to the hard and natural sciences; its histories present the developmental stages as quasi-scientific discoveries. That image of Bible scholars as neutral scientists in pursuit of truth has persisted for too long. Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. Morrow examines the lesser known history of the development of modern biblical scholarship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This volume seeks partially to fulfill Pope Benedict XVI’s request for a thorough critique of modern biblical criticism by exploring the eighteenth and nineteenth century roots of modern biblical scholarship, situating those scholarly developments in their historical, philosophical, theological, and political contexts. Picking up where Scott W. Hahn and Benjamin Wiker’s Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700 left off, Hahn and Morrow show how biblical scholarship continued along a secularizing trajectory as it found a home in the newly developing Enlightenment universities, where it received government funding. Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900) makes clear why the discipline of modern biblical studies is often so hostile to religious and faith commitments today.

Everyone seems to agree that Western Civilization is in trouble. The problem is that no one agrees on what has gone wrong or what to do about it. Some think we have too much government, some not enough; some think we have too much capitalism, some not enough; some think we have too much sexual freedom, some not enough. But what if the problem is much more fundamental? What if the problem goes to the very foundations of who we are as human beings in relationship with God? In The First Society: The Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order, Scott Hahn makes the startling claim that our society’s ills and its cures are rooted in whether we reject or accept the divine graces made available through the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Man, he argues, is social in his very nature. We were created for community. As it was in the beginning, so it remains today. The family, formed through the Sacrament of Matrimony, is the most basic building block of every society—whether we like it or not. We’ve corrupted marriage, and so we have a corrupt society. If we get marriage right, our society, through God’s grace, will flourish. This is so because Matrimony, like all the sacraments, heals and elevates human nature. Without marriage, our ambitions toward a just social order will remain forever foolhardy. With it, the seemingly impossible, a truly peaceful and humane civilization, becomes possible.

An analysis of the operation and consequences of exchange rate regimes in an era of increasing international interdependence. The exchange rate is sometimes called the most important price in a highly globalized world. A country's choice of its exchange rate regime, between government-managed fixed rates and market-determined floating rates has significant implications for monetary policy, trade, and macroeconomic outcomes, and is the subject of both academic and policy debate. In this book, two leading economists examine the operation and consequences of exchange rate regimes in an era of increasing international interdependence. Michael Klein and Jay Shambaugh focus on the evolution of exchange rate regimes in the modern era, the period since 1973, which followed the Bretton Woods era of 1945–72 and the pre-World War I gold standard era. Klein and Shambaugh offer a comprehensive, integrated treatment of the characteristics of exchange rate regimes and their effects. The book draws on and synthesizes data from the recent wave of empirical research on this topic, and includes new findings that challenge preconceived notions.

This insightful Handbook reviews the key frameworks guiding political scientists and historians of political thought. Comprehensive in scope, it covers historical methodology, traditions, epochs, and classic authors and texts, spanning from ancient Greece until the nineteenth century.