Budziszewski, Evangelicals in the Public Square

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J. Budziszewski, Evangelicals in the Public Square: Four Formative Voices on Political Thought and Action. Baker, 2006.

Referenced in: Christian Political Theory and Church-State Relations

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

This volume makes a unique contribution by summarizing and evaluating four dominant schools of thought in the mid-to-late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries on the role of the church in public life generally and the relationship between church and state specifically. This has bearing on the way churches engage ministries of social compassion and social justice.

The author assesses the influence of four leading figures: Carl F. H. Henry, Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and John Howard Yoder. Each section is valuable, but for the current day, the most helpful is the piece on Yoder, whose Anabaptist perspectives are forwarded by such notables as Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and Shane Claiborne. Budziszewski evaluates each viewpoint through the insights of natural law (for explanations of this concept, see articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosphy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and a large collection at Acton Institute). These articles do not incorporate the voice of biblical theology, a deficiency remedied in Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited. A good companion to Budziszewski is Kemeny, Church, State, and Public Justice: Five Views, which also surveys the principled pluralist (Abraham Kuyper) and the evangelical Anabaptist (John Howard Yoder) perspectives. The combination of Kemeny and Budziszewski provides broad comparative exposure to the diversity of thought among faith communities on church-and-culture issues.

Publisher’s Product Description

In this work, J. Budziszewski examines evangelical political thought over the past fifty years through four key figures – Carl F. H. Henry, Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and John Howard Yoder – to argue that, in addition to Scripture, the evangelical political movement should be informed by the tradition of natural law. David L. Weeks (Azusa Pacific University) responds on Henry, William Edgar (Westminster Seminary) responds to the Schaeffer section, John Bolt (Calvin Seminary) comments on Kuyper, and Ashley Woodiwiss (Wheaton College) offers remarks on the Yoder portion. Jean Bethke Elshtain (University of Chicago) provides the afterword, summarizing the dialogue and offering her own observations. In addition, the book includes an introduction by Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

About the Author

J. Budziszewski (Ph.D., Yale University) is professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling How to Stay Christian in College, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, and What We Can’t Not Know.

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Church and Culture, Church and State, Political Theology, Social Ministry