Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

3-2014

Publication Source

Political Theology

Abstract

Prominent theopolitical thinkers of recent decades, including Yoder, Hauerwas and Cavanaugh, have called attention to key ways in which the church loses its identity as a distinctive polis. Constantinian habits of thinking, liberalism’s hostility to traditions (“no story but the story I choose for myself”), and the modern order’s relegation of “religion” to a “private,” over against a “public” sphere, have each been examined in association with the church’s inability to be the church. But what role does the phenomenon of nationalism play in the church’s going astray? This question, coupled with another—‘In what ways is the church itself responsible for going astray from its true identity?’—is at the heart of Braden Anderson’s important study. He strives to display how the formal study of nationalism both builds on and transforms theopolitical thought up to this day, especially by calling attention to internal (including, importantly, scriptural) sources of the distortion of the church’s identity.

Inclusive pages

213-214

ISBN/ISSN

1462-317X

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

The document available for download is the author's accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. Permission documentation is on file. Citation information for the book reviewed:

Braden P. Anderson, Chosen Nation: Scripture Theopolitics and the Project of National Identity. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012. ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-392-2

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Volume

15

Issue

2

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