Griffin's panexperientialism as perennial philosophy -- Stengers on Whitehead on God -- Rawlsian political liberalism and process thought -- Hartshorne, the process concept of God, and pacifism -- Butler and grievable lives -- Wordsworth, Whitehead, and the romantic reaction.

Since its enactment in AD 313, the Edict of Milan, an edict that freed Christianity from empire-wide persecution, Constantine’s declaration has received a significant amount of attention within Christendom. Most of the discussion has centered on Constantine’s conversion, the precursor to the actual edict, with many suggesting that Constantine was acting more as a politician than a Christian. While this line of inquiry is legitimate, perhaps a better approach to the question may be more helpful to present-day Christians. That is, (...) while it is logical to deduce that every prudent politician will ignore the largest religious movement in his/her time at his/her own peril, Christians of every age will be better served if they critically evaluate their reception of each and every major policy that is clearly aimed at their benefit. With this background, this paper will attempt to critically examine the reception of Constantine’s edict by the Church in the years immediately following its enactment. Two early exhibits will be brought to bear here: the Donatist controversy and the Arian controversy. In so doing, the thesis that while Christians had every reason to celebrate the enactment of the edict, down the road, an uncritical adoption of the emperor’s policies and favors towards the church opened a door for an unhealthy marriage between earthly powers and the church that proved detrimental in the ensuing years, will be defended. As such, the Church’s reception of the Edict of Milan continues to be a lesson to Christians of every age in their relationship with the political leadership of their time. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Nicholas Boyle, this paper argues that postmodernism represents the intellectual style we should expect as part of developing global capitalist regimes. Accordingly, I argue that postmodernism is not a friend but an enemy to Christianity just to the extent the former tempts us to lose our history. In that respect, the challenge of postmodernism is no different than the challenge of modernity. It becomes the Christian task now to narrate modernity and postmodernity on our own (...) terms rather than those offered by the postmodernists. But for Christianity to be capable of such narration, it must rediscover in its own life the significance of the church which is capable of surviving in a world which is in many ways quite accurately described as postmodern. (shrink)

In his landmark monograph, "The Politics of Jesus", John Howard Yoder challenged mainstream Christian social ethics by arguing that the New Testament account of Jesus's founding of a messianic community entails a normative politics, not only for early Christianity but for the contemporary church. This challenge is further elaborated in several important posthumous publications, especially "Preface to Theology", in which Yoder examines the development of early Christology with attention to its political and ethical implications, and "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited", Yoder's (...) proposal for a renewed Jewish-Christian dialogue around the moral meaning of messianism. This article interprets these writings with reference to a range of critical scholarship on and about Yoder, Yoder and Augustine, and Jewish and Christian messianism, paying particular attention to questions of political ethics. (shrink)