The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics,and Human Nature

Divided into two volumes, The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics, and Human Nature offers a landmark collection of writings from twenty Christian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and analyses of their work by leading contemporary religious scholars.With selections from the works of Jacques Maritain, Gustavo Gutierrez, Dorothy Day, Pope John Paul II, Susan B. Anthony, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King Jr., Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Lossky, and others, Volume 2 illustrates the different venues, vectors, and sometimes-conflicting visions of what a Christian understanding of law, politics, and society entails. The collection includes works by popes, pastors, nuns, activists, and theologians writing from within the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian traditions. Addressing racism, totalitarianism, sexism, and other issues, many of the figures in this volume were the victims of church censure, exile, imprisonment, assassination, and death in Nazi concentration camps. These writings amplify the long and diverse tradition of modern Christian social thought and its continuing relevance to contemporary pluralistic societies. The volume speaks to questions regarding the nature and purpose of law and authority, the limits of rule and obedience, the care and nurture of the needy and innocent, the rights and wrongs of war and violence, and the separation of church and state. The historical focus and ecumenical breadth of this collection fills an important scholarly gap and revives the role of Christian social thought in legal and political theory.The first volume of The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law Politics, and Human Nature includes essays by leading contemporary religious scholars, exploring the ideas, influences, and intellectual and cultural contexts of the figures from this volume.

John Witte Jr is the Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and co-director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He has published numerous volumes, including Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation.Frank S. Alexander is interim dean and professor at the Emory School of Law. He is the founder and co-director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.