Research Catalog

Title

Caesar's coin revisited : Christians and the limits of government / edited by Michael Cromartie.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Ethics and Public Policy Center ; Grand Rapids, Mich. : Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Cromartie, Michael.

Description

ix, 197 p. ; 23 cm.

Summary

• "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," said Jesus, "and to God the things that are God's." What does this mean in a time and place drastically different from first-century Palestine? As more and more Christians from differing traditions exercise power in the political arena, what theological principles should shape their views of the role of government?
• . Four other scholars - James V. Schall, S.J., Wilfred M. McClay, Max L. Stackhouse, and Glenn Tinder respectively - challenge and affirm these insights in responding essays. Each of the four chapters then ends with a lively discussion in which the eight contributors and a dozen other informed scholars and practitioners exchange views.
• Doug Bandow, speaking from a libertarian perspective, points out that Scripture and tradition offer only guidelines, not a blueprint, for godly government. In his view, "social, moral, and economic matters more properly fall to the Church and other private institutions than to the state."
• Protestant and Catholic scholars of diverse views debate these questions in Caesar's Coin Revisited. From his provocative analysis of the "Caesar's coin" biblical passage (Mark 12:13-17), Luis E. Lugo concludes that while Christians should fulfill appropriate demands of citizenship, they must always remember that governmental authority lies within the all-encompassing sphere of God's authority. Jean Bethke Elshtain argues that because the very nature of "Caesar" has changed in our modern world, we must rethink the "things" that are his. She enhances her insights with an engaging examination of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer's resistance to the Nazis. Kenneth L. Grasso demonstrates that Catholic social thought views the state as having a moral function: to establish social conditions conducive to the common good. He also explores the implications of this social teaching in the economic sphere.

Subject

• Christianity and justice > Congresses
• Christianity and politics > Congresses
• Church and state > Congresses

Genre/Form

Conference papers and proceedings

Note

• Papers presented at a conference sponsored by the Evangelical Studies Project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in May 1995.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-192) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain
• committed to retain

Contents

Caesar's coin and the politics of the kingdom : a pluralist perspective / Luis E. Lugo ; A Catholic response / James V. Schall -- Caesar, sovereignty, and Bonhoeffer / Jean Bethke Elshtain ; A response / Wilfred M. McClay -- Man, society, and the state : a Catholic perspective / Kenneth L. Grasso ; A Protestant response / Max L. Stackhouse -- The necessity of limited government / Doug Bandow ; A response / Glenn Tinder.

ISBN

080284202X (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^96005063^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library