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"What does it mean to love our country? Navigating between the extremes of Christian nationalism and disengagement, Richard Mouw sees healthy patriotism as love of country in the context of Christian love of neighbor. Calling us to build a country where all people can thrive in peace, this guide helps us pave the way toward liberty and justice for all"--

Many thinkers, of whom Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a prominent example, have expressed ambivalence regarding John Calvin's contribution to our understanding of a healthy civic order: while Calvin's political genius is undeniable, he and his followers are also known for intolerant attitudes and practices. Thus the image of "two Calvins" by a recent biographer of the Reformer. In this essay I lay out some relevant tensions in Calvin's political thought, while also identifying underlying themes that were later developed by his followers. Special attention is given to the ways in which the "neo-Calvinist" movement, initiated in the nineteenth century by Abraham Kuyper, both corrected and expanded upon Calvin's theology of public life. It is noted that while Kuyper's thought also influenced the Afrikaners' apartheid ideology, Reformed opponents of apartheid also appealed to elements in Kuyper's theology of public life. Although the results have been mixed, Kuyper and others did demonstrate the ways in which some basic elements of Calvin's thought can be used to address issues that are being given sustained attention today in broad ranging explorations of what makes for a flourishing civil society characterized by a variety of mediating structures. Adapted from the source document.

My comments focus primarily on Harvey Cox's criticisms of the Hartford document, since his comments touch on the major areas in which the document has been criticized. One area has to do wim aesthetic concerns in relation to the style and tone of the affirmation. Cox is especially blunt on these matters, using such words as "flaccid," "dull," "bland," "cliched," and "provincial." There is little to say in response to such charges. Professor John Wisdom once suggested mat all philosophical theses are either true and trivial or false and illuminating; perhaps some simitar principle operates in meology.

Modern theologians no longer explain strange Revelations about the ordinary world but tend to seek strange realms in which those Revelations will be ordinary truths." Thus Ernest Gellner in a parenthetical aside from his controversial attack on recent "linguistic philosophy" in Worth and Things. While his judgment mav apply to much that goes on in- Protestant theology today, there are other contemporary Christians, those who think of themselves as "evangelicals" or traditional "confessionalists." Insisting—to toy with William of Occam's well-known dictum—that worlds are not to be created beyond necessity, evangelicals refuse to accept the "strange realms" proposed by many contemporary theologians.

Intro -- Title Page -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1: Abraham Kuyper's Theology of Discipleship -- Chapter 1: Locating a Framework for Discipleship, 1894-1898 -- Chapter 2: Discipleship in Politics, 1899-1905 -- Part 2: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Theology of Discipleship -- Chapter 3: A Discipleship of Simple Obedience, 1935-1939 -- Chapter 4: Discipleship In and For the World, 1939-1945 -- Part 3: Discipleship for a Better Worldliness -- Chapter 5: Discipleship for the Common Good in Kuyper and Bonhoeffer -- Conclusion: The Culmination of Discipleship -- Bibliography.

I have the opportunity to travel a great deal throughout the country and speak to a cross section of Americans—young and old, black and white, rich and poor. This has afforded me some understanding of what the mood of the country is right now. That mood distresses me because I see there is more frustration and despair than there is happiness and hope. There is more anxiety toward, instead of anticipation of, the future. A recent national survey indicated that for the first time the majority of Americans are not optimistic about the future of this country. They believe that the economic situation is going to worsen, that the crime rate will continue to go up, that more and more citizens will become disaffected.