This study commends the public theology of the English Reformation as a fruitful though neglected resource for a critical analysis of the contradictions of freedom that riddle late-modern liberal democracies and a constructive response to them. Drawn from the key legal, liturgical, homiletic and confessional elements of the English Reformation, this foundational Anglican tradition provides a theological vantage point for understanding current moral and political impasses in the western legacy of natural rights. The extensive development of natural rights in pre-modern scholastic theory and practice and its continuity with theoretical development from the 17th century onward make the Reformers’ criticisms of scholastic moral, political, and ecclesial thought germane to identifying the problematic features of the prevailing modern tradition and to furnishing a theological alternative to them. These features are: an individualistic and voluntarist conception of moral agency, a regulative and juridical orientation to human relationships, and an anthropocentric concentration on human rather than on divine right, judgement, and freedom. The humanity they portray is detached from its created ordering to Christological perfection and bound within a self-enclosed ethical and political self-understanding. This is effectively countered by the English reformers’ presentation of the salvation of creation in Christ, faith working through love, the spiritual fellowship of the church, and the provisional character of political jurisdiction.

lgli/English Public Theology - Joan Lockwood O'Donovan; (1).pdf

lgrsnf/English Public Theology - Joan Lockwood O'Donovan; (1).pdf

Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic

Cassell

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics

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Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Theological Interpretation of Church Tradition
Contemporary Crisis of the English Reformation Tradition and of Liberal Rights Society
A Critical and Constructive Theological Alternative to Modern Liberal Rights
Chapter 1: The Reformation Foundations of English Public Theology
The Laws of Tudor Church Polity
Authorized English Bibles
Books of Common Prayer
Edwardian and Elizabethan Homilies
Forty-Two and Thirty-Nine Articles
Chapter 2: The Reformation Tradition in Crisis
The Church’s Disengagement from the Reformation Tradition
Exclusion of the Reformation Tradition from Political Discussion
Challenges to the Public Status and Functioning of the Church of England
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Diagnosing the Late Modern Polity: The Dynamics of Liberal Natural Rights
The Interrelated Contradictions of Late Modern Society
Clarifying the Contradictions via the History of Modern Natural Rights
Contemporary Political and Legal Ramifications of Liberal Natural Rights
The Scientific-Technological Trajectory of Liberal Natural Rights
The Juridical Cultural Trajectory of Liberal Natural Rights
Which Theological Alternative to Modern Liberal Natural Rights?
Chapter 4: Continuities of the Premodern and Modern Natural Rights Traditions
Canonist Construction of Subjective Natural Right and Permissive Natural Right
Juridical Ecclesiology: Imperial Papalism and Ecclesiastical Corporatism
Formative Rights Theories: Marsilius and Ockham
Evangelical and Naturalist Rights Theories: Wyclif and Gerson
Thematizing Control and Freedom: Summenhart
Toward Legal Assimilation and Overcoming of Natural Right
Political Construction on the Natural Right of Self-Defense
Critical Summary and Reformation Alternative
Chapter 5: The Priority of Soteriology
A Soteriological Approach to the Imago Dei
God’s Accomplished Work of Salvation
Resurrection and Creation, Justification, and Revelation
Toward a Dynamic, Relational, and Christological Imago Dei
Chapter 6: God’s Ongoing Work of Justification: Bringing Sinners to Faith
Aspects of “A True and Lively Faith”
The Single Object of Faith
The Liveliness of Faith
The Certainty of Faith
Assurance, Election, and Predestination
Faith and Moral Action: Toward an Ethic of Dispossession and Repossession
Chapter 7: Scriptural Communication of God’s Word of Salvation
The Sufficiency and Authority of Scripture
The Textual Structure of Scriptural Sufficiency
The Divine and the Human Historical Genesis of the Text
Redemption of Historical Community: Scripture as Divine and Human Tradition
Chapter 8: The Church’s Common Worship Informing the Practice of Faith
The Visible Church as Worshipping Community
Liturgical Forms of Attending to God Speaking
Corporate Worship as Archetypical Obedience to Christ’s Rule
The Sacraments as Faithful Action
Corporate Worship and the Renewal of Faithful Action, Then and Now
The Struggle of Spiritual Worship against Idolatry, Then and Now
Chapter 9: Authority in the Church
Spiritual and Political Authority in the Articles
Tudor Ministerial Orders against Catholic Traditions
Evangelical Ministries in the Liturgies of Ordering
The Reformed Discipline against Tudor Ministerial Orders
Overcoming the Public Hegemony of Political and Technological Rule: The Publicity of Nonjuridical Practices and Authorities
Chapter 10: Political Jurisdiction under God’s Judgment
God’s Ordination of Political Jurisdiction
The Theological and Practical Insufficiency of Political Jurisdiction
Political Authority and the Moral Priority of Obedience
God’s Appointment and Equipment of the Ruler
The Human Constraints on Political Authority
A Theological Alternative to the Western Natural Rights Political Tradition
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

2024-01-08