6.2 Pasewark & Paul (1999)
Pasewark, Kyle A. and Paul, Garrett E. (1999) The Emphatic Christian Center: Reforming Christian Political Practice. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Quick Look
Authors Kyle Pasewark and Garrett Paul are both graduates of the University of Chicago. Pasewark received his Ph.D. in Christian Theology, in 1991 and Paul received his in Christian Theology in 1971. Pasewark was a professor for seven years in several liberal arts colleges, and published three books as well as numerous articles and reviews. Shifting fields, he received at J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001, practiced law at Debovoise & Plimpton LLP, one of the nation's and the world's leading law firms, and is currently leading Advise-In Solutions, a company he founded to help law school applicants and students. Paul has been Professor of Religion at Gustvas Adolphus College since 1983. He also is published widely. While neither is much known outside academic circles, both studied with the more widely influential Langdon Gilkey at Chicago University. |
This Resource’s Key Interpretations and Insights Related to the Purposes of This Website
This is an excellent resource for showing how the public square playing field is leveled now for both religious and
secular witnesses, since in our postmodern world there is no such thing as a universal reason that grounds the latter, making it more reasonable.
This is the second book I've chosen to review in this section, because it has strong arguments for these key elements of a healthy postmodern centrist understanding of faith & politics:
This is an excellent resource for showing how the public square playing field is leveled now for both religious and
secular witnesses, since in our postmodern world there is no such thing as a universal reason that grounds the latter, making it more reasonable.
This is the second book I've chosen to review in this section, because it has strong arguments for these key elements of a healthy postmodern centrist understanding of faith & politics:
- a promotion of principled centrism vs. vacuous centrism
- a detailed position on the idea that healthy faith & politics need each other in order to fulfill their their own purposes
- a commitment to deep pluralism vs. destructive relativism
- a powerful critique of the commonly held reductionist view that all power, by its very nature, is dominating power
Quotes From Text
To achieve their goals, Pasewark and Paul divided this book among an unusual combination of three very different, but related, tasks: “to provide a theological analysis of American culture, a theologically based political perspective (the emphatic Christian center), and an elucidation of some of the Christian center’s practical commitments.” (p. 7)
To achieve their goals, Pasewark and Paul divided this book among an unusual combination of three very different, but related, tasks: “to provide a theological analysis of American culture, a theologically based political perspective (the emphatic Christian center), and an elucidation of some of the Christian center’s practical commitments.” (p. 7)
Endorsements
This extensive quote from the beginning of a review of the book by Gary Dorrien (the author of 6.1 The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective) shows its relevance for our topic:
“THE MIDDLE GROUND, treasured as the key to every election, has dubious associations. Words such as opportunistic, lukewarm, compromising and vacuous cling to it. Populist political commentator Jim Hightower observes that the middle of the road is home to yellow stripes and dead armadillos. Revelation 3:15-26 observes more ominously, ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’
This extensive quote from the beginning of a review of the book by Gary Dorrien (the author of 6.1 The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective) shows its relevance for our topic:
“THE MIDDLE GROUND, treasured as the key to every election, has dubious associations. Words such as opportunistic, lukewarm, compromising and vacuous cling to it. Populist political commentator Jim Hightower observes that the middle of the road is home to yellow stripes and dead armadillos. Revelation 3:15-26 observes more ominously, ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’
“Kyle A. Pasewark and Garrett E. Paul are middle-grounders who take such warning to heart. Pasewark, a student at Yale Law School, has been a theology professor at several liberal arts schools; Paul is a religion professor at Gustavus Adolphus College. Both are Lutheran moderates who call for a different kind of centrism from the hollow, spineless, opportunistic and, above all, vacuous middle ground that they perceive in contemporary American politics and religion. They are not the kind of centrists who won’t defend their own side in an argument. Neither do they argue, in the mode of former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm or the late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, for an energetic form of middle-ground accommodationism. Rather, they vigorously argue for a centered Christian ethic that asserts its rightful place in the public square and affirms the attainment of power as a social good.
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“The Emphatic Christian Center began as a 1994 CHRISTIAN CENTURY article that bemoaned the polarization of American politics and religion, especially as evidenced by Newt Gingrich’s then-ascendent ‘Contract with America.’ But shortly after that, extremism fell out of fashion. Americans quickly grew tired of the politics of polarization. This could have been a good thing, the authors observe, but polarization gave way to an exhaustion and apathy which set the stage for the re-election of President Clinton, the epitome of vacuous-center opportunism.”
~ Gary Dorrien, The Christian Century magazine book review, 5/24/2000, p. 618 (see the links to this entire resource and my Highlights page devoted to it in Section 5. In-Depth Scholarly Foundations) (under construction)
~ Gary Dorrien, The Christian Century magazine book review, 5/24/2000, p. 618 (see the links to this entire resource and my Highlights page devoted to it in Section 5. In-Depth Scholarly Foundations) (under construction)
Click the link to go to my Detailed Review PDF
for this resource. (Forthcoming) |
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