Beyond Suspicion

de Paul G. Doerksen

"The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion--the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, the present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom ... th critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, as are their views of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic pacifism"--Cover.