Adding Cross to Crown: The Political Significance of Christ's Passion - Softcover

Noll, Mark A.; Bratt, James D.; Stackhouse, Max L.; Skillen, James W.; Lugo, Luis E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801057310 ISBN 13: 9780801057311

Publisher: Baker Pub Group, 1996

Synopsis

Mark Noll explores what difference it might make "for Christians to concentrate on the person and work of Christ when they think about the nature of politics or when they engage in political activity." Noll concludes that the difference could be great indeed. He believes that seasoning images of Christ's kingly rule with images of his suffering on the cross - reminding us that we are only sinners saved by grace - could produce a Christian politics characterized by humility and moderation. "A Christian politics that forgets the cross," Noll writes, "a Christian politics that assumes a godlike stance toward the world, is a Christian politics that has abandoned Christ."
Noll offered these thought-provoking comments in the inaugural Kuyper Lecture, an annual forum on religion and public life sponsored by the Center for Public Justice. Noll's essay and the theologically and historically informed responses of James Bratt, Max Stackhouse, and James Skillen provide an excellent starting point for exploring the proper relationship of cross to crown in Christian politics.

About this title

About the Author

Mark A. Noll is the McManis Professor of Christian Thought and professor of history at Wheaton College.

Reviews

Renowned evangelical historian Mark Noll (The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind) turns his attention to the role of theology in politics in this lecture given at the Center for Public Justice at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. Noll assumes politics is a locus of Christian activity, yet one that has led, in his view, to abuses such as the medieval crusades and the contemporary religious right's assertion that the American way of life is a Christian way of life. Noll argues that the contradictions of the cross should temper the confidence of the crown. As a central symbol of suffering and humility, the life and crucifixion of Jesus bring about the glory of redemption through the humble circumstances of the incarnation. The juncture of the universal (Christian truth) and the particular (history) should guide Christians to measure carefully their scriptural resources against the demands of their times, remembering Luther's insight that salvation lies not in human hands but in God's. Included in this slim volume of recent Protestant thinking on faith and politics are three differing perspectives?by Bratt, Stackhouse and Skillen?on the problems and possibilities of Noll's model of cross and crown as the interpretive key to Christian political praxis.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a lecture and three responses, Noll and three other Evangelical Christian college professors consider how Christians should be involved in politics as Christians. Noll sees too much emphasis upon "the kingly rule of Christ" the divine lord in present Evangelical Christian political activity, eventuating in an authoritarianism that contradicts the man Jesus' example of compassion and humble service. Noll's respondents take issue with several of his points, Max Stackhouse most impressively when he counters Noll's Christ-centered argument with one based upon an evenly balanced trinitarianism. James W. Skillen gives a good sense of one tenor of the whole discussion when he asserts that "seeking the well-being of others, including that of non-Christians, and protecting the rights of the disadvantaged" are essential to Christian politics, and of another when he counsels that Christians should work for a just society yet acknowledge "that final judgment and resurrection are in Christ's hands." A deep and challenging colloquy. Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Baker Pub Group
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801057310
• ISBN 13: 9780801057311
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 95
• Editor: Lugo Luis E.