1st Edition

Deity and Domination Images of God and the State in the 19th and 20th Centuries

By David Nicholls Copyright 1989
    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    `Religion and politics are necessarily related', declared Ronald Reagan, while addressing an ecumenical prayer breakfast of 17,000 people in Dallas. But how are they connected? Many popular images of God - King, Lord, and Judge - are essentially political, while concepts of might, majesty, dominion, and power are used of both God and the state.
    This ambitious and original work explores the relations between these images and their political context through the analogy between divine and civil government, and considers what images of God may legitimately be employed by Christians in the twentieth century. David Nicholls suggests that religious conceptions have often affected political thinking - theological rhetoric, child of political experience, may also be mother of political change.
    Drawing upon politics, theology, history, sociology, anthropology, and literary criticism, this important new book will be essential reading for all concerned with the relation between Christianity and politics.

    Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Welfare God and Paternal State I; Chapter 3 Welfare God and paternal state II; Chapter 4 No King But Caesar: Sovereign God and Total State; Chapter 5 Federal Politics and Finite God: Images of God in United States Theology; Chapter 6 Impassible God and Autarkic State; Chapter 7 Atheists and anarchists; Chapter 8 Conclusion;

    Biography

    David Nicholls