On the 'Meaning' of Politics

Christos Yannaras is Professor Emeritus at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece.Jonathan Cole is Assistant Director of the Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia.

• ForewordIntroductionTranslator’s noteAcknowledgements1. Reverence and justice2. Necessity and freedom3. Forms of organized co-existence4. Cohesion through coercion5. Leitourgima’s degeneration into office6. Ratio dethrones authority7. The desire for “salvation” dethrones ratio8. The Ecclesia and religion: incompatible modes of existence9. When truth becomes the priority10. Politics: contest or art?11. Shared need as shared truth12. The pre-political character of freedom13. The alignment of the ecclesia of the demos and the ecclesia of the believers14. The exercise of authority as responsible service15. The common roots of democracy, community, and the parish16. The political consequences of the Ecclesia’s religionization17. Religious totalitarianism18. Ideology: the alienation of truth into accuracy19. Societas: the alienation of communion into a partnership20. Religious “salvation” and political individualism21. Materialistic and idealistic utilitarianism22. Politics is not the aim of the Ecclesia; The Ecclesia itself is the aim of politics23. Augustine is Europe24. Political forms of religious individualism25. The Ecclesia’s alienation in confessionalism26. A Trinitarian archetype of politics27. Comprehension is not knowledge