The New Measures

A Theological History of Democratic Practice

Inbunden, Engelska, 2007

AvTed A. Smith

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The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice brings thick cultural history to contemporary debates about religion and democracy. Combining histories of performance, space, institutions, and ideas, this 2007 book tells the story of the 'new measures' that circulated in the religious revivals of the 1820s and '30s and traces the role of these practices in the development of democratic culture in the United States. The book borrows resources from Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno to remember the new measures from an eschatological point of view. That eschatological perspective holds together close empirical studies and explicitly theological hopes. The book's attention to detail moves it beyond abstraction and caricature to a more materialist political theology. And its eschatological hope resists narratives of progress and decline to understand American democracy as both tangled in contradiction and caught up in redemption.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2007-04-30
Mått152 x 229 x 24 mm
Vikt620 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor358
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9780521871310

Tillhör följande kategorier

Kristendom inom Filosofi och religion
Statsskick: demokrati inom Samhälle och politik
Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi

Review of the hardback: 'Democracy can be interpreted by abstract theories but it is lived and practiced by people in specific times and places. Ted Smith's The New Measures is a thought-provoking and fascinating analysis of specific practices of the intersection of American democracy and Christianity. Smith's text joins recent debates in theology and ethics about democracy but adds a historical depth and theoretical specificity that should change the nature as well as the purpose of just debates. And Smith's own theological ability to narrate our historical practices through an eschatological lens allows us to avoid the tired and unsatisfying progress and decline theories of both democracy and Christianity. Ted retrieves the venerable tradition of H. Richard Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr and W. E. B. Dubois in combing history, theology and ethics to make democracy and Christianity still a task before us.' Rebecca Chopp, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, President, Colgate University