Theology and Public Philosophy

This volume brings together eminent theologians, philosophers and political theorists to discuss the relevance of theology and theologically grounded moral reflection to contemporary America’s public life and argument. Avoiding the focus on hot-button issues, shrill polemics, and sloganeering that so often dominate discussions of religion and public life, the contributors address such subjects as how religious understandings have shaped the moral landscape of contemporary culture, the possible contributions of theologically-informed argument to contemporary public life, religious and moral discourse in a pluralistic society, and the proper relationship between religion and culture. Indeed, in the conviction that serious conversation about the type of questions being explored in this volume is in short supply today, this volume is organized in a manner designed to foster authentic dialogue. Each of the book’s four sections consists of an original essay by an eminent scholar focusing on a specific aspect of the problem that is the volume’s focus followed by three responses that directly engage its argument or explore the broader problematic it addresses. The volume thus takes the form of a dialogue in which the analyses of four eminent scholars are each engaged by three interlocutors.

Grasso and Castillo have here assembled a “dream team” of eminent thinkers who seek to deepen and enrich our ideas about the role of religion in public life. The result is a consistently lively and engaging volume, with a strong underlying message for the future: The recovery of a viable public philosophy will almost certainly need to find ways to draw on the substantive resources of religious thought and practice if it is to succeed., It’s a rare thing, these days, to find minds capable of untying the knots into which the modern world has tied itself. This book is something rarer still: serious, knot-untying minds in conversation — the kind of conversation that has always been the hallmark of politics and philosophy at their best and most humane., Theology and Public Philosophy is an immeasurably valuable contribution to the ongoing contemporary debate on the role that theology can play in the development of an authentic public philosophy, especially given the theoretical and practical weaknesses of the liberal intellectual tradition and the models of social and political life that flow from within it.

Kenneth L. Grasso is professor of political science at Texas State University-San Marcos.Cecilia Rodriguez Castillo is assistant professor of political science at Texas State University-San Marcos.