A Sound of Sheer Silence

Political theory is one of those disciplines that takes on a very different valence depending on what is going on in our broader social context.  When I was first introduced to political theory in college, in the halcyon late 90s, it felt a little bit frivolous.  Interesting, at least for me, to be sure, but the idea of debating the foundational principles of different forms of government felt like a truly intellectual exercise in a world where it certainly looked like our form of government was on its way to being universal.  Now, in a time when our system feels like it is cracking and in crisis, political theory feels anything but frivolous. Crisis is the origin point of the English tradition of "liberal" political theory that became foundational to the American project, more specifically the English Civil War.  The English Civil War was between an explicitly theocratic insurgency opposed by an, while not exactly "tolerant" at least more broad-minded, establishmen...

Christianity asserts that God is love, and that this assertion reflects a first principle for understanding everything.  In order to make sense of this sentence, we have to have an understanding of what we mean when we say "love," (we also need an understanding of what we mean when we say "God," but let's start with "love").  Here, I would assert that love is fundamentally an action.  Yes, it is associated with feelings or sentiments, but those feelings and sentiments are not really the heart of this concept, I would say.  Love requires one to do something with regard to the one that is loved.  Thus, God is doing something.  But, what is God doing?  Let's hold that question for a moment. The most famous of the parables of the Gospels is probably the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  Someone (in the NRSV translation I use, "a lawyer") asks Jesus "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Jesus directs the lawyer to ...