Description: What if Søren Kierkegaard's rejection of modern politics was not a form of spiritual quietism but of Christian resistance?
Brief description: Christopher B. Barnett is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at Villanova University, USA. He is the author of Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness (2011), From Despair to Faith: The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard (2014), Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology(Bloomsbury, 2019), Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard's Philosophy (2022), Bob Dylan and the Stages of Existence (2023), and his fiction debut Man of Pain: A Novel (Wipf and Stock, 2023). He is also the co-editor of Theology and the Films of Terrence Malick (2016) and Scorsese and Religion (Brill, 2019).
Review Quotes:
"Christopher B. Barnett's new book marks a new step in his characteristically incisive, provocative, and insightful applications of Kierkegaardian thought to contemporary culture. After spirituality, film, technology and Bob Dylan, Barnett now turns to the state and the claims of political theology. In a forceful interpretation of the inherently war-like character of the modern state he draws on Kierkegaard and a trio of twentieth-century figures (Bonhoeffer, Ellul, and Girard) to help shape an apostolic radicalism fit for the twenty-first century. His programmatic statement of what such apostolic radicalism might mean in practice will be sobering reading to those pursuing many of today's theological fashions and a rallying-point for those seeking a faith that means what it says." --George Pattison, Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, UK
"With every passing day, the words of Kierkegaard appear increasingly prophetic, and need to be heard, as a truly Christian critique against the worst abuses of the modern state. As such, the appearance and content of this book is timely and profound; and Barnett, a brilliant and erudite thinker, is just the person to speak the truth of this 'Apostolical Radicalism' to power." --Simon Podmore, Associate Professor at Liverpool Hope University, UK