Description: "The totalitarian state clearly intends to eliminate all those forms of organic community that rival the absolute loyalty of the individual to the state. This god is a jealous god. . . . Mrwczy?ski-Van Allen's diagnosis is therefore no less relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And his proposed cure is no less salutary. He appeals to the work of Grossman and other voices from the East to oppose the idolatry of the deified self with the icon, which opens up a distance in which giving and forgiving can occur. Eastern voices are so helpful because they refuse to quarantine theological questions; the borders between theology, politics, and literature are fluid and porous, because they are all a part of an integrated life. The holism of totalitarianism must be opposed by another kind of holism that replaces the idol with the icon. At the same time, the aspiration of secularism to separate politics from theology, and power from love, must be opposed by a politics based on an opening of human persons to God and to each other, the kind of self-donation found in Grossman, and for Christians, on the Cross."--From the Foreword by William T. Cavanaugh
Brief description:
William T. Cavanaugh is director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology and professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University in Chicago. His areas of specialization are political theology, economic ethics, and ecclesiology. His publications include Field Hospital: The Church's Engagement in Markets, Politics, and Conflict; Migrations of the Holy: Theologies of State and Church; and The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict.