Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine

Contributor: George E. Demacopoulos George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is also a Co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He serves as a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and as President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America. He is the author of five monographs and dozens of scholarly articles of the history of Christianity in the premodern period. --- Contributor: Aristotle Papanikolaou Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes.

Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine... boasts contributions from prominent Western figures in political theology, such as Stanley Hauerwas, Eric Gregory and Luke Bretherton. The pieces from this Protestant cast, along with Catholics Mary Doak and J. Bryan Hehir, are all worthy contributions to political theology in their own right. --- Drawing together political theologians, ethicists, and historical theologians, [this] volume creates an encounter between "East" and "West" that addresses some critical questions facing the whole of Christianity. --- This is an encouraging collection which points towards the hope that the resources of the Orthodox tradition may contribute to political theology as they have in other areas, not only through greater confidence in restating the now-ubiquitous ideas of personhood, but in challenging and creative ways. --- The essays in this volume make good on the editors' hopes: they have demonstrated that Orthodoxy has fundamental contributions to make to contemporary political discourse. --- ...deserve[s] wide attention from all theologians and scholars of religion who wish to understand how Orthodoxy is speaking to issues of politics today. --- …by bringing together powerful thinkers from Eastern and Western Christian traditions, [this volume] greatly enriches the growing literature on political theology and shows the promise of such encounters. --- Many of us in the field of political theology are poorer for the lack of conversation most of us experience between Eastern and Western political theologies. Even if we are open and sympathetic to one another—and historically that is a big ‘if’—the traditions are so distinct from one another that few can claim expertise in both, and so we continue to focus narrowly on our own traditions. This volume represents a welcome change to this pattern, opening a conversation between theologians across Eastern and Western traditions on the timely topics of church and state, democracy, and liberalism.---—Elizabeth Phillips, Tutor in Theology and Ethics, Westcott House, Cambridge