Begin Your Journey With The Desire Of The Nations: Rediscovering The Roots Of Political Theology Produced By Oliver ODonovan Ready In Physical Edition

someone like James K, A. Smith rewrite this book to make it palatable to the lay reader and it'd be fantastic, Read "The triumph of the Kingdom" for Modern Doctrine, His writing is so dense as to nearly be opaque, Tedious yet incredibly insightful. If you only read chaptersampyou will save alot of time but still glean much, Neither a defense nor a critique of Christendom, but rather a sympathetic understanding of what happened ix, This book by Oliver O'Donovan is a work of systematic Christian political thought, combining Biblical interpretation, historical discussion of the Western political and theological tradition, theoretical construction and critical engagement with contemporary views.
It argues for an alternative to political theology, one that is more politically constructive than the dominant models of the past generation.
Stirring political theology. A stellar exploration of political theology and what the Scripture can and cannot say about the Church and politics, Perhaps the best insight is that "secular" rulers are those that have authority in the saeculum the time between the Ascension and the Second Coming and their authority is ultimately subordinate to Christ's.
.stars. ODonovan writes an apology for Christendom and an indictment on “latemodern liberal society, ” He makes several important contributions to political theology, although he is not equally convincing on each of his claims, Some of his argument seems superimposed and not adequately supported, But overall it is an important book and should be carefully considered,

Our political views need to be shaped more by Scripture and by the rich tradition of political theology that has preceded us and less by the current political climate.
This is exactly what ODonovan seeks to do, And he highlights the importance of this task right from the start: “Theology must be political to be evangelical, ”

. A "totalised" suspicion and criticism has eroded the notion of authority, “Latemodern liberal society” has become skeptical of any political claim and has sought to replace political philosophy with sociology and psychology.
But in modern politics the question of authority cannot be dispensed with so easily, It must be recovered in order to develop a fullyformed political theology, To recover it, we will need "true political concepts", as opposed to structural safeguards,

A. Authority can be recovered by grounding political authority in the reign of God, "A central thesis in what follows is that theology, by developing its account of the reign of God, may recover the ground traditionally held by the notion of authority.
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B. The reign of God and its relation to politics must be understood through our appreciation for Israel within salvation history, It is through Israel that God was making his purposes known to the world, And "the governing principle is the kingly rule of God, expressed in Israels corporate existence and brought to final effect in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
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. Israel's history reveals three foundational “political concepts” and a fourth response which affirms the political structure: Salvation, Judgment, and Possession, and the fourth response is Praise/Worship.
“From these concepts we may derive an orientation of political principle through which the legacy of Israel regulates our own political analysis and deliberation, Yhwhs victory lays hold on our intelligence and claims is still.
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. From these political concepts are derived six theorems to aid in constructing political theology, and these six theorems can be used to reestablish the notion of authority: “The threefold analysis of divine rule as salvation, judgment and possession will provide a framework for exploring the major questions about authority posed by the Western tradition.
The unique covenant of Yhwh and Israel can be seen as a point of discourse from which the nature of all political authority comes into view.
Out of the selfpossession of this people in their relation to God springs the possibility of other peoples' possessing themselves in God.
In this hermeneutic assumption lay the actual continuity between Israel's experience and the Western tradition, In what follows it will be our business to reclaim it from oblivion, "

A. First Theorem: "Political authority arises where power, the execution of right and the perpetuation of tradition are assured together in one coordinated agency.
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B. Second Theorem: "That any regime should actually come to hold authority, and should continue to hold it, is a work of divine providence in history, not a mere accomplishment of the human task of political service.
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C. Third Theorem: "In acknowledging political authority, society proves its political identity, " This corresponds to the fourth concept: praise, All political communities worship somethingit is the human impulse to do so, corporately as well as individually, "Shall we conclude, then, that within every political society there occurs, implicitly, an act of worship of divine rule"

D.
Fourth Theorem: "The authority of a human regime mediates divine authority in a unitary structure, but is subject to the authority of law within the community, which bears independent witness to the divine command.
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E. Fifth Theorem: "the appropriate unifying element in international order is law rather than government, "

F. Sixth Theorem: "the conscience of the individual members of a community is a repository of the moral understanding which shaped it, and may serve to perpetuate it in a crisis of collapsing morale or institution.
It is not a bearer of his own primitive presocial or prepolitical rights that the individual demands the respect of the community, but as the bearer of a social understanding which recalls the formative selfunderstanding fo the community itself.
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. Dual authority and some form of the Two Kingdoms doctrine think Augustine, not Luther or RK serve as a framework for appropriately balancing the political and spiritual realisms of authority.
As the Incarnation comprised two natures, so our existence has two aspects to which the two kingdoms pertain, This unity and duality are necessary "to rediscover politics not as a selfenclosed field of human endeavour but as the theatre of the divine selfdisclosure to rediscover God as the one who exercises rule.
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. In his life, death, and resurrection, Christ executed the office of both mediator of God's rule on earth and representative the right response of God's people.
God's rule on earth must be accounted for in any adequate political theology, "By what right is the term 'political' claimed exclusively for the defense of social structures which refuse the deeper spiritual and cosmic aspirations of mankind.


. . A 'pure' political theory which can make it a matter of intellectual conscience to disinterest itself in the transcendent is not one that any humane thinker need feel guilt about rejecting.
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. Jesus' life and ministry fulfilled and represented the political concepts developed through Israel's historysalvation power, judgment against Israel, possession new giving of the law, and praise.


. The apostolic church proclaimed the events of Christ's life, which establish the pattern for political authority in the Christian age: Advent, Passion, Restoration, Exaltation.


. After the exaltation of Christ, secular authorities are no longer mediators of the rule of God as Israel had been they mediate his judgments only.
This was a weak spot, in my mind, to ODonovans argument, He did not adequately explain why the judicial function is the only remaining role for secular authorities in the new era.
That said, I still agreed with his concluding reflection: “The Messianic age was to be the age of ultimate choices and conflicts, in which the pluriform structures of political mediation would be propelled to a simple decision between two governments: the creative government of the Word of God and the predatory selfdestructive government of human selfrule.
In this age that decision must underlie all other decisions, "

. The church is a political society which reflects the Christevent by gathering Advent, suffering Passion, rejoicing Restoration, and proclaiming Exaltation, "The church represents God's Kingdom by living under its rule, and by welcoming the world under its rule, " The church is the Kingdom of God as it is represented on earth, Though secular earthly kingdoms rise and fall, it shall remain and shall prevail,

. Christendom was an epoch marked not by perfect understanding, but by serious reflection on God's rule on earth, O'Donovan defines Christendom as "the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order, and the history of that idea in practice.
Christendom is an era, an era in which the truth of Christianity was taken to be a truth of secular politics.
" Set as the period "between AD, the date of the Edict of Milan, and, the date of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, though these moments are symbolic only.
" During this time, nations reflected on their raison d'etre in the age of Christ,

. The legacy of Christendom lies in its transferral of certain principles: Freedom Advent, Gathering Community, Gladness in Suffering Passion, Suffering Community, Natural Rights Restoration, Rejoicing Community, Openess of Speech Exaltation, Proclaiming Community.
Its legacy reveals that secular authorities in the Christian era are limited to the judicial act, making public judgments according to God's law.
In the course of the seventeenth century, however, under the influence of contracttheory and individualism of the Enlightenment, an important shift in emphasis occurred in radical political thought: the rulers primary responsibility ceased to be thought of as being to divine law, but rather to the people whose supposed act constituted him.
. . This act of popular will came to be thought of as the source of all law and constitutional order, ”

. Latemodern liberal society has perverted each of these legacies and has "left its father's house and followed the way of the prodigal.
" The acephalous community is now the norm, Profound. The best theology book I've read in years, O'Donovan represents here the grand tradition of Protestant political thought in coherent and persuasive form, Highly recommended. A sort of City of God for the modern era, Difficult as always, deeply scriptural in a way that attempts to take in the whole scope of scripture as a narrative, Christological, and by turns inspiring, frustrating, intriguing, generative as always.
I certainly don't agree with everything O'Donovan suggests in this book but he recovers and defines an argument worth having profitably read in combination with the reader in political theology he edited with his wife.
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