Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Not So Private: A Political Theology Of Church And Family, Jana Marguerite Bennett

Jana M. Bennett

The words used to describe that relationship are public and private, words that frequently appear in both secular and Christian conversations about marriage and family. We name "family" and "church" as private matters, parts of life that are necessarily held distinctly from public matters, as in political life. At the same time, because Christians rightly understand family as a place where people learn discipleship and a place where formation and evangelization happen,3 we care very much about how to think about families in relation to church and state. There is a relationship between these three entities, American Christians insist, and …