Political Theory Commons^™

City On A Hill: A Reflection On Christian Ethic And Human Morality, Mayce Combs

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

In John Winthrop’s sermon A Model of Christian Charity (1630), he spoke to his congregation of the mission God had called them to. With the creation of a new blended nation, the only way to be exceptional was to reflect the gospel in policy, action, and foremost thought. Philosophers from ancient times to today acknowledge that an individual is made up of the soul and their body. From the soul, comes thought, reason, empathy, and a connection to a divine being who deciphers what is morally unjust. The body is a sinful, self-seeking vessel that does not have the ability …

Bishops In The Catholic Peace Tradition, Ronald G. Musto

The Journal of Social Encounters

This brief survey takes a historical perspective on the role of Catholic bishops in global peacemaking. Building on my previous work 1 and more recent research, it focuses on the roles of bishop as teacher, ruler, and minister of the sacraments and on the interplay between prophetic protest and institutional authority. It covers the origins of the bishop’s office, the development o f prophetic protest and rule in episcopal peacemaking in the early church and Middle Ages, including the Peace and Truce of God. It then turns to early modern peacemaking and the influence of humanist thinkers on Latin American …

Biblical Principles Of Reform And Regeneration: An Intellectual Framework For Christians Addressing Social Change, Kahlib Fischer

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

This paper seeks to provide Biblical perspective on social and cultural reform. At the time of this writing, much upheaval in the form of a pandemic, race riots, and political protests have manifested both within America and abroad. In turn, these disputes have carried over into conflict within various denominations of the Church itself. This paper will provide some guiding Biblical themes from Scripture that are relevant to these very difficult issues today. It will also address common pitfalls the Church can easily fall into in dealing with these issues, and how these extremes can be avoided.

An Angry Shepherd: Sudanese Bishop Macram Max Gassis, John Ashworth

The Journal of Social Encounters

Bishop Macram Max Gassis is a near-legendary figure in Sudan since he first spoke out against human rights abuses in his country before a committee of the US Congress in 1988. Targeted by the Islamist military dictatorship which ruled Sudan for thirty years, for protesting enslavement, religious oppression, forced starvation and mass murder in Sudan, he lives in exile, bringing help and hope to his persecuted people.

This essay is condensed from the 2021 book by the same author with the same title.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, And The Quest For Justice And Reconciliation, Hak Joon Lee

The Journal of Social Encounters

This paper studies Marin Luther King, Jr.’s and Desmond Tutu’s strivings for justice and reconciliation as the leaders of movements against white racist systems in the US and South Africa. Despite their differences in terms of nationality, age, religious denomination, and geography, the paper demonstrates how King’s and Tutu’s quests were grounded in the distinctive communal ethics informed by their Christian faith and their shared spiritual heritage as African peoples, which emphasize community, the ubiquity of religion, the moral order of the universe, and hopefulness. Contrasting their communal approach to a secular rational ethical approach to justice and peace, the …

Biblical Principles Of Government And Criminal Justice, Kahlib J. Fischer

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

This article formulates a Biblical perspective on government, public policy, and criminal justice. It does so emphasizing themes of covenant, justice, inalienable rights, and proper boundaries and cooperation between Church and State, and other spheres of sovereignty within a society. These themes are predicated upon central tenants of Scripture--the sovereignty of God, the imago dei of all humans, and the and the centrality of the Gospel.

Racism Vs. Social Capital: A Case Study Of Two Majority Black Communities, Bruce W. Strouble

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Several researchers have identified social capital as a means to improve the social sustainability of communities. While there have been many studies investigating the benefits of social capital in homogeneous White communities, few have examined it in Black homogeneous communities. Also, there has been limited research on the influence of racism on social capital in African American communities. In this dissertation a comparative case study was used within a critical race theory framework. The purpose was to explore the role of racial oppression in shaping social capital in majority African American communities. Data were collected from 2 majority Black communities …

Citizen Responsibility For War In Imperfect Democracies, Lisa Rivera

Lisa Rivera

Are individual citizens of imperfect democracies morally responsible for unjust wars waged by their state? Moral responsibility for unjust wars involves both retrospective and social responsibility. Citizens of imperfect democracies are retrospectively responsible when they choose to vote for a leader they know will wage an unjust war. This situation may occur very rarely. For example, US citizens did not have this political option at the outset of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. However, even when citizens are not retrospectively responsible they have the social responsibility to engage in collective action to address the harms unjust war causes.

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …

Citizenship, In The Immigration Context, Matthew J. Lister

All Faculty Scholarship

Many international law scholars have begun to argue that the modern world is experiencing a “decline of citizenship,” and that citizenship is no longer an important normative category. On the contrary, this paper argues that citizenship remains an important category and, consequently, one that implicates considerations of justice. I articulate and defend a “civic” notion of citizenship, one based explicitly on political values rather than shared demographic features like nationality, race, or culture. I use this premise to argue that a just citizenship policy requires some form of both the jus soli (citizenship based on location of birth) and the …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …