Two Types of Recent Christian Political Thought

Abstract

W A f HEN THE HISTORY of the political thought of the twentieth century is written, one of the most striking intellectual developments likely to be noted is the renaissance of Christian speculation which has occurred since the end of the First World War. The dream of the most militant secularist of the nineteenth century, Auguste Comte, that theology, and, indeed, metaphysics, would be surpassed and replaced by science in the analysis of the human condition has not been fulfilled. The ugly facts of war and totalitarianism have, at least for a time, shaken the faith of those who believed in an immanentist, automatic Progress. Sensitive men of large intellect have been driven to resume the quest for meaning and ultimate value in a world of chaos and disorder. Under such circumstances Christian theology has, after long neglect, gradually been reassuming its formerly prominent place among the intellectual disciplines. And the political implications of Christian theology have come under particularly close scrutiny, considering that the crisis of our age has revealed itself most clearly in the widespread disintegration of political institutions. The purpose of the present essay is to identify two major types of recent and contemporary Christian political speculation, relating each of them to its underlying theological orientation. Christian political thought is not monolithic; its message is not clear and unambiguous. Within the fold there exist fundamental divergences of viewpoint on the question of God's relation to man, and these differences of a theological nature nourish disagreements respecting the problem of man's relation to man in the human community that is seen to exist under the judgment of God.