What has Washington to do with Jerusalem? In the raging debates about the relationship between religion and politics, no one has explored the religious benefits and challenges of public engagement for Christian believers - until now. This book defends and details Christian believers' engagement in contemporary pluralistic public life not from the perspective of some neutral 'public', but from the particular perspective of Christian faith, arguing that such engagement enriches both public life and Christian citizens' faith themselves. As such it offers not a 'public theology', but a 'theology of public life', analysing the promise and perils of Christian public engagement, discussing the nature of civic commitment and prophetic critique, and the relation of a loving faith to a liberal politics of justice. Theologically rich, philosophically rigorous, politically, historically and sociologically informed, this book advances contemporary discussion of 'religion and public life' in fundamental ways.
Charles Mathewes is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He spent much of his childhood in Saudi Arabia, and was educated at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago.
He works mostly in theology and ethics, with some attention to religion, politics, society, and culture as well. In 2003 at the age of 34 he was appointed Editor of The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the flagship journal in the field of religious studies, and is the youngest editor ever of that journal, where his tenure ended in 2010. He is also Associate Editor of the forthcoming third edition of the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, and currently serves on the House of Bishops Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church.
He lives with his family outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
