Who Are We? Critical Reflections and Hopeful Possibilities

by Jean Bethke Elshtain

At a time when many despair of culture, this volume offers hope. Jean Bethke Eshtain, one of today's most respected Christian ethicists, finds in the tensions and tragedies of our turn-of-the-century society pointers for recovering the life-affirming essence of what it means to be human.This challenging volume is at once a work of political analysis, cultural criticism, and theological engagement. Elshstain explores the true meaning of personhood and exposes the internal and external trappings that so easily lead us to forgot how to be faithful to something other than ourselves. Tapping the wellsprings of the Christian tradition, Elshtain shows, with the help of exemplars drawn from Christian history, the renewing role of faithfulness and hopefulness in contemporary life.

Elshtain suggests that much of what we rightly interpret as troubling presents fascinating interpretive occasions for Christians, who, of all people, are called to live in hope. She highlights in particular certain aspects of youth culture, taking up popular films like Seven and Titanic and tragedies like the shootings at Columbine High School. What she finds running through all of these are examples of courage and a search for a source of truth and meaning that seems to elude so many.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology

178 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Jean Bethke Elshtain is an American political philosopher. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she has served on the Boards of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the National Humanities Center. She is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received nine honorary degrees. In 2002, Elshtain received the Frank J. Goodnow award, the highest award for distinguished service to the profession given by the American Political Science Association.

The focus of Elshtain's work is an exploration of the relationship between politics and ethics. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013 http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013...

Reviews

[Dan Glover]

This is a theological reflection by a social/political theorist on what it means to be human. The author examines societal ills and longings, moral debates/issues, and cultural trends and pop-culture products and brings them into conversation with Christian theology, mainly as represented by Bonhoeffer and Pope John Paul II (also Augustine and Luther). She examines what it means for humanity to be God's image bearers despite the fact that we are fallen. She looks at modernity as an age which denies humanity's fallenness, and sees the pervasiveness of pride and sloth manifested in a simultaneous desire to be gods unto ourselves (to raise ourselves to God-status), and to shirk our responsibility as creatures given a vocation by our Creator. I don't follow her everywhere in her conclusions (such as her one-sided discussion of the death penalty which takes into account only one side of exegetical discussions and doesn't deal with the overwhelming weight of Christian tradition). Yet the author does an excellent job of discerning not only negative idolatry in the world, but also a pervasive longing and remnants of of the imago dei and a desire for communion with God, each other and creation. Elshtain offers many helpful and key reflections on how to interpret culture to itself, noting that Christians must love that which they desire to redeem - the world - yet in a way in which we don't merely become 'of the world'. She simultaneously maintains a realism about human fallenness alongside a hopefulness about how Christians might bring truth to the culture in ways that resonate with human longings and point people away from their disordered desires toward God.

[Melody]

Reading Pope John Paul II and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Elshtain provides a primer on Christian ethics that discusses the nature of humanity's relationship to God, including our the character of fallenness, the lack of humanity engendered by an economically driven world, and how better understanding our humanity helps us establish a true culture of life.

[Rod]

Better than expected. As always Elshtain shines.