Praying the Kingdom: Towards a Political Spirituality

by Charles Elliott

Praying the Towards a Political Spirituality Elliott, Charles

150 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1985

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Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elliott's book has some fine insights into connecting the individual with political structures and spiritual expression, two areas that most people try to keep far apart. Spirituality has great implications for the structure of society, and how we live our Mondays through Fridays probably has a bigger impact on our spiritual identity that anything that we could do on a Sunday. Elliott's message is that if our prayer life does not have an impact on the status quo, then our spirituality is dead. But at the same time, the instantiation of God's kingdom is not fueled simply by human action-- it develops with or without our help, usually in surprising places. Part of our responsibility as humans is to simply observe and rejoice at the work that God undertakes in our midst. God desires for us to be participants in his plans for the world, and if we are ready to serve, there will be no shortage of opportunities.

[Bernd Stummvoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers spiritual exercises resting on reflexions that are deeply inspired by the bible on the one hand on the other are influenced by south-american theology of liberation - not sharing the readiness of some of these 'extremely left' authors to accept violence as a means of political change! Thus Elliots book is a plead for an active christian life towards a world with better justice. It is a thoroughly reflected guide to an engaged christianity that is not solely focused on personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ but also has sociopolitical context in mind that makes our faith come down to earth and is the proof-ground of our seriousness of our confessions. This book teaches a down to the ground-spirituallity by talking about the 'kingdom of God' - and this is what makes it worthwhile reading it.