Civil Peace and Sacred Order

by William R. Clark

This book is an ambitious and challenging restatement of traditional political philosophy. The first of a three-volume series, Limits and Renewals , the book is concerned with the nature of political society, particularly with the errors and faulty arguments that have been used to support a
"liberal modernist" view of the state and our political system. Clark argues that political modernism, which is determinedly secular and untraditional, has been a destructive influence on religion and our understanding of community living. In order to secure a decent social order, he contends, we
must rediscover our allegiance to a sacred order that is represented by, for example, family loyalties, a respect for tradition, and attention to the wider interests of the global and historical community.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. This is Williams R.^^Clark.

Reviews

[Zachary Mays · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another gem by Clark. Worth a second read. His books are so packed with references and ideas that I undoubtedly read too quickly and carelessly to take in all the subtleties of his thinking on the first go. Not unlike his more recent book Cities and Thrones and Powers in its concerns. Clark is conservative, but in that idiosyncratic way that I’m conservative, in a vaguely Christian anarchist sense. Clark is reverent of the wisdom of the past, unconcerned with fashionable moral and theological trends, suspicious of the arrogance of powerful forces that seek to own our lives and the world (state, multinational corporation, venture capitalist, revolutionary), respectful of the plurality of human (and non-human, seeing as he is a vegetarian committed to compassion towards animals) community, and informed at the core by a spiritual vision that teaches that “the earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (though Clark quotes Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, indigenous, and above all Classical sources with equal frequency). Much more I could say. I look forward to reading Vols 2 & 3 of Limits and Renewals. Clark’s Neoplatonic Christian worldview has been deeply influential to me and I can’t wait to dive deeper.