Christianity and Politics Quotes

“Zeus, gives voice to the democratic political vision of Athens: I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the State.[6]”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“The political theorist Anthony Marx, now president of Amherst College, has provided a compelling set of reasons. Marx writes that we have been trained to forget the true history: Elites have purposefully encoded or advocated such selective amnesia. In the aftermath of religious wars in France, in 1570 the King’s Edict of Saint-Germain declares: ‘First, that the remembrance of all things past on both parts, for and since the beginning of the troubles . . . shall remain as wholly quenched and appeased, as things that never happened.’”[13]”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“Machiavelli’s redefinition of virtue and his redeployment of virtue in relation to the state makes war a natural condition for the strong state that is seeking greatness and glory.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“We often think of Christendom as medieval, but here at the dawn of the early modern state, we find that “Christendom” is a new idea “employing religion” for its own purposes.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“As monarchs began centralizing their power in a new way, they harnessed growth through early capitalism to extend their empire through the spread of markets, direct rule, collection of revenues, and the provision of armed forces to protect those states and their markets.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“The Eucharist is the mysterious or “sacramental” logic that knits participants into the one body of Christ (“There is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” Eph 4:4-6).”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“In Augustine’s view, it is not we who make Christ’s Body mystically present, incorporating him into our bodies, but it is Christ who makes humanity whole by incorporating us into himself, calling human beings into a new communion through this sacramental bond.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“So if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the apostle telling the faithful, You, though, are the body of Christ and its members (1 Cor 12:27). So if it’s you that are the body of Christ and its members, it’s the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the lord’s table; what you receive is the mystery that means you . . . Be what you can see, and receive what you are.[7]”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“In one sense, Augustine “invented” the idea that the state performs a modest ordering function in the lives of human beings; it exists to serve the common good of human society, not the other way round.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“Whether or not Constantine’s conversion to Chris-tianity was sincere, the Edict of Milan was a savvy political strategy.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“The early Christians threatened the empire not by withholding their vote or by raging against Roman political sins. They simply lived a form of communal life that revealed the limits of the political order, and that was revolutionary enough.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“Roman authorities killed many early Christians because they would not say “Caesar is Lord” (whether this meant “king” or “God” to the Romans does not matter). They could not say “Caesar was Lord” because that was simply not true within the new language for politics they had been given in a communion that professed that “Jesus was Lord” to “the glory of God the Father.”[6] They were all certainly willing, as their Lord had told them, to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,”[7] but none of the early Christian martyrs took Christ’s words to mean that they could render the kind of allegiance to Caesar that was being asked of them, nor could they separate themselves from the communion of love they enjoyed in Christ’s body.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“At seeing Lucretia, Sextus Tarquinius, one of the sons of the king of Rome (Tarquin the Proud), was captured by her beauty and virtue. Livy says that at that moment he plotted to have her, “inflamed by the beauty and exemplary purity of Lucretia.”[8]”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“The conclusion is that the politics that truly liberates humanity is the politics that is truthfully ordered to the city of God.”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History

“When we place hand on heart to say the pledge of allegiance, what sort of act is this? What sort of allegiance are we giving to what sort of political body? What sort of solidarity do we feel when, especially after some great national sacrifice (soldiers coming home from war, or an event like 9/11), we see the flag hung on every porch, every storefront window, and every suit lapel? Is the flag like a sacrament of our national communion with one another? Why do we make theological claims on our national currency? Why does trusting God become a recipe for trust in our currency markets? What claims about human beings and human community are being made in such small acts?”
― C. C. Pecknold, Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History