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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2009
An increasing concern for the place of religion in global politics in the past decade is reflected in the work of William Cavanaugh, a political theologian coming from the radical orthodox movement of the Roman Catholic tradition. Taking aim at key tropes in international relations, Cavanaugh introduces a strong critique of the legitimacy of the state and against its martial attitude. This review questions the historicity and generalizability of Cavanaugh's analysis. It also challenges Cavanaugh's exaltation of the church from both an internal and external perspective. Finally, it considers the expanded role of the state as compared to Cavanaugh's vision of the martial state. By way of conclusion, it questions the extent to which Cavanaugh provides an alternative to consigning religious groups to civil society or a workable role for Christian engagement with global politics, even though he provides us with a strong critique of the state.
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10 Cavanaugh, “Killing,” 251–54.
11 Ibid., 256.
12 Ibid., 263.
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19 Ibid., 403.
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30 “The Avuncular State,” The Economist, April 8, 2006, 67–69.
31 Along these lines, see Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar and Evans, Peter, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
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35 Jelen and Wilcox use personal choice in the midst of a market of ideas as a template for the operation of religious groups in liberal-democratic societies. They present several case studies in areas throughout the world to support their contention. Jelen, Ted and Wilcox, Clyde, eds., Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few, and the Many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Cox, Robert, “Civil Society at the Turn of the Millennium: Prospects for an Alternative World Order,” Review of International Studies 25 (1999): 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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39 For an excellent exploration of the broader concept of religion as an alternative to the modern international system, see Philpott, “The Challenge of September 11th,” 66–95.
40 Cavanaugh, William T., “Sailing under True Colors: Academic Freedom and the Ecclesially Based University,” in Conflicting Allegiances: The Church-Based University in a Liberal Democratic Society, ed. Budde, Michael L. and Wright, John (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 41–42Google Scholar.
41 Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist, 74ff.
42 Note here that pluralism is used solely in the neoinstitutional sense, rather than the sense of cultural pluralism. A useful study of pluralism as a model as against established churches and strict separation of church and state is provided by Monsma, Stephen V. and Soper, J. Christopher, The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997)Google Scholar. However, Monsma and Soper refer to pluralism as a mode of state neutrality, whereas pluralism as a model of interest representation could be used in a state with or without the application of strict neutrality.
43 Cavanaugh, “A Fire,” 415.
44 Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination, 83.
45 Cavanaugh, “Penance,” 14.
46 Chaplin, Jonathan, “Suspended Communities or Covenanted Communities? Reformed Reflections on the Social Thought of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition, eds. Smith, James K. A. and Olthuis, James H. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 166Google Scholar.
47 Cavanaugh, “A Fire,” 411–12.
48 Cavanaugh, “Killing,” 267.
49 Cavanaugh, Theolopolitical Imagination, 85.
50 Cavanaugh, “A Fire,” 399.
51 Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination, 2–3.
52 “Secularism is the ideology that argues the historical inevitability and progressive nature of secularization everywhere” (Madan, T. N., Modern Myths, Locked Minds [Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998], 5–6Google Scholar).
53 Bull, The Anarchical Society, 255.
