Christianity and Contemporary Politics, by Luke Bretherton

I'll be giving Christianity and Con­temporary Politics to my graduate students and others seeking to become authors and academics. It is a model of the kind of book a scholar should be looking to write.

Its first merit is the author's choice of subject. How should the church position itself in 21st-century civil society between the twin behemoths of the market and the state? This is no abstract theme. For a host of reasons—not least of them expense—the ubiquitous hand of government-administered welfare is currently out of fashion and is not considered sustainable. It is deemed much cheaper and more effective to harness the local wisdom of organizations that operate closer to the ground—notably churches.

This may be good—or at least affordable—for government, but is it good for churches? Luke Bretherton, convener of the Faith and Public Policy Forum at King's College London, has serious and well-grounded reservations. These questions lie at the heart of the legacy of New Labour in the U.K. and of conservative thinker Marvin Olasky in the U.S. If anyone doubts that this is a timely—indeed, urgent—subject for theological inquiry, I humbly suggest that they haven't been paying attention, or at least they haven't been considering what salvation means in social terms in North Atlantic societies lately.