For the healing of the nation
Subtitle: a biblical vision
By: Russell Pregeant ; foreword by John B. Cobb Jr
Publisher: Cascade Books
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Eugene, Oregon
Language: eng
Number of pages: 335
ISBN-13: 9781498235396
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Justice; Social conditions; Economics; Biblical teaching; Christianity
Description: For the Healing of the Nation offers a serious look at the social and political climate in the United States from a biblical perspective, emphasizing race and "otherness", economics and the environment, and institutional violence (war and capital punishment). An autobiographical thread traces the journey of a white male coming of age in the mid-twentieth-century Deep South as his evolving faith leads him to painful breaks with inherited values and standard views on controversial issues. Critical not only of both major political parties but also of centrist compromises between Right and Left, Russell Pregeant seeks a "forward" position, which he terms "ecocommunitarian", based on biblical values. His musings touch on both southern and American identities and on the nature of the biblical writings and the ways they should and should not be used in contemporary debates. Central to the entire work are discussions of how idolatrous commitments to a culture's prevalent ideologies obscure the essential demands of.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-335).
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Trembling for my country: a reflection on place; title: Part 1. "Who is my neighbor?" The tragedy of dreams deferred :; title: Prologue to part 1: A little window on a great big world; title: A place reconfigured: memories of the mid-twentieth-century South; title: Lessons learned: reflecting on the times; title: Adjusting the lenses: the Bible, race, and the unity of humankind; title: Ideology against the Bible: a judgment on the past; title: Adorning the tombs of the prophets: assessing the present; title: Reflections on a sugar house: a question of identity; title: Part 2. "The land is mine": justice in the marketplace, justice for the Earth, justice in the forum :; title: Prologue to part 2: Neither the margins nor the middle; title: A miniprimer on biblical economics; title: Applying the principles: biblical economics and political philosophies; title: Torah betrayed: current economics in biblical perspective; title: "And God saw that it was good": the Bible, Earth, and the "American way of life"; title: Vines and fig trees in the "days to come": toward justice, sustainability, and democracy; title: But can we do it? Overcoming the impediments; title: Part 3. "Not with swords' loud clashing": violence, justice, and the commonwealth of God :; title: Prologue to part 3: A lifelong struggle and a stable conviction; title: A complex heritage: the Bible on war, peace, and empire; title: Conquest and imperialism in U.S. history: the four hundred years' war; title: Conquest and imperialism continued: the path to perpetual war; title: Justice untempered, justice denied: courtroom, prison, death row; title: Conclusion: Putting away the idols; title: Epilogue: Jazz, gumbo, the Bible, and God.