A Grammar of Christian Faith

Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine

Joe R. Jones

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Seminar on Political Theology

This section contains the syllabus and some other writings provided for and produced by a Seminar in Political Theology taught in the spring semester of 2006 at Yale Divinity School by Joe R. Jones, then Visiting Professor of Theology.

[I apologize for my inability to retain all of the original formatting of documents that appear in this section. Please indulge me.]

1. Course Syllabus Outline of course purpose, topics, readings, and requirements.

2. Orienting Notes Notes by Jones orienting the class to central concepts and issues of the course.

3. Dialectic between Church and World. Excerpt from A Grammar of Christian Faith, pp. 47-52.

4. Church, Politics, War, and Pacifism. Excerpts from the Introduction to On Being the Church of Jesus Christ in Tumultuous Times [2005]

5. Further Notes on the Church and Political Theology.

6. Select Student Essays: The nineteen students taking the course for credit were required to write an final essay on a topic of their choice that was germane to the class discussions and readings.All of the essays were uniformly outstanding and were an edifying pleasure to me. Were space not a consideration, on the basis of merit all could be included herein. However, some have been selected as especially insightful and provocative on their topics.All of the essays included were submitted in May 2006 and have only been slightly altered for reasons of formatting and clarity for posting on this site.The students retain copyright to their essays. While I have obviously commented on each student's essay in grading them, the essays here stand on their own and are not to be considered as representative of my thinking and writing, except where I am explicitly quoted. Insofar as a reader might desire to contact a student author and insofar as their future addresses will vary from today's, the reader may contact me to inquire about how a student might be reached by e-mail. For reasons of formatting for this site, all footnotes in the essays have been converted into endnotes and put at the end of the essay. Bracketed numbers in the text refer to these endnotes. Am I confident that readers will find the careful and passionate thinking conveyed in these essays stimulating, informative, and a blessing. Posted here 2/24/07.

Timothy M. Hiller, Human Rights and the Mission of the Church: An Examination of Moltmann's Case.

Ben M. Dillon, The Right Not to Remain Silent: Defining the Church's Relation to the Modern Liberal Nation-State.

Rakesh Peter Dass, Church and World in Karl Barth and Joe R. Jones: A Critical Exploration.

R. Chase Skorburg, Civic Solidarity and Catholic Social Thought: A Critique of Hauerwas.

Mary C. Moorman, Confronting the Household Gods: The Church's Revision of the Family as the 'Basic Political Unit'.

Robert Canaan Harris, On Being the Church in America: A Critique of American Empire and Its Ideology of Democracy.