Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship - Hardcover

"Gregory has shaped the parameters of future discussion and offers a compelling argument that must be taken seriously." - Choice "Eric Gregory is the most sophisticated and subtle Christian ethical and political thinker of his generation. He also is a major voice in contemporary discourse on love and justice, freedom, and democracy. His powerful defense of Augustinian civic liberalism is a tour de force!" - Cornel West "A joy to read.... A return to an Augustine that Augustine himself would have recognized." - Christian Century"

Augustine - for all of his influence on Western culture and politics - was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics. "Politics and the Order of Love" will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in public life.