Thomas Paine is a legendary Anglo-American political icon: a passionate, plain-speaking, relentlessly controversial, revolutionary campaigner, whose writings captured the zeitgeist of the two most significant political events of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. Though widely acknowledged by historians as one of the most important and influential pamphleteers, rhetoricians, polemicists and political actors of his age, the philosophical content of his writing has nevertheless been almost entirely ignored. This book takes Paine's political philosophy seriously. It explores his views concerning a number of perennial issues in modern political thought including the grounds for, and limits to, political obligation; the nature of representative democracy; the justification for private property ownership; international relations; and the relationship between secular liberalism and religion. It shows that Paine offers a historically and philosophically distinct accou
Dr Savage seeks to understand the apostle Paul's apparently contradictory description of his ministry in 2 Corinthians as one in which power is manifested through weakness: 'When I am weak, then I am strong!' This paradox becomes intelligible when it is understood that Paul's critics were influenced by a perspective which was the exact opposite of his: they imbibed the self-exalting outlook of their contemporary world, while he embraced the self-emptying gospel of Christ. Drawing from archaeological data on first-century Corinth, this study is unique in establishing both the secular underpinnings of Paul's paradoxical language and the devastating critique which that language offers on the general outlook of the first century. Paul emerges as a radical foil to the spirit of the age.
An account of the role of millennial thinking in the age of the American Revolution, this book demonstrates the popularity and diffusion of millennial expectations among several types of American Protestants by the middle of the eighteenth century and illuminates the way these hopes shaped the understanding of the Revolution and the symbolic meaning of the new nation. Unlike most previous works, this study extends well beyond the social and geographic perimeters of the New England clergy and is based on a wide range of secular as well as religious literature. The book not only sheds light on the role of religion in the American Revolution, but it also surveys an important facet of the intellectual history of the early Republic. Analysing the interplay of millennial, republican and Enlightenment ideas about the future, the author reveals both complementary and contradictory themes in American thought of an older cultural tradition of millennialism while at the same time tracing variatio
This ambitious account of skepticism's effects on major authors of England's Golden Age shows how key philosophical problems inspired literary innovations in poetry and prose. When figures like Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert of Cherbury, Cavendish, Marvell and Milton question theories of language, degrees of knowledge and belief, and dwell on the uncertainties of perception, they forever change English literature, ushering it into a secular mode. While tracing a narrative arc from medieval nominalism to late seventeenth-century taste, the book explores the aesthetic pleasures and political quandaries induced by skeptical doubt. It also incorporates modern philosophical views of skepticism: those of Stanley Cavell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Roland Barthes, and Hans Blumenberg, among others. The book thus contributes to interdisciplinary studies of philosophy and literature as well as to current debates about skepticism as a secularizing force, fostering civil liberties and religious fr
The Delphic Oracle was where, according to Greek tradition, Apollo would speak through his priestesses. This work explores the importance placed on consultations at Delphi by Athenians in the city's age of democracy. It demonstrates the extent to which concern to do the will of the gods affected Athenian politics, challenging the notion that Athenian democracy may be seen as a model for modern secular democratic constitutions. All the known consultations of the oracle by Athens in the period before 300 BC are examined, and descriptions of consultations found in Attic tragedy and comedy are discussed. This work provides a new account of how the Delphic oracle functioned and presents a thorough analysis of the relationship between the Athenians and the oracle, making it essential reading both for students of the oracle itself and of Athenian democracy.
Can civil war ever be overcome? Can a better order come into being? This book explores how the Roman civil wars of the first century BCE laid the template for addressing perennially urgent questions. The Roman Republic's collapse and Augustus' new Empire have remained ideological battlegrounds to this day. Integrative and disintegrative readings begun in antiquity (Vergil and Lucan) have left their mark on answers given by Christians (Augustine), secular republicans (Victor Hugo), and disillusioned satirists (Michel Houellebecq) alike. France's self-understanding as a new Rome – republican during the Revolution, imperial under successive Napoleons – makes it a special case in the Roman tradition. The same story returns repeatedly. A golden age of restoration glimmers on the horizon, but comes in the guise of a decadent, oriental empire that reintroduces and exposes everything already wrong under the defunct republic. Central to the price of social order is patriarchy's need to subjugat
In seminal works ranging from Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create possible ways of being, both as individuals and as a society. In his new book setting forth d
Bad news first: everyone is born lost. Now the good news: Jesus saves! Simple enough. But today’s secular and new age optimism blinds many to the reality that we need a Savior. And even some who come
Why, in our supposedly secular age, does the Bible feature prominently in so many influential and innovative works of contemporary U.S. literature? More pointedly, why would a book indelibly allied wi
The Caliph Al-Muntasir was the eighth Shi'ite Isma'ili Fatimid Caliph, making him both the Isma'ili Imam and secular ruler of a vast empire when he came to power in 1036 at the age of 7. Although he r
Drawing on case studies of spiritual belief from mainstream to New Age, primarily UK scholars address the role of religion in collective and individual identities in a secular, postmodern, post-9/11 B
