Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians
Fifteen propositions for changing Christianity in America.
Christian identity is in moral and political crisis. Lee Camp writes “that one major reason Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke is our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.” Scandalous Witness provides a way forward. Although refusing to reduce Christianity to any partisan agenda, he reminds us that the gospel is inherently political and that we are called to be political witnesses.
Camp’s provocative diagnosis is that “American hope” is a corrupted form of Christian hope. The United States is not the hope of the world nor is it a Christian nation. Rather, “American Christian values” corrupts Christianity, and partisanship mocks the true scandal of the gospel. Camp reminds us that all empires fall.
By conceiving Christianity as a politic instead of a religion, we may begin to take seriously the true scandal of the gospel. We may envision new possibilities by which our gospel practices make a new world possible. Offering a robust vision of a Christian politic that exposes modern parodies of faith, Camp mixes wit, charm, and logic, challenging Christians to rethink who they are and how they participate in the modern world.
- Explores the political nature of the gospel
- Challenges Christians to rethink who they are and how they participate in the modern world
- Offers a vision of a Christian politic that exposes modern parodies of faith
- Proposition 1: History Is Not One Damn Thing after Another
- Proposition 2: The End of History Has Already Begun
- Proposition 3: American Hope Is A Bastard
- Proposition 4: Christianity Is Neither A Prostitute Nor A Chaplain
- Proposition 5: The United States Is Not the Hope of the World
- Proposition 6: The United States Was Not, Is Not, and Will Not Be a Christian Nation
- Proposition 7: How Christian Values, and the Bible, Corrupt Christianity
- Proposition 8: Every Empire Falls
- Proposition 9: Christian Partisanship is Like a Fist-Fight on the Titanic
- Proposition 10: Hostile Forces Have a Role in the Unfolding of History
- Proposition 11. Christianity Is Not a Religion; Christianity Is a Politic
- Proposition 12: Liberal Political Puissance Is Not the Goal
- Proposition 13: Exemplary Political Witness Is the Goal
- Proposition 14: Christianity Is Not Counter-Cultural
- Propositions 15: Christian Engagement Must Always Be Ad Hoc
Top Highlights
“Jesus and other early Christians were not executed because they were spiritual. They were executed because their politic was a threat to the powers that be.” (Page 18)
“Liberalism may in fact, after all, concern itself with the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘end of history,’ but only by privatizing the question of what a good life entails. Liberalism privatizes the good, but liberalism by definition refuses to make the question of ‘the good’ a matter for rigorous public concern.” (Pages 41–42)
“One of the fundamental philosophical problems with liberalism, from a Christian perspective, is this: liberalism does not explicitly concern itself with a shared conception of the meaning of life, the purpose of life, or the end of history.” (Page 41)
“a loss of the overarching Christian narrative leads to a corruption of Christian witness.” (Page 79)
“ it is itself a politic, which has an all-encompassing vision of human history.” (Page 4)
- Title: Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians
- Author: Lee Camp
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Pages: 192
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Church and the world
- ISBNs: 9780802877352, 0802877354
- Resource ID: LLS:SCNDLSWTNSS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-12T15:34:46Z