Читать книгу Between Kin and Cosmopolis - Nigel Biggar - Страница 4

“The debate about massive and unrestricted immigration has emerged from almost nowhere to become the most toxic issue in British politics. Because reasoned argument has been banished since Enoch Powell, we have lacked a framework for considered discussion and populism has stepped in. In this well-researched and articulate hundred pages on national identity and independence (Scottish or not) Nigel Biggar gives us just such a framework, demonstrating yet again the value of public theology. He makes an outstanding contribution.”

—Iain R. Torrance, Pro-chancellor, University of Aberdeen, former Moderator of the General Assembly, President Emeritus of Princeton Theological Seminary

“Many people have written recently on political theology: but the discussion tends to remain at a rather abstract level, of endorsing or decrying broad trajectories, genealogies, and movements. Biggar stands in an older Anglican tradition, running through Temple, Arnold, Coleridge, Burke, and Hooker. Immersed in this tradition, whilst drinking deeply from Barth, Niebuhr, and Augustine, Biggar remembers something that many theologians have found comfortable to forget: that the use of temporal power inevitably leads to the particular judgment in a flawed situation, and to a decision with consequences, some of which will be sad, without this rendering the decision wrong. Biggar writes with the full command of a capacious and prudential theological tradition, without ever being obscure, jargonistic, or dry. He is never afraid of strong judgments, but also never fails to give all his reasoning respectfully, and with possible caveats, always seeking to understand the good that the alternative perspective is trying to protect. The result is a forceful, well-paced text that commands attention and respect, and that will provoke controversy in the best way, by calling upon all interlocutors to join a debate, where the whole human being is invited, complete with affections, beliefs and transcendent aspirations. This is a thoughtful theological engagement with some of the deepest political dilemmas of our contemporary situation, where contingent and transient complexities are set capaciously and judiciously against the framework of eternity.”

—Professor Christopher J. Insole, Durham University, Durham, UK