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Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church
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First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
William T. Cavanaugh
30 books101 followersDr. William T. Cavanaugh, Ph.D. (Religion, Duke University; M.A., Theology and Religious Studies, Cambridge University) is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 23, 2018
4.5 stars. Really profound. Probably too smart for me, but I tried to hold my own. A lot to chew on. Will reread soon, since it took me so long to slog through it that I may have forgotten the finer points of the thesis by the time I made it to the conclusion!
July 7, 2025
Wahrscheinlich eher so 3.5
Die Grundidee und gerade die Aufsätze eins und zwei waren super stark, machen auch Bock drauf mehr von ihm zu lesen
Aber danach wirkten einige Kapitel einfach zu kurz um produktiv in die gesamtargumentation eingebunden zu werden, gerade über Inquisition
Außerdem schon stark für den amerikanischen Kontext geschrieben
Die Grundidee und gerade die Aufsätze eins und zwei waren super stark, machen auch Bock drauf mehr von ihm zu lesen
Aber danach wirkten einige Kapitel einfach zu kurz um produktiv in die gesamtargumentation eingebunden zu werden, gerade über Inquisition
Außerdem schon stark für den amerikanischen Kontext geschrieben
July 27, 2017
Reading this book is like taking a bad rollercoaster ride: you're excited to get to it, and the view from the top (the thesis) looks great. But your view (read: theological-political imagination) of the world actually becomes more skewed, thanks to the quick turns (two chapters are only six pages?) and the upside down twists that make you sick (imposing Christological categories on an ecclesiological problem), even if brief stretches of the book are fun, exhilarating, and exactly what you came for (explaining the recent invention of 'nation-states'; elaborating on Augustine's two cities model; proposing Christian ethics as the learned skill of improv acting on the stage of the world).
At one point your seatbelt almost comes off, as the ride takes you dangerously close to heresy and spiritual death. (That was when Cavanaugh sights Ephraim Radner, who explicitly contends the Holy Spirit has abandoned the church. Then Cavanaugh tries to temper the claim and says it helps the church see its need to participate in repentance. What a ridiculous and nearly-fatal detour that section was.)
This ride is quick (only 196 pages). But the rollercoaster doesn't end where it started, like you'd reasonably expect. That is, it meanders so far from its initial goal and thesis that you'll do well to find your way back to the heart of the park (the church) with the help of other guides (saints) and find a more coherent, careful, and constrained ride from which to view the theo-political landscape.
At one point your seatbelt almost comes off, as the ride takes you dangerously close to heresy and spiritual death. (That was when Cavanaugh sights Ephraim Radner, who explicitly contends the Holy Spirit has abandoned the church. Then Cavanaugh tries to temper the claim and says it helps the church see its need to participate in repentance. What a ridiculous and nearly-fatal detour that section was.)
This ride is quick (only 196 pages). But the rollercoaster doesn't end where it started, like you'd reasonably expect. That is, it meanders so far from its initial goal and thesis that you'll do well to find your way back to the heart of the park (the church) with the help of other guides (saints) and find a more coherent, careful, and constrained ride from which to view the theo-political landscape.
January 26, 2015
Cavanaugh is brilliant. He writes eloquently, ultimately, about how Christians are forming an alternative to the democratic nation-state. He makes arguments that both the novice and the experienced can appreciate. He covers a variety of topics in the nine essays listed here, and they are worth reading. The best and the worst part is the lack of coherency. This text is framed as a volume, but it is a compilation of essays. I don't think that is so bad, since you can pick and choose which seem relevant. Looking forward to reading more.
March 21, 2017
This is one of the most significant books I've ever read, explaining much about how the church in America got to the place where it is today, hiding in a corner while nationalism has taken over the space of public worship.
November 17, 2015
On chapter 1: To start with, I agree with many of Cavanaugh’s conclusions and policy recommendations. He favors local government, limited government, and devolved power, in conjunction with revived civil society and associational life. So do I. One of the political principles I believe in most fervently in is the devolution of power. This is the theme of an essay of mine (attached.) Cavanaugh is concerned about the inexorable growth of state power, about the tendency of states to ask for ultimate loyalty, etc. I’m in agreement with all of this. I disagree with how Cavanaugh gets there, and with the broad scope of his conclusions. I think his argument applies best only to some kinds of states; not all of them; and that the classically liberal state (not the contemporary progressive state, mind you) is precisely the one best positioned to avoid some of the evils he describes.
To start with, I think Cavanaugh is wrong on history. He argues that state sovereignty is an invention of the early modern era and a unique feature of contemporary “nation-states.” Yet even he recognizes that states used Roman law in their effort to construct sovereignty. That’s because Rome—and, I’d argue, all other ancient polities—was sovereign. Sovereignty is not a modern concept; it is a perennial concept inherent in the nature of government, which is as old as recorded history. The Medieval period was unique in the breakdown of sovereignty, an aberration that Cavanaugh treats as normative but was simply another phase in a long history. He praises its vibrant associational life and the diffuse, overlapping jurisdictions of plural authorities, but there is no reason to take the Medieval model as any more natural or theologically justified as the models of sovereignty that came before or after it. He repeatedly denies that he is romanticizing the Medieval era, but that is exactly what he is doing.
In fact, Cavanaugh admits that the local and traditional associations he admires so much “tends to be delegitimated because such groups tend not to be representative; that is, based in consensus.” Well, yes. That’s the great virtue of the liberal state that Cavanaugh seems to entirely overlook. Traditional and tribal society isn’t very friendly to women, the poor, religious and ethnic minorities, or others. How does Cavanaugh plan to respect the individual dignity of all people in the neo-Medieval world he yearns for?
Second, Cavanaugh indicts all states for what are, in fact, the sins of only some states. He takes aim at “nation-states” and criticizes nationalism for imposing an artificial universality on society and culture. I agree with Cavanaugh (and Leithart) in viewing nationalism as an evil (though there is room for a milder patriotism) and as a false religion that has stolen the sacred devotion rightly due only to God through the church. But look at the world today. Nationalism has been an abject failure and few states actually try to be nations anymore. Even most European states, who birthed nationalism, have bent over backwards in the name of multiculturalism to undo much of the work of earlier nationalists. Cavanaugh cites widely from the literature but seems oddly unaware of the fact that there are almost no true “nation-states” in the world today (Japan is the possible sole exception). Virtually every state in the world is multiethnic and multilingual. I skimmed this list of national languages, and only about a third of the world’s state have a single national language. Something close to two-thirds have multiple languages, including an impressive number that allow regions to set their own official languages. And there are some states, including the United States, that have no national language—probably the ultimate expression of abdicating national identity.
Cavanaugh’s argument, like Leithart’s, is theologically deterministic. In rooting his criticism against overbearing statehood in theology, he ends up condemning all states for simply being states, instead of recognizing that there is a vast range of states who act and behave differently. He claims that the “sheer size” of states is a weakness. That’s a nonsensical argument in a world where the largest state has a population of 1.3 billion and the smallest has a population of 800. There are some three dozen micro-sovereignties in the world today that, I daresay, are probably a lot like the local governance that Cavanaugh should find acceptable. He is blind to this reality in his eagerness to criticize all modern states. The median size of states in the world today is about 20 million, if memory serves, far smaller than the United States 320 million.
Cavanaugh laments the decline of civic associations, but here his argument is insufficient. I am very sympathetic with the argument he is making about the importance of civic associations and their lamentable decline. But I think he is wrong about the inevitability of the decline of civil society under the rule of states. He notes that states arose, and civic associations declined, and asserts causation based on his theology of the state. But he does not demonstrate a causal connection with empirical data. In fact, there is good evidence that some kinds of states are better for civil society and some are worse. Cavanaugh makes no differentiation among types of states. I’d note in particular that the United States prior to the passage of the 17th amendment was still a significantly decentralized government with a flourishing civil society. The problem isn’t that the US government asserts sovereignty; it is that during the progressive era it massively expanded the sorts of powers it claimed it had title to.
He seems to have a problem with the modern liberal state not promoting the good, but only creating space for individuals to pursue the good as they define it. This seems an odd criticism for someone who wants to shrink government’s powers. I would be terrified of living under a government that defined the good for me. Taking the power to define the good away from the state is one of the most important ways of limiting its power and reserving something important not only for individuals, but also for churches and other organizations.
Cavanaugh quotes Lippman saying that there is no theoretical difference between the claims of communists, fascists, and liberals. This is the best expression of the part of Cavanaugh’s argument that I find so objectionable. He is simply wrong, and offensively so. The implication of Cavanaugh's argument is that every state in the world today is totalitarian: that to claim sovereignty is, in principle, tyrannical. This is an abuse of language. To equate sovereignty with totalitarianism is ludicrous. Fascists claimed the power to determine citizenship based on ethnicity; to mandate a national language; to define the good for all citizens; to demand cultic worship of a national leader; to censor newspapers; to forcibly unite churches into a state-regulated institution; to ban entire categories of people from the polity; and they overtly celebrated violence. Liberal states claim none of these things. Like Leithart, Cavanaugh is riding roughshod over vast difference between different kinds of states and ignoring basic facts to make the world fit his theological framework.
This is a bit disappointing because Cavanaugh makes a great point about consulting empirical data about statehood; he clearly fails. He also falsely claims that states created nationalism, not the other way around. In some cases, that’s true. In others, like Italy and Germany, it’s not. He wrongly traces American nationalism to the Civil War. Most historians trace it to the War of 1812. He argues capitalism and states arose at the same time, but also claims nation-states arose in the 19th century, well after the rise of capitalism.
Ch. 2, I think Cavanaugh may be misreading Augustine here, identifying the "City of Man" too closely with earthly government. They are distinct, but Cavanaugh's conflation of the two enables him to borrow Augustine's condemnation of the City of Man and apply it to all government, which I don't think Augustine intended. Cavanaugh also has a throw-away phrase about the task of the church is to "build the city of God," which sounds suspiciously postmilennial.
Ch. 3. Cavanaugh really loses credibility when he says "the intervention of the United States in Iraq [was intended] to benefit corporate oil interests." This is simply untrue. I dug around for more detail after that email and found an interesting article from the New York Times. It documents that US firms got nothing from 2003 to 2011. In 2011, one or two U.S. firms got concessions (of a couple dozen that were given out), and more U.S. oil services subcontractors got business from the other majors. Notably, this didn't happen until after the US withdrawal was nearly complete and the concessions were given out by the sovereign government of Iraq, not US occupation authorities. There is no evidence that the US military intervention was motivated by, or at all benefited, U.S. oil interests. It is appalling that an otherwise educated and intelligent scholar like Cavanaugh can get away with repeating scurrilous libel like this.
Cavanaugh also talks about the "military imposition of Western models of economics and politics in the two-thirds world." Pardon me for asking, but where, exactly? Look at all the cases of democratization in the past three decades -- all of eastern Europe, South Africa, two dozen states in Africa, most of Latin America -- and tell me which of them was the result of U.S. military force. The United States has not imposed, by military force, "Western models of economics and politics" anywhere. The best possible candidate for that accusation is Japan, where a US general wrote the constitution and enforced it with an occupation force of 500,000 troops. If that's what Cavanaugh is condemning, I'd like to understand what his preferred alternative would be in 1945. The occupation and forced democratization of Japan is one of the best advertisements possible for US empire, if that's what he insists on calling it. If Cavanaugh believes Iraq or Afghanistan are examples of the US militarily imposing its model, he doesn't know much about those wars. In Afghanistan, for example, the new 2004 constitution was not modeled on the American or any other western constitution. It was a copy and paste job from the Afghans' own 1964 constitution-- a democratic monarchy that they adopted and used for a decade in an early effort to modernize and adopt democracy on their own, without "western" pressure. But that's not something Cavanaugh would know anything about, because he seems uninterested in anything except condemning US foreign policy.
I also note that Cavanaugh's only specific policy recommendations boil down to opposing US immigration policy--in fact, practicing civil disobedience to resist the enforcement of immigration law--with not even a fleeting reference to Romans 13 and our obligation to obey the law.
Ch. 4. I have no objection at all to Cavanaugh's, or Leithart's, condemnation of the idolatry of American excpetionalism. I only point out that just because American exceptionalism often becomes idolatrous doesn't mean America isn't exceptional. We can, and should, recognize the simple historical facts that distinguish the United States from most other great powers in history, and we can do that without falling prey to the idolatry Cavanaugh and others rightly warn against.
Ch. 5. Cavanaugh claims the United States has "the largest military in history." Again, false. "Most expensive" would be true. But North Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Russia, and Bangladesh have "larger" forces, measured by the number of troops in their active and reserve components.
Broad comments on Cavanaugh's theology: I think I'm in broad agreement with much of what he says. I've nitpicked the factual errors and blatant partisanship, but I should say that I find a lot to agree with. While I'm still chewing on a lot of this stuff, I am drawn to the idea that the church is a public, that Christianity is not a privatized, interiorized, ethereal thing, that there are social, cultural, and political implications to our faith. It is just so regrettable that Cavanaugh the theologian and Cavanaugh the political talking head seem so different, as if the rigor and thoughtfulness of the former just goes out the window when the latter steps on stage.
To start with, I think Cavanaugh is wrong on history. He argues that state sovereignty is an invention of the early modern era and a unique feature of contemporary “nation-states.” Yet even he recognizes that states used Roman law in their effort to construct sovereignty. That’s because Rome—and, I’d argue, all other ancient polities—was sovereign. Sovereignty is not a modern concept; it is a perennial concept inherent in the nature of government, which is as old as recorded history. The Medieval period was unique in the breakdown of sovereignty, an aberration that Cavanaugh treats as normative but was simply another phase in a long history. He praises its vibrant associational life and the diffuse, overlapping jurisdictions of plural authorities, but there is no reason to take the Medieval model as any more natural or theologically justified as the models of sovereignty that came before or after it. He repeatedly denies that he is romanticizing the Medieval era, but that is exactly what he is doing.
In fact, Cavanaugh admits that the local and traditional associations he admires so much “tends to be delegitimated because such groups tend not to be representative; that is, based in consensus.” Well, yes. That’s the great virtue of the liberal state that Cavanaugh seems to entirely overlook. Traditional and tribal society isn’t very friendly to women, the poor, religious and ethnic minorities, or others. How does Cavanaugh plan to respect the individual dignity of all people in the neo-Medieval world he yearns for?
Second, Cavanaugh indicts all states for what are, in fact, the sins of only some states. He takes aim at “nation-states” and criticizes nationalism for imposing an artificial universality on society and culture. I agree with Cavanaugh (and Leithart) in viewing nationalism as an evil (though there is room for a milder patriotism) and as a false religion that has stolen the sacred devotion rightly due only to God through the church. But look at the world today. Nationalism has been an abject failure and few states actually try to be nations anymore. Even most European states, who birthed nationalism, have bent over backwards in the name of multiculturalism to undo much of the work of earlier nationalists. Cavanaugh cites widely from the literature but seems oddly unaware of the fact that there are almost no true “nation-states” in the world today (Japan is the possible sole exception). Virtually every state in the world is multiethnic and multilingual. I skimmed this list of national languages, and only about a third of the world’s state have a single national language. Something close to two-thirds have multiple languages, including an impressive number that allow regions to set their own official languages. And there are some states, including the United States, that have no national language—probably the ultimate expression of abdicating national identity.
Cavanaugh’s argument, like Leithart’s, is theologically deterministic. In rooting his criticism against overbearing statehood in theology, he ends up condemning all states for simply being states, instead of recognizing that there is a vast range of states who act and behave differently. He claims that the “sheer size” of states is a weakness. That’s a nonsensical argument in a world where the largest state has a population of 1.3 billion and the smallest has a population of 800. There are some three dozen micro-sovereignties in the world today that, I daresay, are probably a lot like the local governance that Cavanaugh should find acceptable. He is blind to this reality in his eagerness to criticize all modern states. The median size of states in the world today is about 20 million, if memory serves, far smaller than the United States 320 million.
Cavanaugh laments the decline of civic associations, but here his argument is insufficient. I am very sympathetic with the argument he is making about the importance of civic associations and their lamentable decline. But I think he is wrong about the inevitability of the decline of civil society under the rule of states. He notes that states arose, and civic associations declined, and asserts causation based on his theology of the state. But he does not demonstrate a causal connection with empirical data. In fact, there is good evidence that some kinds of states are better for civil society and some are worse. Cavanaugh makes no differentiation among types of states. I’d note in particular that the United States prior to the passage of the 17th amendment was still a significantly decentralized government with a flourishing civil society. The problem isn’t that the US government asserts sovereignty; it is that during the progressive era it massively expanded the sorts of powers it claimed it had title to.
He seems to have a problem with the modern liberal state not promoting the good, but only creating space for individuals to pursue the good as they define it. This seems an odd criticism for someone who wants to shrink government’s powers. I would be terrified of living under a government that defined the good for me. Taking the power to define the good away from the state is one of the most important ways of limiting its power and reserving something important not only for individuals, but also for churches and other organizations.
Cavanaugh quotes Lippman saying that there is no theoretical difference between the claims of communists, fascists, and liberals. This is the best expression of the part of Cavanaugh’s argument that I find so objectionable. He is simply wrong, and offensively so. The implication of Cavanaugh's argument is that every state in the world today is totalitarian: that to claim sovereignty is, in principle, tyrannical. This is an abuse of language. To equate sovereignty with totalitarianism is ludicrous. Fascists claimed the power to determine citizenship based on ethnicity; to mandate a national language; to define the good for all citizens; to demand cultic worship of a national leader; to censor newspapers; to forcibly unite churches into a state-regulated institution; to ban entire categories of people from the polity; and they overtly celebrated violence. Liberal states claim none of these things. Like Leithart, Cavanaugh is riding roughshod over vast difference between different kinds of states and ignoring basic facts to make the world fit his theological framework.
This is a bit disappointing because Cavanaugh makes a great point about consulting empirical data about statehood; he clearly fails. He also falsely claims that states created nationalism, not the other way around. In some cases, that’s true. In others, like Italy and Germany, it’s not. He wrongly traces American nationalism to the Civil War. Most historians trace it to the War of 1812. He argues capitalism and states arose at the same time, but also claims nation-states arose in the 19th century, well after the rise of capitalism.
Ch. 2, I think Cavanaugh may be misreading Augustine here, identifying the "City of Man" too closely with earthly government. They are distinct, but Cavanaugh's conflation of the two enables him to borrow Augustine's condemnation of the City of Man and apply it to all government, which I don't think Augustine intended. Cavanaugh also has a throw-away phrase about the task of the church is to "build the city of God," which sounds suspiciously postmilennial.
Ch. 3. Cavanaugh really loses credibility when he says "the intervention of the United States in Iraq [was intended] to benefit corporate oil interests." This is simply untrue. I dug around for more detail after that email and found an interesting article from the New York Times. It documents that US firms got nothing from 2003 to 2011. In 2011, one or two U.S. firms got concessions (of a couple dozen that were given out), and more U.S. oil services subcontractors got business from the other majors. Notably, this didn't happen until after the US withdrawal was nearly complete and the concessions were given out by the sovereign government of Iraq, not US occupation authorities. There is no evidence that the US military intervention was motivated by, or at all benefited, U.S. oil interests. It is appalling that an otherwise educated and intelligent scholar like Cavanaugh can get away with repeating scurrilous libel like this.
Cavanaugh also talks about the "military imposition of Western models of economics and politics in the two-thirds world." Pardon me for asking, but where, exactly? Look at all the cases of democratization in the past three decades -- all of eastern Europe, South Africa, two dozen states in Africa, most of Latin America -- and tell me which of them was the result of U.S. military force. The United States has not imposed, by military force, "Western models of economics and politics" anywhere. The best possible candidate for that accusation is Japan, where a US general wrote the constitution and enforced it with an occupation force of 500,000 troops. If that's what Cavanaugh is condemning, I'd like to understand what his preferred alternative would be in 1945. The occupation and forced democratization of Japan is one of the best advertisements possible for US empire, if that's what he insists on calling it. If Cavanaugh believes Iraq or Afghanistan are examples of the US militarily imposing its model, he doesn't know much about those wars. In Afghanistan, for example, the new 2004 constitution was not modeled on the American or any other western constitution. It was a copy and paste job from the Afghans' own 1964 constitution-- a democratic monarchy that they adopted and used for a decade in an early effort to modernize and adopt democracy on their own, without "western" pressure. But that's not something Cavanaugh would know anything about, because he seems uninterested in anything except condemning US foreign policy.
I also note that Cavanaugh's only specific policy recommendations boil down to opposing US immigration policy--in fact, practicing civil disobedience to resist the enforcement of immigration law--with not even a fleeting reference to Romans 13 and our obligation to obey the law.
Ch. 4. I have no objection at all to Cavanaugh's, or Leithart's, condemnation of the idolatry of American excpetionalism. I only point out that just because American exceptionalism often becomes idolatrous doesn't mean America isn't exceptional. We can, and should, recognize the simple historical facts that distinguish the United States from most other great powers in history, and we can do that without falling prey to the idolatry Cavanaugh and others rightly warn against.
Ch. 5. Cavanaugh claims the United States has "the largest military in history." Again, false. "Most expensive" would be true. But North Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Russia, and Bangladesh have "larger" forces, measured by the number of troops in their active and reserve components.
Broad comments on Cavanaugh's theology: I think I'm in broad agreement with much of what he says. I've nitpicked the factual errors and blatant partisanship, but I should say that I find a lot to agree with. While I'm still chewing on a lot of this stuff, I am drawn to the idea that the church is a public, that Christianity is not a privatized, interiorized, ethereal thing, that there are social, cultural, and political implications to our faith. It is just so regrettable that Cavanaugh the theologian and Cavanaugh the political talking head seem so different, as if the rigor and thoughtfulness of the former just goes out the window when the latter steps on stage.
June 26, 2025
This really interesting book contains the seeds of many of the ideas developed in more depth in Cavanaugh's later works,
The Myth of Religious Violence
and
The Uses of Idolatry.
Ideally, anyone interested in getting their heads around Cavanagh's theological insights should read Migrations of the Holy prior to those other tomes (the reverse of how it has panned out in my case).
The essays contained in the book are generally reflective of their titles, barring the final one on the theolgoy of vulnerability, where the subject is not really about this at all (in my opinion). Mainly, that esssay is a highly nuanced and painstaking attempt to reach a middle ground between the thinking of philosophers Stanley Hauerwas and Jeffrey Stout on the notion of democracy and its relationship to the nation-state. This is not in itself objectionable and is quite interesting, but constructing a theology of vulnerability is not its primary subject matter. The essays are titled as follows:
*“Killing for the Telephone Company”: Why the Nation-State Is Not the Keeper of the Common Good
*From One City to Two: Christian Reimagining of Political Space
*Migrant, Tourist, Pilgrim, Monk: Identity and Mobility in a Global Age
*Messianic Nation: A Christian Theological Critique of American Exceptionalism
*How to Do Penance for the Inquisition
*The Liturgies of Church and State
*The Church as Political
*The Sinfulness and Visibility of the Church: A Christological Exploration
*A Politics of Vulnerability
My main motivation for reading this book has been to ensure a good grasp of Cavanaugh's concept of political liturgy as migration of the holy, so the essay on liturgies of church and state is a highlight. The essay on American exceptionalism is also fascinating, in that it clarifies the origins of this influential idea, and the different strands of thought entailed in it (Enlightenment and Christian strands).
Rather poignantly, on reading the excellent essay "Killing for the Telephone Company", which takes its title from an Alasdair MacIntyre quotation, I discovered that the latter philosopher had died earlier this year. Reading his book After Virtue, in around 2010 was an incredibly helpful turning point for me, which left me quesitoning certain aspects of an ethics course I was taking at the time. He helped to articulate some of the elements of thinking in areas such as modern business, religious studies, and environmental 'ethics' that seemed to be lacking vital elements and embracing a sort of willful incompleteness. May he rest in peace.
This is a great book for anyone who wants to dip into Cavanaugh's thought but is not sure where to begin.
The essays contained in the book are generally reflective of their titles, barring the final one on the theolgoy of vulnerability, where the subject is not really about this at all (in my opinion). Mainly, that esssay is a highly nuanced and painstaking attempt to reach a middle ground between the thinking of philosophers Stanley Hauerwas and Jeffrey Stout on the notion of democracy and its relationship to the nation-state. This is not in itself objectionable and is quite interesting, but constructing a theology of vulnerability is not its primary subject matter. The essays are titled as follows:
*“Killing for the Telephone Company”: Why the Nation-State Is Not the Keeper of the Common Good
*From One City to Two: Christian Reimagining of Political Space
*Migrant, Tourist, Pilgrim, Monk: Identity and Mobility in a Global Age
*Messianic Nation: A Christian Theological Critique of American Exceptionalism
*How to Do Penance for the Inquisition
*The Liturgies of Church and State
*The Church as Political
*The Sinfulness and Visibility of the Church: A Christological Exploration
*A Politics of Vulnerability
My main motivation for reading this book has been to ensure a good grasp of Cavanaugh's concept of political liturgy as migration of the holy, so the essay on liturgies of church and state is a highlight. The essay on American exceptionalism is also fascinating, in that it clarifies the origins of this influential idea, and the different strands of thought entailed in it (Enlightenment and Christian strands).
Rather poignantly, on reading the excellent essay "Killing for the Telephone Company", which takes its title from an Alasdair MacIntyre quotation, I discovered that the latter philosopher had died earlier this year. Reading his book After Virtue, in around 2010 was an incredibly helpful turning point for me, which left me quesitoning certain aspects of an ethics course I was taking at the time. He helped to articulate some of the elements of thinking in areas such as modern business, religious studies, and environmental 'ethics' that seemed to be lacking vital elements and embracing a sort of willful incompleteness. May he rest in peace.
This is a great book for anyone who wants to dip into Cavanaugh's thought but is not sure where to begin.
December 21, 2017
The main thesis is pretty compelling; that our notions of holiness and the "sacred" have migrated from the Church and religion to the nation-state and the market economy. Cavanaugh invokes Charles Taylor as a bit of a foil and says perhaps the religious naïveté of the pre-moderns that Taylor describes still exists but has shifted to the state and the "free market." Our religious reflexes still exist with the same vigor as those of Catholic Europe but instead of God we worship our nation and ourselves.
Cavanaugh has some real moments of brilliance and insight throughout the book. The first few chapters are especially worth your time. However, I would say he made a serious left turn with his effervescent praise of Roger Mahony for encouraging disobedience of immigration law. Roger Mahony is a vile pederast hiding scumbag of a cleric who let dozens of children get abused by his priests while he moved them around to avoid detection. Mahony's Democrat virtue signaling over immigration and various other pet lefty causes like "climate change" seal the deal with this guy's love of adoration by the Hollywood glitterati. Any Catholic intellectual that takes himself seriously has no business referencing Mahony as any sort of credible source for anything other than hiding pedophiles from justice.
One more gripe, did I miss the thing where we all suddenly refer to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity as a "she"???? The first time I saw it in this book I thought perhaps it was poor editing. Alas no, the new Catholic intellectual elite refer to the Holy Spirit as a she to show how progressive and inclusive they are. Sad. I really wanted to like this book more, but these little pet projects are really distracting from an otherwise decent text.
Cavanaugh has some real moments of brilliance and insight throughout the book. The first few chapters are especially worth your time. However, I would say he made a serious left turn with his effervescent praise of Roger Mahony for encouraging disobedience of immigration law. Roger Mahony is a vile pederast hiding scumbag of a cleric who let dozens of children get abused by his priests while he moved them around to avoid detection. Mahony's Democrat virtue signaling over immigration and various other pet lefty causes like "climate change" seal the deal with this guy's love of adoration by the Hollywood glitterati. Any Catholic intellectual that takes himself seriously has no business referencing Mahony as any sort of credible source for anything other than hiding pedophiles from justice.
One more gripe, did I miss the thing where we all suddenly refer to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity as a "she"???? The first time I saw it in this book I thought perhaps it was poor editing. Alas no, the new Catholic intellectual elite refer to the Holy Spirit as a she to show how progressive and inclusive they are. Sad. I really wanted to like this book more, but these little pet projects are really distracting from an otherwise decent text.
September 3, 2022
In receiving three stars instead of four or five, I acknowledge that William Cavanaugh may be the victim of my own expectations. Perhaps I was hoping for something different from this book. As it stands, its essentially a collection of previously-published essays that has been reworked into book form. And it reads like that. What's missing, I think, is a unifying thread, a strong central argument through which the reader is moved. The premise is that religious language and expectation has been transferred to the state. So far so good, and the early chapters of the book make this point. Following those, however, it seems to devolve into a somewhat vague collection of related ideas - good ones, certainly - but not held together tightly.
Cavanaugh is a formidable scholar, evident on every page of 'Migrations of the Holy'. But this is also where he becomes a victim of my hopes for this book. I found myself weighed down by the sheer volume of scholarly engagement, so much so that the read became a slog. Again, for a survey and exploration of the literature on Christian political engagement, Cavanaugh deserves great credit. I was simply hoping for something different.
That said, if you're willing to wade through the immensity of the scholarship, the book has gems to be mined, given that Cavanaugh is someone who recognises the morass of contemporary Christian politics and deals with it in a circumspect way.
Cavanaugh is a formidable scholar, evident on every page of 'Migrations of the Holy'. But this is also where he becomes a victim of my hopes for this book. I found myself weighed down by the sheer volume of scholarly engagement, so much so that the read became a slog. Again, for a survey and exploration of the literature on Christian political engagement, Cavanaugh deserves great credit. I was simply hoping for something different.
That said, if you're willing to wade through the immensity of the scholarship, the book has gems to be mined, given that Cavanaugh is someone who recognises the morass of contemporary Christian politics and deals with it in a circumspect way.
January 5, 2018
Like most of Cavanaugh’s work I love most of his insightful work into what is wrong with American culture, especially church culture. The critique is that often his Roman Catholicism leads him to prescriptions that are simply untenable. Still, it is enjoyable to be pushed and this book was fun to read.
November 20, 2018
Loved this book, Cavanaugh explores the idea
that most people take position against religious fighters, but they're ok with those who fight under the name of a state.
that most people take position against religious fighters, but they're ok with those who fight under the name of a state.
December 27, 2019
This book was fascinating, but I finished it while feeling a bit under the weather and I’m not sure I understood much of the last 40%. It had a higher rating before I read that section.
April 30, 2013
Partly fantastic but somewhat radioactive and caustic in some dangerous areas. Cavanaugh's strong point is in being thoroughly Against Christianity in the political realm. His basic thesis that holiness in America didn't vanish, but simply moved from church to state is, simply put, brilliant. At the same time, he appears to have no theology of lesser loyalty (no brakes, in other words), and so draws a sharp and harshly antagonistic distinction between the aims of church and state. The trouble with functionally doing away with the idea of political nobility is that at that point, you can only be ruled by scoundrels.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
December 18, 2012
This is an excellent book from an excellent theologian. Cavanaugh takes a look at how the Christianity (specifically, the Church) relates to the state in a series of essays. His analysis notes the way that Christians should suspect the idolotry of the modern state and offer an alternative community to those it encounters. For anyone interested in politics and the Church, this is a must-read.
April 28, 2013
A brilliant summary of some very important theological considerations of politics. I want to read it again.
Here's a better review of it: (Favorite line:"he said, For a pacifist, Bill leaves a lot of carnage behind.")
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leit...
Here's a better review of it: (Favorite line:"he said, For a pacifist, Bill leaves a lot of carnage behind.")
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leit...
October 4, 2014
Cavanaugh offers fantastic and thoroughly readable diagnosis of the problematic 'simple space' promised by the modern state, yet for his helpful engagements with the likes of Augustine, Hauerwas and Stout, he ultimately lands softly and, I think, far from the conclusion to which he has built.
December 29, 2011
Cavanaugh's deconstruction of the origins and concept of the nation-state is challenging and timely.
Read
March 29, 2013Nation-state subsumes smaller groups too readily.
October 14, 2011
Review to follow.
October 23, 2018
This book is a must read for anyone interested in politics who is trying to follow Jesus (and for many others, but it is a fairly dense 200 pages of high context essays, though not unapproachable by the persistent theological thinker). Cavanaugh makes a compelling case through careful study of history and conversation with contemporary political theorists and theologians that the nation-state is an idol. The main avenue traveled in the creation of the nation-state is war. The main project of the nation-state is the simplification of more complex and diverse local and overlapping communities and the subsequent dissolution of other loci of authority. This series of essays makes it clear that the current state of political affairs is implicitly flawed, however Cavanaugh does not come to a concrete conclusion for what we, as the church ought to do in response. Vulnerability, repentance, the Body of Christ and prophecy all go together in the church's vocation to be the visible alternative to the nation-state, but there is more work to be done in figuring out how to do that together. This book is great for our alternativity as Circle of Hope.
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