Christianity and Freedom: Volume 1, Historical Perspectives

Law and Christianity

by Timothy Samuel Shah (editor), Allen D. Hertzke (Editor)

In Volume 1 of Christianity and Freedom, leading historians uncover the unappreciated role of Christianity in the development of basic human rights and freedoms from antiquity through today. These include radical notions of dignity and equality, religious freedom, liberty of conscience, limited government, consent of the governed, economic liberty, autonomous civil society, and church-state separation, as well as more recent advances in democracy, human rights, and human development. Acknowledging that the record is mixed, scholars document how the seeds of freedom in Christianity antedate and ultimately undermine later Christian justifications and practices of persecution. Drawing from history, political science, and sociology, this volume will become a standard reference work for historians, political scientists, theologians, students, journalists, business leaders, opinion shapers, and policymakers.

Genres: History

426 pages, Hardcover

Published April 26, 2016

Reviews

[One · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the best academic analysis of the many contributions from the thoroughly Christian traditions to the development of the rise of liberty and freedom in the modern world, from the original and unprecedented articulations of religious freedoms in the Church fathers to the global Protestant missionaries who brought about mass printing, education, religious freedom, medicine, and so forth, to the founding of the social/political concept of tolerance in medieval canon law theorists.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't read the entire book but instead cherry picked a few articles that seemed interesting to me. More academically leaning, but still nonetheless interesting and intriguing. Definitely a book to come back to reference and a good starting point to read if diving deeper into the topics regarding Freedom. This book provides a new perspective on how Christian's endurance and suffering throughout history is crucial and influential in invention and development of human rights and freedom, despite the popular view on how it was the enlightenment (something more-so against the church) that led the development.
Gave me a new found interest in the church father Tertullian---- would probably investigate his life and theologies in the future.

[Aaron Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This culmination of essays is ultimately a history of the impact of Christian thought on the evolution of civil liberties. Without religious foundation, the dignity of the individual shrinks. Notions of equality, freedom of conscious, human rights, etc. cannot stand by a materialistic worldview.