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Geyer is an ethicist who here analyzes the ethics of current political processes in American society.  He defines moral challenges for the Christian church in the United States, and makes some suggestions on how the church can address the political situation while maintaining its independent integrity and morality based on faith.

Historical Foundations
The publisher's notes describe the book this way:
"A foremost ethicist challenges conservative ideologies." The author presents a summary of ideologies affecting the United States through its history.  This will be valuable for the younger generation to understand the roots of the philosophical questions being dealt with.

Cultural Poverty
There is a tendency for each new generation to begin in a vacuum.  I have noticed a cultural poverty of historical perspective in the current American generation.  There seems to be less attention in American education to the cultural history.  Younger Americans are not given a view of the intellectual foundations that initially formed this country.  This has led to much revisionism in the last two decades of popular thought.

This is a rewriting of history to match current concepts.  A romantic interpretation is given to the early stages of the American experiment usually ignoring the complexities and conflicts involved in the attempt to overcome the political aned religious tyranny over men's minds and beliefs.

This appears notably in the astounding claim made amazingly by supposedly conservative religious leaders in America that America's founding had no concept of Separation of Church and State.  Only a gratuitous mis-reading of founding documents and the prolific philosphies of the era could allow someone to make such a claim. Ans yet somehow proponents call this argument "conservative"!

Confused Argument
The new argument against the restriction of government power over religion or vice versa seems to use this argumaent as a defense against restrictions of personal expression in the public arena, which is a whole separate question in American culture and constitutional politics.  Why are they willing to sacrifice protection against government intrusion into reigion to gain a protection already sonstitutionally defensible.

The original concern was dual — the state was to show no favoritism to one religious persuasion over another, and likewise no organized religion was to exercise power over the organs of government.  On the other hand, however, there was to be no restriction of a person's public expression of religious conviction by government.  This is guaranteed by the constitution.  I am also unaware of anything in the documents of the ear that mention anyone being protected from being exposed to someone else's religious views.

Neo-Conservatism
After a brief outline of the historical streams of thought affecting modern American ideas, Geyer then focuses in on an analysis of the ideologies of what has come to be called "Neo-Conservatism."  Geyer develops a competent analysis of this movement and suggests ethical questions that arise.

Economics and Religion
An aspect of the cultural or intellectual poverty in American thought is the seeming lack of awareness of the foment of ideas in the 1800s that led to the major economic and social approaches in the early 20th century.  Underlying questions are the concepts of wealth and the social justice concern of access to wealth.

Alternative economic theories arising in the 1800s seemed to differ partly in their concepts of wealth.  Some theorists assumed that there is only a limited amount of wealth that must be administered and distributed by centralized power (Example, Marxism-Leninism).  Others held the view that wealth may be produced, thus there is no set quantity or even identity to wealth (Example, Anglo-Saxon industrialism).  The latter extended in the 20th century to the wealth of ideas and information.

Marxist-oriented critics of capitalism also naively ignore the fact that the first legal and political controls on the unbridled greed of capitalist industrialists was exercised in the United States in legal controls placed on business monopolies like the railroads and the oil industry.  Most people seem also unaware that the first legal acknowledgement of the right of workers to organize was also instituted in the United States, with Labor Day being established in many states in the 1800s, and a national holiday declared by Congress in 1894.

Econo-Politics
The current generation seems to lack awareness of the economic and social theories that developed into Socialism and Communism and various social reform movements in the Anglo-Saxon world.  Without such an awareness, leaders will misread or ignore components of current social questions or political discussions.  This is evident also in the naive American political approach to the rest of the world, assuming the rest of the world is another American just waiting to happen.

Geyer explores the relationship between religious and economic theories, the tension between individualism and community, centralization and decentralization, the conflicts between urbanism and agrarianism and the conflicting assumptions behind concepts of government and business.

Two-Track Thinking
He investigates the complementary but conflicting views between pragmatism and morality.  Geyer notes that many 19th century churches and the current neo-conservative movement hold both without apparently feeling the conflict.  Geyer gives attention to the role and ethical views of various Christian streams in American culture.

Principles
He concludes with a development of 10 principles of ethics, faith and action from which American churches can contribute to the political process without capitulating to any particular economic or cultural ideology that might compromise Christian values.

See related reviews and articles on this site:
Myth and Morality in Modern Science

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OBJ

First reading notes written 6 November 2004
Edited 25 September 2007
Review finalized and posted on Thoughts and Resources 11 December 2007
Rewritten 15 December 2007

Copyright © 2007 Orville Boyd Jenkins
Permission granted for free download and transmission for personal or educational use.  Other rights reserved.

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