To Be Apolitical: A Christian Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56550/d.3.2.6Keywords:
Kierkegaard, Augustine, Jesus, Christianity, Christendom, City of God, City of Earth, Love of God, Love of Neighbor, Political PhilosophyAbstract
The paper defends a special kind of political philosophy based on the discussions of Kierkegaard, Augustine and New Testaments. A Christian political philosophy is relatively uninterested in questions concerning how human beings can form certain kind of compromise between human wills in their pursuit of self-interests. For Kierkegaard, the confusion of Christianity with Christendom has the danger that by calling itself a Christian nation, society replaces salvation with socialization, For Augustine, true justice, true peace and freedom can only be found in serving God only; a Christian is on pilgrimage in this world in order to achieve the blessings in eternal life in the future. The temporal peace and justice have no merits in themselves if they cannot be made use of in worshiping God. In New Testaments, we find that the political philosophy in Kierkegaard and Augustine is in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Contrary to what modern political philosophy has understood, freedom, in its authentic and true sense, can only be realized through Jesus Christ.
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