{"id":149,"date":"2019-09-05T09:17:45","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T13:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henreckson.com\/?page_id=149"},"modified":"2021-04-12T16:03:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T20:03:38","slug":"book-endorsements","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.henreckson.com\/?page_id=149","title":{"rendered":"Book endorsements"},"content":{"rendered":"The Immortal Commonwealth: Covenant, Community, and Political Resistance in Early Reformed Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2019)\nJoint winner, 2020 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology, University of Heidelberg\n\nNicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University:\n\u201cThe Immortal Commonwealth is a remarkable recovery of an ignored or forgotten component in the history of early modern political thought, namely, the central role of the theological doctrine of covenant in the surprisingly radical political resistance theory of Reformed Protestant thinkers. Reading it was, for me, an eye-opener. I had accepted the standard story of the origins of modern political thought, according to which references to the theological doctrine of the covenant by these thinkers was purely incidental. Henreckson shows that it was, instead, intrinsic: theology and political theory were seamlessly interwoven. Anyone who subsequently writes about the origins of modern political thought will have to take account of what Henreckson has brought to light.”\nJeffrey Stout, author of Democracy and Tradition:\n\u201cThe creaking you will hear while reading Henreckson\u2019s book is the sound of familiar stories about the religious origins of modern politics falling apart. If you want to know how early Protestants integrated Aristotelian virtue with a politics of covenantal accountability, or why they regarded resistance to tyranny as a requirement of justice, or why there is no simple choice to be made between tradition and critique, start here.\u201d\nLuke Bretherton, Duke University:\n\u201cIn this erudite and sophisticated book, Henreckson excavates early modern Protestant debates about the nature, purpose, and proper form of political order. With great acumen, he charts how conceptions of divine and human covenantal fellowship and theology in general, are central to the development of modern political thought and consociational understandings of democratic citizenship. In doing so, he makes available Protestant resistance theory as a vital resource for contemporary debates in political theology and political theory.\u201d\nJennifer A. Herdt, Yale Divinity School:\n\u201cCountering standard narratives that trace a lineage between the purported voluntarism of Reformed theology and political absolutism, The Immortal Commonwealth uncovers the theological roots of Reformed resistance theories in understandings of God\u2019s loving desire to enter into covenantal fellowship with humankind. \u00a0Partners to a covenant, having bound themselves together into political societies for the sake of loving relationship, have not just a right to resist unjust rule but also a duty to ensure the just character of those societies.\u00a0 Henreckson\u2019s illuminating reconstruction yields urgently-needed wisdom for democratic citizenship today.\u201d\nPaul C.H. Lim, Vanderbilt University:\n\u201cIn The Immortal Commonwealth, David Henreckson navigates the oft-inordinately\u00a0voluminous literature on Calvinist covenant theologies with the requisite dexterity,\u00a0interpretive savvy and skills, not to mention much-needed patience to plow through these\u00a0mostly forgotten and putatively esoteric treatises from an era, again, allegedly known for\u00a0arid and atrophying Protestant scholastic discourses. Henreckson shows how the central\u00a0theo-political idea of God as the covenanter has contributed to and ushered in the\u00a0transformations of political theologies that pertain to Self, Society, and Savior in a\u00a0refreshing way. It is truly worthy of the Augustinian dictum tolle lege!\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Immortal Commonwealth: Covenant, Community, and Political Resistance in Early Reformed Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2019) Joint winner, 2020 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology, University of Heidelberg Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University: \u201cThe Immortal Commonwealth is a remarkable recovery of an ignored or forgotten component in the history…<\/p>\n

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