An extended review of a 2024 book by Ephraim Radner
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Book by Ephraim Radner. Baker Academic, 2024. 272 pages. $46 (e-book $37)
There’s a certain anxiety that emerges for many when the subject of politics comes up. Whether it’s dreaded and uncomfortable family conversations over dinner or bizarre political fights over social media with friends and strangers, there’s no shortage of reasons to find politics difficult to engage with and anxiety-inducing.
But for Christians this topic has even more weight to it. How are followers of Christ to understand our relationship with the state? Even more foundationally, what are the political responsibilities, if any, of Christians?
These are the questions the led me to explore this new book by author Ephraim Radner, professor emeritus of historical theology at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. He’s had a long career of writing on and reflecting upon Christian political engagement.
Contrary to my expectations, this is not a handbook or political theology in the typical sense. This is not a book that will tell you how to vote, what to think about this or that politically charged topic, nor even how Christians should relate to the state.
Rather, this book gets underneath these topics, arguing that as created beings we should “limit our politics to the boundaries of our actual created lives and to the goods that stake out these limits.” In essence, our primary duty is to focus on these “mortal goods” that mark our lives as God’s creatures.
But what are these mortal goods? Radner argues that such ordinary parts of everyday life as family, friends, joys, sufferings and church are precisely where our political focus as Christians is to be found.
This does not mean Christians cannot be concerned with more prominent political issues – climate change, for example – but that we must acknowledge our limited capacity as created beings. Radner offers several key concepts to address how Christians are to relate to these goods.
First, as part of our created existence, one of our primary concerns is offering service to God. To be created and seek to worship God is to live our lives – in all the mundane and ordinary parts of it – in the service of God.
Second is the concept of catastrophe. Despite its negative and destructive connotations to modern ears, Radner argues that catastrophic politics is the idea of life and death, making and unmaking, appearance and disappearance, of life by God. Despite modern political attempts to control, organize and manage chaos, God is ultimately the sole creator and has authority over all creation, including our lives and the mortal goods tied to them.
Finally, what binds the entire argument together is how Radner ends the book – with a personal letter to his children. The idea here is of catechesis, or teaching. For Christians, to teach and learn the faith is part of the foundation of our political duty as service to God.
Radner’s entire thesis is complex and challenging. While I found it to be quite persuasive, much of what he says runs against modern ideas of Christian political involvement and is likely to receive pushback.
Nonetheless I believe this is a necessary and vital work reassessing the foundations of political theology in our modern era. While the themes and ideas of this book are relevant to the lay Christian, it is still academic, thus the use of more complex theological concepts will likely make this book challenging for those unfamiliar with this sort of language. Professors, students and pastors are sure to find a wealth of insight and wisdom here.
For a book as deep and insightful as this one, much more could be said and discussed. In our age of increasingly divisive politics and growing existential anxiety over problems that seem too big to face, Radner’s work ultimately calls us to stop, breathe and remember that God is in control and that our duty as Christians is foremost to serve and live in the boundaries of our created lives. This is, in the end, a welcome call.
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