In a comprehensive meditation on freedom and reason, Ralph Hancock reveals the pressing need for renewed confidence in virtue and agency. With an emphasis on reclaiming the moral preconditions of Christian love, Love and Virtue in a Secular Age offers a thought-provoking study on the effects of secularism on Christian morality. Ralph Hancock brings eminent scholars of the Christian Aristotelian tradition, such as Thomas Aquinas and Pierre Manent, into conversation with insights from Leo Strauss's critique of Christianity. Love and Virtue in a Secular Age sheds light on the various ways in which the increasing prevalence of secular humanitarian sensibility has voided the idea of humanity of its natural substance. In a probing reflection poised at the intersection of the theological and the political, Hancock outlines a new theological ethic according to which faith must redeem a certain pride and particularism on behalf of real Christian communities and the virtues they enact.
Ralph C. Hancock is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University, where he teaches political philosophy. He has authored, edited, or translated many books and articles on the interrelation of religion, morality, and politics, including authoring The Responsibility of Reason and translating Pierre Manent's Natural Law and Human Rights.
Preface Introduction Part One 1. The Failures of Theory and Theology 2. Manent: Towards the Truth of Practice 3. From the Politics of Fear to the Religion of Humanity 4. Christianity and the Progress of Liberalism 5. Christianity and the Progress of Liberalism Part Two 6. Liberty Within a Christian (or Post-Christian) Horizon 7. Pierre Manent's Christian Aristotelianism 8. The Grammar of Action and its Eternal Resonance Part Three 9. The Same and the Other: Western Configurations of Transcendence 10. The Claims of Subjectivity and the Limits of Politics 11. Analogy, Virtue, and Politics 12. Christianity and the Truth About Man Conclusion Bibliography
"Drawing on the best classical, Christian, and contemporary wisdom, Hancock brilliantly rescues Christian love from its thoughtless identification with mere sentimentality and shows that authentic virtue is inseparable from the proud cultivation of moral and political responsibility." - Daniel J. Mahoney, author of Recovering Politics, Civilization, and the Soul "Is pride the root of sin or a spur to virtue? With careful attention to Christian theology as well as political philosophy, Ralph Hancock guides the reader through this question and offers a bracing defense of political liberty against progressive humanitarianism." - James R. Stoner, author of Common-Law Liberty
