A. James Reimer's (1942-2010) theopolitical project, intended to be a fully theologically conceptualized political theology, offers a constructive and creative contribution to this burgeoning field of theological inquiry. Reimer's thesis for this theologically derived politics focuses on the necessity to take seriously the biblical-Trinitarian foundations for all Christian social ethics, but also on the importance of astute and faithful engagement by Christians in public institutional life, including the political realm. While Reimer understood himself to be working as an Anabaptist, and hoped to invite that tradition to embrace a more positive view of civil institutions than has historically been the case, he was not limited by that tradition or beholden to take only its sources into account. Ever alert to the problems inherent in every kind of reductionism, and especially so in cases where theology is reduced to either ethics or politics, Reimer's political theology pursues the investigation of theological realities that are to serve as the engine, the generative force of a political theology that seeks to articulate both a critical and a positive-constructive approach to public/political life and institutions.
James Reimer offers a fair presentation of the three classical Christian attitudes toward war: crusading or holy war, just war, and pacifism. His thoughtful survey of Christian teachings and practices on issues of war, violence, and the state takes readers from classical Greco-Roman times to the present. Arguing that the church's responses to war can only be understood through the church's changing relationship to culture, Reimer concludes with an analysis of the contemporary debate and proposes criteria for legitimate and illegitimate use of force by nation-states.
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