Contested Public Square: The Crisis of Christianity and Politics Book

Excellent overview of the development of Christian political thought and how it developed through the transition from the church's first 400 years living under persecution, through the era of Christendom, and on into a post-Christian environment. Attention is given to major influences on church-state relations/thought, including Greek philosophy, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and more recently, the differing approaches of Niebuhr, Barth, and Lewis. The Reformation's impact on the role of the church in civil matters is given particular attention. I thought author Greg Forster did an excellent job of laying out 2,000+ years' worth of thinking, both secular and Christian, about the role of the church in society, and showing how the ideas were built on each other. He doesn't get into the specifics of current-day controversy about Christians' involvement in U.S. politics, which I think is actually a strength of the book. Instead, Forster focuses on underlying philosophies and historical developments that have shaped that controversy. Great resource.