Product Description

“People who take God seriously will not remain silent about their faith. They will often disagree about doctrine or policy, but they won’t be quiet. They can’t be. They’ll act on what they believe, sometimes at the cost of their reputations and careers. Obviously the common good demands a respect for other people with different beliefs and a willingness to compromise whenever possible. But for Catholics, the common good can never mean muting themselves in public debate on foundational issues of human dignity. Christian faith is always personal but never private. This is why any notion of tolerance that tries to reduce faith to private idiosyncrasy, or a set of opinions that we can indulge at home but need to be quiet about in public, will always fail.”
—From the Introduction

Few topics in recent years have ignited as much public debate as the balance between religion and politics. Does religious thought have any place in political discourse? Do religious believers have the right to turn their values into political action? What does it truly mean to have a separation of church and state? The very heart of these important questions is here addressed by one of the leading voices on the topic, Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver.

While American society has ample room for believers and nonbelievers alike, Chaput argues, our public life must be considered within the context of its Christian roots. American democracy does not ask its citizens to put aside their deeply held moral and religious beliefs for the sake of public policy. In fact, it requires exactly the opposite.

As the nation’s founders knew very well, people are fallible. The majority of voters, as history has shown again and again, can be uninformed, misinformed, biased, or simply wrong. Thus, to survive, American democracy depends on an engaged citizenry —people of character, including religious believers, fighting for their beliefs in the public square—respectfully but vigorously, and without apology. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the nation’s health. Or as the author suggests: Good manners are not an excuse for political cowardice.

American Catholics and other persons of goodwill are part of a struggle for our nation’s future, says Charles J. Chaput. Our choices, including our political choices, matter. Catholics need to take an active, vocal, and morally consistent role in public debate. We can’t claim to personally believe in the sanctity of the human person, and then act in our public policies as if we don’t. We can’t separate our private convictions from our public actions without diminishing both. In the words of the author, “How we act works backward on our convictions, making them stronger or smothering them under a snowfall of alibis.”

Vivid, provocative, clear, and compelling, Render unto Caesar is a call to American Catholics to serve the highest ideals of their nation by first living their Catholic faith deeply, authentically.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98587 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-12
• Released on: 2008-08-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385522281
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
Advance Praise for Render unto Caesar

“Using arguments from history as well as the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers, Archbishop Chaput urges Catholics to live our faith without compromise and to use our faith as the foundation for renewing American society in the twenty-first century. His tone is one of ‘now or never,’ and his presentation is crisp, intelligent, and accessible to a wide audience. This is an important book for Catholics to read and consider if we are truly to make a difference in the public square. Archbishop Chaput has made a unique and significant contribution to the Church and the nation at a time when voices like his are needed to be raised and heard.”
—Very Reverend David M. O’Connell, C.M., President, The Catholic University of America

“At a time when the ‘faith and values’ vote has never been more important, Archbishop Charles Chaput deftly explores the intersection of morality, reason, and politics. This isn’t just a book for Catholics, but for anyone who cares about the state of America’s soul —and how that concern might shape the 2008 elections.”
—John L. Allen Jr., NCR and CNN senior Vatican correspondent


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
Advance Praise for Render unto Caesar

“Using arguments from history as well as the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers, Archbishop Chaput urges Catholics to live our faith without compromise and to use our faith as the foundation for renewing American society in the twenty-first century. His tone is one of ‘now or never,’ and his presentation is crisp, intelligent, and accessible to a wide audience. This is an important book for Catholics to read and consider if we are truly to make a difference in the public square. Archbishop Chaput has made a unique and significant contribution to the Church and the nation at a time when voices like his are needed to be raised and heard.”
—Very Reverend David M. O’Connell, C.M., President, The Catholic University of America

“At a time when the ‘faith and values’ vote has never been more important, Archbishop Charles Chaput deftly explores the intersection of morality, reason, and politics. This isn’t just a book for Catholics, but for anyone who cares about the state of America’s soul —and how that concern might shape the 2008 elections.”
—John L. Allen Jr., NCR and CNN senior Vatican correspondent

About the Author

CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. Cap., is the archbishop of Denver, a Capuchin Franciscan, and a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He lives in Denver, Colorado. He is the author, previously, of Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics.

Customer Reviews

Religion isn't a private affair
One of the most unfortunate consequences of both the US tradition of church/state separation and the evangelical protestant insistence that religion is primarily what goes on between the individual and God is the privatization of faith. The good Christian, so this perspective has it, compartmentalizes his or her faith, keeping it a personal, private affair. Issues of public policy and morality are best left to the secular powers and principalities.*

In his excellent Render Unto Caesar, Archbishop Charles Chaput invites Christian readers (and especially Roman Catholic ones) to rethink this position. The heart of Chaput's thesis is nicely expressed toward the end of the book. Drawing upon the long tradition of Catholic social teachings, Chaput argues that the Church as an institution and the individual Christian as a follower of Christ have the obligation to speak truth to power. This doesn't mean that he endorses either a theocracy or a government controlled by Christians. It does mean that the Church and her members live up to their prophetic calling as ambassadors of the Prince of Peace. As Chaput writes toward the end of his book,

"The Church claims no right to dominate the secular realm. But she has every right - in fact an obligation - to engage secular authority and to challenge those wielding it to live the demands of justice. In this sense, the Catholic Church cannot stay, has never stayed, and never will stay 'out of politics.' Politics involves the exercise of power. The use of power has moral content and human consequences. And the well-being and destiny of the human person is very much the concern, and the special competence, of the Christian community" (pp. 217-18).

In order to maintain its prophetic edge, however, the Church must walk a tightrope, resisting isolating itself from mainstream culture in the search for "purity" on the one hand, and allowing itself to be absorbed by mainstream culture in the search for "relevance" on the other. Perhaps the most interesting sections of Chaput's book are his discussions of how to navigate through these two possibilities.

An exciting, reasonably argued, and prophetic book. Highly recommended.
____________
* Obviously evangelical Protestants since the inception of the Moral Majority have gotten involved in politics, thus stretching their traditional "private relationship with Jesus" position. But their manner of bringing religion to politics tends not to follow in the liberal tradition of Catholic social teachings from Leo XIII to the documents of Vatican II.

A terrific read
I read this overnight and couldn't put it down. Chaput has an easy, engaging writing style, but don't let that fool you. He has a deep grasp of history and a forceful message about the role of Catholic faith in shaping and humanizing the public square. He deals with all the tough issues, but this is not primarily a book about abortion or Communion wars or which political party is good or bad. It's much richer and more challenging than than that. This is simply the best book I've read about the American Catholic political vocation. If you want to know what the words "American and Catholic" really mean, read this book.

Read before November and after
An excellent resource for faithful Catholic voters during this election year and for others who want to truly understand them.
Great summary of Vatican II and its aftermath, especially in relation to the American political scene and the beliefs of American Catholics. Great discussion of the differences between toleration, pluralism and religious conviction! Loaded with useful references for further reading in sociology, theology and political theory.
I've bookmarked at least 30 paragraphs and quotations for further reading and preaching.