It’s finally been launched – the book is now out there and available. If you wish to buy a copy and cannot get to your local Christian bookshop, go to http://www.authenticmedia.co.uk/AuthenticSite/product/Books/9781842275054.htm and buy it direct from the publisher!
It was great fun in the end, though not without its drama. Having arranged to have a book launch at Durham Cathedral bookshop months ago (or so it seems), and been assured by my contacts at Paternoster that the books would be there in plenty of time – there I was on 30th October… 31st October… wondering if I’d see my books – or would I be doing a book launch without books!!
The books appeared in the publisher’s warehouse on 31st October, and the email confirming that they’d been sent out on their way to Durham reached me at 7:30p.m. that day. Tension! Would the books get to me? Relief! At 11a.m. on the 1st November two heavy boxes duly got here – now all I had to do was to get them to the shop…
And we did it – and we had fun! And my wife even raised a glass to the next book!
I would just like to thank the staff at the Durham cathedral bookshop for all their hard work in making the launch such an enjoyable experience – and, of course, to everyone who came!
These are the tensions Nigel Oakley grapples with as he shows how Christians can, indeed must, engage with politics and with political debate. He demonstrates, in chapters on Augustine, Liberation theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Stanley Hauerwas how these tensions exist in every strand of Christian political thinking; and then he applies those tensions to case studies varying from today’s highly charged debates on sexuality to the war on terrorism. In every case, he demonstrates that non-involvement is a non-option. This book is both an intelligent introduction to the difficult world of Christian political theology and to some of the key debates that are shaping our times.