Home › Browse › Issues ›Fall 2011
Fall 2011 |Volume 29, Issue 2
The good society
Peace, as St. Augustine says, is more than simply the absence of war. It is the tranquility of order—when all of the spheres of society function in such a way as to create wonderful music. This is a radical, prophetic notion.
"The good society." To dare to speak this way is to hope. It presumes that there is an order for our families, schools, governments, magazines, poets, employers, even our protesters to harken back to.
- 01
- Poem: The Future
- 02
- Editorial: What we talk about when we talk about society
A good society has not only its institutions, but its loves in order.
- 08
- Magazine as Microcosm
Learning in bits and scraps of the inexhaustible creation.
- 12
- Loving Faithful Institutions: Building Blocks of a Just Global Society
Postmodern Christians won't get very far in transforming society until they learn to love institutions again.
- 20
- Chronicles in the Good Society
In God’s good society, all are cared for, and all know whom they follow.
- 26
- Reforming Economics: Capitalism and Its Discontents
The biggest losers of the financial crisis.
- 34
- A Neocalvinist Ecclesiology
How might Dooyeweerd change the way we approach the local church?
- 38
- Kuyper for Christians
Introducing a three-week Comment series on how Abraham Kuyper's world-and-life-view can enrich the twenty-first century Christian church.
- 41
- Why Bother with the Humanities in a Time of Crisis?
Through riots, wars, and droughts, I teach English. Fiddling while Rome burns?
- 45
- Horizons, Justice, and Human Flourishing
What we can really learn from the London fires.
- 53
- Blind Spots
Exploring past human efforts exposes the mixed motives and blind spots of our present condition.
- 57
- Listening to History: The Poet's Legacy
We have misplaced an invaluable tool for shaping and refining human thought. It is time for apprenticeship in rhetoric.
- 62
- Forgetting Ourselves in a Function: W.H. Auden on the Good Society's Friday
Taking up practices that remind us of our finitude, our createdness.
- 68
- Shakespeare to the Rescue?
Like a prophet, Shakespeare pried loose the monolithic worldview of his day.
- 74
- Making Space for Civilization: Educational Pluralism
Educational pluralism requires flexibility, social negotiation, and grace.
- 79
- The Christian College has a Public Mission
As contemporary curators of vision, Christian colleges will flourish in fulfilling their public mission.
- 85
- Sunflower Seeds
When art seems very far from the urgent cut and thrust of daily politics, that's exactly the point.
- 90
- On Discipline
There is no such thing as disciplining one corner of a life. There are only disciplined or undisciplined lives.
- 93
- How Then Shall We Mourn?
What would it do for us if, instead of skipping over the difficult stories of our lives, we put them on paper?
- 104
- Big Questions for Business Leaders
You are a CEO, responsible in part for your company and its social impact. How do you keep yourself accountable?
- 112
- Review: "A Public Faith"
Volf's book sketches an alternative between a single-religion society and a secular public square.
- 117
- We Do: A Vision for Covenantal Relationship with Creation
Re-imagining, as newlyweds, our duty to keep and cultivate our vows.
- 124
- Toward a More Complex Common Good: A Bibliographic Essay
What is the common good that Christ desires?
Contributors to this Issue
-
Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin (Ph.D.) is an independent writer and speaker in Cambridge, U.K. Bio -
Alissa Wilkinson Alissa Wilkinson is assistant professor of English and humanities at The King's College in NYC, and chief film critic at Christianity Today. Bio -
Allison Backous Allison Backous Troy lives with her husband in Laramie, Wyoming. She is currently in the throes of the first draft of her own memoir. Bio -
Ashley Berner Dr. Ashley Berner is Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Assistant Professor of Education. Bio -
-
Brian Dijkema Brian Dijkema is the Vice President of External Affairs with Cardus, and an editor of Comment. Bio -
Carey Wallace Carey Wallace is the author of The Blind Contessa's New Machine, which was released by Viking/Penguin in 2010. Bio -
David Robinson David Robinson is a sessional lecturer in Theology and Ethics at Regent College and a research associate at Vancouver School of Theology. Bio -
David T. Koyzis David T. Koyzis is Fellow in Politics at the St. George's Centre for Biblical and Public Theology Bio -
Deborah Bowen Deborah Bowen lives in Hamilton, ON, and teaches English at Redeemer University College. Bio -
-
Jim Belcher Dr. Jim Belcher (M.A., Fuller; Ph.D., Georgetown) is the author of the award winning Deep Church. Bio -
-
Jonathan Chaplin Dr. Jonathan Chaplin is associate fellow at the British public theology think tank Theos and a member of the Divinity Faculty of Cambridge University. Bio -
Jordan Ballor Dr. Jordan J. Ballor is a research fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty. Bio -
Justin Cooper Dr. Justin D. Cooper's life's work has been advancing the cause of Christian university education. Bio -
Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma is the editor of catapult magazine, a bi-weekly online publication affiliated with the organization *cino. Bio -
-
-
Nicholas Wolterstorff Nicholas Wolterstorff received his A.B. from Calvin College in 1953, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1956. Bio -
-
Robert Jackson Robert Jackson is an associate professor of English and education at The King's College (New York). Bio -
Timothy Larsen Timothy Larsen is McManis Professor of Christian Thought, Wheaton College, Illinois. Bio -
Wendell Berry Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Bio
