Mortal Goods

This book by one of today's leading theologians examines how Christians might more faithfully and realistically imagine their political vocation. Ephraim Radner explains that our Christian calling is to limit our political concerns to the boundaries of our created lives: our birth, parents, siblings, families, brief persistence in life, raising of children, relations, decline, and death. He shows that a Christian approach to politics is aimed at tending and protecting these "mortal goods" and argues for a more constrained view of our mortal life and our political duty than is common in both progressive and conservative Christian perspectives. Radner encourages us to take seriously what is most valuable in our lives and allow this to shape our social posture. Our vocation is to offer our limited life to God, give thanks for it, and glorify God by living our lives as a gift. Radner also shows how "catastrophe" reveals our time to be fragile, bounded, and easily overturned. And he exposes "betterment," which lies behind most modern politics, as a false motive for human life. The book concludes with a vision of the good life articulated in the form of a letter to his adult children.