Description
Book SynopsisIn dialogue with Jürgen Habermas''s communicative ethics, Covenant and Communication constructively explores a covenantal-communicative model of Christian ethics. Hak Joon Lee analyzes themes of freedom, equality, and reciprocity in Habermas''s theory of communication from the perspective of Reformed Christian doctrines of covenant and the Trinity. This reconstruction of Christian ethics based upon communicative rationality has profound implications for the reinterpretation of Christianity and its relationship with liberal political institutions. It offers fresh perspectives on important Christian theological concepts, such as divine economy, church, communion, conscience, law and gospel, and the social sphere. A communicative ethics rooted in a rich Christian spiritual tradition provides new energies for the kind of revitalization of democracy and human rights advocated by Habermas against the colonizing power of money and bureaucracy. This work tests its plausibility in dialogue wi
Trade ReviewThis important book is a gift to those who have sensed the potential of Jürgen Habermas's 'communicative ethics' for Christian thought. Hak Joon Lee explores the limitations of Habermas's theory, especially with its seemingly out-of-hand dismissal of religious insights … [and] makes a persuasive case for an enriched 'Habermasianism'. . . incorporated into a larger framework that takes with utmost seriousness theological perspectives on covenant and the Trinity. -- Richard J. Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary
Hak Joon Lee argues that Habermas's insights could help traditional covenantal theology to embrace the procedural theory of justice…[and in] turn could help the other side to appreciate the religious grounding and formative theological symbolic potentials so often neglected in modern philosophical and ethical thought. Since Habermas has recently begun to include religious traditions more thoroughly than before, the book comes at the right time and brings its own voice into the newly emerging discourse... -- Dr. Michael Welker, Heidelberg University
Dr. Lee is one of the intellectual leaders among that new generation of outstanding younger scholars who are taking up questions of 'Public Theology'. . . . [Covenant and Communication offers] a genuine communicative ethic that is more profound than the anti-cosmopolitan and anti-theological philosophers of our day or the theological dogmatists who would ignore philosophy and social theory. Altogether, this is a major intellectual and faithful achievement. -- Max L. Stackhouse, from the Foreword, Rimmer & Ruth DeVries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life, Princeton Theological Seminary
Table of ContentsPart 1 Foreword Part 2 Preface Part 3 Introduction: Christian Public Engagement in a Global Society Chapter 4 Chapter 1: Jürgen Habermas's Communicative Ethics Chapter 5 Chapter 2: Covenantal Theology and Communicative Ethics Chapter 6 Chapter 3: The Trinity and Communicative Ethics Chapter 7 Chapter 4: Covenantal-Communicative Ethics Chapter 8 Chapter 5: Covenantal-Communicative Ethics in Conversation Part 9 Conclusion Part 10 Bibliography Part 11 About the Author
