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Customer Review
Charity as the Form of Political Bonds
Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the American FoundingProfessor Matthew Holland has written a book with a great back cover filled with the effusive praise of well known political thinkers. The inside is even better. He takes seriously both tablets of biblical religion (the vertical love of God and the horizontal love of neighbor) and proposes that American civic life is best understood as a form of this Christian love. He understands the Greeks but he is no Greek. He argues that civic life is animated by agape-that distinctive Christian love that "includes concern for another's standing before God even when others mean us harm." This of course has implications for how we treat our enemies and our fellow citizens. Holland finds agape informing the language and political goals of American leaders for two centuries by studying several key authors and texts: John Winthrop(1630-A Model of Christian Charity); Thomas Jefferson(rough draft of the Declaration of...
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December 30, 2007
(Mankato, MN United States) | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 5
An optimistic and heartwarming look at politics for a change.
One of the hallmarks of true greatness of character is that of philanthropy. Be it the 'widow's mite' or the millionaire's largess. "Let All Your Things be Done with Charity". "Bonds of Affection : Civic Charity and the Making of America - Winthrop, Jefferson, and Lincoln" follows three great men and how their acts of charity shaped our country as it is today for the better. Author Matthew S. Holland, an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at Brigham Young University highlights the brilliant and compassionate statesmanship of the three men and brings them into a new light. Highly recommended for both American history and political science shelves as an optimistic and heartwarming look at politics for a change.
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May 4, 2008
(Oregon, WI USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5
Product Description
Notions of Christian love, or charity, strongly shaped the political thought of John Winthrop, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln as each presided over a foundational moment in the development of American democracy. Matthew Holland examines how each figure interpreted and appropriated charity, revealing both the problems and possibilities of making it a political ideal.
Holland first looks at early American literature and seminal speeches by Winthrop to show how the Puritan theology of this famed 17th century governor of the Massachusetts Colony (he who first envisioned America as a "City upon a Hill") galvanized an impressive sense of self-rule and a community of care in the early republic, even as its harsher aspects made something like Jefferson's Enlightenment faith in liberal democracy a welcome development. Holland then shows that between Jefferson's early rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and his First Inaugural Jefferson came to see some notion of charity as a necessary complement to modern political liberty.
However, Holland argues, it was Lincoln and his ingenious blend of Puritan and democratic insights who best fulfilled the promise of this nation's "bonds of affection." With his recognition of the imperfections of both North and South, his humility in the face of God's judgment on the Civil War, and his insistence on "charity for all," including the defeated Confederacy, Lincoln personified the possibilities of religious love turned civic virtue.
Weaving a rich tapestry of insights from political science and literature and American religious history and political theory, Bonds of Affection is a major contribution to the study of American political identity. Matthew Holland makes plain that civic charity, while commonly rejected as irrelevant or even harmful to political engagement, has been integral to our national character.
The book includes the full texts of Winthrop's speech "A Model of Christian Charity"; Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration and his First Inaugural; and Lincoln's Second Inaugural.
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