In the New Statesman, of all places, there's an excellent review of a new book about the struggle between Christianity (and particularly Catholicism) and the modern State. An excerpt:
If Christianity had a mission in the 19th century, it was to restrain the leviathan of the nation state. This book tells the story of its failure. Across Europe, churches were expropriated, corrupted and exploited by more powerful civic structures, and ended the century weaker and smaller than they began it. The stage was set for the horrors of the next hundred years, the godless age par excellence.
The piece contains quotes from Tocqueville and Karl Barth (about the political Christian's "hopeless muddle" of "love of country, lust for war and Christian faith") that are dismayingly apt descriptions of much of American Christianity today. The reviewer also has a smart take on Rerum Novarum: "Leo's vision is ethical and corporatist rather than mechanical and statist; it looks forwards to a society spontaneously organised into charitable, co-operative and trade associations. Only thus, it argues, can social justice be reconciled with individual freedom." The whole thing is well worth a read.
