Politics of Heaven and Hell: Christian Themes from Classical, Medieval, and Modern Political Philosophy

The Politics of Heaven and Hell makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of classical, medieval, and modern political philosophy, while explaining the profound problem with modernity.

Christianity freed men from the overwhelming burden of ever thinking that their salvation will ultimately come from the political order, writes Fr. James Schall, S.J. Modernity, on the other hand, is a perversion of Christianity, which tries to achieve man's salvation in this world. It does this by politicizing everything, which results in the absolute state: The distance from the City of God to the Leviathan is not at all far once the City of God is relocated on earth.

The best defense against this tyranny is the adequate description of the highest things, of what is beyond politics. Both reason and revelation are needed for this work, and they are eloquently and ably set forth in this book.

Robert R. Reilly is Director of the Westminster Institute. In his twenty-five years of government service, he served as Special Assistant to the President and as Director of the Voice of America, and he was also Senior Advisor for Information Strategy to the Secretary of Defense, and taught at National Defense University. He attended Georgetown University and the Claremont Graduate University, and he has published widely on American politics and morals, foreign policy, and classical music. His other books include Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music, and The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis.

James V. Schall, S.J., was a Professor of Political Philosophy from 1977 to 2012 at Georgetown University, where he received his Ph.D. in Political Theory in 1960. Three times he was granted the Award for Faculty Excellence by the senior class at Georgetown's College of Arts and Sciences. He wrote hundreds of essays and columns and more than thirty books, including On Islam, The Order of Things, and Another Sort of Learning from Ignatius Press.