For the Healing of the Nation: A Biblical Vision - Paperback

by William Russell Pregeant (Author), John Cobb (Foreword by)

For the Healing of the Nation offers a serious look at the social and political climate in the United States from a biblical perspective, emphasizing race and "otherness," economics and the environment, and institutional violence (war and capital punishment). An autobiographical thread traces the journey of a white male coming of age in the mid-twentieth-century Deep South as his evolving faith leads him to painful breaks with inherited values and standard views on controversial issues. Critical not only of both major political parties but also of centrist compromises between Right and Left, Russell Pregeant seeks a "forward" position, which he terms "ecocommunitarian," based on biblical values. His musings touch on both southern and American identities and on the nature of the biblical writings and the ways they should and should not be used in contemporary debates. Central to the entire work are discussions of how idolatrous commitments to a culture's prevalent ideologies obscure the essential demands of biblical faith.

Author Biography

Russell Pregeant is Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Chaplain Emeritus at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts, and was frequently Visiting Professor in New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School. He is the author of several books, including Reading the Bible for All the Wrong Reasons (2011) and Encounter with the New Testament (2009).