The Politics of Poverty: A Contribution to a Franciscan Political Theology

This essay reconstructs the medieval practice of evangelical poverty as a resource for contemporary political theology. Francis of Assisi and his predecessors committed themselves to a form of voluntary poverty that directly contested the distribution of social power in twelfth-century Europe. Evang...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hamilton, Brian (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Philosophy Documentation Center [2015]
In: Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
Year: 2015, Volume: 35, Issue: 1, Pages: 29-44
IxTheo Classification:CG Christianity and Politics
CH Christianity and Society
KAE Church history 900-1300; high Middle Ages
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
KCA Monasticism; religious orders
KDB Roman Catholic Church
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This essay reconstructs the medieval practice of evangelical poverty as a resource for contemporary political theology. Francis of Assisi and his predecessors committed themselves to a form of voluntary poverty that directly contested the distribution of social power in twelfth-century Europe. Evangelical poverty was for them a critical and liberating practice. Yet they disagreed about how this practice was related to standing norms of ecclesial authority. Francis broke with the earlier movements by defining evangelical poverty as a posture of humility and obedience rather than as a counterclaim on apostolic authority. These movements are worth retrieving both for their shared commitment to a liberating poverty and for the questions they raise about the relationship between poverty and authority.
ISSN:2326-2176
Contains:Enthalten in: Society of Christian Ethics, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1353/sce.2015.0000