Love and Virtue in a Secular Age
Christianity, Modernity, and the Human Good
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Notre Dame Press
Publishing:15th Mar '26
£31.00
This title is due to be published on 15th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£100.00(9780268210861)
In a comprehensive meditation on freedom and reason, Ralph Hancock reveals the pressing need for renewed confidence in virtue and agency.
With an emphasis on reclaiming the moral preconditions of Christian love, Love and Virtue in a Secular Age offers a thought-provoking study on the effects of secularism on Christian morality. Ralph Hancock brings eminent scholars of the Christian Aristotelian tradition, such as Thomas Aquinas and Pierre Manent, into conversation with insights from Leo Strauss's critique of Christianity. Love and Virtue in a Secular Age sheds light on the various ways in which the increasing prevalence of secular humanitarian sensibility has voided the idea of humanity of its natural substance.
In a probing reflection poised at the intersection of the theological and the political, Hancock outlines a new theological ethic according to which faith must redeem a certain pride and particularism on behalf of real Christian communities and the virtues they enact.
"Ralph Hancock has given himself a most intimidating task: to recover human agency, with its accompanying confidence in the primacy of the Good. He convincingly shows why our post-Christian souls, in order to understand themselves, need a full and accurate engagement with the Christian proposition. This book is a major achievement." —Pierre Manent, author of Natural Law and Human Rights and Challenging Modern Atheism and Indifference
"Drawing on the best classical, Christian, and contemporary wisdom, Hancock brilliantly rescues Christian love from its thoughtless identification with mere sentimentality and shows that authentic virtue is inseparable from the proud cultivation of moral and political responsibility." —Daniel J. Mahoney, author of Recovering Politics, Civilization, and the Soul
"Is pride the root of sin or a spur to virtue? With careful attention to Christian theology as well as political philosophy, Ralph Hancock guides the reader through this question and offers a bracing defense of political liberty against progressive humanitarianism." —James R. Stoner, author of Common-Law Liberty
ISBN: 9780268210878
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: unknown
338 pages