In Pursuit of Justice

For too long, the advancement of democracy has been misunderstood as requiring the abandonment or privatization of Christianity and other religions. Working within an American context, James Skillen, president of the Center for Public Justice, explores the implications of a Christian-democratic approach for the meaning of civil society.

In chapter one of In Pursuit of Justice, Skillen answers the question, "What Distinguishes a Christian-Democratic Point of View?" In the following seven chapters he goes on to explore the meaning of the phrase, "civil society", what it means to be human, and some of the most critical public issues of our day, including welfare, education, racial justice, the environment, and the relations between citizenship and representative government.

In Pursuit of Justice builds on several of Skillen's earlier books, particularly his 1994 volume, Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism for Genuine Civic Community (Baker Books). In that book he developed the argument that government bears the responsibility to uphold "structural" and "confessional" pluralism in society. His aim was to set the question of religious freedom and other civil rights in the larger context of the complex social order in which human beings bear diverse kinds of responsibility.

Skillen, who has directed the Center for Public Justice since 1981, also authored The Scattered Voice: Christians at Odds in the Public Square (Zondervan, 1990). In this publication Skillen assessed seven different approaches to civic life evident among American Christians: 1) pro-American conservatives; 2) cautious and critical conservatives; 3) sophisticated neo-conservatives; 4) traditional and reflective liberals; 5) civil-rights reformers; 6) pro-justice activists; and 7) theonomic reconstructionists. In many respects, In Pursuit of Justice is Skillen's attempt to offer a more detailed answer to the questions he addressed in the last two chapters of The Scattered Voice: Can Christians move from contention to communication? Is there hope for the future?

The 19th- and 20th-century background to the pluralist arguments Skillen develops in In Pursuit of Justice and Recharging the American Experiment is provided in a collection of readings that he and Rockne McCarthy edited in 1991 titled: Political Order and the Plural Structure of Society (now published by Eerdmans in Grand Rapids, Michigan).

In 2001, Skillen (with Jerry S. Herbert and Joshua Good) published At a Political Crossroads: Christian Civic Education and the Future of the American Polity (Center for Public Justice), and in 2000, CRC Publications and the Center for Public Justice published Skillen's A Covenant to Keep: Meditations on the Biblical Theme of Justice, a collection of 75 meditations on passages from the Bible.

Purchase your copy now!

In Pursuit of Justice is published by Rowman & Littlefield and the Center for Public Justice. It is available for purchase through the Resources page of the Center for Public Justice website.