The parliamentary style of politics has been formed over centuries; nobody theorised it in advance. This book presents a thought experiment to spell out key principles of the parliamentary ideal type of politics. Max Weber offers the main intellectual inspiration, Westminster parliament provides the main historical reference and the author’s studies on parliamentary procedure and rhetoric provide the background for the book. Parliamentary acting and thinking offer us the best example of politics as a contingent and controversial activity. Using a parliamentary imagination, the author constructs the ideal type in five main chapters: dissensual modes of proceeding; rhetoric of parliamentary debate; parliamentary formation and control of government; parliamentarians as politicians; and parliamentary time as their common subtext. In the last two chapters, the book outlines the possibilities of extending parliamentary judgment to politics beyond parliaments proper and the chances for parliamentary politics succeeding today.

The rise of populism and nationalism in the West have raised concerns about the fragility of liberal political values, chief among them tolerance. But what alternative social resources exist for cultivating the interpersonal relationships and mutual goodwill necessary for sustainable peace? And how might the lived practices of religious communities carry potential to reinterpret or re-circuit these interpersonal tensions and transform the relationship with the cultural "other" (Fremde) from "foe" (Feind) to "friend" (Freund)? This volume contributes a unique analysis of this shifting discourse by viewing the contemporary socio-political upheaval through the lens of Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology, with a focus on the themes of friendship, interpersonal subjectivity, and sociability as a path beyond mere tolerance. Each of the essays of the volume is written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field, and the volume examines Schleiermacher's novel reflections across multiple social contexts, including North America, Great Britain, western Europe, and South Africa. As these essays demonstrate, the implications of this conversation continue to resound in contemporary religious communities and political discourse.

This book argues for an integrative dialectic of faith and history. It is a fresh examination of the problem of faith and history. Instead of being a mere liability, it is argued here that the strength of the Christian faith is its historicity. Although modern thought was not always friendly to Christian faith because of its deeply embedded dualism, it raised the critical intellectual issues that Christian theology needed to address. Advancing a more critical understanding of the nature of history than modern thought was generally able to achieve because of its dualistic thinking, this work argues for an integrative dialectic of historical probability and the certainty of faith. "This book gives a comprehensive and fascinating account of the development of the idea of history in correspondence to changing conceptions of the divine reality, from its origin in Ancient Israel and in Greece all the way to the contemporary discussion. It focuses on the rise of critical historical investigation in modern times and on the struggle of modern theology to come to terms with it. It is an important contribution to this discussion. The split between fact and meaning is persuasively identified as a main obstacle and it is shown to be overcome in the reconstruction of history in the light of the eschatological future. Also very helpful is the final chapter on time (space-time) and eternity with its emphasis on Boethius and with its critical remarks on nontrinitarian theistic notions of a personal God." --Wolfhart Pannenberg, University of Munich