William Cavanaugh and the State

The Eucatastrophe

Joel and Dave discuss William Cavanaugh’s article, ‘“Killing for the Telephone Company”: Why the Nation-State is Not the Keeper of the Common Good’. Cavanaugh is critical of attempts to baptise the State as the site of Christian politics. The State, he argues, is birthed in violence, self-interest, and the accumulation of power. In its pretension to unity and in its killing power, it is a parody of the body of Christ. It cannot guard or guarantee the common good, which requires creating alternative spaces. Dave is enamoured with this argument. Joel is too, but he raises some critical questions. Is political authority inevitably concerned with a vision of the common good? Can political authority, even now, be understood differently and more complexly? Can law be a means of turning away from vice, towards a life of virtue? Should America just return to the Queen?