William Johnson Everett – författare

Through a comparative study of India, Germany, and the USA, Everett examines the roles of religious traditions in the development of modern federal republicanism. He argues that a better comparative grasp of political and religious dynamics is essential to our understanding of the establishment, sustenance, and development of federal republican governance in both Western and non-Western cultures.

In the past decade, the struggle for new forms of federal order and public life has exploded in central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and South Africa. Religious traditions and organizations have played a crucial role in these revolutions, and have also been critical to the establishment of constitutional orders in post-colonial countries like India. Moreover, they continue to undergird and to challenge the understanding of public life in the United States, whether in church-state conflicts or Native American religious claims. William Everett examines the role of religious traditions in the development of modern federal republicanism, seeking answers to such questions as: How have patterns of religious organization shaped federal republican orders? How do different cultures weave together these political and religious threads into a living fabric that fits their own cultural heritage? How are Western religious traditions of covenant and conciliarism relevant for understanding religion and constitutional developments in non-Western cultures? The author argues that a better comparative grasp of these dynamics is essential to our understanding of the establishment, sustenance, and development of federal republican governance. He presents, as a first step toward this goal, a detailed and comparative study of these patterns in India, Germany, and the United States.

Biblical religion is driven by a longing for God's ultimate order of justice and peace. Most of this longing is steeped in the patriarchal symbols of kingship, monarchs, lords, fathers, and princes. This symbolism came to bind European churches to the legitimation of monarchies and empires for over a millennium. The American and now global experiment separated the churches, with their kingdom language, from government dedicated to democratic, republican, and federal constitutional order. Religious efforts to guide and critique government have subsequently suffered from political irrelevance or theocratic nationalism. Everett lifts up the biblical and classical origins of our present republican experiment to construct a theological position and religious symbolism that can imaginatively engage our present public life with a contemporary language permeated with a transcendent vision.

An American ethicist and a South African theologian reflect on their work with wood and how it has helped them find creativity and meaning in experiences of both loss and transformation. Through their friendship, correspondence, and work together they have developed a rich narrative about the way this craftwork has shaped their relationships with family, friends, and their natural environment. Their conversation invites both craftspeople and religious seekers to join them on a spiritual journey toward fresh insight and inspiration.

William Everett has taught in Catholic and Protestant theological schools in the United States, Germany, India, and South Africa. Out of these rich and varied experiences he lays out here in concise manner the main concepts, theories, and commitments that have emerged in his work. From his origins in Washington, DC, to his later research in Germany, India, South Africa, and Cyprus, he reflects on how his experience and life story have shaped his intellectual and religious vision. This exposition of his thought ranges from construction of frameworks for relating Christianity to the behavioral sciences to substantive engagement with concepts of covenant and constitutionalism, the oikos of work, family, and faith, and ecological and restorative justice. Moving beyond the academic, he shows us how his poetry, liturgies, historical fiction, and woodcraft also manifest many of these themes in other forms. In this exposition and interrogation of his life and work, Everett invites us into deeper reflection on the connections that constitute our own.

This harvest of articles drawn from William Johnson Everett's career of teaching and research on four continents and in a variety of institutions shows the breadth, depth, and diversity of his interests. Like spotlights in the wider field of Christian social ethics, they illuminate the key threads that have held together an emerging tapestry of thought woven around the powerful concept of covenant. Whether lifting up concepts of covenant, federalism, and corporation, the "e;oikos"e; of work, family, and faith, the public nature and mission of the church, or the ethical meaning of journey metaphors, his rich and artful style leads us into thinking more deeply about the way our lives are joined in a "e;covenantal imagination"e; about a more just and sustainable world.

Like works in wood upon a lathe, these poems are word-turnings that reveal the inner grain of our human experience. They are bowls to catch our turnings of memory, conversion, falling in love, and passing through our seasons and the wrenching turns that mark our lives. Above all these turnings are a shout of praise, a murmur of wonder, a turning away from life as usual, a merciful re-turning to the songs, images, and stories that move our lives.