A Brutal Unity the Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church (Baylor University Press, 2012)
To describe the Church as "united" is a factual misnomer-even at its conception centuries ago. Ephraim Radner provides a robust rethinking of the doctrine of the church in light of Christianity's often violent and at times morally suspect history. He holds in tension the strange and transcendent oneness of God with the necessarily temporal and political function of the Church, and, in so doing, shows how the goals and failures of the liberal democratic state provide revelatory experiences that greatly enhance one's understanding of the nature of Christian unity
Includes bibliographical references and index
Religious violence and Christian blasphemy -- Postscript: the tears of Peter -- Division is murder -- Postscript: Judas the Apostle -- The sins of the church -- Postscript: loving Jerusalem -- The conciliar ideal -- Postscript: the way together -- The limits of consensus -- Postscript: the first council -- The procedural quest for unity and its obstacles -- Postscript: the prophetic contest -- Conscience and its limits -- Postscript: the crucifixion of conscience -- Multiple consciences and the rise of solidarity -- Postscript: a figural phenomenology of the church -- The unity of sacrifice