Download or read book In Praise of Dissent written by Ian Stackhouse and published by . This book was released on 2021-10 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Praise of Dissent challenges certain aspects of the Covid-19 narrative, in particular the unquestioning compliance of the public, and indeed of churches, towards the policy of lockdown. Given the seriousness of the issues at stake - civil and religious liberties, the power of the media, the growing 'cancel culture' - Ian Stackhouse challenges the passivity of the Christian community. He questions a spirituality that fails to engage politically, and in so doing he seeks to draw analogies between our own period of cultural and political crisis and that of the past. Looking particularly to historical figures such as Bishop George Bell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jnr, and Thomas Merton, Stackhouse makes a case for religious dissent as a legitimate form of Christian witness. He also seeks to demonstrate how dissent can prove to be the most profound expression of patriotism, even though it is often branded, at the time, as treacherous. In Praise of Dissent is not a polemic. Rather, it is an exhortation to think through the relationship between Church and State, the difference between contemporary and biblical notions of social justice, the hypnotic power of the media, and the urgency of creating stable Christian communities that can withstand the 'soft' totalitarianism that is now beginning to assert itself culturally and politically, even in the West.