The Church and the State

The Church and the State is an exploration of the Catholic tradition as an integral element of Western political thought. Molnar presents his examination of the central weakness of conventional wisdom regarding Western political philosophy and practice: the exclusion of thought and experience uniquely present in Christianity. 

Simultaneously a provocative analysis of the assumptions in twentieth-century political philosophy and a promising synthesis of the truths present in the Western legacy and the Catholic tradition, The Church and the State asserts that the surest compass in politics is human understanding, inspired by faith and doctrine.

“A Christian theory of politics must be the widest grasp available to man…since the Christian is equidistant from ideologies and their prominent modern forms, anarchy on the one hand and the divinized state on the other.”  ~Thomas Molnar

About the Author

Thomas Molnar (1921–2010) was a prominent intellectual of the twentieth century, writing and teaching in the fields of history, literature, philosophy, and politics. Born in Hungary, he graduated from the University of Brussels in 1946 and then emigrated to the United States, earning a doctoral degree at Columbia University in 1949 and becoming a close friend of Russell Kirk. Molnar was the author of over forty books and more than 1,500 articles.