For the Healing of the Nation offers a serious look at the social and political climate in the United States from a biblical perspective, emphasizing race and ""otherness,"" economics and the environment, and institutional violence (war and capital punishment). An autobiographical thread traces the journey of a white male coming of age in the mid-twentieth-century Deep South as his evolving faith leads him to painful breaks with inherited values and standard views on controversial issues. Critical not only of both major political parties but also of centrist compromises between Right and Left, Russell Pregeant seeks a ""forward"" position, which he terms ""ecocommunitarian,"" based on biblical values. His musings touch on both southern and American identities and on the nature of the biblical writings and the ways they should and should not be used in contemporary debates. Central to the entire work are discussions of how idolatrous commitments to a culture's prevalent ideologies obscure the essential demands of biblical faith.""Written with conviction, compassion, and clarity, this book is packed with readable information and insights for people concerned about our nation--and who want to understand its politics in terms of biblical perceptions of justice and love. Pregeant not only analyzes but also responds with realistic and practical proposals. Personal stories drawn from his experience of growing up in Louisian...