The Politics of Human Frailty: A Theological Defence of Political Liberalism (Faith in Reason: Philosophical Enquiries)

The Politics of Human Frailty addresses the fraught and topical issue of the relationship between political liberalism and theology. Political liberalism is frequently denounced by theologians as individualist, relativist, and hubristic. In response, there has been a tendency in recent political theology to attempt the overcoming of political liberalism, with the hope of building a more ecclesiastical, virtuous, or community-oriented space. In an original and well-documented argument, Insole demonstrates that this negative characterisation of political liberalism is inadequate, both conceptually and historically.

By attending to thinkers such as Richard Hooker, Edmund Burke, Lord Acton, and John Rawls, Insole shows that a passion to protect the individual within liberal institutions can arise not from an illusory sense of self-sufficiency, but from an insight into our fallen condition, characterised by frailty, sin, and complexity. This strand of political liberalism arises from a sense of our solidarity in sin with others, and the hubris of judging our fellow citizens, when judgment belongs to God alone. Such a position would be at odds with theologically over-zealous appropriations of the theme of "liberty."

Insole concludes his book by showing that the proposed alternatives to political liberalism—such as can be found in the influential Radical Orthodoxy movement—are naïve, utopian, and dangerous, and in certain respects theologically impoverished.