Church State & t h e E t h i c a l Imagination

<p>South Sudanese have good laws on papers but their implementations differ with what the law</p><p>stipulates. One of these good laws is the separation of religion and state. In Church State and</p><p>the Ethical Imaginations Zechariah Manyok Biar explores what lies behind discrepancies</p><p>between written laws and their implementations in South Sudan. He comes up with a new</p><p>concept of central value systems to see if it can explain factors that contribute to</p><p>inconsistencies in implementations of legal provisions such as separation of religion and</p><p>state. Central value system is a conservation value composed of conformity security and</p><p>tradition.</p><p>The author shows that this book is important in the sense that it introduces a concept</p><p>that explains why South Sudanese have good written laws but rarely implement them as</p><p>stipulated. The book will also help non-South Sudanese readers understand discrepancies in</p><p>implementations of legal provisions in their respective contexts. It is likely that both</p><p>conservatives and liberals employ conservation values of conformity security and tradition to</p><p>protect whatever values they cherish. For example liberals may require conformity from their</p><p>members to secure or protect the main values in their liberal tradition. Similarly</p><p>conservatives would employ central value systems to shield cherished conservative values. It</p><p>is probable that the conservation value constitutes a central value system for any person or</p><p>group of any persuasion or school of thought. It resists penetration from new values trying to</p><p>change cherished values. In South Sudan central value systems protect the values of power</p><p>and harmony. Theology in the context of South Sudan would thus be a theology of harmony.</p><p>Its base is the Trinitarian God eschatological in orientation and secular in responsibility. The</p><p>originality of this study is in demonstrating that conservation values form central values that</p><p>direct how people react to values that they are uncomfortable with regardless of whether they</p><p>are conservatives or liberals.</p>