Public Theology

Religion and the Economy? On Public Responsibility through Prophetic Intelligence, Theology and Solidarity

by Clint Le Bruyns

In the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 142 (March 2012). 40th Year: Steve de Gruchy Memorial Edition. pp. 80-97.

Produce, Increase, Replenish: A Prolegomenon to a Public Theology of Management

by Billy Maynard

This prolegomenon provides an introduction to the hermeneutic framework developed as part of the author's on-going... more This prolegomenon provides an introduction to the hermeneutic framework developed as part of the author's on-going work towards the articulation of a systematic public theology of management.  The author invites conversation and criticism in response to this paper.  Please contact him directly at:  billy.maynard@publictheologyproject.org

The Rebirth of Kairos Theology? A Public Theological Perspective

by Clint Le Bruyns

Brazil-South Africa consultation. Presented at Unisa, 23 March 2012.

“DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON'T”: REREADING THE PUBLIC THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE FOR THE CONTEMPORARY …

by James R. Cochrane

churches still free to discriminate

by Karl Hand

in The Road to Rainbow Liberation, Farida Iqbal et al (Sydney: Resistance Books, 2011): 9-11

within the movement for marriage equality, there is an argument that churches should be granted an exemption from... more within the movement for marriage equality, there is an argument that churches should be granted an exemption from anti-discrimination law.

This raises an interesting question... does being religious give you the right to discriminate?

in this paper, I argue a view that will be unpopular with some... that churches should be required to follow anti-discrimination law, just like any other organisation.

Farmed Salmon and Sacramental Feast: How Christian Worship Resists Global Capitalism

by Michael Northcott

Prophetic Voices in the Occupy Movement

by Karl Hand

In my spare moments, I have been collecting Christian responses to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A few common... more In my spare moments, I have been collecting Christian responses to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A few common themes have emerged.

Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Theology of Honesty

by Karl Hand

Tradition Christian morality, as expressed in policies with broad conservative and 'Evangelical' support such as Don't... more Tradition Christian morality, as expressed in policies with broad conservative and 'Evangelical' support such as Don't Ask Don't Tell, tends to support the idea that homosexual and bisexual persons should keep their sexuality private.  However, the New Testament has an ethic of personal openness and deep, personal honesty.  This paper explores the contradiction. 

Religion and modernity in a secular city: A public theology of différance

by Johann-Albrecht Meylahn

Critical Review Essay of Kent Greenawalt, Does God Belong in Public Schools?

by Clarence W. Joldersma

The definitive version is published by the journal, Studies in Philosophy and Education 28:6 (2009) 581-587, and is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/uh11r3727m0240j3/

After the Secular: Toward a Pragmatic Public Theology

by Michael Hogue

Published in Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming, June 2010)

In a time after the secular and of rapid religious change, of increasing interreligious contacts and globally scaled,... more In a time after the secular and of rapid religious change, of increasing interreligious contacts and globally scaled, viscerally local moral challenges, questions of public theology have become central for scholars of religion in many fields, as well as for explicitly normative theological projects. In response to this, this article offers the initial contours of a pragmatic public theology that engages global moral challenges amidst the conditions of pluralism and an ethos of religious transformation. I illustrate this pragmatic public theology as an inter-traditional public theological mode that is methodologically fallibilized, doxologically rather than apologetically focused, strategically engaged in medias res between traditions and global and local moral challenges, and normatively committed to the nurturance of differentiated moral solidarities with and on behalf of the most vulnerable.

Europe and the migrant experience: transforming integration

by Darrell Jackson

Originally presented at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in 2010 and subsequently prepared for publication in 'Transformation'

The European Union is founded upon a commitment to the free movement of people across its internal borders. Internal... more The European Union is founded upon a commitment to the free movement of people across its internal borders. Internal EU migration and migration into the EU have meant that central to EU policy has been a discussion of integration. This paper discusses the integration of migrants with reference to the missio Dei and contextualisation, advancing the view that a sensitive and mutual policy of integration is appropriate in the light of biblical and missiological insights. Core to the missiological task remains the ongoing transformation of the experience of integration in light of these insights. Practical steps are outlined.

When the body of Christ has AIDS: A Theological Metaphor for Global Solidarity in light of HIV and AIDS

by Adriaan van Klinken

International Journal of Public Theology 4/4 (2010), 446-465.

This article explores the global implications of the statement from African theologians that the body of Christ has... more This article explores the global implications of the statement from African theologians that the body of Christ has AIDS. It will outline how these theologians employ the metaphor of the body of Christ to challenge the western world to enter into solidarity with Africa struck by HIV and AIDS. From the realization that the HIV epidemic is embedded in globalization processes, and from the understanding of contextual theologies as significant to western theology, it is argued that western theologians have to take seriously the critical African questions. Hence the article investigates what it means for the western world to say that the body of Christ has AIDS, and how this metaphor helps to envision global solidarity in light of the HIV epidemic.

Liturgical Worship and the Transformation of International Political Community

by Matthew John Paul Tan

Published Conference Paper, Presented at the 2008 Oceanic Conference for International Studies

Reason, Politics and Evangelisation

by Matthew John Paul Tan

Article Published in Heythrop Journal, for the published version refer to Heythrop Journal XLVIII (2010), 1-12

Benedict XVI's call to expand reason's horizons requires attention to the political frameworks that allows any... more Benedict XVI's call to expand reason's horizons requires attention to the political frameworks that allows any enlarged reason to operate. A re-hellenised reason cannot fully operate in the current secular "public sphere" framework. Not only are the framework’s horizons so narrow as to bar faith from entry in discourse. The presumption of the framework’s neutrality, allowing equal freedom to all perspectives, ignores the fact that the framework itself is an evangelical force that preempts Christianity and turns citizens into captive "disciples" of an inherently violent agnosticism before communication even begins.

Expanding reason's horizons must be coupled with interrupting the existing framework’s hegemony, an inescapably political project since it involves the transformation of political communities. This transformation is evangelical to the extent that it consists in the recruitment of people into practices that sustain political communities. What distinguishes Christian frameworks from the current is that the former is built on the force of truth whilst the latter is built on the truth of force.

Recognition of the link between reason, politics and evangelism gives the Church legitimacy as a political actor, allows its politics to retain its evangelical mission, and provide a political context for authentically ecumenical and inter-cultural relations.

Seeking the good (peace) of the republic: The violence against and of difference in defining the public space

by Johann-Albrecht Meylahn

This article will reflect on the role of legitimate and authorised violence in state-making. This violence in the name... more This article will reflect on the role of legitimate and authorised violence in state-making. This violence in the name of the good defines the state (Benjamin’s law-making violence) by the exclusion of others (Benjamin 1996). Law-making violence together with the violence that coerces or binds [religare] the public into a common understanding of the good (Benjamin’s law-maintaining violence) is at the exclusion of other interpretations of the good (Benjamin 1996). As the law-making and law-maintaining violence of the state is always at the expense of the excluded other, the excluded other will produce a counter violence of difference seeking a legitimate place within the common space of the republic (Benjamin’s divine violence). What is the church’s role in such a context of violence? Is the church’s role to help clarify and clearly define the good that will bind [religare] the citizens into a stronger and more prosperous and peaceful state – onward Christian soldiers marching as to war? Or is there another calling, to be disciples of Christ – with the Cross of Jesus going on before – and enter the space of violence beyond the knowledge of good and evil as peacemakers? These questions will be examined by bringing into dialogue Žižek’s (1997) interpretation of Christianity with Derrida’s (2002) interpretation of hospitality, specifically in the violent South African context.

Effective Community Policing: Negotiating Changing Religious Identities

by Alistair McFadyen

co-authored with Dr Melanie Prideaux, with funding secured through the University of Cambrige, Cambridge Interfaith Programme from the Rayne Foundation and a private donor.

This Report gives the results of interviews with members of the Metropolitan Police Service’s territorial more This Report gives the results of interviews with members of the Metropolitan Police Service’s territorial
policing teams in the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Barking & Dagenham. The research set out to
establish the place that awareness of religion and of (changing) religious identities occupy in the operational
policing environment. More specifically, it sought to identify the extent to which operational officers engage
faith communities and recognise religion as significant in their work, how they do so, and in what contexts
they do so. The intention of the research was to identify good practice and make suggestions whereby this
work could be best developed and supported. Our goal is to help police develop the ways in which they
understand and navigate the complex social geography of their local communities in order to enhance an
effective and responsive policing service by forming appropriate, positive relations with local religious
communities and to navigate issues of belief, faith and religion as they arise in the operational and institutional
environments of British policing.
It should be read by those who seek to understand police engagement with faith communities, with religion
and belief, and who wish to help develop practice and performance in relation to:
o neighbourhood policing, especially
• community engagement,
• community accountability,
• ‘big society’ initiatives, such as community involvement in criminal justice,
• the extension and expansion of other community involvement structures, such as the special
constabulary and volunteers in policing;
o faith-hate and religious aggravation;
o diversity as an internal and external agenda;
o critical incident evaluation where religion may be a factor; and
o religiously-based counter-terrorist work.

Truth as Mission: The Christian Claim to Universal Truth in a Pluralist Public World

by Alistair McFadyen

An old paper published in 1993.  The discussion has moved on now, and I am not sure how interesting or illuminating the first parts of the discussion are now.  The more constructive form of the argument, which begins around p.452, I think I still stick with.

Exodus Church and Civil Society: Public Theology and Social Theory in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann

by Richard Davis

International Journal of Public Theology, Volume 5, Number 2, 2011 , pp. 262-263(2)

REVIEW of 'Exodus Church and Civil Society: Public Theology and Social Theory in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann' by Scott... more REVIEW of 'Exodus Church and Civil Society: Public Theology and Social Theory in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann' by Scott R. Paeth