Public Theology For A Global Society

In these essays honoring ethicist Max Stackhouse, leading Christian scholars consider the historical roots and ongoing resources of public theology as a vital element in the church s engagement with global issues. / Public Theology for a Global Society explores the concept of public theology and the challenge of relating theological claims to a larger social and political context. The range of essays included here allows readers to understand public theology as both theological practice and public speech, and to consider the potential and limits of public theology in ecumenical and international networks. / The essays begin by introducing the reader to the development of public theology as an area of study and to the historical interrelationship of religious, legal, and professional categories. The later essays engage the reader with emerging problems in public theology, as religious communities encounter shifting publics that are being transformed by globalization and sweeping political and technological changes. / The breadth and scholarship of Public Theology for a Global Society make this volume a fitting tribute to Stackhouse a central figure in Christian ethics and pioneer in the church s study of globalization.

The Reformed tradition in the twenty-first century is increasingly diverse, dynamic, and deeply engaged in a wide variety of global and public issues, from the arts and business to immigration and race to poetry and politics. This book brings together the insights of a diverse group of leading Reformed thinkers--including Nicholas Wolterstorff, Makoto Fujimura, Bruce Ashford, John Witvliet, Ruben Rosario Rodriguez, and James K. A. Smith--to offer a contemporary vision of the depth and diversity of the Reformed faith and its global public impact.

The book is a unique stocktaking, by a leading international group of theologians, social scientists and other scholars, on issues facing public theology at the beginning of the 21st century. It combines retrospect and prospect, in that it reflects on the issues and approaches that have characterized public theology in the 20th century, especially its latter half, and attempts to anticipate those which will or should come to the fore in the 21st century, seeking to discern continuities and changes. Three opening chapters deal with the overall theme of public or political theology, with Jurgen Moltmann giving a critical historical account from the Second World War onwards, Raymond Plant relating such theology to cultural pluralism, and Andrew Morton illustrating it from the work of Duncan Forrester. These are followed by pairs of contributions relating public theology to more specific topicsr: History; Technology and Creation; Globalization; Spirituality; Punishment and Forgiveness; Medical Ethics; Tolerance and Human Rights; Social Exclusion and Equality.

This volume explores the contributions to the field of social ethics by David Hollenbach, one of the most prominent voices in the promotion of the common good over the past half-century.Whatever became of the idea of a "common good"? Ethicists and theologians lament the decline in public life of the importance of this concept, so central to the character of civil society and so crucial for the flourishing of individuals within it. In our own culture, the promotion of the common good is a valuable corrective to our atomised morality and laissez-faire economics. This volume, on the 30th anniversary of the famous U.S. Bishops' economics pastoral letter, brings together some of the leading lights in ethics to discuss the role, impact, and importance of public theology across the globe.

Offers many helpful ways to theologize about culture with missional intent. Public Theology in Cultural Engagement offers foundational and programmatic essays exploring helpful ways to theologize about culture with missional intent. The book opens with three chapters taking steps towards developing a general theology of culture. Part two explores the contribution of key biblical themes to a theology of culture - creation, law, election, Christology, and redemption. The final section considers theological proposals for engagement with culture past and present with contemporary reflections on nationalism and on drug culture. Contributors include Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson, Stephen Holmes, Christoph Schwobel, Colin Greene, Luke Bretherton, and Brian Horne.

Public theology is an increasingly important area of theological discourse with strong global networks of institutions and academics involved in it. Elaine Graham is one of the UK's leading theologians and an established SCM author. In this book, Elaine Graham argues that Western society is entering an unprecedented political and cultural era, in which many of the assumptions of classic sociological theory and of mainstream public theology are being overturned. Whilst many of the features of the trajectory of religious decline, typical of Western modernity, are still apparent, there are compelling and vibrant signs of religious revival, not least in public life and politics - local, national and global. This requires a revision of the classic secularization thesis, as well as much Western liberal political theory, which set out separate or at least demarcated terms of engagement between religion and the public domain. Elaine Graham examines claims that Western societies are moving from 'secular' to 'post-secular' conditions and traces the contours of the 'post-secular': the revival of faith-based engagement in public sphere alongside the continuing - perhaps intensifying - questioning of the legi¬timacy of religion in public life. She argues that public theology must rethink its theological and strategic priorities in order to be convincing in this new 'post-secular' world and makes the case for the renewed prospects for public theology as a form of Christian apologetics, drawing from Biblical, classical and contemporary sources.

The practice of a public theology is to identify issues that require attention for the sake of a civil society and the flourishing of all. In diverse ways the writers of Enacting a Public Theology recognise that the present is a volatile moment in time. The publication explores the loss of confidence in the contemporary expressions of democracy; the climate emergency accompanies the dawn of the Anthropocene; the migration of people raises concerns to do with identity, belonging and where is home; the invasion of land wrongly described as terra nullius and then invaded demands a deepened praxis of reconciliation between first and second peoples; and lastly there is an urgent need to speak into the situation of those pushed to the margins because of HIV/Aids. Enacting a Public Theology represents the thinking of writers from Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. It is both local and global in its concern. Each one of the contributors participated in the triennial gathering of the Global Network of Public Theology held in Stellenbosch in 2016.

A substantial and definitive introduction to public theology by one of the leading experts in the field.A key text for third year undergraduate modules and MA courses in Social Ethics, Political Theology and Public Theology.