Rhetoric Race and Religion
Following on from my previous two blogs posts (here and here), in this post I would like to consider briefly the idea of ‘public theology’ which is increasingly becoming of a term of art and of endearment. The idea has been considered and somewhat popularised by noted Christian theologians such as Max Stackhouse and Jürgen Moltmann. Stackhouse calls ‘public theology’ specifically ‘public’ because:
‘[first,] that which we as Christians believe we have to offer the world for its salvation is not esoteric, privileged, irrational, or inaccessible’; and secondly, ‘such a theology [which] will give guidance to the structures and policies of public life [is] ethical in nature.’ (See his Public Theology and Political Economy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. xi.)
Similarly the leading German theologian Jürgen Moltmann describes the enterprise of public theology as follows:
‘Its subject alone makes Christian theology a theologia publica, a public theology. It gets involved in the public affairs of society. It thinks about what is of general concern in the light of hope in Christ for the kingdom of God. It becomes political in the name of the poor and the marginalized in a given society. Remembrance of the crucified Christ makes its critical towards political religions and idolatries. It thinks critically about the religious and moral values of the societies in which it exists, and presents its reflections as a reasoned position.’ (See Jürgen Moltmann, God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology (London: SCM Press, 1999), p. 1.)
In both its content and its implications, Christian theology (argue Stackhouse and Moltmann) is an inherently public matter, engaging on public issues.
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