Abstract
These two very different books present valuable contributions to the understanding and practice of ‘public theology’—a burgeoning, enthusiastic field in need of both clarification as to its nature and scope and fresh thinking as to its content.
Sebastian Kim’s Theology in the Public Sphere offers an expert overview of major streams of contemporary public theology practised across five continents. As editor of the International Journal of Public Theology and member of the Global Network for Public Theology, Kim is well placed to construct a map of the field. The book, he tells us, ‘is not a comprehensive or systematic treatment of . . . public theology as a discourse, but rather a demonstration of theology in action in the public sphere’ (p. 230). The first part explores the development, nature and methodologies of public theology, expounds diverse uses of the Bible in three regional contexts, and examines the evolution of eco-theology as a particular example of the genre. The second presents informative case studies of the development and deployment of public theology arising from four very different challenges: controversies over conversion and communal identity in India; struggles against corporate injustice, and reconciliation with the North, in South Korea; the demand for global economic justice in Latin America; and responses by the churches in the United States and Britain to the Iraq war. The final part contains three case studies of public theology in action more familiar to most European readers: Rowan Williams’s lecture on sharia law; the Danish cartoon controversy; and the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill in the UK. The book closes with a short Epilogue and includes a 19-page bibliography. Every chapter contains a wealth of useful information and analysis.
The author notes that definitions of the nature and scope of the enterprise abound, and he isn’t overly prescriptive as to which should be preferred. But he offers the interesting proposal that the term ‘public’ in public theology should be taken to refer not to the location in which theology happens to be done (church, academy, civil society, etc.) but rather to its openness to contributions from all voices in society (‘universal access’) (pp. 10, 230). It is ‘public’ insofar as it serves as a ‘catalyst for open debate’. This goal is an admirable one yet the phrase itself invites further explication, for it might be taken to imply that public theology doesn’t seek to shape such a debate according to its own distinctive vision, an implication clearly refuted by the content of the book.
Kim situates his work in relation to Harold Breitenberg’s threefold typology of public theology: studies of particular political theologians; explorations of what public theology is; and constructive public theology, i.e., ‘theologically grounded and informed interpretations of and guidance for institutions, interactions, events, circumstances, policies, and practices, both within and outside the church’ (cited at p. ix). Kim suggests his book is an example of the third type, whereas in fact it seems as much an example of the second, albeit amply illustrated by detailed studies of the third. It does engage in some constructive work of its own but mainly critically surveys and synthesises the constructive work of others.
The author states the core arguments of the book thus: first, that in a postmodern context the church should for reasons of justice support an open, plural public sphere; second, that the church needs to develop a public theology in order to engage prophetically in that sphere; third, that public theology should be forged out of an interactive ‘theory-practice’ hermeneutic involving both academics and practitioners from the whole Christian community (p. ix). The book discharges these claims successfully, not so much through extended discussions of the claims themselves as through ample and wide-ranging engagements with how these claims have been advanced by an array of leading practitioners around the world. That said, chapter 1 is especially helpful in framing some key definitional issues. It traces the origin of the term ‘public theology’ in the USA and the subsequent development of the genre, rehearses a brief rationale for engaging in public theology, and offers a useful map of ‘the public sphere’ as the intersection of six major sectors of society. It goes on to outline the variety of methodologies used by public theology (the book shows why there could never be just one) and concludes with a helpful comparison between ‘public theology’, ‘political theology’ and ‘liberation theology’. Two instructive charts comparing public theology and liberation theology (pp. 23-24), and one depicting ‘the public sphere’ (p. 13), will likely find their way onto many a classroom PowerPoint presentation!
A review cannot do justice to the many suggestive findings emerging from the book’s chosen case studies, but an illustration, from India, will show their importance. It will also reveal a certain hesitation, at times, on the part of the author to reach strong evaluative conclusions on the critical questions which, he notes, these case studies throw up (a hesitation absent in, for example, his discussions of eco-theology and responses to the Iraq war).
Chapter 2 shows how the Bible has been deployed by public theologians in widely differing ways in India, Africa and Korea. The chapter then describes six contrasting hermeneutical methods at work in these contexts: liberationist, postcolonial, both African and Asian feminist, inter-textual and inculturation. Kim notes that collectively these methods raise crucial questions about ‘authority’ (of the text), ‘discernment’ (its meaning for particular contexts) and ‘ownership’ (for whom do interpreters speak?).
The author’s discussions of India in this chapter and in chapter 4 disclose both the promise and the possible limits of his approach to his case studies. In chapter 2 he claims both that the use of indigenous Indian hermeneutical methods ‘has resulted in a very lively and interactive form of Christianity in which this broad possibility of expression naturally leads to a more creative interpretation of the Christian scriptures’, but also that the approach ‘may have caused Indian theology to have a tendency to apply the text too quickly to the context without careful examination of the context from which the text emerged’ (pp. 36-37). A more detailed explication of this critique would have been useful here. What exactly would it mean, for example, to recover the ‘original meaning’ (p. 55) of the text so that it could more reliably (more ‘authoritatively’?) inform the contemporary ‘contextual’ meaning? And what, actually, is a ‘context’, and how might it (if ‘it’ exists) properly condition, inform, correct or perhaps legitimate, interpretations?
Chapter 4 goes on to tell the intriguing story of how the reception of Christianity in India evoked sharp conflict over the very legitimacy of ‘conversion’ and the expectation that converts should leave Hindu communal practices behind and join the community of the church, missionary proposals much resisted by Hindu theologians. Four distinct models emerged in response: the ashram model, which sought to realise an ‘authentically Indian’ church; the ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’ model, which sought to disperse Christians outside the church; the inculturation model, which sought a synthesis of Hinduism and Catholicism; and the liberation model, which was driven by a desire to challenge caste oppression. Kim poses pointed questions about each model, yet concludes by asserting that all four ‘have made significant contributions towards the answer to the question [of conversion] in India…and could be applied to other contexts as well’ (pp. 107-108). But what if, as appears from Kim’s accounts, some models are straightforwardly incompatible with each other? It remains unclear, for example, how we might equally utilise the ashram and inculturation models’ prioritising of common ground between Hindus and Christians and the liberationist model of ‘radical separation from the [Hindu] tradition’ (p. 108).
There is a similar hesitation in chapter 5 to reach conclusive critical assessments of minjung theology, a Korean liberation theology, and kibock sinang, a Korean version of prosperity theology. On the latter, Kim suggests that ‘[t]he fact that Korean Christianity has been influenced by a shamanistic understanding of traditional Korean religiosity is not necessarily a negative point’ (p. 114), and that kibock sinang has been ‘good news to the poor’ (p. 116). Perhaps so, but a fuller defence of these important and controversial judgements seems necessary to make the author’s case stick.
Yet, while the book is at times frustratingly inconclusive on these important ‘Christ and culture’ questions, it certainly testifies to the importance, and the growing self-confidence, of public theology. This has become, not simply a major sub-discipline of contemporary theology, but also an extended argument as to what all good theology should aspire to be: rooted in a deep and creative engagement with Scripture yet outward-facing, open for conversation with the world.
Miroslav Volf’s book models this aspiration very clearly. It is written primarily for reflective practitioners rather than scholars, and while it does not contain much that will be new to specialists it does contain many novel and winsome formulations that should refresh and stimulate them as much as its primary audience. It is an insightful, wise and accessible introduction to how the Christian faith should engage faithfully, prophetically, humbly, discriminatingly and creatively with the cultural challenges and opportunities presented by its location in many diverse host cultures.
Like Kim’s, the book situates a discussion of ‘public theology’ within a broader examination of the relationship between ‘Christ and culture’. On this it offers a precise and plausible account that might have benefited Kim’s approach. Part I, ‘Countering Faith’s Malfunctions’, addresses some major barriers to Christian cultural engagement. ‘Prophetic religions’ like Christianity are vulnerable to malfunctions arising both from ‘ascent’—the moment of ‘reception’ of the message—and ‘return’—the moment of the ‘transformation’ of the world in the light of the message. There are two ascent malfunctions. In ‘functional reduction’, religious language is employed to promote what are in fact immanently determined ends. In ‘idolatric substitution’, God is transformed into some golden calf, a caricature of true divinity. And there are two return malfunctions. The ‘idleness of faith’ can arise from the ‘lure of temptation’, the ‘power of systems’ or the ‘misconstrual of faith’ (or all three); each blunts the capacity of faith to engage faithfully and transformatively with some aspect of the world. Its mirror image is the ‘coerciveness of faith’. Here, ‘faith is not idle but active—hyperactive, in fact—imposing itself oppressively upon the unwilling’ (p. 17). Speaking in a religious voice in public is not, as secularists charge, itself inherently oppressive, but the mode in which believers bring their faith to bear in public can be and has been, and Volf is frank about how and why. He opens and closes the book with the example of revolutionary Islamist Sayyid Qutb’s ‘religious totalitarianism’ as a disturbing foil to the model of Christian public engagement he commends.
Volf goes on to show how ‘idleness’ can be countered by properly grasping four deep theological notions: that true success comes through divine blessing; that God delivers us from captivity to past failures; that God guides us towards moral responsibility; and that God gives redemptive and eschatological meaning to our work. Next, he argues that ‘coerciveness’ can be countered by maintaining a ‘thick’, monotheistic faith which, properly understood, grounds human equality and enjoins peaceableness. The core doctrines of creation, redemption and new creation are shown, against influential misconstruals, to harbour essentially non-coercive imperatives.
These malfunctions addressed, Volf then shows (in chapter 4) how the positive contribution of Christian faith to culture must be rooted in a well-articulated account of human flourishing. Critiquing dominant modernist and consumerist accounts of flourishing (‘universal solidarity’ and ‘satisfaction’, respectively), he draws on Augustine to propose an account in which true satisfaction is achieved through loving God and neighbour in ways that ‘fit’ with created goodness.
Part II, ‘Engaged Faith’, offers a constructive account of cultural engagement consisting of three claims. Chapter 5 argues that Christians will best realise authentic cultural transformation through a strategy of ‘internal difference’. He rejects the ‘liberal program’ of accommodation to prevailing culture and the ‘separatist program’ of retreat from the world, but also finds too simplistic the ‘postliberal program’ of merely ‘reversing the direction of conformation’ (as Wolterstorff summarises it, not entirely fairly). Decisions on which direction conformation should go have to be taken contextually on a case by case basis. ‘Internal difference’ exercises transformative influence from a location fully within culture. Here Volf draws on Michel de Certeau’s reading of how indigenous Americans made use of the cultural goods of their colonisers. They did not overthrow the prevailing cultural order but ‘metaphorized’ it, making it ‘function in another register’ (p. 90). For Christians this might involve a wide variety of ad hoc responses (to use Hans Frei’s term) to particular cultural practices, from simple adoption, to change of use, to partial transformation, to outright rejection. For, ‘Christians never have their own proper and exclusive cultural territory—their own exclusive language, values, practices, or rationality’ (p. 93, original emphasis). Volf might have added here that this is simply because they participate in and respond to (or rebel against) the same order of created goodness as every human being.
The next chapter explores how Christians might communicate the insights of their faith to their culture—how they, and others, might learn to ‘share wisdom well’ (p. 101). For Christians, this is certainly to share ‘truth’, both as commissioned by Christ and as motivated by love of neighbour. But believers share wisdom well when they do so as ‘witnesses’—not as ‘merchants’, nor simply as ‘teachers’ or ‘midwives’, but as those who give freely and receive freely from those with whom they communicate, and who enact wisdom attractively in their own lives.
The final chapter addresses the theme of ‘public engagement’. It explores the question of how, in a context of growing religious diversity in which all faiths are minorities, believers can contribute to the common good from out of their own wisdom traditions, yet without stoking up conflict or fuelling the conditions for violence. Volf’s sketch is appealing, if impressionistic. First, they must be allowed, and must equip themselves, to ‘speak in their own voices’ and not in some supposedly generic voice unformed by the concrete character of their own religion. Yet in so doing they will not seek to speak necessarily in a distinctive voice, as if no common ground existed. Second, they must engage in an ‘exchange of gifts’ of wisdom about what makes for human flourishing, yet one which is ‘in search of truth and mutual understanding’; they must practise ‘hermeneutical hospitality’ (p. 136). A key practical conclusion is that Christians, and others, must—contra Sayyid Qutb—‘support pluralism as a political project’ (p. 142), yet for well-grounded theological reasons.
A Public Faith is a valuable entry point for those new to issues surrounding the ‘Christ and culture’ debate but it remains undeveloped in two key respects. A book promising advice on how Christians can ‘serve the common good’ ought to have made at least some attempt at saying what ‘the common good’ is—a task made more urgent and more complicated by the growing phenomenon of pluralism which Volf rightly acknowledges. The contrasting work of David Hollenbach or Oliver O’Donovan, for example, might have been fruitfully drawn on at this point. And what the ‘political project of pluralism’ would amount to in practice is barely hinted at. Here a wealth of concrete proposals, from writers such as Richard Mouw and Sander Griffioen, James Skillen, or indeed Nicholas Wolterstorff and Rowan Williams whose writings are cited, could have been utilised at least to gesture towards desirable political arrangements. It is one thing to refute Sayyid Qutb’s religious totalitarianism, quite another to specify how to respond, for example, to the difficult cluster of moral, legal and political complexities presented in western liberal democracies by the appearance of ‘sharia tribunals’ or the demands for limits on anti-religious free speech (helpfully addressed in chapters 8–10 of Kim’s book). But these limitations—perhaps unavoidable in a short book addressed to a broad audience—do not detract from the exemplary generosity of spirit and richly nuanced wisdom this book offers.