Public Theology? On responsibility for the public good – by Clint Le Bruyns
Isn’t it ironic that just a week ago there was much ado about recent eschatological predictions that the world as we know it was starting to come to a dramatic end through the so-called ‘rapture’ event on May 21, 2011, at which time the faithful community of believers would be rescued from this earth to be taken up to heaven? A parody of the predicted event was posted the same day on Youtube by ‘The Thinking Atheist’.[1] The clip is titled “After the Rapture”[2] and begins with the mischievous claim that the prediction had actually come to pass. “Everything has changed. It is now a world without Christians”, it quipped, news which was being received around the world with “a sense of joy, of jubilation, of freedom” as “the world unites in celebration”. It explains the reason for this as follows:
Christian homes suddenly empty are now providing free clothing, furniture and appliances to be donated to the poor. The dramatic decrease in motor vehicles on the road is decreasing the demand for fossil fuels, driving gas prices down…. Prison populations have virtually disappeared. Recycled Bibles are now being used to make juice and milk containers for schoolchildren. Former religious institutions are now being used for exploration, health, science and recreation. Our planet now has more money, more food, more space, more resources, more education, and more common sense than ever experienced in recorded history.
The video seemed quite appropriate for our discussion of the meaning and role of public theology today. Both Cynthia Holder Rich[3] and R. Ward Holder[4] draw attention to the inherent public nature of Christian faith, the concern for the public dimension of Christian theology, the potential relevancy of theology beyond the ecclesial domain, and the intentionally public role of churches – indeed all notable components of our multi-faceted perspectives and practices of public theology. Building on their discussion, coupled with the provocations within the media clip, I would like to offer an additional component regarding the public theology discourse. It is the question of responsibility for the public good.
The notion of ‘public’ in public theology should arguably not be reduced to simply meaning the opposite of ‘private’, nor merely become synonymous with ‘social’. There is a fundamental sense of public theology lost when it receives these kinds of reductionisms, as being nothing more than ‘relational theology’ or ‘social theology’. A third reductionist tendency has to do with ‘public’ being used interchangeably with ‘contextual’. Public theology is indeed concerned with relationality, with sociality, and with contextuality – but it need not be reduced to any of these aspects, as important as they are concerning the nature and role of public theology. Perhaps a fourth reductionist issue relates to public theology being viewed as ‘particularistic’ in the same way liberation, political, black, feminist, womanist, African, minjung, and other so-called particularistic theologies are regarded with particularity in mind. In this regard, some can mistakenly reduce public theology to being a particular North American discourse, while others can reduce it to being a particular theology in conflict with the relevant concerns of Latin American liberation theology or African womanist theology and the like.
Against the background of such forms of conceptual confinement, the notion of ‘public’ is important in my understanding and practice of public theology along two fronts. In the first place, I concur with those who underline the philosophical content behind what we today refer to as ‘the public sphere’, influenced in no small measure by the insights of Jürgen Habermas, who discusses the public sphere as a distinctive, modern dimension of societal life characterised by communicative action through rational, participatory, transformational discourse.[5] Appreciating this philosophical texture concerning ‘the public sphere’ helps direct our attention in public theology not in general to relationality, sociality, contextuality or particularity, but more specifically to this ‘public sphere’. In the second place, then, this notion of ‘public’ helps us reflect more carefully on the concrete engagement of theology with the public sphere. Theology is in contact and conversation with concrete realms of public life – political, economic, civil society and public opinion.[6]
There are thus inevitable implications for understanding the agenda and mode of public theology.[7] It is a way of understanding and practising theology which must contribute in constructive, dialogical, enriching and transforming ways to ‘the public good’. For example, without dissolving the theoretical integrity of theological content, public theology demands of us a developing expertise in other disciplines of knowledge matched by a commitment to participate in conversations and exercises beyond the borders of a congregation or theological seminary.
Those of us schooled in such traditions as black theology or liberation theology affirm the agenda of ‘the common good’ as encapsulated in the role of theology in society; others read this phrase narrowly as a Marxist ideological taint. Albert Nolan talks about “the coming of God’s kingdom, God’s reign on earth” as “the object of Christian hope” and, without losing perspective of the language of transcendence, talks about it more plainly than we typically do as theologians.[8] “Our hope,” he assumes, “is that God’s will be done on earth” – and then concludes: “What God wills is always the common good. What God wants is whatever is best for all of us together, whatever is best for the whole of creation”.[9]
The South African Kairos Document, which we commemorated in October 2010 on its twenty-fifth anniversary, offers the global community a resourceful and challenging case study of the ambiguity that tends to characterise our theological perspectives and practices in relation to the common good.[10] I highly recommend the South African as well as subsequent kairos theology documents for earnest reflection and study vis-à-vis the ambiguous quality of our theological perspectives and practices in society. In reality we do not find it easy to appreciate what is best for everyone, concedes Nolan, since what we may often hope for are “too often selfish and self-serving, egocentric and narrow-minded: hopes for a better future for myself, my family, my own country at the expense of other people; hopes for economic growth and a higher standard of living for some, regardless of others”.[11] “But if our attempts are to do, as far as possible, whatever is for the common good, then we are doing God’s will, and to that extent God’s will is being done on earth”.[12]
While public theology, drawing deeply from its theological wells, attends to the agenda of the common good, I would suggest a more specific emphasis around this agenda, that of ‘the public good’. This is to help us maintain the connection between theology and the public sphere with its political, economic, civil society and public opinion domains.[13] To what extent, if any, does our understanding and practise of theology advance the public good? Returning to the “After the Rapture” media clip, this is not necessarily readily discernible. The challenge of public theology is to assist us in humble and ambitious ways for taking responsibility to contribute meaningfully and concretely to the public good. As theologians.
[1] www.thethinkingatheist.com.
[2] www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KlMWzKj4s&feature=player_embedded.
[3] Cynthia Holder-Rich, “Public Theology, The Only Kind There Is” at www.ecclesio.com/category/weekly-essays (23rd May 2011).
[4] R. Ward Holder, “Public Theology as Modern Prophecy” at www.ecclesio.com/category/conversation-partner (25th May 2011).
[5] For a very detailed, critical discussion of this philosophical Habermasian content, see Dirkie Smit, “What does ‘public’ mean? Questions with a view to public theology” in Len Hansen (ed.), Christian in Public: Aims, Methodologies and Issues in Public Theology. Beyers Naudé Centre Series on Public Theology, Vol. 3 (Stellenbosch: African SUN Media, 2007), 11-46.
[6] See Smit, “What does ‘public’ mean?”, 11-46; also Nico Koopman, “Some Comments on Public Theology Today” in Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 117 (November 2003), 9-10.
[7] For example, it “has more of a dialogical, cooperative and constructive approach”, though one “that does not imply Constantinianism or patriotism”. See Koopman, “Some Comments on Public Theology Today”, 7.
[8] Albert Nolan, Hope in an Age of Despair (New York: Orbis, 2009), 7.
[9] Nolan, Hope in an Age of Despair, 7-8.
[10] See The Kairos Document. Challenge to the Church: A Theological Comment on the Political Crisis in South Africa, Second Edition (September 1986). Three types of theologies, accounting for the church’s division amidst the political crisis at the height of apartheid in 1985, are critiqued, viz. State Theology, Church Theology, and Prophetic Theology. For a compilation of the documents to date within the kairos theology tradition, see G.S.D. Leonard (2010) at http://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/manuals/The_Kairos_Documents.sflb.ashx. On the anniversary consultation, see http://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/consultation.aspx.
[11] Nolan, Hope in an Age of Despair, 8.
[12] Nolan, Hope in an Age of Despair, 8.
[13] Commenting on these realms and its implications for theological participation in the public discourse, Nico Koopman provides the following summary statements: “The political sphere of the public focuses on themes relating to the relationship between theology and for example the state, government, political power and the control and regulating of public life. The economic sphere focuses on themes relating to the relationship between theology and for example the so-called autonomous market-economy, globalisation, ecology, science and technology. Civil society … constitutes the third area of the modern public. This area focuses on themes relating to the relationship between theology and, for example, the institutions, organisations, associations and movements of civil society which, independently from the state and economy, strive to enhance the quality of life, satisfy the needs and foster the interests of people, change the nature of society and build the common good, that is life of quality for all. Schools, legal bodies, cultural and sports clubs and the neighbourhood are all institutions of civil society. … public opinion as the fourth sphere of the modern public … focuses on themes relating to the relationship between theology and the pluralistic public discourse on, for example, the nature of society, common foundational values for society, common challenges and common priorities for society. The ensuing public opinion paves the way for jointly striving towards the common good”. See Koopman, “Some Comments on Public Theology Today”, 9-10.
It is quite important that we find a model that will discern reasonably clearly what is “for the public good” or “for the common good”. For example, is the sharing of the national resources of South Africa in the common good, or is privatising it and then raising taxes from this in the common good? From a Christian perspective, sharing is normally the preferred option, but if this leads to a group of entitled people on the one hand and a group of very angry people on the other, then then that which we assumed is in the common good might lead to so much strife that it would in fact not be in the common good. Something such as TRUTH might help us to reach the common good, where the benefits and negatives of both options are thoroughly investigated and spelt out and people are given the option to see what is truly in the common good. In other words, we need a practical model (practical public theology?) to take public theology away from a so-called “objective” stance to something that is truly geared towards that which would sustainably benefit the majority in a society.
Thanks for your response, Edwin, which I find very helpful. The notion of ‘the common good’ or ‘the public good’ is certainly not without its tensions and problems. In the economic realm, for instance, different economic ideologies employ different means to account for the realisation of the greater good. Economic determinists and reductionists argue for a high, uncritical view of the market, claiming that all will be well for the common good (best) through the market and without any interference. An efficient market necessarily realises the common good; there is an inherent morality within the market economy, they say. For a more detailed discussion on this case as far as economic life is concerned, see Peter Ulrich’s “Integrative Economic Ethics” (2008). So, I agree with your reminder of the complexity and ‘ideological baggage’ characterising our understandings of ‘the public good’. This demands renewed attention, which happens to be something I am presently working on.
At the same time, I want to hold onto these notions for their teleological import. They offer us something very important, very biblical, very humanist … as an ethical goal, perhaps. I don’t think we need talk about ‘models’ (there are many of them), but maybe we need to reflect some more on ‘components’ of a theory of the common good that might possibly assist us in more meaningfully contributing to the realisation of ‘the good’ in various realms of the public – whether it be truth or justice or subsidiarity or other aspects.
One of the points I refer to in my very brief article is the role theology and churches must play: “There are thus inevitable implications for understanding the agenda and mode of public theology. It is a way of understanding and practising theology which must contribute in constructive, dialogical, enriching and transforming ways to ‘the public good’”. A challenge to the churches and theology today, in South Africa where you and I come from, is to shift modes of engagement in public life: from a merely antagonistic mode (simply criticising, unmasking, breaking down), as was the case during apartheid, to a more constructive mode (critiquing, unmasking & remasking, breaking down & rebuilding), given our new context. We need to ‘engage the powers’ in the realms of public life. We need to do this, however, in constructive, dialogical, enriching and transforming ways. There are thinkers from our theological tradition who offer us some avenues for such a public theology (e.g. Tillich, Ellul, Thurman, the Niebuhrs, McFague, et al.).
On this…let’s keep talking…
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