H. Richard Niebhur wrote the following in his 1951 book, Christ & Culture:
A many-sided debate about the relations of Christianity and civilization is being carried on in our time. Historians and theologians, statesmen and churchmen, Catholics and Protestants, Christians and anti-Christians participate in it. It is carried on publicly by opposing parties and privately in the conflicts of conscience. Sometimes it is concentrated on special issues, such as those of the place of Christian faith in general education or of Christian ethics in economic life. Sometimes it deals with broad questions of the church’s responsibility for social order or of the need for a new separation of Christ’s followers from the world. The debate is as confused as it is many-sided.1
It seems not much has changed in seventy years. Niebuhr was correct when he called it an enduring problem.
What does the Christian faith have to do with the rest of our individual lives? It is a question that resurfaces nearly everyday, especially when devices rush news of some new development in the world. When technology and media work together to create an unending scroll of trending headlines, we can hardly stop ourselves from mulling over the interconnected relationships between Christianity and the culture and the implications of the former for the latter.
There are countless ways to approach the question. Some have tried as sociologists and historians, others as theologians. But just because everyone starts in the same place does not mean we will all arrive at the same conclusion.
We are excited to announce the start of a new initiative, one that intends to set out on this journey as well. We believe The Public Theology Project will benefit many in this ongoing conversation, though in a slightly different (and hopefully interesting!) way. But some definitions are in order before venturing further.
Introducing public theology
The term ‘public theology’ is itself relatively modern. For those who helped coin the term in the 1970’s, public theology was mostly a sociological endeavor as scholars tried to identify and categorize various expressions of Christianity and their respective relationships to society. In other words, it was more attentive to the what than the how and barely addressed the ought. Niebuhr’s Christ & Culture remains incredibly popular largely because he attempts to address all three–and it is questions of how and ought that really interest believers.
But Christ & Culture is only a typology. Niebuhr never tries to define public theology. Nor does he really investigate the assumption that faith does have something to say about public life. On these two points, we enlist the help of other authors and their contributions in the field of public theology.
A public faith?
Conversations about public theology often begin with the assumption that we bring our faith to bear on public life. But we should take a moment to investigate that assumption, especially when we live in a time of extreme secularization and the “squeezing of the religious to the periphery of life.”2 The idea of 'separation of church and state’ has been divorced from its original context and weaponized against people of faith. For secularists, Christian religion ought to remain strictly relegated to the private realm, and any attempt to bring it to bear on markets, law, or culture is often castigated as a seditious attempt at imposing a theocracy or ‘Christian nationalism’.
But how do the secularists’ claims stand up against the testimony of Scripture? As theologian D. A. Carson demonstrates, many of the questions which the Apostle Paul and the other New Testament authors were addressing were matters of cultural engagement:
In political terms, Christians had to work through the relationship between the church and the state, between the kingdom of God and the Roman Empire. Somewhat different answers were called up by different circumstances: contrast, for instance, Romans 13 and Revelation 19. But the issues the church faced by being an international community claiming ultimate allegiance to a kingdom not of this world were much more than governmental. They also had to do with whether Christians should participate in socially expected customs when those customs had religious overtones (e.g., 1 Corinthians 8), with styles of governance (e.g., Matthew 20:20-28), with an array of relational expectations (e.g., Philemon; 1 Peter 2:13-3:16), with the challenge of persecution (e.g., Matthew 5:10-12; John 15:18-16:4; Revelation 6), and much more.3
Carson highlights two important points. The first is that the impetus for public theology in the New Testament is the change in orientation from a covenant-nation to an international covenant-people. In other words, worthwhile public theology begins with the study of redemptive history as revealed in God’s holy and inspired Word. We ought not be biblicists but we must be biblical, remaining faithful to all that is (and is not!) recorded in Holy Scripture.
The second is that Christian faith comes to bear on multiple aspects of public life. To be in the world, but not of it (John 17:14-15) implies engaging the world in a number of ways, from our relationship to politics, the arts, and marketplaces to the way we think about familial life. How we should act in each of those situations at any particular moment is not always clear. We are at the same time, creatures made for this world with a specific task (Genesis 1:26-28) and citizens of a new kingdom (Philippians 3:20). God has called his creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31) so we ought not fear participating in the various aspects of creaturely life. And yet, the weight of sin is so overwhelming that creation itself groans under it (Romans 8:22). Life on this side of glory is marked by a certain tension or tragedy. Public theology is, in some small measure, trying to live well amidst that tragedy.
If Carson helps us establish a Christian impetus for public theology, then David Tracy offers a defense of public theology from the other side. Why should the public care about what Christians have to say on these matters?
In his book, The Analogical Imagination, Tracy introduces the concept of “the classic.” Fundamentally, a classic is “a text, event, image, person or symbol which unites particularity of origin and expression with a disclosure of meaning and truth available, in principle, to all human beings.”4 As a “disclosure of reality we cannot but name truth,” classics are assigned a “normative status.”5 The classic therefore commands attention by its own disclosure of truth and demands the audience take its claims seriously. For Tracy, religious classics are the only thing preventing religious traditions in pluralistic societies from “finally either dissolving into some lowest common denominator or accepting marginal existence as one interesting but purely private option.”6
For our purposes, the revelation of God in Christ and the testimonies to his life, death, and resurrection as contained in the Scriptures constitutes The Classic which legitimizes public theology as a worthwhile enterprise. Whether those outside the church recognize Christianity’s claims or not is beside the point. The nations will rage against the Lord, the psalmist says, but the will of the Creator still commands our obedience.
What is public theology?
Having offered a defense for public theology, we should also provide a definition. Robert Benne’s is among the best. Though he is a Lutheran, Benne is useful because he shares many of our classically Reformed bonafides while also writing in a post-war American context.
Benne defines public theology as “the engagement of a living religious tradition with its public environment–the economic, political, and cultural spheres of our common life.”7 Behind his definition sits many assumptions, some of which we have already discussed. As God’s people, we are saved from the world for the world which naturally lends itself to a kind of tension–one which Benne does not so much resolve but attends to by appealing to paradox. Ironically, this paradox also demonstrates the integrity of the believer. “It assumes,” says Benne, “that a particular religious worldview is an authentic quest for ultimate truth and that people of that tradition actually shape their lives according to their religious vision.”8
We assume the same. As we approach questions of scope and methodology, we want to take a similarly charitable position: that the Christian faith does have something to say about engaging society; that society ought to heed the Christian witness as a normative claim to truth; and that public theology is the enterprise of relating the two together faithfully.
Methodology
Having outlined some key definitions and parameters, we should now turn to the question of methodology. How will the Public Theology Project accomplish its mission?
First, a necessary observation. An attentive reader will notice the absence so far of any mention of the church. This is, sadly, a common oversight in most discussions of public theology. More often than not, authors present individual Christians engaged in society as if they were detached from God’s ordained covenant community. At best, the church as an institution is mentioned but the lines remain blurry. Does the church engage society differently than individual Christians? Should it? And if so, how?
These are important questions that the project will seek to answer. For now, we might only say that the distinction is a necessary one. The Public Theology Project, as an outgrowth of the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, takes both the spirituality of the church and individual vocational calling seriously. This is perhaps our most explicit distinction and one we embrace as confessional Protestants.
We should also say that we speak as pastors and not experts in cultural analysis, economics, politics, or philosophy. Contrary to what some think, an M.Div. does not confer omni-competency. Certainly, addressing the question of how Christians engage the market, politics, and culture will require some analysis of all three. One cannot simply apply Christianity to a post-sexual revolution landscape, for example, without some idea of what the sexual revolution is, how it came to be, and the ways it has affected Christian practice. But in these areas we want to act more like guides than prophets, searching out salient analyses and presenting them to you for evaluation.
Those with prior interest in public theology are familiar with the analyses that have garnered a large influence in evangelicalism. Another distinctive feature of the Public Theology Project will be its willingness to engage lesser known thinkers who may not share our theological priors but have much to offer in their particular field of expertise.
For the sake of clarity, and in keeping with Benne’s definition, we will sort our questions into these three areas: markets, politics, and culture. Each of these areas have undergone massive evolutions in recent years–evolutions that the church has not quite come to grips with yet. Our hope is our project will be thoroughly relevant in this sense.
Finally, we want to express our hope that the Public Theology Project be a communal endeavor. Learning happens best in a community setting when different people seek truth together. Still, some shared foundation is necessary. The core of that foundation is the Westminster Standards and the theology and doctrines it espouses. But our hope is that anyone within broader Reformed orthodoxy will find the Public Theology Project to be welcoming and edifying.
We hope you will join us in this exciting new endeavor. You can do so by engaging our content–podcasts, reading guides, articles, and events. In the future, we hope to build out a curriculum that your local church could work through together. We also want to build a community where participants in this journey can communicate with each other and spur one another along in learning and faithfulness.
There is much to do.
H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture: Expanded 50th Anniversary Edition (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2001), 1.
D.A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 116.
Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited, 4.
David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1991), 133.
Tracy, The Analogical Imagination, 8.
Ibid., xi.
Robert Benne, The Paradoxical Vision: A Public Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), 4.
Benne, The Paradoxical Vision, 4-5.
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