{"id":13,"date":"2014-07-14T04:03:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T04:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=13"},"modified":"2014-08-11T20:35:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:35:37","slug":"beliefs-have-consequences-in-public-who-knew-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/beliefs-have-consequences-in-public-who-knew-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Beliefs Have Consequences In Public\u2026Who Knew!? Thinking just a bit with Max Stackhouse & Steven Bevans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCurrent evangelicalism in the US lacks an articulate political or social theory except for a generalized patriotism.\u201d[1]<\/a> So writes Max Stackhouse, long-serving emeritus professor at Princeton.\u00a0 Unfortunately \u2013 including beyond the scope of simply \u201cevangelicalism\u201d \u2013 much of the \u201ctheology\u201d we see applied in the public sphere today is more bafoonery than it is articulate, nuanced, contextualized, researched and practiced substantive belief.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the thing, substantive political engagement doesn\u2019t often fit well into the sound-byte political carnival we\u2019ve typically got parading around these days.\u00a0 And so, we\u2019ve got a population that by-and-large has grown-up on and continues to be fed sloganeering faith.\u00a0 If they like it, they buy-in hook-line-and-sinker.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t like it, they want nothing to do with it at all.\u00a0 Neither of these aspects is desirable.\u00a0 In a sense, politically and theologically, we don\u2019t primarily want protagonists or antagonists; we want deuteragonists, tritagonists and other agonists.\u00a0 We don\u2019t really want people who are too comfortable with completely excluding others who do not fully adhere to their particular beliefs.\u00a0 We want people who are willing to in the best possible manner relationally walk in the tension of figuring out how to navigate life with others while not ever (or certainly hardly ever) arriving at complete concurrence.<\/p>\n

So, without taking a lot more time this brings us to, the fact that \u201cPublic theology is, oddly, more like socialism is in theory, for it too sees the fabric of society as decisive for every area of the common life. It differs from socialism, however, in that it does not see the polarization of the classes as the fundamental characteristic of society\u2014either in theory or in fact\u2014and does not expect the state to control economic life by centralized planning and capitalization.\u201d That is, in a good Catholic sense, it sees parish and neighborhood community as vital to the healthy functioning and maintenance of a healthy society.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Personally, I like Stackhouse\u2019s use of Althusias\u2019s idea of \u201csociety as a \u2018consociation of consociations\u2019, a \u2018federation\u2019 of\u2019covenanted\u2019 communities.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 I find that this fits well with the idea of contextual theology.\u00a0 In the sense of understanding that all theology is contextual and the idea that something contextual is woven together (from the Latin origin of contextus<\/em> made up of \u2018con\u2019 \u2013 \u2018with\u2019 or \u2018together\u2019 and \u2018texere\u2019 \u2013 \u2018to weave\u2019) perhaps it might be important to talk about \u201cPublics Theology\u201d (plural) alongside \u201cPublic Theology\u201d (singular).\u00a0 This interaction would seemingly allow for more conversation pertaining to the equitability of the distribution and implementation of power.<\/p>\n

Stephen Bevans suggests that using contextual theology as a way forward (in conversation with Max Stackhouse, we would offer, \u201cas a way forward for doing public(s) theology\u201d) for implementing \u201cproposed models of practical theology that also propose, in various ways, a dialogue between tradition and context for transformative action.\u201d[4]<\/a> So, here we have a theological method that recognizes the necessity (inevitability) of engagement with the surrounding world, but also refuses to let such engagement become too fully entagled within the corridors of power and in yet another form once again marginalize those not \u201cin.\u201d<\/p>\n

So as the title of this short piece suggests, beliefs do have consequences in public.\u00a0 It has just been than far too often the beliefs of people in power are held signficantly at the expense of those not in power.\u00a0 A comingling of contextual and public(s) theological undestanding and method would work to change this.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Max Stackhouse, \u201cCivil Religion, Political Theology and Public Theology: What\u2019s the Difference?\u201d Political Theology 5:3 (2004): 279<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Ibid., p. 288<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> Ibid., p. 289<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/a> Stephen B. Bevans, \u201cWhat Has contextual Theology to Offer the Church of the Twenty-First Century?\u201d in Contextual Theology for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Stephens B. Bevans and Katalina Tahaafe-Williams (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCurrent evangelicalism in the US lacks an articulate political or social theory except for a generalized patriotism.\u201d[1] So writes Max Stackhouse, long-serving emeritus professor at Princeton.\u00a0 Unfortunately \u2013 including beyond the scope of simply \u201cevangelicalism\u201d \u2013 much of the \u201ctheology\u201d we see applied in the public sphere today is more bafoonery than it is articulate, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,2,13,14],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bevans","tag-dminlgp","tag-garner","tag-stackhouse","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1329,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}