Between a rock and a hard place
Subtitle: public theology in a post-secular age
By: Elaine Graham
Publisher: SCM Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 266
ISBN-13: 9780334045984
Subjects: Public theology; Postsecularism; Apologetics; Teologi; Sekularism
Description: Public theology is an increasingly important area of theological discourse with strong global networks of institutions and academics involved in it. Elaine Graham is one of the UK's leading theologians and an established SCM author. In this book, Elaine Graham argues that Western society is entering an unprecedented political and cultural era, in which many of the assumptions of classic sociological theory and of mainstream public theology are being overturned. Whilst many of the features of the trajectory of religious decline, typical of Western modernity, are still apparent, there are compelling and vibrant signs of religious revival, not least in public life and politics - local, national and global. This requires a revision of the classic secularization thesis, as well as much Western liberal political theory, which set out separate or at least demarcated terms of engagement between religion and the public domain. Elaine Graham examines claims that Western societies are moving from 'secular' to 'post-secular' conditions and traces the contours of the 'post-secular': the revival of faith-based engagement in public sphere alongside the continuing - perhaps intensifying - questioning of the legi&#x00AC;timacy of religion in public life. She argues that public theology must rethink its theological and strategic priorities in order to be convincing in this new 'post-secular' world and makes the case for the renewed prospects for public theology as a form of Christian apologetics, drawing from Biblical, classical and contemporary sources.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 234-251) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: The turning of the tide: how religion 'went public'; title: The unquiet frontier: mapping the post-secular; title: Lost in translation? The dilemmas of public theology; title: Public speaking: secular reason and the voice of the church; title: Crusades and culture wars: the perils of evangelical identity politics; title: Jews, pagans, sceptics and emperors: public theology as Christian apologetics; title: An apologetics of presence: public theology after Christendom and secularism.