How to Actually Avoid Public Theology’s Temptations

Calling theology “public” highlights how that theology addresses the public square or speaks to matters of concern within it.¹ Such theology may be undertaken by specialist biblical scholars and theologians. Or it might be undertaken by Christians with no such specialized training. In either case, public theology’s address to the public square confronts three key temptations.

Public Theology’s Temptations

One is a tendency toward authoritarianism. Public theology succumbs to this temptation when it seeks to enforce adherence. Against this temptation, public theology finds itself obliged to uphold the independence of the public square.

A second temptation, jingoism, arises when public theology regards the public square as only ever the beneficiary of public theology’s own already-formed reflections. So, against this temptation, public theology finds it must affirm that the public square is not simply a place where an already-formed theology comes to bear. Instead, the public square must play a generative role in public theology’s development. This role includes not least identifying the questions to which public theology must respond.

Public theology’s third temptation is fear of the other. This fear arises because of the other’s differentiation. And against this temptation, public theology finds itself obliged to pursue the opposite—namely, a relation of welcome.

Public Theology in the Orientation of Welcome

Structured “just as the Messiah has welcomed you for God’s glory” (Rom 15:7b; καθὼς … ὁ Χριστὸς προσελάβετο ὑμᾶς εἰς δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ), welcome rejects the constraints of fear of the other.² Welcome also rejects the jingoist privileges of one’s own preferences and peculiarities.

And finally, welcome most clearly rejects authoritarianism. It restrains the welcomer and requires a response from the welcomed. In this sense, welcome is a receiving of another to oneself (πρόσ-ληψις), not an enforcement of oneself upon the other (cf. Rom 11:15).

In this way, public theology finds in welcome a way of escaping all three of its besetting temptations (cf. 1 Cor 10:13).

Just drop your email address in the form below, and I’ll send you a full recording of a discussion I had with Mustafa Akyol (Cato Institute) about Islam, Christianity, and neighborliness.

1. Header image provided by Katie Moum. ↩︎
2. The Greek text accords with the NA²⁸ (affiliate disclosure). Image provided by Logan Weaver. ↩︎