Description
Postcolonial Public Theology is a tour de force: a study in theological reflection in conversation with the most compelling intellectual discourses of our time, offering prophetic challenge to the hegemony of economic globalisation. While evolutionary science searches for an ethically responsible practice of rationality, and inter-religious engagement forces Christians to grapple with the realities of cultural hybridity, Postcolonial Public Theology makes the case for public theology to turn toward postcolonial imagination, demonstrating a fresh rethinking of the public and global issues that continue to emerge in the aftermath of colonialism. Paul S. Chung provides students and scholars with a fascinating framework for imagining a polycentric Christianity as well as for discussing the continuing importance of Christian theology in the public arena.
About the Author
Paul S. Chung is visiting professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He is the author of Church and Ethical Responsibility in the Midst of World Economy (James Clarke, 2014), as well as The Hermeneutical Self and an Ethical Difference (James Clarke, 2012).
Contents
Foreword by Lois Malcolm
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Confession, Contextual Interpretation, and Public Issues
1. Martin Luther: Contextualization and Public Witness
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Postcolonial Reading and Contextualization
3. Karl Barth: Analogical Hermeneutics, Divine Action, and Public Witness
Part II: Public Theology and Scientific Rationality
4. Postcolonial Imagination, Postmodernity, and Recognition of the Other
5. Faith, Scientific Rationality, and Evolution
6. Ted Peters: Prolepsis, Divine Action, and Grace
Part III: Public Theology, Prophetic Dialogue, and Justice
7. Ernst Troeltsch: Public Theology, Historical-Critical Inquiry, and Hermeneutical Reorientation
8. Public Religious Theology: Christians and Buddhists
9. Public Theology and World Economy: Prophetic Diakonia and Economic Justice
Afterword: Public Theology, Ecology, and Confucianism
Bibliography
Index
Endorsements and Reviews
It’s time for a book on postcolonial public theology by an author who knows two cultures: both the coloniser and the colonised. The Christian gospel is universal in the abstract, yet contextual in the concrete; and Chung vividly and thoughtfully concretises our theological agenda.
Ted Peters, Professor of Systematic Theology at the Graduate Theological Union and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
In the situation of imperial capitalism, much of what is sold as ‘public theology’ is a bourgeois attempt to undo liberation theology by co-opting it. However, Chung succeeds in saving the concept for emancipatory and justice purposes.
Ulrich Duchrow, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Heidelberg
Chung’s book has begun this much-needed conversation and should be applauded for its efforts to engage in such dialogue.
Calida Chu, in The Expository Times, Vol 129, No 11
