Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Introduction
Chris Green

1. Evangelical public theology: what on earth? Why on earth? How on earth?
Daniel Strange

Introduction
Defining a discipline
The story so far
Surveying the current scene
Building a theological framework
Presenting two models for consideration
On being ‘offensive’ and ‘thick’ in public
Conclusion: moving forward by stepping back

2. New living in an old creation
Kirsten Birkett

Introduction
The importance of resurrection ethics
Transformed by the Spirit
The objective reality of creation
Difficulties with this view
The problem with ends
The history of order
Human participation in the renewed creation
The subjective reality
A moral life
Living in Christ
Some thoughts on new living in an old creation

3. Samuel Rutherford and the confessionally Christian state
David Field

Evangelical defeatism and public theology
Samuel Rutherford’s Lex, rex
Lex, rex and the confessionally Christian state
Sixteen objections to the confessionally Christian state
Alternatives to the confessionally Christian state
Summary and conclusion
Further reading

4. Gabbatha and Golgotha: penal substitutionary atonement and the public square
Garry J. Williams

Introduction: the cross and politics
The cross and politics: East and West?
Outline
Part 1: from the public square to the cross
Part 2: from the cross to the public square
Conclusion

5. Inescapably political: sermon preached in Oak Hill Chapel
David Field

INTRODUCTION - Chris Green

Tony Blair’s media adviser, Alistair Campbell, once famously announced the boundary line between faith and public life, with the headline ‘We don’t do God’. Campbell represented the assumptions of much of contemporary Britain, where very rarely will any Christian ‘do God’ unless they are clergy. Unbelief is permitted, and even aggressive atheism is given its hour in the sun, but plain, simple orthodox Christianity rarely breaks cover. Christians, we might say, don’t do public life.

The strangeness of this ought to strike us. Not only is it a matter of very recent history that atheism has become publicly plausible as the normal view, and Christianity a fringe world view, and not only do the constitution, culture and manners of Britain require a Christian explanation to make any sense at all, but English-speaking evangelicals have noticed and lamented this withdrawal for a half century, while simultaneously being unable to stop it. The American scholar Carl Henry published The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism in 1947, but perhaps it was the new winds of the sixties, seventies and eighties that really brought the clash to light: the Festival of Light, the writings of Francis Schaeffer and the foundation of L’Abri, the launch of Third Way, the Lausanne movement, the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity and so on are indicators of continuous attempts to form what Harry Blamires famously called ‘The Christian Mind’. From one perspective evangelicals have been discussing this for around forty years. But strikingly, that debate has not produced consensus. While it is acceptable to talk about global poverty, HIV/AIDS or the latest Quentin Tarantino film, there is no substantial agreement on them. And even such agreement as there is has made no impact on a culture heading in a very different direction at high speed.

I suspect one reason why our attempts have not succeeded is that the problem is much deeper than we suppose. Theologically it runs deeper because it goes back to sin and idolatry, but that is not quite what I have in mind. I suspect the clues go back through the nineteenth century, through Nietzsche’s much-cited but still valid observation that one cannot simultaneously dispose of the Christian God and yet retain Christian morality. His observation was that he saw this happening in England, which means that the sidelining of the theological elements of Christianity vis-à-vis public morality was already well underway by the late nineteenth century. The writings of Karl Marx, T. H. Huxley and George Bernard Shaw made such an impact not because they were radical, but because they were falling on fertile, prepared soil. This then easily moved into the acceptance of the more ‘shocking’ writings of Oscar Wilde, Lytton Strachey and E. M. Forster.

Where then do we stop in the quest to find the source of the problem? Various scholars have suggested that the decisive change came around that knot of events and thinkers loosely called ‘The Enlightenment’. The self-chosen title ‘Enlightenment’ (Siècle des Lumières in French; Aufklärung in German) was designed to point up the ignorance of what preceded it, namely orthodox Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and its writings could be quite virulent in their hatred.

The acceptability of anti-Christian writings among the educated elite was probably given its most decisive entry point by the publication of two works. Edward Gibbon’s elegant and ironic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, the eve of the violence of the French Revolution, is marked by a continual denigration of Christianity and the forging of a bridge between his day and the great days of the Republic; the intervening times were the ‘Middle’ or ‘Dark’ Ages. The other work, Shelley’s first great poem, Queen Mab, published in 1813, was much more libertarian and amoral, and, given what was then happening in the shadow of the guillotine, it is explicitly violent in its bloody demands against Christianity, and against Jesus Christ in particular. But it was written as a fantasy, with fairies and castles, and it was designed for the upperclass nursery as well as the study, to arm a generation of children against the claims of the gospel, and to revolt against the Christian God in the name of a greater liberty.

All such literary family trees have deep roots, and one could discover broader connections and longer timelines with ease. But Christians who are thinking about how we engage with public life need to be aware that there is a history to this debate, of both resistance to the gospel and a range of responses to the resistance. Daniel Strange argues in his chapter that the dominant response has been retreat, and colluding in the godless claims of the Enlightenment by conceding ground.

This volume of School of Theology reflects a departure from its predecessors. Rather than deal with a classical doctrine, we are dealing with a rather ill-formed topic, and one where an inconsistent viewpoint has been expressed over time. Even the term ‘public theology’ is vague. Does that mean politics? The arts? Public policy? Party politics? The answer is probably all of the above, but we do not yet know. This book is not a seamless series of essays but a conversation among people who represent a consistently orthodox evangelicalism, who see public life in regard to the gospel in different ways, but who are committed to thinking biblically on the matter and coming to a common mind. Unlike other books giving a range of views, we hope that by the end, readers will have a clearer view of what public theology is, and how we may use it.

Daniel Strange, who lectures in Public Theology at Oak Hill, has given a summary of the state of the debate, with both historical and contemporary viewpoints.

Kirsten Birkett has a distinguished publishing record as a simplifier and communicator of complex ideas; here she summarizes the thought of probably the most significant but complex of contemporary evangelical writers, Oliver O’Donovan.

David Field takes us back before the Enlightenment, to a great Scottish theologian of the seventeenth century, Samuel Rutherford. His masterpiece Lex, rex, which later provided a theological basis for the American Consitution, was condemned in England as treasonable. David also contributes the concluding sermon.

Garry Williams connects the discussion about justice and law to theories about the cross, and shows how different contemporary theories about the cross reflect different understandings of how punishment might rightly operate.

It is a great privilege for us to be able to dedicate this book to David Peterson, who devised the format for the Annual School of Theology, and throughout his principalship insisted on the consistent raising of standards of theological education. He has been passionate about the idea of Public Theology, and it is a delight to salute him as he expands our vision of a world ruled by Christ, with ‘every nation under heaven’ (Acts 2:5).

© Chris Green, 2008