Book Review: Public Theology in Cultural Engagement

Stephen Holmes (ed.), Public Theology in Cultural Engagement (Paternoster, 2008), 196pp (with thanks to Paternoster for a review copy)

This is a set of previously unpublished essays engaging theologically with culture.  The papers have emerged from a recent project between the Bible Society and the Research Institute in Systematic Theology at King's College London. With essays from Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson, Colin Greene, Brian Horne, Luke Bretherton and Stephen Holmes this is an excellent book which addresses important concerns. Unlike other works engaging theology and culture, this book seeks to be 'theological rather than sociological.'

The book begins with Holmes asking whether theology can engage with culture; followed by essays dealing with the same question 'through the lens of particular biblical, theological, or historical data', and then a second part which puts the theory into practice - on issues of drugs, art and nationalism.

Highlights for me were in Brian Horne's essay on not confusing art and religion - as parts of the church continue to rediscover the arts, especially within worship - Horne tracks and discusses some of the problems of equating art with religion.  Some commentators want to see art is one thing, religion is another, Horne himself argues at the end that 'art and religion are inextricably and intimately linked' and art is vital to communicating and revealing faith.

As Holmes suggests 'a genuinely theological engagement [with culture] ... is possible', and 'missiologically, it is urgent'. This book, as Paul Louis Metzger says on the back cover, is an important and welcome contribution to a growing body of literature.

Comments

[Tekle]

Thanks for sharing. I am preparing research guided course on Public Theology. Your brief review helped me to include this material as part of my reading.