scholarly journals Essential Workers, Essential Services? Leitourgia in Light of Lockdown

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Bryan Cones
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Liturgical Studies ◽  
Essential Services ◽  
Church Workers ◽  
Church Work ◽  
Essential Service

Within days of the outbreak of COVID-19, the language of “essential work” and “essential workers” became commonplace in public discourse. “Church workers” and their in-person liturgical services were largely deemed “non-essential”, and most assemblies shifted worship to online platforms. While some reflection on this virtual “church work” has appeared in the intervening months, there has been less evaluation of the gathered assembly’s absence from the public square, along with the contribution its liturgical work might offer in interpreting the pandemic and its effects. This essay imagines a post-COVID-19 agenda for liturgical studies that focuses on a recovery of Christian liturgy as public, in-person, and “essential” service done for the sake of the polis—a public example of “church doing world”—that proposes a countersign to the inequalities of contemporary consumer culture laid bare in these last months. It begins by engaging in dialogue with the leitourgia of groups who insisted on the essential nature of their public service, in particular the public protests against police violence that marked the summer of 2020. In doing so, it seeks ways liturgical assemblies might better propose a “public theology” of God’s work in the world understood as the concursus Dei, the divine accompanying of creation and humanity within it.

Public Theology and Liberal Education

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanan A. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Education ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Nel Noddings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Capacity To Change

Abstract This essay explores the conditions necessary for religious and nonreligious worldviews to facilitate dialogue across difference in the public discourse of diverse democracies, and for a pedagogy that prepares citizens to participate in that discourse. Following Nel Noddings, I call those prepared to learn from one another through this sort of dialogue ‘intelligent’. They acknowledge the possible fallibility of their beliefs and behaviors and the human capacity to change course when one has strayed from a chosen path. By way of illustration the essay considers how such an intelligent viewpoint might be conceived from the perspective of my own Jewish faith.

scholarly journals An enquiry on poverty discourses in public theology for the calling of the church to respond to poverty: A case for the Africa Inland Church in Kenya

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah K. Tenai
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
Africa Inland Church ◽  
Poverty Levels ◽  
The Church

As an emergent and rapidly growing international field of study, public theology has its focus on how Christian faith and practice impact on ordinary life. Its principle concern is thewell-being of society. In Africa, and in Kenya in particular, where poverty levels are still high, there is a need to enquire into the value and efficacy of the poverty discourses in publictheology, for the calling of the church to respond to poverty. One of the main and fast growingchurches in Kenya, the Africa Inland Church (AIC), has vast resources used for, amongst otherthings, various on-going work amidst the poor and the vulnerable in remote and poor areas. Due to the unrelenting nature of poverty in Kenya, the AIC needs a theological perspective, which is sufficiently sensitive to poverty and can enable it to respond to poverty moreeffectively. Public theology’s emphasis on gaining an entrée into the public square andadopting the agenda of communities, including public theology’s calling on churches toactively participate in rational and plausible public discourses, can assist the AIC to respondeffectively to the challenge of poverty in Kenya.

Transforming Public Service for Effective Integrated Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-53
Author(s):  
John-Mary Kauzya
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Service Operations ◽  
The Public ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Essential Services ◽  
Development Goals

In this paper, the author provides a synopsis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by world leaders in September 2015. He argues that in order for this agenda to be implemented and the goals to be achieved, countries will need to transform their public services and develop their capacity to deliver critical essential services equitable and effectively. The paper further argues that transforming the Public Service will need a transformational leadership even if transactional and even bureaucratic leadership are necessary as well. The paper also gives some aspects of what a transformed public service would look like in light of the 2030 Agenda, arguing that the characteristics of the transformed public service should be viewed in light of putting people at the centre of the Public Service operations and leaving no one behind in the provision and consumption of services.

Doing Theology in a Straitened Public Square

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-227
Author(s):  
Andrew Bradstock
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Given

A public theologian will have two questions constantly in mind: Where is the public square with which I am expected to engage? And, what are its terms of engagement? Both questions necessarily involve examining the nature and role of the media as it touches upon the given context, and it is the intention in this article to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities of undertaking public theology in an environment where, (a) significant sections of the mass media accord very low priority to serious discussion of current issues and (b) voices offering a ‘faith’ perspective, or seeking even to draw upon the language of conviction or moral value, are at worst unwelcome and at best misunderstood. What does it look like to do public theology in a ‘straitened’ public square? What challenges are presented and how might they be met?

How Naked Is the Public Square? Religion, Public Service, and Implications for Public Administration

2008 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Houston ◽  
Patricia K. Freeman ◽  
David L. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square

scholarly journals RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Blaikie ◽  
Diana Ginn
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Political Views

Full, open, and civilized discourse among citizens is fundamental to the life of a liberal democracy. It seems trite to assert that no discourse should be prohibited or excluded simply because it is grounded in religious faith or employs religious beliefs to justify a particular position.1 Yet there are those who contend that it is improper for citizens to use religious arguments when debating or deciding issues in the public square,2 that metaphorical arena where issues of public policy are discussed and contested. In this article we challenge this position, examining the various arguments that are put forward for keeping public discourse secular, arguments that when citizens explicitly ground their social and political views in their religious beliefs, this is divisive, exclusionary, and ultimately antithetical to the liberal democratic state. We maintain that none of these arguments are persuasive.

Using God-Talk in a Secular Society: Time for a New Conversation on Public Issues?

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-158
Author(s):  
Andrew Bradstock
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Right ◽  
Michael Sandel

Abstract The role that religious language should play in the ‘public square’ has long been a matter of debate. As Rawls, Rorty, Audi and others have long argued, albeit with subtle variations, discussion on public issues must be truly ‘public’ and therefore employ vocabulary, principles and reasoning which are intelligible to any reasonable person and based on public canons of validity. But does this argument do justice to religious voices? Can the growing number of such voices clamouring for the right to be heard continue to be ignored? Does excluding conviction-based language from public debate lessen the quality of that debate and the potential to find effective solutions to policy challenges? Drawing upon recent work by Jonathan Chaplin, Rowan Williams, Roger Trigg and Michael Sandel, this article examines the current state of scholarship on the question of language in public discourse, and concludes that the case for ‘confessional candour’ to be accepted in such discourse is overwhelming and could have a positive effect on policy outcomes. A prerequisite to this, however—at least within the context of New Zealand—will be a fresh debate about the meaning and scope of the term ‘secularism’.

The Madres Appear on the Public Plaza de Mayo in Argentina: Towards Human Rights as a Key for a Public eology that Carries on the Liberation Heritage

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-187
Author(s):  
Heike Walz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
State Terrorism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractThe Madres y Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo are internationally recognized for human rights work in their ongoing campaign for justice for those who disappeared during the most recent dictatorship in Argentina. ey have become the contemporary Argentine symbol for the implementation of human rights in the society. The article examines how they implicitly carry on the liberation theological heritage and have reclaimed the public sphere through: shedding light on the clandestine actions of state terrorism, turning private motherhood political and reconstructing public discourse. Despite such efforts to put memory, truth and justice on the public agenda, a history of impunity made reconciliation difficult in Argentina. The engagement of the Mothers and Grandmothers off ers clues for the continuation of liberation theology as a type of public theology, with human rights as its focus.

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