Editorial Introduction: Public Theology After Maidan (original) (raw)
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Telephone (541) 344-1528 • Fa x (541) 344-1506 Visit our Web site at w w w.wipfandstock.com After more than twenty years since the fall of the USSR, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society has entered a crucial phase in its historical development. Setting out a transformative vision of mission and theological education, this book makes an important contribution towards the renewal of the church in this fascinating-but deeply troubled-part of the world. After the violent and disruptive events that followed the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity and Freedom in -, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society now has an unprecedented opportunity to become a shining example of a "church without walls." Searle and Cherenkov re ect on the political, social, cultural, and intellectual legacy of the Soviet Union and o er bold and innovative proposals on how the church can rediscover its prophetic voice by relinquishing its debilitating dependence on the state and, instead, expressing solidarity with the people in their legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy. Notwithstanding the pessimism and lament expressed on many pages, the authors conclude on a positive note, predicting that the coming years will witness a owering of evangelical ecumenism in action as Christian solidarity ourishes and over ows denominational boundaries and parochial interests.
Religious activism in Eastern Europe and beyond
Religion, State and Society, 2023
This collection of contributions addresses the theme of religiously motivated and religiously framed civic activism by bringing together anthropology and theology. The main goal is to put forward a concept of religious activism as local, non-elitist responses challenging dominant discourses and regulation of the religious in authoritarian and more democratic societies. Highlighting complex entanglements of religion, civic engagement, and political participation over the last decade, the authors explore the ways faithbased claims, acts, and initiatives from below are evolving in public spaces, mostly in post-Soviet societies. The contributors to this collection shed light on a variety of faith-based claims arising around religious materiality, governance questions, and unequal access to resources in Russia, Georgia, Eastern Germany, and in the USA. The contributions also identify the means of mediating acts of religious activism, those chosen forms of public expression that make the voices of religious activists more visible and mobilise individual and collective actions in public spaces.
God in Public_Prolegomena to a public theology in Romania_JHSS_8.1.2017.pdf
Journal of Humanistic and Social Sciences, 2017
This paper intends to begin a conversation on public theology in the Romanian context. The launching of the Global Network for Public Theology and of the International Journal of Public Theology some 10 years represent two significant markers for this new field of study. Public theology is a serious engagement of Christian faith with the public domain in all its social, political, cultural and economic spheres of life in society. It is proposed that the engagement of theology in conversation with issues of public domain becomes not only relevant but extremely urgent if we consider the historical, post- communist, post-dictatorial, transitional context of Romania and the entire region of Central and Eastern Europe, where faith was privatized and excluded from the public discourse for many decades. It is argued that in this context one of the most important and urgent tasks of the church as well as of Christian theology is to become an authentic witness in the public realm, toproclaim and embody the gospel as public truth, i.e. a theology concerned with and addressing the entire reality of life in society.It is thus shown that a crucial preoccupation for Christians in Romania and in this part of the world isan articulation of a solid public theology of culture, of work, of social justice and reconciliation, a public theology for the common good and human flourishing.After a brief presentation of a particular aspect of the Romanian regarding religion and public life, the paper offers an introduction to this new field of study by looking at some definitions, characteristics, approaches and tasks of public theology.
Public religions after socialism: redefining norms of difference
Religion has come to assume quite a public presence in many parts of Eastern Europe. The instrumental use of clergy, religious sentiment and transcendent symbolism reflects the emergence of conditions in which religion is capable of playing an expedient role in processes of forging a new governing and moral order. At this critical juncture, when norms of gender, ethnicity, regionalism and language politics are being redefined, the ambient presence of religiosity makes political initiatives and political protest expressed in a religious idiom particularly effective. Religion has become a resource used to provide the moral justification for proposed norms of behaviour and to legitimate the legal regulations and coercive mechanisms to enforce them. In this way, religion is going public. This article analyses why and how religion assumes a public presence capable of steering the direction of political change and explains how this relates to the practices of everyday religiosity revealed in ethnography.