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Review Article : God in Society

CHOLARS rightly emphasize the context of the biblical documents, the distance of their world from ours, and the impropriety of reading our presuppositions into the biblical text. This may leave practical theology in a dilemma. How is one to address the modern democratic process from the standpoint of faith? How does one approach the empirical situation with integrity that is, with complete respect both for the ongoing processes of modern corporate and political life and for the Bible and theology that provide the source of our vision? Views differ, and three publications are reviewed below in connection with this theme. The leading review focuses on the question of what it is that the churches, or theology, bring to questions of citizenship and a participatory democracy, and highlights a theological difference at the centre of much contemporary social theology. Since Barth’s theology is complicit in this dispute, we juxtapose a review of Paul Louis Metzger’s attempt to view sacred and secular through Barth’s theology. The third review widens the canvas to the problem of religion and democracy with particular reference to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.