Public Faith and the Common Good : A Radical Messianic Proposal

Summary, in English

The article inquires into the implications of Christianity not being a religious perspective among others in the contemporary Western debate on religious pluralism. A quick glance at a recent debate in Sweden serves to demonstrate how Christianity, although marginalized in its traditional forms, remains a dominating cultural interpretative scheme that continues to influence the majority’s view on private and public, individual and col- lective, rational and irrational. Against this background, the author argues, it is imperative that any Christian theologian who engages in the question of religion in the public sphere in the Western world, also must critically con- front the question of Christianity’s particular status. Not least in light of contemporary right-wing rhetoric about the West as an exclusively “Chris- tian civilization,” theologians need to reflect on how to avoid articulations of the Christian vision of the common good that manifest themselves at the expense of other religious traditions. The article ends by sketching a possible direction for such reflection.

• Author: Jayne Svenungsson
• Publishing year: 2013
• Language: English
• Pages: 744-757
• Publication/Series: Political Theology
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 6
• Links: http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1462317X13Z.00000000047; http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1462317X13Z.00000000047
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Maney Publishing
• Topic: Religious Studies
• Keywords: political theology; Western culture; secularism; Christianity; messianism
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1462-317X