Whose Public? Which Theology? Signposts on the Way to a 21st Century Public Theology

This article examines the way that public theology addresses the contemporary challenges represented by pluralism, secularization, and globalization. In analyzing how these challenges represent the context in which a 21st century public theory must be done, it attempts to demonstrate how public theology must craft a response that emerges out of a self-consciously theological and moral engagement with them. The question of "whose public" is being addressed necessarily raises the complementary question of with "which theology" we should engage it. Several options, confessional, apologetic, and synthetic, are considered. In the final analysis, each of these options offers promising possibilities, but also carries attendant risks, of which the two most pressing are ossification and dissolution.