Sociology and public theology: a case study of pro-choice/ profile common ground - 1998 Presidential Address

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 1999 by James R. Kelly

In this sense, the study of religious behavior and traditions contributes to the development of a critically alert social science. By participating in forming, correcting, and testing the "public theologies" of actual religious traditions a sociology of religion can make distinctive and irreplaceable contributions to the neo-Aristotelian retrieval in sociology.

Public Theologies and Sociological Practices

The term "public theology" derives from Martin Marty's (1981) modification of the term public religion, originally used in 1749 by Benjamin Franklin. Marty favored it over Robert Bellah's Vietnam War era retrieval of the generic Rousseau term civil religion. A sociologist can reconstruct from historical materials a civil religion to ground a moral criticism, say, of the American involvement in Vietnam, but a public theology, closer to experienced religious identities, can challenge citizens in terms of their religious commitment in their specific churches and synagogues and now mosques. For Marty, the public church concretely exists in the increasingly interfaith-ecumenically open parts of mainline Protestantism, evangelical Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism. When the public church reflexively examines and critiques existing social practices and cultural understandings in the light of its deepest religious insights into justice and the good society, it does public theology. The "it" of the preceding sentence is becoming less vague and more structurally specific. For example, consider the final document of the 1988 European Ecumenical Assembly of the Conference of European Churches and the Council of European Bishops' Conference entitled "Peace With Justice For the Whole Creation" (WCC 1989). Or the May 1995 report of The Joint Working Group Between The World Council of Churches and The Roman Catholic church entitled "The Ecumenical Dialogue On Moral Issues" (WCC 1989).

Appropriately contributing to a public theology can become a more explicit part of ASR's evolving identity. But this recommendation is abstract and Aristotle counseled exemplars and experience which we can translate as paradigm and case study. My paradigm illustration is the public theology of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; from it I employ the lens of a consistent ethic in a nationally significant case study about abortion adversaries and common ground. After noting some pertinent survey data, I use David Martin's notion of retrieval and Alain Touraine's action sociology to place my effort in a general sociological framework for appropriate ASR contributions to public theologies.

CARDINAL JOSEPH BERNARDIN AS EXEMPLARY PUBLIC THEOLOGIAN

There are already several biographies, two scholarly volumes of his addresses, and one television documentary about the significance of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin to American religion. Two of the seminal and influential components of the American Catholic contribution to a public theology, the consistent ethic of life and the Catholic common ground initiative, are specifically identified with him.