The idea and practice of public theology has recently emerged as a distinct field of scholarship that proactively engages theology with contemporary public issues. The global project of public theology has expanded the western idea of three audiences - the church, the academy and the public domain – and their inter-relationship to multiple publics. It has now become a global discipline that intersects with the emergence of a world Christianity. Now, in the Anthropocene, those three audiences should be viewed in the light of a concern for the whole of creation, including those other creatures with whom we share life and upon whom we depend.
A public theology seeks to be in creative dialogue with different academic disciplines, including politics, economics, law and security studies, cultural studies, religion, spirituality, the natural science and the social sciences and the study of globalization. It is sensitive to the emergence of new publics that arise out of theology’s engagement with other new disciplines – like astrobiology – which redefines understandings of what is space and what is public. It is also a discipline that welcomes the expertise of practitioners reflecting on public policy.
The International Journal of Public Theology, affiliated with the Global Network for Public Theology, is a platform for original inter/transdisciplinary research in this field. Manuscripts submitted for publication must exhibit clear and sustained engagement between theology, broadly construed, and a matter or matters of public significance.
All articles undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and blind refereeing by two anonymous referees.
Hamish Maclean, "A Theological and Contextual Exploration of James Torrance’s Covenant or Contract?" International Journal of Public Theology 2 (2024): 191-206
