Contact: Alan Billings, alanbillingsuk@yahoo.co.uk 14 - 16 October: "Free to Believe Conference", High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesden, Herts. Mon/Wed. Contact Martin Camroux at m.camroux@tiscali.co.uk 19 October: St. Mark's Broomhill, Sheffield. All-day conference on "A New Christianity for a New World". The registration fee of £10 (£6 for students) includes a buffet lunch plus morning and afternoon tea. Bishop Spong will also preach at St Mark's on Sunday 20 October. For details, contact Adrian Alker alker@alker.plus.com Tel:0114 266 3613, or email St Mark's at conference@stmarkssheffield.co.uk or check the St Mark's web site, http://www.stmarkssheffield.co.uk 21 October: Diocese of Leicester, 7.30 p.m. lecture "Rethinking the Christian Symbols in a New World". Contact David Jennings at Revdavidjennings@btinternet.com Sof 55 September 2002 The proposed theme for the Summer Conference in 2003 is Radical Theology as Social and Cultural Criticism The following outline was recieved by the Chair in July and is shared here to stimulate comments and/or further contributions.
Religious fundamentalism is a form of social criticism, the extreme expression of which we find in terrorist activities. From the mail-bombing of abortion clinics by conservative American Christians in opposition to the social acceptability of abortion, to the aeroplane-bombing of the Pentagon and Twin Towers in opposition to America’s global influence in military and financial affairs, strong religious views are expressed as social protest. Indeed, the very attractiveness of religious fundamentalisms can be that they offer a sense of certain values—for which one would live or die. While the expressions can seem to be a misplaced ‘religious fanaticisms’, they do stem in their distorted ways from recognitions of the value of human life (which is being ascribed to the foetus) and from criticism of globalisation and free-market capitalism.
But fundamentalism is a conservative form of social protest and this is not the only religious tradition of social protest. Liberal and radical theology have also given birth to social criticism. Where conservative religious groups once supported slavery (the Pope gave the Portuguese ‘special permission’ for African slave trade in 1455), it was liberal theologians like William Penn and others of the Quaker movement who opposed it.
In the 20th century, many liberating social protests were inspired by religion.
Mohandas Gandhi's opposition to both British rule and the Hindu caste system and South American liberation theology’s social critiques of the Christian tradition consider society and religion from a modern : : understanding of human _ : relations. Whether it is by a day of prayer and fasting, like that which brought British-controlled India to a standstill, or prayer and discussion groups, like those that lead to an undermining of ecclesiastical support for the powerful in the South Americas, religion is vehicle for social protest.
Radical theological critique in each case enables wider sof 55 September 2002 BR _—_— ree religious protest for social change.
But what we see in these is that conservative religion can support a status quo (slavery, caste, class) while liberal and radical religious views lead to a re-evaluation of this support and to movements for social reform. This radical religious revision can be seen clearly in Christian feminist opposition to patriarchal values of the Monotheistic traditions. Without radical criticism of the Christian tradition from within, there could have been little chance for this religious tradition to be an active agent in wider social change. So changes in society enable radical theologians to question religion, and religion can enable that wider social protest — in what has become known as a hermeneutic circle, interpreting tradition and change.
Yet in parts of the West these radical theological movements are breaking down the former belief systems to advance a new way of religious thinking, which contains social criticism. Christian and post-Christian ecofeminist opposition to the Christian tradition’s rationalist misappropriation of the environment and other Pagan (and ‘New Age’) interests represent a re-evaluating of attitudes to the environment, and a the emergence of a wider spiritual movement based on ecological criticism of society. A new religious consciousness is emerging beyond ‘monotheisny — pantheist, panentheist, monist and a(mono)theist. It will be for time to tell whether these retreat into counter-cultural communes or advance into new social protest.
The 16th Sea of Faith conference, in 2003, will consider religion as social criticism; not only from a Christian tradition, but especially from other religious traditions, both ‘world religions’ and emerging religious movements.
Can theology still give birth to new ways of thinking and so effect social and environmental change? Is any radical faith system up to opposing the political and market forces that exploit weaker nations? In short: What is the future of radical theology as a social criticism in a globalized world?
Outline received by the Chair in July 2002 and shared to stimulate comments and further contributions ahead of the 2003 Summer Conference.