Engaging God's Mission and Diakonia in Life of Public Spheres: Justification and Economic Justice

Abstract : This article approaches the theology of mission from the point of view of God's mission and diakonia, seeking a missional model of the grace of justification and economic justice in an age of World Christianity. The author engages a hermeneutical‐prophetic side of evangelization—viva vox evangelii—in the public sphere, and demonstrates the intrinsic connection between missio and diakonia Dei in Jesus Christ using a trinitarian‐hermeneutical perspective. The article shows that evangelization as God's mission occupies a central place by taking into account challenges from the postcolonial emancipation in the context of Empire.     

Christian hip hop as pedagogy: a South African case study

Drawing on interviews with creators of Christian hip hop music in South Africa, this article demonstrates that this genre of popular music and youth culture is utilised as a form of pedagogy to transmit religious beliefs and values to contemporary youth. The pedagogical aspects of hip hop have been recognised in research on the topic, but the religious pedagogical uses of hip hop have been under-analysed within the social sciences. After outlining the global development of hip hop as a pedagogical practice, this article will demonstrate that, under the influence of North American Evangelicalism, South African Christian hip hop attempts to promote Evangelical orthodoxy and orthopraxy in response to the secular and religious practices of South African youth.     

Bioethics, Christian charity and the view from no place.

This essay contrasts the notions of charity employed by Traditional Christianity and by liberal cosmopolitan bioethics, arguing that: (1) bioethics attempts to reconstruct the notion of charity in a manner that is caustic to the Traditional Christian moral vision, (2) Christians are, on the whole, more charitable than proponents of bioethics' reconstructed view (even given the standards of the latter), and (3) the theistically oriented conception of charity employed by Traditional Christianity cannot be expressed in bioethics' purportedly neutral public vocabulary. The upshot is that, in the name of neutrality and pluralism, liberal cosmopolitan bioethicists seek to impose an impoverished moral vocabulary that reflects liberal cosmopolitan ideology while excluding input from Traditional Christianity and other non-liberal-humanistic moral visions.     

Citizenship,religion, gender and the politics of belonging: a case study of white,middle-class christian men in the East Midlands,United Kingdom

Religion, and in particular Christianity, is losing ground in the UK as fewer people identify as Christian and more people report having no religion. Although religion remains influential in politics, education and welfare, the role and legitimacy of religion in the public sphere is highly contested. This context of religious and cultural change provides the background for a case study of white, middle class, Christian men in the East Midlands and how they understand and experience citizenship in everyday life. The article examines how religious faith and citizenship are linked, and whether religion provides resources or barriers to citizenship. The article argues that the interviewed men draw on both status and practice based understandings of citizenship, and on both instrumental and expressive forms of masculinity, depending on context. Notably, some of the men invoke a defensive discourse in reference to alleged threats posed to Christianity by secular forces and by Islam. The findings have larger implications for the politics of belonging in the UK and Western Europe.     

Publicly Accessible Intuitions: "Neutral Reasons" and Bioethics

This article examines Leon Kass's contention that a choice forphysician-assisted suicide is "undignified." Although Kass isJewish rather than Christian, he argues for positions that mostChristians share, and he argues for these positions withoutpresupposing the truth of specific religious claims. I arguethat although Kass has some important intuitions, he too readilyassumes that these intuitions will be shared by his audience,and that this assumption diminishes the force of his argument.An examination of the limitations of Kass's argument is helpfulinsofar as it illustrates the real challenge faced by religiousbelievers who wish to defend their beliefs in the "public forum."For it illustrates that what needs to be made "accessible" isthe Judeo-Christian understanding of man and his place in theworld. While I do not wish to claim that this task is impossible,I do think that it is far more difficult than most realize.Like all important tasks, however, unless we wrestle with thedifficulties it raises, our arguments will strike many as unconvincing.