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Abstract
The challenge of how to bear witness in the midst of the spiritual and cultural crisis of the West has been one of the most important issues preoccupying the church in recent years, with three questions in particular taking center stage: 1) First, what does a public theology look like in a post-Christendom and pluralistic world? 2) Second, what is the church’s relationship to liberalism and modernity more broadly? 3) Third, what is the relationship between Christ and culture, or grace and nature? This study explores the public theologies of three thinkers—Richard John Neuhaus, Abraham Kuyper, and Lesslie Newbigin—with the belief that doing so can provide greater clarity on all three questions. Each of these thinkers not only wrestled with the theological meaning of modernity but explored how the church could navigate the challenges to faith posed by the modern world.
More narrowly, this dissertation argues that, in light of Charles Taylor’s analysis of the spiritual condition of the West, Kuyper and Newbigin’s public theology (“missional neo-Calvinism”) provides resources that complement and refine Neuhaus’s vision for a liberal, democratic, pluralistic society, grounded in the transcendent. Chapter 1 introduces the topic, thesis, methodology, and scope of the project. Chapter 2 reviews Neuhaus’s public theology, showing how he sought to revitalize American democracy by 1) restoring the religious roots of the liberal tradition and 2) defending American democracy from her religious and secular critics. Chapter 3 assesses the viability of Neuhaus’s project for our contemporary moment by examining Neuhaus’s proposals in light of Taylor’s cultural analysis. As will be demonstrated, Taylor complements and complicates Neuhaus’s project. On the one hand, Taylor’s narrative of the rise of modernity overlaps with Neuhaus’s contention that the “sacred canopy” of the West and America has been biblical religion. On the other hand, Taylor posits a cultural context more pluralistic than Neuhaus had originally envisioned. The degree of cultural heterogeneity that Taylor notes challenges Neuhaus’s project, as Neuhaus’s proposal to renew American democracy rested on the existence of a “silent majority” still governed by theistic moral sources.
In light of Taylor’s analysis, if Neuhaus’s project is to remain viable, a framework is needed to recover the religious roots of the liberal tradition in a more pluralistic setting than Neuhaus had postulated. The rest of dissertation shows how Kuyper and Newbigin provide just such a model. Chapters 4 and 5 shows how Kuyper and Newbigin crafted a theoretical paradigm that parallels Neuhaus’s—a theological defense of liberal democracy, a rejection of a “naked public square,” and a belief that a theistically grounded pluralism could best counter the monistic temptations of modernity. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 then turn to showing how Kuyper and Newbigin can refine Neuhaus’s thought, specifically in two areas, with respect to epistemology and a bottom-up approach to cultural engagement in the “grace restoring nature” tradition. Chapter 9 brings the study to a conclusion by reviewing and drawing together the key themes of the dissertation.
