The crisis in British Christian social thought: evidencing the need for a new ‘empirical political theology’

Abstract

Analysing Christian contributions to academic and public debates since Faith in the City, this article suggests that there is a crisis in British ‘political theology’. It arises because it is narrowly conceived even by its strongest advocates. Contrary to the expansive claims made by political theologians, it suggests, rather, that they have deliberately narrowed the field to make it fit with their constrained encounter with the political and their longing for a welfare consensus that has passed. This in turn has left them entirely unengaged with the complex realm of governance between the inputs of words and the outcomes of policy choices – in short, they have absented ‘political theology’ from public leadership, public finance, political anthropology, changing governance and the everyday life of states and churches in societies. Exploring four brief counterpoints or sites of enquiry across contrasting settings, the article makes the case for a fresh ‘empirical political theology’ to expand the field once again and to reconnect it concretely to the constantly moving and dynamic challenges that the most vulnerable face and regarding which churches ought properly to be able to more credibly evidence their care, advocacy and empowerment with the vulnerable.