As a theme for serious and sustained treatment, church and society
tends to be regarded as a subject from a bygone age. This reflects
the way in which our cultural, social and political situation has
changed over the last fifty years, during which it has become
increasingly difficult (and has increasingly appeared to be
redundant) to relate church and God-talk to society.
One of the most marked shifts during this period has been the
virtually complete secularisation of culture, at least in its
public spheres, and the consequent marginalization of the church,
of God and of God-talk. Hence it is not now clear whether the
church can legitimately and effectively claim public space and
communicate in a radically secular society.
However, instead of a sense of crisis, there is complacency
within the churches about the present and future status and
contribution of the church to national life (evident in both sides
of the debate concerning Establishment). In addition, there is no
clear understanding among the churches either of what their
relationship to society might properly be or even of what society
is or might be.
Put theologically, this crisis is about whether it is possible
any longer to have a public theology: one which is socially and
confessionally responsible, which has theological integrity in
responding to and addressing society. Put in more ecclesiastical
terms, it concerns the possibility of being church in and for
society.
This series is envisaged as an opportunity for contributors to
discuss concrete issues, attending seriously to specific
historical, cultural, political and ecclesiastical dynamics. It is
hoped that discussion of the particular will be framed in such away
as to invite comparisons which will illuminate other situations
too.
The series invites authors to write against the background of
this crisis and to ask what the church might have to say to the
next generation. We are not seeking extensive monographs concerning
the abstract question of how theology and faith may be mediated
after fifty years of liberalism. Short books will throw fresh light
on conventional topics by treating them in unconventional ways, and
we have also commissioned works which discuss society and church
through surprising themes not conventionally associated with the
field.
Vernon White's refreshing and philosophically nuanced treatment
of identity focuses on the notion of change as being fundamental to
human life. On the one hand, change resonates with hope, creativity
and new life; on the other hand, it reminds us of risk, loss and
mortality. Change eventually brings physical death, and even prior
to that delivers another kind of death by the question it puts to
our very self. For the 'we' who will change seems insecure. If we
are someone yet to be, will we be so radically changed that it
makes little sense to talk of the same person? Our contemporary
context forces this issue on us with a particular intensity. Change
is rampant. There are major, rapid and interconnected changes in
information technology, globalization, work and employment
practices, consumerism, and family, all of which affect human
beings deeply, ambivalently, and at every level. How best can we
live through this process of change, which often seems to have no
sense of direction?
In trying to answer this question, White asks two others: does
Christian faith propose a way of living withchange, and if so, can
it have beneficial effects on personal identity? In responding
affirmatively to these questions, the author develops the notion of
faithfulness, which -- while itself embracing change -- equally
encapsulates an enduring insight that will always, and in every
situation, have fresh light to shed. For the author, faithfulness,
in its various forms, has been neglected along with theology
itself, and needs to be re-formed and rediscovered as a means of
sustaining true identity. The discussion ranges widely and in
fascinating ways through social philosophy and recent theology; and
in skilfully negotiating his way between past and present, local
and general, and abstract and concrete, the author enables theology
to speak to issues of contemporary life with considerable power and
persuasiveness.
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