Practising Critical Responsiveness

A Task for a Global Public Theology

Abstract

This paper discusses how globalisation shapes the cognitive attitudes of democratic citizens and elaborates against this backdrop what it means to pursue the programme of a public theology in the context of a globalised world. It starts from the idea of a world civilization – a concept suggesting that global interconnectedness might, after all, foster shared values. In accordance with Paul Ricoeur, it envisions the awareness of plural cultures as an introspective process, urging us to enter into the dramatic relation of communication, in which the affective bond to one’s own culture is affirmed and at the same time exposed to the view from another culture. The task of Global Public Theology, the paper argues accordingly, is to cultivate those intellectual styles that keep open the gap between dogmatism (as the unconditional affirmation of one’s own perspective) and syncretism (as the unconditional exposition to the perspectives of others). In terms of political philosopher William E. Connolly, this means that public theology has to provide a social space where the attitude of “critical responsiveness” may be learned. The paper explores the ways in which these key concept thematizes the tension between the desire for a necessary identity and the recognition of its permanent relativity. In doing so, it specifies the task of a Global Public Theology to the effect that it has to advocate for intellectual agility through irony, creating spaces for recognizing difference, enduring relativization and resisting what Connolly calls “ontological narcissism”.