Is There Such a Thing Called "Public Theology"

Roger E. Olson is a retiring faculty member at Baylor but not a Southern Baptist. His quirky views on religion are always interesting to read though too conservative for me. He recently pondered the term "public theology" and what it might mean. 

We can start with the two words, "public" and "theology." Public, of course, means a broad cross section of U. S. society. This would imply "public" refers to religious people of many stripes and to people who are not religious. 

The word "theology," however, is hard to get a handle on if one tries to exclude religion. Olson believes theology has to be about religion, specifically so far as I can tell, Christianity. There is a hint, then, that "public theology" is a contradiction in terms.

I would approach the concept of "public theology" differently than does Roger E. Olson. Economists have for hundreds of years pondered what we can call "change" and when "change" makes things better and when it makes things worse. An example of change could be introducing religion where it did not exist or ramping up religion to be more fervent than it has been before. If the public by a large margin  adopted Christianity where if did not exist or made it more common and popular than it was in the past this could be called perhaps a change "common values" but not "public theology."  It would also reflect common values if the public agreed to abandon Christianity or make it less popular than it has been.

We could get a rough idea of "common values" by asking people after a change took place to chose between feeling they are better off, neither worse nor better off or simply worse off. If we increased Christian popularity and everyone agreed they are better off, or not worse off, than they were before we have agreed on some change in common values. If we dropped Christianity altogether or made it less important we would have also agreed on a change in common values.

Conclusions are less certain, however, if instead of being unanimous one person says, "I am worse off after the change." We cannot measure how much each person if better or worse off so theoretically the amount of "worseness" of the one worse-off person could be larger than the improvement of all those who say they are better off. Majority voting does not guarantee we are better off after a change. Neither does the rule, "Greatest good for the greatest number."

Making changes that improve society is not easy.