Centre for Theology and Public Issues


The Centre for Theology and Public Issues is a research centre based in New College, the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Founded in 1984 by Duncan B. Forrester, CTPI promotes Christian theological reflection and research on important public issues. CTPI research is global in orientation and rooted in the tradition of public theology. Issues are examined by bringing together theologians, social scientists, church leaders, policy makers and the public. CTPI has particularly close relations with the Scottish Parliament and other institutions of Scottish public life. The current director is Jolyon Mitchell.

History

CTPI was created to carry on New College's long tradition of public engagement. The founding director of CTPI, Duncan Forrester, reflected in the mid-1990s on the purpose of the Centre:
Theology and the problems of the world have tended to drift apart, as theology has sometimes seen the academic world as a refuge from relevance. Nor is it any longer possible to expect a magisterial theology which descends from above to interpret and resolve the world's problems, more or less on its own. We clearly need to develop a theology which is neither deductive nor inductive, but which grows out of a dialectic between the tradition and the praxis of those who are involved in endeavoring to transform the situation.
CTPI was intended to foster such dialectical theological research. Forrester goes on to describe CTPI's working method as a three-step process:
  1. Engage the experience of those affected by a public issue. Here an emphasis is placed on hearing the testimonies of the most vulnerable.
  2. Gather the best available social scientific analysis of the issue.
  3. Reflect theologically on the experiential and social scientific findings. Produce a cogent theological response that empowers Christian advocates and policy makers.
Forrester stepped down from the Centre in 2000, handing over his directorship to Will Storrar. Storrar is now the Director of the Centre of Theological Inquiry, in Princeton. Whilst at Edinburgh, he founded the Global Network for Public Theology, which connects academic research centres in public theology from around the world. Subsequent directors include and .
Since its founding, CTPI research has resulted in a number of conferences and publications. Topics have included poverty and welfare, justice and the penal system, peace and international security, suicide and public health, finance and ethics, national identity, and devolution and citizenship.

Recent Activities

Peacebuilding through Media Arts

CTPI is currently launching a three-year research project on Peacebuilding through Media Arts. In addition to producing scholarly research on the relationship between peace, violence and religion in media arts, the major aim of the project is to increase public awareness of peacebuilding through arts events, workshops, lectures and seminars. The project is funded by the Binks Trust, and begins in 2011 with an art exhibition, . The exhibition, which runs from 14 May-11 June, showcases select pieces from alongside works from Scottish and Scotland-based artists. These original artworks are displayed with one of Scotland's rare first editions of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, combining historic words and artistic images in the 400th anniversary year of its publication. According to the exhibition organizers, King James sought to bring together conflicting religious groups through a new translation of the Bible. The exhibition aims to explore how pictorial and literary creations can represent and contribute to the search for peace.

Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace

The project on studies the relationships between military, political and religious dimensions of the making of war and peace today and in the past. Under the direction of , the project brings together a network of partners from across the world, both within academia and from militaries and humanitarian and peacebuilding organisations. Relwar researchers are involved in academic research, dialogues, and consultations on a number of topics, including military ethics education; grassroots post-conflict reconciliation, with a special focus on the former Yugoslavia; public discussion of ethical debates over war and peace; cross-conflict interreligious dialogue; and the lessons of past wars for present conflicts. In 2010 Dr Wilkes moved Relwar from the University of Cambridge to Edinburgh University, where it is housed in CTPI in association with the and other University research centres. CTPI leadership is closely involved in supporting the project.

Theology in the Public Square

Theology in the Public Square was a two-year research project aimed at resourcing Scottish churches for public engagement. It was led by Rev. Dr Graham K. Blount and funded by the Binks Trust. The project duration was from the autumn of 2008 until the summer of 2010. The project had two main goals:
  1. To review and reflect upon the perspectives and strategies of Christian engagement in Scottish public debate since devolution.
  2. To identify, in consultation with the churches, policy areas where there is need for theological resourcing and to develop—in partnership with churches and others—theological perspectives on these issues.
Twenty-five church representatives gathered in April 2009 to discuss a starter paper on the project. In 2010 three conferences were held addressing different aspects of Scottish public life. The first, Building Home, Building Hope, addressed the theology of the home. It was put on by CTPI in partnership with Scottish Churches Housing Action, the Salvation Army and Bethany Christian Trust. The proceedings from the conference are available on CTPI's blog. The second, Families Today: Where Are We Now?, gathered practitioners, policy makers and academics to discuss issues facing Scottish families in the twenty-first century. The third event was the Henry Duncan Bicentenary Conference. Duncan, a Scottish minister, was an early initiator of the savings bank movement in Britain. The bicentenary event celebrated his legacy in the context of contemporary efforts to extend banking to the poor. The proceedings from this conference are also on CTPI's blog.

Other Recent Events

CTPI regularly sponsors lecture series and colloquiums on topics of public concern. During the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, CTPI co-sponsored one man play . In autumn 2010 and winter 2011, CTPI joined the University of Glasgow and Christian Aid in sponsoring a series of lectures on the Millennium Development Goals. From December 2009 to January 2010 CTPI co-sponsored a series of six lectures on the influence of John Calvin and the Reformation in Scotland.

Leadership

The current director of CTPI is . Prof Mitchell's research is in the areas of communications, arts, ethics and religion, with a special interest in violence and peacebuilding. Associate directors include Drs Alison Elliot, Alison Jack, Joshua Ralston and Geoffrey Stevenson, and Profs Oliver O'Donovan, and David Fergusson.

Publications

Books

Public Concerns Series

In 2003 CTPI began a partnership with Saint Andrews Press to publish a new book series entitled Public Concerns. Will Storrar and Alison Elliot are the series editors. The first book in the series was God in Society: Doing Social Theology in Scotland Today, edited by Will Storrar and Peter Donald. God in Society features essays written by the members of the Centre's Theological Panel as the outcome of a CTPI research project on how different Scottish theological traditions and churches—Reformed, Catholic, Evangelical, Feminist and Ecumenical—relate the Gospel to public issues in Scotland, especially in the new political context of devolution.
In 2004 two books were published in the series. The first was Honouring Children: The Human Rights of the Child in Christian Perspective, by child lawyer Kathleen Marshall and New College theologian Paul Parvis. That book was accompanied by a study guide for churches, subtitled Rights in Christian and Family Life. The second Public Concerns book that year was Netting Citizens: Exploring Citizenship in the Internet Age, edited by Johnston R. McKay. Netting Citizens brings together papers from a 2002 Edinburgh conference on the same theme.
Alison Elliot and Heidi Poon edited a diverse collection of essays for the 2009 publication Growing Citizens: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Citizen Education. In this book educationalists, philosophers, theologians, scientists, community leaders and political scientists explore various facets of contemporary citizenship.

Other Recent Books

In 2002 a colloquium on the future of public theology was held in Edinburgh. Will Storrar and Andrew Morton edited together a number of the papers presented there into the volume Public Theology for the 21st Century. José Miguez-Bonino, John de Gruchy, Stanley Hauerwas, Ann Loades, Jürgen Moltmann, and Max Stackhouse are among the contributors.
In 2008 CTPI published a collection of essays written in celebration of Alison Elliot's sixtieth birthday, Christian Faith and the Welfare of the City: Essays for Alison Elliot. The wide range of subjects includes women in the church, contemporary ecumenism, the National Conversation on Scotland's future, the concept of human dignity, farming and sustainability, and prisons and prisoners.

Full Book List

The following is a complete list of books published by CTPI:
CTPI has published a number of discussion papers by leading scholars. The papers were made available by CTPI at a small price, between £0.50 and £2.00.
Between 1984 and 2003, CTPI published nearly fifty occasional papers. These were substantive collections of scholarly essays on a variety of topics, many of which are available in their entirety online:
  1. 'Does he know how frightening he is in his strangeness?' A Study of Attitudes towards Dementing People, Hugh M. D. Petszch, 1984.
  2. Family, School and Church in Religious Education, Leslie J. Francis et al., 1984.
  3. Welfare State or Welfare Society?, Robin Downie et al., 1985.
  4. From Captivity to Liberation: Some Theological and Pastoral Perspectives on Chronic Renal Failure, Gillian M Morton, 1985.
  5. The New Right and Christian Values, Lord Harris et al., 1985.
  6. The End of Professionalism?, William F. May et al., 1985.
  7. Poverty Today, Peter Townsend et al., 1986.
  8. Faith in the Scottish City, Richard O'Brien et al., 1986.
  9. Education and Community, Ruth Jonathan et al., 1986.
  10. Law and Order: Prospects for the Future, Malcolm Rifkind et al., 1986.
  11. Finance and Ethics, Ronald Preston et al., 1987.
  12. The Scottish Churches and the Political Process Today, eds., Alison Elliot and Duncan B. Forrester, 1986.
  13. Northern Ireland: A Challenge to Theology, Enda McDonagh et al., 1987.
  14. Inequalities in Health in the 1980s, ed., Alison Elliot, 1988.
  15. Distribution of Wealth and Income: Patterns and Trends, Fred Twine, 1988.
  16. The Economics of the Distribution of Income and Wealth, John Sleeman, 1988.
  17. Dependency: Dependence, Independence, Inter-dependence in Culture and Society, ed., Chris Clark, 1988.
  18. The Renewal of Social Vision, eds, Alison J. Elliot and Ian Swanson, 1989.
  19. Justice, Guilt and Forgiveness in the Penal System, ed., David Garland, 1990.
  20. The Market and Health Care, David Jenkins et al., 1990.
  21. Christianity and Social Vision: Looking to the Future of Scotland, Duncan Forrester et al., 1990.
  22. Justice and the Market, Gordon A. Hughes et al., 1990.
  23. Third World Debt – First World Responsibility, David Knox et al., 1991.
  24. Vision and Prophecy: The Tasks of Social Theology Today, ed., Michael S. Northcott, 1991.
  25. The Future of Broadcasting in Britain, Brian Marjoribanks et al., 1991.
  26. Peacemaking and Security in the 1990s, Hugh Beach et al., 1991.
  27. The Animal Kingdom and the Kingdom of God, Ruth Page et al., 1991.
  28. Penal Policy: The Way Forward, Rod Morgan et al., 1991.
  29. Seeing Scotland, Seeing Christ, David McCrone et al., 1993.
  30. AIDS, Sex and the Scottish Churches, ed., Michael S. Northcott, 1993.
  31. Care, Community and State, ed., Sandy Wynd, 1994.
  32. God's Will in a Time of Crisis: A Colloquium Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Baillie Commission, ed., Andrew R. Morton, 1994.
  33. After Socialism? The Future of Radical Christianity, ed., Andrew R Morton, 1994.
  34. Christian Responsibility and the New Europe, ed., Andrew R Morton, 1994.
  35. Justice and Prosperity: A Realistic Vision? A Response to the Report of the Commission on Social Justice, ed., Andrew R Morton, 1995.
  36. Domestic Debt: Disease of Consumer Society?, ed., Andrew R Morton, 1996.
  37. Security, Solidarity and Peacemaking, ed., Andrew R. Morton, 1996.
  38. The State of Imprisonment, ed., Andrew R Morton, 1997.
  39. Catholicism and the Future of Scotland, eds, Gerard Hand and Andrew Morton, 1997.
  40. When Maize and Tobacco Are Not Enough: A Church Study of Malawi's Agro-Economy, ed., Peggy Owens, 1997.
  41. The Future of Welfare, ed., Andrew R. Morton, 1997.
  42. What do children need from their fathers? , Cynthia Milligan and Alan Dowie, 1998.
  43. A Turning Point in Ireland and Scotland? A Challenge to the Churches and Theology Today, ed., Andrew Morton, 1998.
  44. A Europe of Neighbours? Religious Social Thought and the Reshaping of a Pluralist Europe, eds, Andrew Morton and Jim Francis, 1999.
  45. The Sorrows of Young Men: Exploring their Increasing Risk of Suicide, eds, Andrew Morton and Jim Francis, 2000.
  46. Couples in Transition: Integrity and Brokenness, ed., Andrew R. Morton, 2000.
  47. High Ideals & Sobering Realities: Public Lectures on Public Issues, Jim Wallace et al., 2003.