Internationaljournal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381

BRILL

www.brill.nl/ijpt

Babel or Pentecost?
Faith, D ifference and Freedom in the
Twenty-First Century: The C hallenge For
Publie T heology

Chris Shannahan
University ofBirm ingham

Abstract
This article emerges from m any years w nrk in diverse inner city com m unities. It snggests that nrban Britain will be nnderstnnd properly, and pnblic thenlngy engaged fully
w ith cnntem pnrary society, by seriously exploring the norm ative and contested nature
o f difference. The article critiques the view that diversity poses a threat to com m unal
life and exposes current examples o f essentialist identity politics. It argues th at identities prem ised on raciology are unsustainable, and this poses a challenge to which peopie o f faith should respond w ith urgency. Thus, the article asserts that critical patterns
o ^ u ltic u ltu r a lis m provide the basis for inclusive patterns o f faith and identity, and
th at existing public theologies still need to engage in sufficient depth w ith the fluidity
o f identity in twenty-first century Britain. A t heart, the article offers the new herm eneutical principle o f liberative difference as having the capacity to reinvigorate patterns
o f faith and resource an inclusive liberative struggle in urban societies.

Keywords
urban, diversity, liberation, racism, herm eneutics

P r o d u c tio n

I first met Miriam and}Dseph* behind Digbeth bus statinn in central Birmingham. They were tanking fnr a warm spnt tn sleep alnngside nther destitute end
nf process asylum seekers. The roupie had travelled from Darfur in Sudan,
where }nseph was a jnurnalist nn a Christian newspaper, tn claim asylum in
N ot their real names.

1 Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

!: 10.1163/156973207X231671

C. Shannahan / International Journal o f Public Theology 1 (2007) 364381

Britain follnwing an attempt kidnap Miriam by the }anjaweed militia,

}nseph had written an editnrial condemning the militias practice of ethnic
cleansing and they wanted to silence him. Once in Britain }oseph and Miriam
were ostracized by church members, who muttered: Cant trust these asylum
seekers. They were excluded by Sudanese community groups because oftheir
Christian faith and their involvement in non-violent opposition to the militia
in Darfur, ^ i s article emerges from }oseph and Miriams story and attempts
first to
- Demonstrate that urban life in the twenty-first century cannot be understood unless the existential significance of urban encounters with difference
is fully recognised.
- Illustrate exclusionary responses to difference which depict diversity as a
th re a t.

- Show that responses to difference must become central themes within contemporary public theology.
- Introduce the hermeneutical principle o f liberative difference and demonstrate its potential to transform action and reflection within foe Christian
community and its capacity to generate inclusive public dialogue.

The Challenge ofNormative Difference

Andrew Davey correctly notes that: The city is a microcosm of foe w orld... a
place where worlds m eetT It is, therefore, a mistake to refer to a citys history,
geography or culture, because the twenty-first century city is characterized by
multiple histories, geographies and cultures, as Leonie Sandercock and Michael
Smith recognized The fo^cation-relocation experience of diaspora raises crucial questions for contemporary public theology; such as, how belonging is
defined; what it means to be British; how foe experience of difference shapes
identity; how new forms of ethnicity challenge white supremacism and black
essentialism and how a liberative expression of faith emerges from and speaks
to this fluid dynamic context.
^ r e e common responses to normative difference exemplify its contested
nature. First, there are those who revel in a postmodern plethora ofidentities
2) Andrew Davey, Urban Christianity and Global Order (London: SPCK, 2 00 ) , p. 3.
3) Leonie Sandercock, Towards Cosmopolis (Chichester: ]ohn Wiley & Sons, 8 ;) Leonie
Sandercock, Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities ofthe 21st Century (London: Continuum , 2003) and
Michael Peter Smith, Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalisation (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).

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and cultural forms; difference is tasted and celebrated uncritically without

commitment to any single narrative. Secondly there are those who see
difference as a threat to apparent cultural, national or theological unity;
diversity, translocal belonging and dialogical identities are the enemy, because
they pollute the essential purity of the racial or religious group, ^ ird ly ,
there are those who simply recognize difference as an unremarkable marker
of an everyday urban world where neighbours exchange Eid, Diwali and
Christmas cards, marry across defended ethnic borders and record urban pop
music which interweaves hip-hop, ragga, bhangra and rock as a natural
expression of life in a translocal society. It is to the second of these responses
that this article now turns.
Raciology pre-dates modernity, as ?eter Fryer and Robert Beckford demonstrate.4 However, as }onathan Hearn indicates, race as a fixed signifier ofvalue
and belonging arose as a companion of European colonialism, nationalism
and the Euro-enlightenment. ^ i s narrative ofinclusion and exclusion can be
seen in contemporary discussions about multiculturalism, immigration, asylum, the war on terror and the ethnic absolutist racism of the BN?, all of
which have become moulding factors in urban British life.

Identity Politics
Manuel Castells comments on the search for meaning in this fragmented
urban world, suggesting that the critical ccio-political development of the
1990s was the construction of social action and politics around primary identities, either ascribed, rooted in history and geography, or newly built in an
anxious search for meaning and spirituality.^ At a point in time when active
engagement with parliamentary politics has reached a historically low level,
the emergence of identity politics signals a re-birth and a re-routing of political activism. Models of religious faith, which seek to engage in progressive
dialogue within the public sphere, will find themselves sidelined unless the
significance of new patterns of politics is explored and understood. Identity

4 Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History o f Black People in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 84)
and Robert Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal: A Political Theology for the Black Church in Britain
(London: SPCK, 2000), pp. 69-75.
fonathan Hearn, Rethinking Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 13-19.
6) Manuel Castells, The Rise ofthe Network Society the Information Age: Economy, Society and
Culture, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p. 22.

C. Shannahan/InternationalJournal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381 67

politics, which revolves around so-called primary identities, can he seen as

both a defensive reaction and a proactive response to the psycho-social splintering of modernist metanarratives. It is a model of activism that can he seen
at work within marginalized urban black, white and Muslim communities.
Beckford demonstrates how the Rastafarian philosophy, expressed through
Bob Marleys music, offered the tools for alienated black liberation across the
urban world in the 1970s/ During the 1980s a second form of black identity
politics arose; essentialist black nationalism was tied to the iconic status of
Malcolm X and the ongoing influence ofthe Nation of Islam within the urban
black community.8 W ithin such essentialism meaning is found solely within
the cultural history of a black race. A more recent example ofmeaning making
within the urban black community has revolved around a renewed interest in
Africa as the prime location for black validation. Afrocentrism asserts an essential black identity that is rooted in pre-slave trade Africa, which remains
identifiable in spite ofthe historic rupturing of slavery and colonialism.
The raciological essentialism o fthe British National Party typifies a model
ofwhite supremacist identity politics that is premised upon an ethic o foppressive difference; as the partys constitution reveals: The BNP stands for the
preservation ofthe national and ethnic character ofthe British people and is
wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and nonEuropean peoples/ Such demonizing of diversity plays on a fear of difference
within de-industrialized urban communities, where the BNP has achieved
limited electoral success in the early years of the twenty-first century, ^ i s
ethic of raciological oppressive difference was uncovered in the Channel 4
reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother early in 2007. ^ r e e white-British
celebrities appeared to bully the Boll^vood actor Shilpa Shetty, apparently
because she was not the same as them. In front of millions, the postimperial
melancholia to which Paul Cihoy refers was played out exemplifying the
camp mentality, which inhibits a progressive engagement with difference in
urban Britain.10
A third expression of camp mentality identity politics relates to marginalized sections o fth e British-Muslim community. In the face of post 9/11 and

7) Robert Beckford, Jesus is Dread: Black Theology andBlack Culture in Britain (London: Darton
Longman and Todd, 1998) and Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal.
8) For mom i^orm ation, see <http://www.muslimhope.com/BlackMuslims>.
See < l^ p ://w w w .b n p .o g m k ^
[accessed 10 March 2007].
10) Paul Gilroy, After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004),
pp. 98 and 125-32.

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7/7 scapegoating, sections of the urban Muslim community have advocated

the development o fa self-enclosed Muslim identity ensconced within specific
majority Muslim inner city communities. Towards the end o f 2006, an article
in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph by ]ack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, ignited a polarized discussion about the wearing of the niqabT Straw
suggests that, while he supports a womans right to wear the full veil, it inhibits cross-cultural om m unication, emphasizes difference and has the potential
to foster mistrust and fear ofthe Muslim community. Alongside debates about
language and education, the wearing of the niqab, has been portrayed, by
some, as a throw-back to a pre-modern Islam, a barrier to integration or the
re-discovery of a conservative Muslim identity. However, it is possible that
such Muslim identity politics is, in fact, a postmodern response to the challenges
posed by globalization and the splintering of previously solid identities. Any
engagement with the current British-Muslim experience within public theology, therefore, must recognize the dangers of essentializing or homogenizing
the dynamic fluidity of Islam, which Ayaan Hirsi All and Ramadan discuss.12

Multiple Urban Identities and Multiculturalism

In translocal urban societies identity cannot justifiably be premised on arguments that assume cultural isolation, w hile recognizing its continued usefulness in the face of racialized oppression, Gilroy is right to dismiss models of
identity formations that rest on the invalid assumption that race is an objective reality. He suggests that essentialist identities will not be able to withstand
the destructive effects of globalisation and localisation.*1 In a world marked
by interwoven transnational urbanism, only dialogical identities can provide
the template for liberative citizenship in the twenty-first century.
Frameworks of meaning premised on a multicultural identity stand in tension with resurgent monoculturalism. During 2004 Trevor Phillips, the Direc
n) The niqab is the full-face veil worn by a small minority ofM uslim women, which should be
clearly distinguished from the more commonly worn hijab, or
See lack Straw, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (5 ]uly 2007), <lau^://www.emwiH^
[accessed 22 June 2007] and for reference to wider responses see Talk About Newsnight
(5 October 2006). <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2006/10/thursday_5_october_2006.
htm l> [accessed 22 June 2007].
12) Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The CagedVirgin: A Muslim Womans Cryfor Reason (London: The Free Fress,
2006) andTariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future o f Islam (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005).
13) Paul Gilroy, SmallActs (London: Serpents Tail, 1993), p. 20.

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369

tor of the Commission for Racial Equality, stimulated renewed debate about
the nature o^ulticulturalism in Britain, ?hillips argues that integration must
be based on a core of Britishness. However, within a post-colonial, diasporan context attempts to define this core are problematic. Tariq Modood argues
that an interactive model of integration can offer a broader understanding of
Britishness in a diasporan urban age; he states:
An interactive idea o f integration will clearly m ean th at we are always re-thinking
w hat means to belong to this so ciety ... to be British. W e reqnire Britishness to be
an inclnsive identity, n o t one th at says, well yon are here b n t yon are n o t British
until you are sufficiently like us.15

It is the assertion of this article that liberative transformation in twenty-first

century translocal urban societies can only rest on the challenges posed by
everyday mffidculturalism. As Chris Baker demonstrates, tbe ^ i r d space
created witbin hybrid urban communities provides the ground from which a
new public theology of liberation and difference can grow and challenge cultural purists, theological imperialists, new racists, ethnic essentialists and
political scaremongers alike.16A new critical multiculturalism has the capacity
to resource a liberative politics of difference that can challenge both the excluding models of cultural puritanism and the uncritical relativist celebration of
difference, which falsely polarize approaches to urban diversity. Gilroy suggests that such critical multiculturalism has the potential to force nationalisms and bio-social explanations of race and ethnicity into more defensive
postures.17 ^ i s is a vital arena within which progressive public theology must
become increasingly and confidently involved.

Oppressive Difference and the British Church

The corrosive force of oppressive difference has been partially recognized by
white-led churches in Britain in recent decades. A brief summary of Metbodisms engagement with raciology over the past thirty years exemplifies steps

14) Trevor Phillips, Interview with Tom Baldwin, The Times (4 April 2004), 8.
15) Tariq M odood, Multiculturalism or Britishness: A False Debate, Connections: Quarterlyfrom
the Commission fo r Racial Equality (W inter 2004/5), 8-9 at 9.
16) Christopher Baker, The Hybrid Church in the City: Third space Thinking (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2007), pp. 107-46.
17) Gilroy, Afier Empire, p. 244.

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taken by other denominations. As far back as 1978 the Methodist Conference

asserted that: Racism is a sin [which] must be resisted wherever it is found day
in, day out; week in, week out; year in, year o u t-w ith passion, urgency and
tenacity. In 1981 the educational initiative, Methodist and Ecumenical
Leadership Racism Awareness Training Workshops, was established in South
London to enable the exploration of raciology and ingrained racism within
the church. Eocus on internal Methodist structures stimulated the 1985
report, A Tree God Planted, in which Heather Walton attempted to bring the
voices of black Methodists into the centre of the churchs thinking; thus,
uncovering a pattern of endemic raciology within British Methodism. The
study was followed two years later by the Methodist Conference Report, Faith
fu l and Equal, which asserts an anti-racist future for Methodism. As a consequence, foe church appointed a Connexional Racial }ustice Secretary to
oversee movement towards a faithful and equal church, ^ i s important period
of change and reflection was completed by foe initiation, in 1989, of an annual
Racial }ustice Sunday within Methodism. In foe early years of a new century,
this tradition has infused foe emerging black practical theology of Anthony
Reddie that, while tending towards essentialism, has begun to establish a ereative tradition of radical black British public theological reflection on race,
identity and racism within Methodism, which recognizes foe endemic nature
of urban raciology, its translocal implications and foe central position fois
challenge must assume within new expressions of engaged public theology.^
Alongside other white-led denominations, Methodism has focused its
twenty-flrst century anti-racist praxis on asserting foe rights of asylum seekers
and refugees and opposing foe resurgent BNP.21 Prior to local and European
elections in 2004 and 2007, foe church issued a statement that, while not
naming foe BNP, asserts an anti-racist ethic. It states that it: expects members
of foe Methodist Church to practise and promote racial justice and inclusion,
and reject any political parties that attempt to stir up racial and religious
hatred and fear of asylum seekersT
1S) For more iHorm ation, see <http://www.methodistchurch.org.uk> [accessed 12 April 2007].
' Heather Walton, Robin Ward and Mark lohnson, A Tree God Planted: Black People in the
Methodist Church (London: Ethnic Minorities in Methodism Working Group, 84) .
20) Anthony Reddie, Nobodies to Somebodies: A Practical Theology fo r Education and Liberation
(London: Epworth Fress, 2003).
21) In 1993 the BNF gained its first local government councillor in a hy-election on the Isle of
Dogs in the east end ofLondon. In 2003 the BNF had seventeen local councillors; hy 2006 this
figure had risen to fifty-three.
22) The Methodist Church, Countering Political Extremism (2006), <Htp://www.methodistchurch.org.uk> [accessed 12 April 2007].

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371

This brief summary uf the engagement of one white-led denomination with

race illustrates a progressive heritage of anti-racist praxis, at an institutional
level, which should not be minimized. However, in the translocal and fluid
twenty-first century, the relevance of the churchs action and reflection must
be called into question for three reasons. First, it rests on an understanding of
identity that implicitly reinforces the raciology it seeks to challenge; resistance
to racism has not stimulated a convincing move beyond race. Secondly,
national church-based anti-racist initiatives must be read against a backdrop
of enduring raciology within local congregations. Black church stewards, who
are accountants at work, but are not left to count the weekly offering unsupervised; the fragments of bread left abandoned on the floor as a black steward
assists at Holy Communion; the white church members bringing their own
food to the annual Caribbean evening; the black church members, who are
school teachers, being asked where they learned to read so well and the assumption that black input in worship naturally equates to gospel music, ^ ird ly ,
offer urban faith traditions have often been objectified. The response of the
institutional church to urban religious difference is typified by ffe Methodist
Churchs 2006 guidelines on political extremism, which attempt to map an
ethic of hospitality towards offer faith communities. The guidelines are presented as resources for churches and can provide useful, if limited, encouragement to local Christian communities, which are set in multifaith contexts.
However, ffe bullet-point approach within ffe guidelines only serves to unintentionally objectify neighbours, friends and family members from offer faith
communities. Such objectification is tempered by ffe recent summary of
Methodist engagement w iff offer religions that has been produced by ffe
Connexional Committee for Inter-Faith Relations, ^ i s report proposes a
more interactive approach to offer urban faith communities, which revolves
around ffe following four suggestions: first, multi-faith society is an expression of ffe diverse human community created by God; secondly, Christians
are called to extend ffe hand of friendship at work, to neighbours and
through inter-faith groups; thirdly, inter-faith encounter can enrich both ffe
communities and ffe individuals taking p a rt... [and] can be a source of harmony and a positive aid towards ffe elimination ofprejudice and tension and
fourthly, dialogue is an open-ended and long-term commitment, so that to
refuse to engage in such praxis would be a denial of both tolerance and Christian love.23
Such questions must increasingly inform public theologies, if they are to
speak from and to contemporary urbanism. In this article, I am suggesting
23) Ibid.

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that there are urgent pastoral, pnlitical and thenlngical reasons for foregrounding the exploration of responses to difference within public theology. From a
pastoral perspective, urban communities of faith can reflect corrosive raciology or exemplify an ethic of liberative difference. If public theology is to aid
diverse communities of faith, which are scarred by an ethic of oppressive
difference, to provide holistic liberative pastoral care, then, it is important that
convincing reflective tools are fashioned that can enable a progressive response
to difference. Politically, such a move is ofvital importance if sisters and brothers in faith are to forge coalition based forms of resistance to foe oppressive
difference that divides urban communities, w here communities of faith are
situated along foe faultlines in Britains inner cities, foe demonizing of
difference is a central political and missiological issue, and not a point of theological debate. Consequently, normative diversity and oppressive difference
must be viewed as central themes within a reconfigured public foeology for
five reasons. First, raciology and racism contradict foe doctrine of foe creation,
wherein God declares foe diversity of creation to be good and shapes a united
humanity in foe divine image. Secondly, foe oppressive homogeneity
exemplified by foe ethic of oppressive difference is subverted by foe egalitarian
diverse community of foe Trinity, ^ ird ly , foe Incarnation expresses Gods
total solidarity with foe whole human family, thus undermining all ideological
attempts to divide or essentialize humanity and assertions that some communities are more valuable than others. Fourthly, raciology partitions humanity
in a manner that contradicts a holistic understanding of foe community of
faith as one body that is damaged whenever a single part is harmed. Finally,
oppressive difference advocates an unsustainable isolationism in an age of
translocal urbanism; whereas foe Christian emphasis on catholicity and foe
Muslim assertion of a unified umma subvert raciological separatism and exemplify an ethic of egalitarian and mutual glocalized interdependence.

Twa*ds Epistemology of Liberation and Difference

The challenge to those engaged in foe fashioning of an inclusive urban public
foeology is to forge an epistemology that is rooted in a stringent exploration
of translocal urban marginalization. Sandercock and Baker have recently
begun to explore an epistemology of multiplicity, which can challenge essentialist models of identity formation.^ The provisional diasporan epistemolo-

See Sandercock, Towards Cosmopolis; Sandercock, Cosmopolis //a n d Baker, The Hybrid Church
in the City.

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373

gies that characterize the landscape nf urban Britain can provide a foundatinn
upnn which a new hermeneutical principle nf liberative difference is built and
tested; not in the academy, but on the contested streets of inner city communities, recently diverse city suburbs and outer city estates.
Over the past ten years some engaged in the forging of contemporary publie theologies have begun to engage, in depth, with contemporary expressions
of cultural hybridity and a ^ i r d space, which arises out of the dynamic
interaction of diverse urban cultures in a translocal and diasporan society.
Against a backdrop of resurgent monoculturalism and ethnic introversion, the
insurgent discourses of coalitions ofthe marginalized have begun to force their
way through the cracks of contemporary urban society. Baker suggests that
such post-colonial ^ i r d space expressions of insurgency emerge from outside the control or influence of the state and represent the perspectives of
disempowered im m u n itie s Baker argues that this ^ i r d space is a space
of translation: a place of hybridity.^ w hile Bakers reflections on hybridity as
a basis for ^ i r d space theology draw on the work of the postcolonial critic
Homi Bhabha, his analysis invites comparisons with the thinking of the British cultural theorist Stuart Hall, who suggests that the black Atlantic diaspora
is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of necessary heterogeneity and diversity... by hybridity and the emergence of dynamic new
ethnicities.^ ^ e s e new models of diasporan ethnicity find faces and names
as, in increasing numbers, black, white and Asian Britons settle down with
partners from different ethnic groups. Beople of dual heritage are the postmodern children of diaspora.^ ^ i s weaving of new urban identities cannot
be reduced to the hybridity to which Hall and Baker refer.
philosophers
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari use an alternative, but comparable, biological image to evoke heterogeneous diasporan multiculturalism.29 Rhizomes are
forms or systems which do not have a single root, but which are characterized

25) Baker, ibid., p. 18.

26) Ibid., p. 21.
27) Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspnra, in Braziel Jana Evans and Anita Mannur, eds.
Theorizing Diaspora (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. 244.
28) The 2001 Natinnal Census pninted to the fact that three percent of foe population o f BirI n g h a m defined themselves as dual heritage (approximately thirty thousand adults; a figurethat
does not include children). Across England and Wales just over one percent o fth e population
defined themselves as dual-heritage (677,000 people), while fifteen percent o fth e minority ethnie comm unity of England and Wales defined themselves as dual-heritage. See <http://www.
statistics.gov.uk> [accessed 14 March 2007].
29) Cilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Eondon: University o f Minnesota
Press, 1987), pp. 3-18.

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by multiple im er^nnectiuns. Such imagery like that ufhybridity, successfully

expresses the rupture and re-ruuting of contemporary urbanism. However, as
Baker admits, talk about hybridity inevitably echoes botanical grafting, late
eighteenth and nineteenth century assertions about supposed racial hierarchies and an almost pathological colonial horror of mixing the races in the
Caribbean colonies of the British Empire. The model of urban identity
expressed by people of dual heritage is not a purposeless example of biological
fusion; one finished ethnicity being grafted onto another equally completed
camp. Cuattari and Deleuze exclude the conviction that lies at the heart of
progressive patterns of faith: diversity is not only normative, it is a purposive
expression of a creator who rejoices in difference; a reflection of the diverse
unity of a trinitarian God; an echo ofthe boundary hopping ministry of]esus
of Nazareth and the generator of liberative social change. A hermeneutics of
liberative difference stands as a challenge to directionless, relativist and purposeless hybridity and has the capacity to resource progressive translocal publie theology in diasporan and diverse urban societies.

Seeds fa New Hermeneutic^ Principie Liberative Difference

Discussions of culture, faith, marginalization, globalization, power, identity,
inclusion, belonging and resistance in twenty-first century urban societies
cluster around interpretations of difference, ^ e s e ontological crises feed upon
an alienating ethic of oppressive difference within which diversity is portrayed
as a dangerous threat to neighbourhood, national, ethnic or religious identity.
Twenty-first century urbanism is defined, not only by normative diversity, but
by translocal diasporan communities within which new forms of fluid ethnicity are constantly emerging. A hermeneutical principle, which grapples coherently with such difference on the basis of a liberative ethic, is needed to
resource a convincing theology of liberation and difference. In this article, I
explore such a defining interpretive tool, which reflects the dynamic provisionality of postmodern urban Britain and can reinvigorate a new critical multiculturalism.
Liberative difference enables a new engagement with religious diversity,
thus correcting the disengagement and superficiality that characterizes much
urban theological reflection on the multifaith nature of twenty-first century
Britain. Liberative difference acknowledges existing models of inter-faith dia-

30) Baker, The Hybrid Church in the City, pp. 1314.

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375

logue, but will move beyond them towards a new model of engagement.
Exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism have dominated Christian engagement
with other world faiths for almost a century; they still hold centre ground
within foe Christian community, but are incapable of expressing either foe
complexity of contemporary urbanism or foe inclusive liberative thrust of the
divine bias to foe oppressed in a plural globalized age. Liberative difference
exposes dogmatic exclusivism that, while finding its roots in foe work ofH endrick Kraemer, Karl Barth and Lesslie Newbiggin,^ still finds a home in
churches that exclude any possibility of glimpses of truth emerging from
other communities of faith. Furthermore, liberative difference challenges foe
inclusivism popularized by Karl Rahner,^ wherein foe liberative potential of
foe worlds religions is reduced to an unrecognized consequence of foe salvific
power of]esus. Finally, a hermeneutic of liberative difference exposes foe inadequacy of the pluralism developed by }ohn Hick.33 His important recognition
of foe necessity of a post-imperial theology of religions fails to acknowledge
foe centrality of conflicting truth claims within urban communities; yet,
where such commitment is bracketed out, or dismissed as contextually predetermined, liberative dialogue becomes inauthentic and implausible.
Liberative difference resists attempts to simplify or homogenize dynamic
cultures. An ethic of liberative difference is built upon foe social reality of messy
heterogeneity, instead of the myth of tidy homogeneity. If public foeology is to
engage authentically with postmodern uncertainty, post-religious questioning
and dynamic translocal urbanism, it must root itself in a pattern of hermeneutics that is avowedly non-conformist; only such a meaning-making relationship with the world can explore sufficiently normative diversity and the
corrosive effects of oppressive difference; only such a hermeneutical stance can
generate a pattern of progressive faith that is characterized by liberative
difference. In his exploration of black music and suffering, Anthony Pinn
introduces foe idea of a nitty-gritty hermeneutics, which, he suggests, engages
more openly and honestly with foe black experience of racism than tradition^

31) See ]hn Hick and Brian Hebblethwaite Brian, eds, Christianity and Other Religions (Glasgow:
Fount Fress, 80 ;) Hendrick Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh House Press, 1938) and Lesslie Newbiggin, Truth to Tell (Eondon: SFCK,
1991.)
32) Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vols 5 and 17 (London: Darton Eongman and Todd,
1963-1981).
33) ]ohn Hick, God Has Many Names (London: S e m illa n , 1980) and John Hick, The Rainbow
ofFaiths (London: SCM Press, 1995).

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C. Shannahan / International Journal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381

Christian understandings nf redemptive suffering.34 Nitty-gritty hermeneutics

is prnvisinnal, open-ended and resistant to received orthodoxy. Pinn suggests
that such a pattern of m ening-m aking ridicules interpretations and interpreters who seek to inhibit or restrict liberative movement... The nitty-gritty
thang so to speak forces a confrontation with the funky stuff of life.35 A
nitty-gritty model of hermeneutics can liberate contemporary public theology
from inflexible dogmatic parameters which reduce, dismiss or spiritualize fluid
norm ative difference. A hermeneutics of liberative difference that draws on a
nitty-gritty ethic can resource a dialogical model of public theology, which
meets difference on its own fluid, dynamic and potentially ontradictory terms
without imposing a priori judgements on the other. However, because it rests
on the assertion that theology must articulate the divine bias to the oppressed,
a nitty-gritty hermeneutics of liberative difference should not be equated to a
rudderless relativism, as the criteria below indicate.
While depictions of oppressive difference portray a Babel of misunderstanding, a hermeneutics of liberative difference articulates an intra-contextual Pentecost of potential mutual liberation. It is recognized, however, that
diversity is not inherently liberative. A hermeneutics of liberative difference,
therefore, does not equate to an uncritical postmodern relativism within which
no judgements about truth can be made, rather, dialogical urban praxis will be
judged according to foe follow criteria: first, does foe urban dialogue partner
express foe dynamism of contemporary urban life; secondly, does foe urban
dialogue partner articulate/embody foe bias to foe oppressed; thirdly, is foe
urban dialogue partner explicitly committed to shared liberative struggle;
fourthly, is foe urban dialogue partner open to constructive challenge; fifthly,
is foe urban dialogue partner committed to mfoti-dimensional equality and,
finally, does foe urban dialogue partner recognize foe open-endedness of
struggle and foe provisional status ofher/his own perspective?
^ i s hermeneutical shift within public theology enables a new engagement
w ifo normative difference because
- Liberative Difference is built upon foe Divine Bias to foe Stranger and foe
Excluded.
- Liberative Difference expresses foe fluid, intra-contextual character ofurban
society.
34) Anthny Pinn, why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum ,

<.
35) Ibid., p. 117.

C. Shannahan/InternationalJournal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381 77

- Liberative Difference recognises the contested nature of urban space,

the hegemony of the ruling space of flows and proposes a new counterhegemonic community of flows which arises from excluded diasporan
urban co m m u n ities.
- Liberative Difference moves urban faith and politics beyond all forms of
raciology.
- Liberative Difference resources glocalized liberative praxis.
- Liberative Difference challenges the falsity of binary modernist Urban
Geologies.
- Liberative Difference understands the diversity of the oppressed as a challenge to the homogeneity of the globalised urban elite.
- Liberative Difference dubs prevailing antagonism towards difference, which
becomes the driving force behind inclusive, ne^orked liberative praxis.
- Liberative Difference enables a new critical multiculturalism to emerge
which recognises foe importance of foe development of a progressive Critical W hite identity.

Liberative Difference Dubs R eceiv ed

F aith

It should be recognized fully that black and urban theologians have grappled
wifo racism and cultural diversity since foe 1980s. However, although Kenneth Leech, John Wilkinson and David Haslam^ have asserted an often
underrepresented white anti-racism, while Mukti Barton^ has subverted foe
implicit ethnic essentialism that has tended to characterize much public theological reflection on race and bofo Robert Beckford and Inderjit Bhogal^ have
sought to broaden reflection beyond an urban Christian community, there has
been little detailed engagement wifo foe dynamic and fluid interactive identities and normative religious diversity that characterizes twenty-first century
36) Kenneth Leech, Struggle in Babylon (London: Sheldon Publishing, 1988); Kenneth Leech,
The Sky is Be (London: D arton Longman and Todd, 1997) and Kenneth Leech,Doing Theology
in Altab Alt Park (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 2006); John Wilkinson, The Church in
Black and White (Ldinburgh: St. Andrews Press, 1993) and David Haslam, Race for the Millennium: A Challengefor Church and Society (London: Church House Puhlishing, 1996).
37) Mukti Barton, Rejection, Resistance and Resurrection: speaking Out on Racism in the Church
(London: Darton Longman and Todd, 2005).
38) Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal., Inderjit Bhogal, Grieving in a Multifaith Society, in Rowland Chris Vincent John, ed.. Liberation spirituality (Sheffield: Urban Theology Unit, 1997)
and Inderjit Bhogal, A TableforAll.A Challenge to Church and Nation (Sheffield: Penistone Press,
2000).

C. Shannahan / International Journal o f Public Theology 1 (2007) 364381

urbanism within existing patterns of black and urban theology. As a result,

neither discipline has, to date, exhibited the capacity to forge a transformative
hermeneutical stance that has foe capacity to resource liberative difference,
although Beckfords challenge to develop a progressive critical white identity
and Bakers engagement with hybrid ^ i r d space thinking may have foe
potential to contribute to an urgently needed new discussion.
An ethic of liberative difference has the capacity to re-configure received patterns of faith as tools of resistance and hope for excluded communities. Drawing on foe template described above, tools provided by ideological criticism
and the dub practice of the dancehall D], which Beckford explores, it becomes
possible to deconstruct-reconstruct received faith on foe basis of a renewed
liberative ethic. Beckford describes the mechanics of dub practice in this way:
bass, guitar, drums, horns and vocals are deconstructed... separated from each
other and then reconstructed: cut and remixed, repositioned and recast.39

Liberative Ethic
Deconstruction
Cultural Text or
Theological Model

Dominant
Interpretation

Organic Liberative
Interpretation
Reconstruction
Black Experience

Figure 1. Dub practice in public foeology.

Dub is not a directionless post-structuralist technique, since dominant sounds,

narratives and values are deconstructed so that an alternative liberative and
contextual musical form can be constructed. Beckford summarizes: Dub is
more than a musical technique: it is also a quest for meaning.40 It is because
sound, like language, is not neutral, that Beckford suggests that foe sound
system mi^ can be read as a theory of social resistance.^ If it is guided by a

39) Robert Beckford, Jesus Dub: Theology, Music and Social Change (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006),
* Ibid., p. 67.
41) Ibid., p. 52.

C. Shannahan/InternationalJournal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381

379

hermeneutics uf liberative difference and a clear emancipatory ethic dub practice has the capacity to resource a new liberative engagement with difference,
which critiques existing theological camp mentality and an ethic of corrosive
oppressive difference. A creative engagement with dub can reinvigorate urban
public theology in the twenty-first century, and resource inclusive models of
urban resistance to raciology, camp mentality and homogenizing globalization. Thus, it becomes possible to see a dubbed public theology of liberative
difference emerging in the process.

Trinity Dub
In spite of its roots in the political pragmatism ofthe patristic period a trinitarian ethic has glocal liberative potential in the context of the crises of
contemporary globalized urbanism.
Trinity models a society that is characterized by mutuality, justice and inclusive community, because, as ^ o m p son summarizes: The triune God breaks through our divisions and isolation.^
While certain dogmatic approaches to the Trinity exclude the possibility of
truth emerging from non-trinitarian communities of faith, the emphasis has
the potential, when allied to a use ofideological criticism, to frame a model of
action and reflection that reflects the dynamic and complex fluidity of contemporary urban life. A new urban faith framework will dub the trinity as
show n below:

Camp
Mentality
Orthodox
Trinitarian
Emphasis

Belonging

Deconstrnction

Plnrality

Reconstrnction

Atomisatiorr

Globalisation

Social God
Egalitarian God
Divine Diaspora
Flnidity
Dialogne
Commnnity of Flows
Option for Commnnity
Jonrneying
Relational Mntnality

Figure 2. Trinity dub.

42) John Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994),
p. 107.

380

C. Shannahan / International Journal ofPublic Theology 1 (2007) 364381

Catholicity
The ancient Christian emphasis on catholicity provides potentially liberative
resources for people offaith in the new globalized urbanism. Such glocal praxis
can challenge the hegemony of homogenizing globalization, providing a meeting place for the oppressed within translocal urban communities. Catholicity
can reinstate the dynamic multiplicity of the local place, thus providing a
counterpoint to Castells assertion that the global space of flows has rendered
the local impotent. A new theology of liberation and difference will draw on
and stretch orthodox understandings of catholicity, in an attempt to engage
fully with the inherently multi-faith character of urban Britain. shape of
a Catholic urban dub is sketched out below:

Dominant
Catholic
Emphasis

Belonging Raciology
Deconstruction
Ghettoes

Gentrification

Contested
Urban

Islamophobia

Reconstruction

Diasporan
Reflection
Glocal Praxis
Liberative
Reconciliation
Dialogue
Inter-Contextuality
Network Building
Local/Global
Diverse Unity

Figure 3. C th o licity d u b .

Koinonia Dub
At a point in time when urban society has become increasingly atomized and
communities increasingly ghettoized, an emphasis on koinonia has the potential to reinvigorate liberative community cohesion.
biblical conception of
koinonia speaks of a relationship of solidarity; however, dominant Eurocentric
theologies have individualized a communal relationship, thus privatizing and
(^politicizing the liberative thrust of relational koinonia. W ithin a new urban
theology, koinonia becomes a necessarily inclusive response to the divine solidarity expressed through the incarnation, w h e n allied to a new urban catholicity and a hermeneutics of liberative difference, the new koinonia demands a
radical planetary humanism capable of resourcing intra-contextual movements of solidarity that subvert hegemonic definitions of centre, worth and
power.

C. Shannahan / International Journal o f Public Theology 1 (2007) 364381

Belonging
Dominant
Koinonia
Emphasis

Individualism

Contested
ace (Anti-Dialogical
Struggle
Centre and
Margins

Deconstruction

Reconstruction
raphy
Inequality

381

Interconnected
Oppression
Liberative Solidarity
Multidimensional
Shalom
Planetary Humanism
Koinonia as Action
Organic Inter Faith
Dialogue
Holiness/Wholeness

1wure 4. Koinonia dub.

Conclusion
The struggle to forge a transformative pattern of faith and political action that
is characterized by a progressive ethic of liberative difference will be of central
and abiding importance in the translocal world of diasporan urban society in
the twenty-first century. W ithin the Gospels, when he is faced with exclusion
or oppressive essentialism and when he is challenged to broaden his own gaze,
}esus embodies the faithful openness that must mark inclusive models of discipleship, in this fluid and interwoven century, w h e n models of urban public
theology grapple with the complex web of normative difference and the corrosive ethics of oppressive difference that characterize urban society, then, a
convincing expression of liberative difference can emerge. A new hermeneutical paradigm is required to meet people like }oseph and Miriam in their need,
^ i s paper has begun to chart the journey ahead.


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