A Lutheran Pastoral-Social Theology in Critical Collaboration with Public Theology as a Basis for Engaging with the Australian Context

Australia is a Western society. The liberal, secular, and plural culture of this country possesses various social issues in its public life. The Lutheran Church of Australia as an institution amongst several others in the context of Australia faces and must contend with many of these concerns. However, a prima facie account of its social engagement indicates that it has a narrow and limited involvement in the public life (pgs. 46f). As such it appears to lack a coherent and committed rationale for contributing to the public good of this country.
Public theology practitioners seek to constructively participate in the public life of their Western contexts. Therefore, public theology would seem to be a worthwhile dialogue partner for theologians and churches that are interested in engaging with their secular plural contexts. So, this thesis hypothesizes that a sort of Lutheran social ethics—a Lutheran pastoral-social theology in this case—brought into critical collaboration with general public theology may form a basis for effectively engaging with a Western context such as that of Australia.

To do so I will employ what scholars understand as a “hermeneutical spiral” (pg. 2). To that end, I: seek articulation of Australian society; elucidate and organize public theology; retrieve and critically engage with theological insights from Martin Luther and Lutheran scholarship regarding pastoral theology, doctrinal theology, and social ethics to construct a Lutheran pastoral-social theology; collaborate this Lutheran pastoral-social theology with an organized public theology; and finally, refer the results of this collaboration to the opportunities and challenges of the Australian context. The Lutheran Church of Australia will as such have a theological basis and means for participating in the public life of this society that it may then test, adapt, and correct in order to streamline its public practice. The thesis will conclude with suggestions of how this religious institution can better respond to the opportunities and challenges of the public life of Australia with a Lutheran pastoral-social theology (LPST) in hand (pgs. 249-50).