Being responsible in the public domain

The call to be responsible in the public domain is addressed here through a particular rendering of the discipline of a public theology. It is assumed that the intention of such a theology is to nurture the common good, a civil society, the flourishing of all. The Christian faith is thus placed among a ‘company of strangers’ and a relative reliance upon middle axioms like justice, dignity and responsibility as it seeks to engage with contemporary issues-such as (a). what constitutes climate justice? (b). what kind of tensions must a culturally diversifying democracy negotiate for the sake of an agreed basis for dignity and justice? These two concerns are discrete; at face value they are not intimately inter-related. They are being situated in this argument alongside the rhetoric of call and responsibility due to the self-understanding of a denominational church and how it engages with the nation in which it finds itself. The praxis of the Uniting Church in Australia is informed by a Statement to the Nation that was made public at its inception in 1977. That Statement was built upon a belief in a “Christian responsibility for society being regarded as fundamental to the mission of the church”.