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Michael Walzer's new book calls for a changed agenda in the discussion of liberalism. He challenges as simplistic celebration today of liberalism in the West as a kind of absolute moment, and he emphasizes the vital importance of an equality which is far more than the equality of the ballot box if democracy in its true sense is to flourish. This leads naturally to a consideration of the relation of religion in its various forms, including "furious religion," and democracy, and a strong emphasis on the importance—and the dangers—of emotions such as belonging and benevolence to the effective operation of a democratic society. On all these issues theology has much to say, and this paper hopes to help open from a theological angle a constructive debate on the issues arising from Walzer's important book.

Traditional barriers of purity and pollution have been an issue which has faced most churches from the beginning, and still persists. Acts 2 deals with the overcoming of cultural and linguistic barriers among Jews. Mission involves constant confrontation with the issue. Its resolution is vital if the Church is indeed to be the Church, inclusive and open.

This article examines the changing scope and method of ecumenical public theology from the World Missionary Conference of 1910 until the present. Most changes were made in response to the changing ideological and political contexts. The collapse of liberalism and the social gospel was followed by a type of confessional ethics which arose directly out of the German Church Struggle. In opposition to this there emerged a realist ecumenical social ethics, much indebted to Reinhold Niebuhr, and of Ronald Preston. This type of public theology and its distinctive ‘middle axiom’ method are examined and contrasted with the more recent public theologies which were influenced by liberation theology and grassroots movements. It is suggested that the ending of the Cold War and the fundamental changes that have taken place since September 11 2001 present a radically new kind of challenge to public theology.

Christian thought on the resolution of conflicts rests on a strong predisposition against violence and a determination to discourage outbreaks of violence, limit the means used, and bring the conflict to as speedy an end as possible. Less attention has been given to the psychological and social roots of violence, the moments of transition from violence to diplomacy and reconciliation, and alternative ways of conflict resolution. These three areas are explored with special reference to the use of sanctions, the WCC’s Programme to Overcome Violence, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Gandhian Satyagraha, and the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Such measures should be judged against the same criteria as are used in relation to violence and war.

Lady Thatcher welcomes this book enthusiastically as a telling expose of the failings of state welfare and the damage it has done to the British people; she is slightly more cautious about endorsing the whole of David Marsland's package of ‘reforms’, amounting to a total demolition of the welfare state. Lady Thatcher's approval suggests that this book lays bare much of the implicit and often unacknowledged ideology which has co-ordinated so many attacks on welfare provision since 1979. The book should be read attentively, for it betrays what many influential politicians really think.

There was a widespread assumption in the 1980s that liberation theology had come of age. The early passionate manifestos of those such as Hugo Assmann had been replaced by a deluge of substantial theological works which entered the theological debate bearing the wounds of oppression and injustice in Latin America, and also the clear marks of the European academy. Liberation theology remained highly controversial, but it had to be taken seriously. It suggested a new way of doing theology which was at one and the same time a recovery of older understandings of the nature of theology and rooted in Latin American reality. It plundered and turned on their original possessors the weapons of post-Enlightenment and post-Vatican II theologising, and it was viewed with deep suspicion by most of the authorities in church and state. The movement found resonances and allies in many countries of the Third World, and spread from systematics into biblical studies, ethics and pastoral theology.

The content and manner of the Church of Scotland's contribution to debates about public policy can only be understood in the light of the history and theological stance which have given the Church of Scotland a distinctive shape, identity, and understanding of its role. Its sense of identity as a national church, its democratic polity, its strongly confessional nature, and its determination to retain spiritual independence have ensured that it sees its responsibilities in the public realm in a distinctive way.