Theology, social science and postmodernity

some theological considerations

Lewis Ayres

pp. 174-189

in: Kieran Flanagan, Peter C. Jupp (eds), Postmodernity, sociology and religion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999

Abstract

In a survey of the history of relations between sociology and theology, Robin Gill sees the current context as one in which an increasingly hermeneutically aware social science, somewhat chastened about its earlier universalist rhetorics, is now matched by a theology aware of the complexity of social scientific discourse and more ready to understand, use and struggle with its products.¹ Similarly, accepting the challenge of some basic postmodernist strategies of thought, Kieran Flanagan points to the possibility of the reintroduction of the sacred into sociology as a basis of religious belief and to the need for categories which will help in providing a nuanced description of the place of the self. In the postmodern context of a relativisation of the meta-narratives which penetrate all discourses, theological wagers within sociology are now possible, and are perhaps vital, if nihilistic relativism is to be opposed in theory and in society.²

Cited authors

Flanagan Kieran