Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T04:28:02.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Responsibilities of Theology to Business (or the Responsibilities of the Butcher, the Baker, and the Imagemaker)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Extract

The title of this talk presupposes some important definitions. The conference title, “The Responsibilities of Theology”, struck me firstly as rather odd, but also as strikingly familiar. Many is the time I have seen the heading “The Responsibilities of Business”. In this light, such terminology implies that there is some kind of corporate (in its original sense) identity under the heading “theology” or “business”, to which some kind of responsibility can be ascribed. Lots of ink has been spilt over whether one can say in any meaningful way that the business corporation “acts” and can therefore “have responsibilities”, and this title seems to invite the same kind of approach to the “enterprise of theology”.’ I’ve taken a particular line on these questions, which is apparent in the thesis below. To take a particular line in order to get somewhere is the kind of thing that a business person would do. Results are important to businesspeople-an important point for theology to take on boarcbut the drawback in this is that to focus on results also tends to narrow down the discussion. In order to “get somewhed’ I am going to do the same thing, which will inevitably leave some avenues of possible discussion left untouched.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Lowery, Mark, “The Schindler/Weigel debate: An appraisal”, Communio, 18, Fall 1991, pp. 425438.Google Scholar
Maritain, Jacques, Man and the Stare, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.Google Scholar
Matthews, John Bowers, Goodpaster, Kenneth E., Nash, Laura L.. Policies and Persons. New York: McGraw‐Hill, Inc., 1991.Google Scholar
Novak, Michael, “Schindier's conversion: The Catholic right accepts pluralism”, Communio, 19, Spring 1992, pp. 144163.Google Scholar
Schindler, David L., “The Church's “worldly” mission: Neoconservatism and American culture”, Communio, 18, Fall 1991, pp. 365397.Google Scholar
Schindler, David L., “Response to Mark Lowery”, Communio, 18, Fall 1991, pp. 450472.Google Scholar
Schindler, David L., “Christology and the Church's “worldly” mission: Response to Michael Novak”, Communio, 19, Spring 1992, pp. 164178.Google Scholar
Weigel, George, “Response to Mark Lowery”, Communio, 18, Fall 1991, pp. 439449.Google Scholar