https://www.patheos.com/blogs/publictheology/2021/12/the-public-theology-of-paul-chung/
Written by Prof. Ted Peters, emeritus seminary professor at the GTU, Berkeley
What is public theology? Paul S. Chung answers. “Public theology is a theological-philosophical endeavor to provide a broader frame of reference to facilitate the responsibility of the church and theological ethics for social, political, economic, and cultural issues. It investigates public issues, developing conceptual clarity and providing social-ethical guidance of religious conviction and response to them” (Chung 2016, 1).
Meet Paul S. Chung
The Rev. Dr. Mr. Chung is already a planetary scholar. His birth and youth in South Korea were followed by his doctorate in Europe. Now he is practicing public theology in North America.
Three decades ago he wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Basil on “Karl Barth, Ernst Troeltsch, and Hegel’s philosophy of religion.” This was followed by his Habilitationsschrift: “Max Weber, Comparative Ethics and Protestant Buddhism.” He had gone to Europe to study after graduating from Han Shin University in his native South Korea. In recent years he has served in America both as a parish pastor in northern California and as a professor at Luther Seminary in Minnesota, Wartburg Seminary in Iowa, and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Chicago.
Relevant to the Patheos blog on Public Theology are some of his recent books such as Public Theology in an Age of World Christianity: God’s Mission as Word-Event (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Postcolonial Imagination: Archeological Hermeneutics and Comparative Religious Ethics (Hong Kong: Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, 2014); Postcolonial Public Theology: Faith, Scientific Rationality, and Prophetic Dialogue (Cascade Books, 2016); and Critical Theory and Political Theology: The Aftermath of Enlightenment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). What occasions this interview is a brand new book hot off the press, Public Theology and Civil Society (EBL, 2021).
Ted Peters is a Lutheran pastor and emeritus seminary professor. He is author of Short Prayers and The Cosmic Self. His one volume systematic theology is now in its 3rd edition, God—The World’s Future (Fortress 2015). He has undertaken a thorough examination of the sin-and-grace dialectic in two works, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Eerdmans 1994) and Sin Boldly! (Fortress 2015). Watch for his forthcoming, The Voice of Public Christian Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.