Theology in a Social Context: Sociological Theology, Volume 1 [TSC]

Written by Robin Gill Reviewed By Bruce C. Wearne

For more than half a century Robin Gill has negotiated the scholarly interface between sociology and theology. This trilogy brings together his work as an Anglican academic. The two initial volumes, he says, can be read in “stand alone” terms. But this review restricts itself to a brief overview of the three volumes. Together they constitute Gill’s systematic account of his “theological social system”, his “sociological theology”. They collate a lifetime’s work of substantial breadth and depth, a testimony to the care and persistence of its academic and clerical author. Gill’s three volumes hang together as a considerable academic contribution.

In negotiating the “borderland” between theology and sociology, Gill incorporates insights from the sociology of knowledge into his theological reflections. His succinct summary of his purpose is to “explore the possibility that theology, even theology in a modern pluralist society, may at times be socially significant. That is to say, that its influence may sometimes extend beyond the restricted confines of academic theologians and even beyond the confines of the academic community as a whole” (SST, p. 33).

This is “tongue in cheek” humour to explain his work. “Even” and “may” in the phrases: “even theology”, “its influence may sometimes extend beyond” and “even beyond”, show us his winsome hope as a Christian academic and scholar. He draws attention to the “restricted confines” of theology, which is itself nested within the academic community’s “confines”. We perceive him confronting an academic culture lacking true openness. His work expresses the hope that his analyses will be appreciated beyond the academic context in the wider society, even “out there” in the parishes of the Church of England. He “even” hopes that his sociological theology will cross the divide from theology into sociology itself! This humour concides with Gill’s conviction that sociological theology should be an integral part of every ordinand’s intellectual formation. Here is a work fired with a many-sided hope arising from a self-conscious Anglican in his contribution to university, church and society. This same attitude binds the three volumes together as one work.

When Gill, in the “Afterword” of the third volume, is summing up his efforts, he concedes “that my project is far from complete” (SST, p. 229). This comes hard on the heels of his culminating chapter about theology’s task in fomenting the public virtues of “solidaristic compassion” where he commends the difficult task of extending care to those living with HIV. “Theological Virtues in the Public Forum” compares HIV prevention programmes with the challenges Jesus issued by healing lepers. The basic concepts of sociological theology are expounded in the belief that this new (sub-) discipline must strive to make such a compassionate contribution. Many situations in this suffering world cry out for “solidaristic compassion”, and academic disciplines like sociology and theology, in their examination of the various dimensions of all kinds of human endeavour, need to see themselves so constrained and “under continual construction”. The “incompleteness” of Gill’s project is part of his recognition of the dynamic human reality that confronts these disciplines. Those who theorise “theological virtues” may better rise to challenges of human suffering with assistance from sociological theology.

Gill’s perspective on caring articulates his response to the gospel’s challenge to confront, overcome and turn away from cruel and deeply harmful “stigmatizing and shaming [of] people who cannot undo their condition” (SST, p. 226). His incisive exposition of New Testament healing stories seeks to bring into sharp relief the persistently negative communal processes that “compassion, care, faith and humility” must confront and overcome.

The discussion is necessarily “academic”, in the form of arguments presented as well-crafted essays, in style not unlike what is required in university coursework. That is no criticism. Gill has been reading and re-reading the formative textbooks of his under-graduate and graduate study back in the 1960s and 1970s. He remembers their stimulus and writes with sensitivity to his readers, assuming that we may gain greater clarity of his views if he explains how he then saw and responded to the challenges of prominent scholars. In that sense the three works are tied together by an autobiographical theme which strengthens their contribution. More recently he has confronted the views of John Milbank and Stanley Hauerwas, with whom he clearly disagrees. Gill repeatedly reiterates strong dissent from “radical orthodoxy” particularly in Milbank’s strident negativity toward social science.

Nested within Gill’s narrative is his account of the genesis of his own theoretical arguments and concepts. We cannot cover that here. Let’s put it in short-hand: his inter-disciplinary effort is framed by the impact upon his reflections of both J. A. T. Robinson (1919–1983), author of Honest to God (London: SCM, 1963), and C. Wright Mills (1916–1962), author of The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: OUP, 1959). His recurring emphasis is upon sociology’s interface with theology, and the less-than-clear-cut theological response to the intellectual challenge of those viewing religion and theology with a “sociological imagination”. Gill writes as pioneer in border territory knowing full well that some residents on both sides of the dividing line between sociology and theology view it as a “no go” area, perhaps even a bewildering wasteland, or they may even deny its existence. Milbank apparently views it as a fantasyland or a deadly bog. But Sociological Theology chronicles Gill’s persistent sojourn in that scholarly realm.

Gill’s negotiation of the borderland between theology and sociology as well as the concepts and insights he derives from the sociology of knowledge requires a more complex analysis than can be given in this brief review. Suffice to say he raises important and critical questions including those about sociology’s long-standing commitment to “secular” assumptions. The data collected about religion raise facts that are undeniable, and sociological analysis needs to avoid being skewed by ideological or even theological weasling. This is a point about empirical research that will need further clarification from a critical examination of Gill’s arguments and analyses.

Overall, the 3 volumes are well written, an enjoyable chronicle of an Anglican academic’s odyssey in the secular academy. He happily identifies himself, together with David Martin and Peter Berger, as a group of Christian sociologists of religion, who

stumbled on the necessity of sociology as a natural extension of our immersion in theology and as a way of sorting out what were to us urgent issues about religion, social understanding, and human betterment . . . . We were, and remain, mistrustful across the board rather than liberals across the board. For us the proper work of a sociologist is to sniff cautiously at everything, sociology included. (SST, p. 3, quoting David Martin)

Gill’s account of how sociological theology has emerged provides his exemplar of how theological knowledge is formed in and by its relation to society. Sociological theology must challenge taken-for-granted realities, his own included. By taking up the task of identifying the processes by which social reality has been and continues to be objectively constructed, issues that arise within the borderland between sociology and theology can be given their due.

Theology in a Social Context (vol. 1) takes up themes he developed in his very first book The Social Context of Theology (1975). In fresh and easy-to-follow language, Gill’s retrospective and self-critical documentation presents corrections to previous over-reactions, misunderstandings and misreadings of data. He also identifies his own faulty arguments put forward with those with whom he disagreed as he tried to promote deeper reflection on the value of sociology for theological reflection. He does not forget that it was his Birmingham MSocSc supervisor Bob Hinings who made the salient suggestion about “applying sociology to theology rather than just to parochial work” (TSC, p. 3).

He remains alert to important transitions in his thinking. The “applied” contribution of sociology is not just about discerning how social action can be formed in line with some theological “ideas”, say, in the programmes of an Anglican parish trying to implement its “mission statement”. Hinings’ suggestion meant applying sociological concepts to theological concepts and insights in order to discern how it qua discipline is part of a “socially constructed reality”. This “academic” (rather than merely “applied”) refocusing of the relationship between these two disciplines led Gill to the sociology of knowledge and the work of Karl Mannheim (1893–1947). His roughly-hewn philosophy of science is discussed in the opening chapters of Theology Shaped by Society (vol. 2), when he examines the social structure of theology, and this leads to a view that is central to the entire project: “Theology: A Social System” (Chapter 5). In such terms Gill’s sociological theology promotes empirical sociological fieldwork as an important source for theological reflection. In his earliest work, a 12-page essay “British Theology as a Sociological Variable” (1974), the use of the term “variable” is critical for his understanding of explanation in sociology (TSS, Chapter 3—“Explanation in Sociology and Theology,” pp. 41–59). Gill’s sociological authorities—Berger and Mannheim—provide him with a theoretical view of how science confronts reality’s diverse and immanent variability. In any scientific explanation, the dependent variables are related to the independent. But what in one study can be considered an independent variable may be in other studies viewed as dependent and vice versa. Berger affirms this view of scientific explanation with his sociological account of religious phenomena. And this is also why, within social scientific inquiry, appeals to the transcendent are necessarily excluded (TSS, p. 47). The critical problem however with this stated exclusion of the transcendent is that it involves an immanent belief in the self-sufficiency of scientific explanation that actually transcends scientific explanation. This is a problematic dogma that must be examined further in any critical examination of Gill’s sociological theology. With Berger and Martin, Gill is united in a Christian professional aspiration to “sniff cautiously at everything, sociology included” (SST, p. 1, quoting David Martin).

Robin Gill’s work vigorously promotes a deeply self-critical approach, not just to sociology, not just to theology, not just to the relationship between them, but to living the Christian life. In his sniffing at various sets of data, and his academic disciplines more generally, it is clear he is averse to claiming dogmatic finality for his theoretical insights. We are left with the following critical questions: is he suggesting that the method of sociological scepticism is a religiously neutral strategy? Should sociological theology be considered as a specifically Christian contribution to sociology?


Bruce C. Wearne

Bruce C. Wearne
Monash University (retired)
Point Lonsdale, Australia

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