Abstract:
This article serves as the introductory, first contribution to a special collection of articles on the
theme, ‘Doing urban public theology in South Africa: Visions, approaches, themes and practices
towards a new agenda’. The aim of the article is to set the conceptual and hermeneutical
framework for undertaking urban public theology as a very intentional, new agenda in
South African theological scholarship. The authors assert that public theology in South Africa
has, despite its established position today, not embedded itself in, or intentionally engaged
itself with, the contextual challenges of South African cities and urban environments by and
large. This assertion leads them to pay attention to the urban as a distinctive but contested
development concern in present-day South Africa, to the way in which current public
theological practice is lacking behind in engaging itself with this development concern, and to
the important hermeneutical question of what it would entail to make an authentic, theological
contribution towards meeting the challenges of the urban in South Africa in response to the
current neglect. Although by no means intended as exhaustive and all-encompassing in terms
of the subject matter, the authors end by appreciating the rest of the articles in the special
collection as a first offer to the anticipated urban public theological agenda that they have
started to identify in this article.
