Charles Pemberton – författare

The return of Christian social service to the centre of British political life through the emergence of the foodbank movement has elicited a range of ecclesial responses. However, in their urgency and brevity these Church responses fail to systematically integrate political critique and social analysis, nor do they undertake a sustained integration of the recent gains in political theology with the realities of our current ‘mixed economy of welfare’. Charles Pemberton draws on interviews with foodbank users and volunteers to defend and advance a Christian vision of welfare beyond emergency food provision. He suggests that behind the day-to-day struggles of those using foodbanks there are wider much concerns about loneliness, marginalisation and the wholesale fragmentation of society.

From food banks to migrant welcome committees, and community organisers to internet based campaigners, civil society is central to the North Atlantic social landscape. Theology and Civil Society advances our understanding of what civil society is and offers a theologically informed re-imagining of our shared social life.Prefaced by a foreword by the Rev. Dr Rowan Williams, this book explores contemporary manifestations of the kind of collective action observed in civil society since the 1800s. It then examines civil society as the sum of modern associations which mediate our relationships to the market and the state, but which cannot be identified fully with either the market or the state. Finally, three different perspectives on civil society are presented using insights from theologians such as John Milbank and Georg Hegel. This is a pertinent topic for contemporary society, and it is explored expertly here by an international panel of contributors. As such, it is an important volume for any scholar of Theology and Religious Studies and their interactions with Sociology and Politics.