Pluralism and Policy Monism: The Political Irrelevance of Theology

Whatever the reasons might be, and I shall resist the temptation to speculate here, Canada is not distinguished by its contributions to the field of religious or theological ethics. And so Christian Faith and Economic Justice, subtitled as it is Toward a Canadian Perspective, should be taken as a hopeful sign of growing interest in the field in this country. Surprisingly, however, the book does not clarify either of the terms in the main title, or the relationships between them. While the reader is informed (if not overwhelmed) by a great deal of sophisticated policy language — concerning different positions on technological change and (un)employment, global interdependence and development, economic self-reliance and integration — religiously and ethically one is left with little more than vague liberal rhetoric about embracing diversity within a methodological framework allowing for mutual clarification on specific policy issues. In my judgement, the book fails its own test of adequacy (p. xii) — it cannot facilitate discussion among persons with different basic orientations when it ignores the substantive meaning and relations of those orientations to matters of policy. When policy discourse becomes the lowest common denominator mediating between the plurality of private views and motives, the currency into which all communicative acts can be translated and 'cashed out, ' then theological ethical discourse is emptied of public meaning or relevance. In the process, ironically, genuine plurality or diversity is sacrificed to the abstract rationality of policy monism — the bottom line of technological production and consumption 'opportunities.'