The origin of the Urban Theology Unit resides, I fancy, in a quite fundamental question which has seemed to me to be elemental in any search for Christian discipleship. It was something like: Where do I have to place myself so that Gospel things happen to me?

I had satisfied at least myself that the peculiar and distinctive genius of Christianity lay in its uncovering and empowering certain secular dynamics which were for the wholeness of humanity.

The call to be a disciple, in this light, was therefore the call to place oneself strategically, so that the dynamics of the Christ-events could be recognised and entered into. The evangelical motive, “What must I do to be saved?” was therefore secularised into “Where must I be that salvation happens?” The church therefore had to be discovered around and within those events, people and movements which could be part of the on-going secular dynamic which continued the acts of Jesus. The acts of Jesus, in turn, were the immediate and often microcosmic happenings which embodied and pointed to the Kingdom of God.

It seemed to me, further, that the calling of a theologian always had to be secondary to the calling to be a disciple — or, more pertinently, that a theological vocation was impossible except as a development of a discipleship vocation. This meant that theorising had to issue from commitment, speaking from acting, systematising from experimenting. Indeed, I later learned that the whole life pattern of Jesus reflected this kind of dialogue between engagement and withdrawal, conflict and spirituality, politics and privateness, and that the peculiar group that he called into being likewise existed as alternative communal society (the New Israel) and as his own alternative inner being (the Body of Christ).

Is God morally good? Is he morally bad? Confronted by the reality of evil his defenders have sometimes said that he is morally good, or, at least, that there is insufficient proof of his moral badness. Why? Because, so they say, the following argument is acceptable:

1. 1 In creating, God brings about or allows various evils.

2. 2 These evils are justified since they go along with some good or goods which depend on them in some way.

3. 3 Evil can therefore be seen as part of God’s justified plan in creating or allowing for certain goods.

But does it make sense to say either that God is morally good or that he is not? This is the question I raised at the end of my previous article on God and Evil.

Many people would find it odd, or even offensive, They would say that since God is good, he is bound by moral requirements in the way that human beings are, that the goodness of God is moral goodness, where that is understood in the same way as it is when ascribed to men and women. Richard Swinburne is a good representative of this view. God, he says, is perfectly good. What does this mean? It means, says Swinburne, that God knows which actions are morally good and which actions are morally bad, and that God always does actions which are morally good and never does actions which are morally bad. According to Swinburne, ‘God’s perfect goodness follows deductively from his omniscience and his perfect freedom’. Since God is omniscient he will ‘know the truth value of all moral judgments whether or not they are true or false’. Since he is perfectly free he ‘will always do any action which he recognizes to be over all better to do than not to do, and so one which he judges to be morally obligatory’.

The quality of Christian life partly depends on how those who believe in Jesus understand what religion is about. As a theologian I am not directly concerned with the pros and cons of Marxist theory and of Communist practice. My preoccupation is rather firstly to pay attention to Marx’s denying any permanent value to Christian ethics and religion; secondly to ask whether Marx’s assessment of Christian practice is compatible or not with the way most of the faithful have interpreted Christianity in the last few centuries; and thirdly to offer a few considerations on the possibility of partially overcoming religious idealism with the help of both psychology and Marxism.

I hope that it will become evident in due course that a certain number of Christians have been, are and will be on the defensive with respect to Marxism inasmuch as they are a very definite brand of believers, whom we may call ‘idealist’ believers. I shall argue that so far as we are idealist believers, we cannot but forthrightly reject Marxism en bloc, because to our idealist eyes, it necessarily looks like pure materialism. Being two extremes, sheer idealism and sheer materialism cannot but repudiate each other. And in contrast to this main reason for banning Marx from being a partner in fruitful dialogue, I consider as secondary all the other — often legitimate — reasons that we may have to criticize many aspects of both Marxist theory and Communist practice.