In this part I want to draw the threads of the book together and reach a conclusion however tentative and personal. The message of Part I of the book was that it was difficult to see how there could be a wholly definite and authoritative social and political ethic emerging from the various traditions and schools of Western theology. The relationship between universal and particular, between the claimed truths of the Christian faith and the particularistic circumstances of specific societies, is too contested and controversial to yield an authoritative view. Equally, as we saw in Part II, there can be no authoritative rendering of crucial political and social concepts such as justice, freedom and community. While there may be a core definition of a concept, such core definitions are too thin and unspecific to be useful. Such concepts have to be further specified into richer and more specific conceptions. These conceptions will be elaborated against the background of particular moral traditions, narratives and communities. As such, they may well involve a range of metaphysical or religious assumptions or what John Rawls, in Political Liberalism, calls comprehensive doctrines.

Putting these two general points together: the lack of an authoritative Christian political ethic and the lack of an authoritative rendering of crucial political concepts might, of course, lead to a sense of despair. But this need not be so. While there may be no authoritative Christian political ethic, this does not mean that Christianity lacks any kind of social and political implications.