Acknowledgments vii Foreword, Professor Mike Higton and Dr Sanjee Perera xi Introduction 1 Part One – Church on the Edges of the Public Square 1 Locating the drama 17 2 Public Theology 33 3 Liberation Theologies 43 4 Ecclesial political theologies 58 Part Two – Engaging Graham Ward: theologian of the postmodern city 5 The postmodern city 75 6 Church as ‘alternative erotic community’ 96 7 Interrupting the church’s flow: Ward’s ‘schizoid’ christology, and repressed ‘others’ 123 8 Tracing Ward’s retreats 138 Part Three – Engaging Romand Coles as post-liberal ‘theologian’ of receptivity 9 A tension-dwelling ‘visionary pragmatism’ 161 10 A ‘christeccentric’, ‘radically insufficient’ church 201 Part Four – Developing a radically receptive political theology 11 Engaging critical white theology: dis-locating the (privileged) theologian 225 12 A radically receptive political ontology: returning to the flow(s) 243 13 Practising radically receptive political theology 254 14 Returning 264 Appendices 276 Bibliography 301 Index of Names and Subjects 325