ABSTRACT
If one stands back and considers the changing fortunes of theology in the modern period, it is hard to escape the conclusion that things have gone badly wrong. Intellectual historians and cultural sociologists pay little attention to theology. This chapter discusses a particularly interesting phase in this ongoing project, represented by the three 'ordinary-language theology' books which appeared between 1999 and 2000. 'During the last two decades of the twentieth century,' writes Don Cupitt, 'the relative position of philosophy and theology has come to look weaker and weaker.' He finds 'authoritarianism' lurking in many areas, and views it as bound up with the elitism of the churches to which theology remains uncritically attached. Cupitt charges theology with moral bankruptcy. The proposal has the significant advantage of bringing into being a form of theology which is immunised against the diseases which Cupitt has identified as afflicting conventional theology. Cupitt may counter that he is trying to do theology, not social science.
