A major issue facing Christian theology on the eve of the new millennium is the question of power.
On the wider cultural level, the post-modern critique of thinkers such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida and especially Michel Foucault contains the charge that all claims to truth, including the claims of theology, are merely secret bids for power.
Christianity, it is claimed, dominated Western society for centuries not because it was more true, but because it was more powerful than its rivals. At the local level too, similar issues face local churches. Where does power lie? How are clergy and church leaders to use their power? What of the abuse of religious power evident in many movements, from the 'Nine O'Clock Service' in Sheffield to American televangelists, even down to clerical domination in local churches today?
