Prophetic analysis and policy making

Churches have five modes of speaking prophetically, South African theologian Nico Koopman told the conference in Brazil: prophetic envisioning, prophetic criticism, prophetic storytelling, prophetic technical analysis and prophetic policy making. What this means is that in prophetic public theology it is not a matter of prophetically denouncing injustice and then moving onto the 'technical' business of analysis and policy development, but that technical analysis is also a matter of prophetic theology:

Our prophetic task entails that we engage in continuous technical analysis of the challenges that we face in the context of globalisation. In technical discourses the wording of the prophet must be painstakingly accurate. Concepts need to be defined in a clear, comprehensive and concise manner. Experts from various disciplines assist theologians in this endeavour. Clear thinking, precise use of words and compelling reasoning facilitate the engagement of theology with public life. The ethical discourse helps to make narratives public and to translate the passionate pleas of the prophet into rationally defensible public positions. And by assisting these discourses to be more vocal and public in credible and constructive ways, an impact is made on the formation of public opinion, public ethos, public Zeitgeist/thinking and eventually on public policy and public behaviour and practices.

And on prophetic policy making at local, regional and global levels:

To impact on public life and to affect the course of events churches need to participate in policy discourse. Policy discourse is conducted by people who have the responsibility to make choices and to carry out the actions that are required by those choices. Visionaries, critics, storytellers, technical analysts can all function with the external perspective of an observer, but policymakers function with the internal perspective of persons and agents who are responsible to make choices in quite complex and specific circumstances that constrain their possible actions. Policy is to be developed in particular conditions that both limit and enable the possibilities of action. The ethical should give direction to policy, but more is required for final decisions and policies: estimates and assessments of what is possible with the help of sociological, economic and other concepts; information on how to move practices and institutions with efficiency from where they currently are to where they could be and ought to be within a specific time frame. In policymaking the variety of vulnerable people need to be given priority, amongst others children, women, oppressed racial groups, poor people and exploited workers. This notion of the priority of the most vulnerable will help that the unavoidable compromises associated with policy discourse will not impact negatively on the most vulnerable. Opting for the most vulnerable serves as benchmark with regard to policymaking, and especially with regard to the adoption of unavoidable compromises that policymakers have to deal with.
To assist policymaking churches cannot be satisfied with broad visionary statements. Neither can we just offer criticism. We also cannot be satisfied with storytelling. We even need to go further than technical analysis. Based on all of the afore- mentioned we need to participate in policymaking processes. This participation does not imply that we offer blueprints for policymaking. Between detailed blueprints and broad visionary statements we formulate so-called middle axioms that are derived from our work on prophetic vision, prophetic criticism, prophetic storytelling and prophetic analysis.

The full text - A Public Theology of Global Transformation in challenging times?- can be found here