Abstract This chapter contends that Christian theologies of various historical periods offer considerable scope for critique of twenty-first century ideologies of surveillance that too-readily assume technical rationality and powers of watching over, monitoring, and categorizing people. Such ideologies (not limited to the visual senses), it is proposed, neglect core considerations of human relationality. An account is given of the reflected-upon practices of Christian communities living in the light of their belief in the gaze of God the All-Seeing, epitomized in Psalm 139. Attention is paid to discussion of the boundaries over which theologians argue others ought not gaze; in other words, theologies of privacy (drawing upon Luther, Calvin, Roman Catholic Social Teaching, and other Christian traditions). Consideration is given as to how theologies offer critiques of surveillance ideologies, particularly injustices and involuntary social-political vulnerabilities. Also, attention is given to surveillance within Christian communities and theology. It is concluded that Christian theology and ideas about surveillance are intertwined with each other, historically, politically, and philosophically. Such a view renders surveillance systems more understandable, for these have less to do with particular technologies than with social currents and human interactions. It is further argued that people’s spiritual beliefs and practices are shaped by surveillance, as well as being a critical tool against the same, outside and inside those beliefs and practices.

This paper argues that retail loyalty schemes lie at the intersection of three sites of struggle: datafication, competitiveness, and commodification. It is where these overlap that the production of data-doubles (inferred categories into which individuals are placed), digital self-interest, and neoliberal (finance-dominated) economics, coalesce in surveillance capitalism. By re-deploying Bauman's notion of the flawed consumer, a category of 'flawed prosumer' is used in relation to Stoddart's analytical device of the common gaze, a preferential optic for those who are digitally poor. It is proposed that Christians contribute to public debate three theological themes: solidarity, the universal destination of goods, and the shadow of the cross cast from the future upon the present. It draws upon Kathryn Tanner's theological critique of financed-dominated economics, Roman Catholic Social Teaching, and J & uuml;rgen Moltmann's theology of hope to contribute to the public debates promoted by Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism, Christian Fuchs on digital humanism, and George Monbiot on 'the commons'. The aim is not to adjudicate a 'Christian position' on retail loyalty schemes but rather to argue that by giving attention to those who are excluded, better, more humane, digital societies may be imagined in which 'flawed prosumer' is a token of honourable subversion.

Using autoethnography, the authors (a Muslim woman and a Christian man) reflect on their co-creation of a podcast series, 'Conversations in Practical Theology', which they commenced in 2017. Locating the precipitating factors in their experiences of the British and Irish Association for Practical Theology (BIAPT) conference that year, and their respective faith contexts of Islam and Christianity, they test Stephen Pattison's 2020 proposal that practical theology is fundamentally a practice of conversation. They argue that through encountering one another (and themselves) in podcasting, it is the eclecticism and haphazardness of their intellectual engagement, crucially as representatives of no-one but themselves, that Pattison's contention of the messiness of good practical theological conversation is upheld.

This article considers the relationship between Christian pastoral care and Artificial Intelligence systems. Four aspects are identified from definitions of pastoral care: the horizon of contingency in mortality, the role of wisdom rather than mere information, the oppressive and/or liberatory potential of AI and the importance of empathic presence. In rejecting a transhumanist argument that mental processes are substrate-independent, it is contended that pastoral carers embrace, rather than seeking to circumvent, their crucial finitude in being humans who care. A distinction is drawn between probabilistic reasoning and judgement in retaining a vital place for decision-making that is social. Whilst not eschewing value in AI systems, this article argues for critical evaluation of technologically framed contributions to addressing barriers to people's participation. The importance of empathy is highlighted-in the light of claims not only of robotic mimicry but of interindividual models of emotion. It is concluded that the notion of artificial care be ruled out although the possibilities of AI-assisted care are not dismissed. Opportunities for humans to abdicate from the responsibilities to care, in favour of AI substitutes, are deemed to be best avoided.

"iJesus: the culture of God in a digital world." Practical Theology, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2

This surveillance gaze is White in the sense that while it may, on occasion, intentionally target people who are non-white for special scrutiny, this gaze comprises operations and experiences of surveillance that assume Whiteness as normative and unremarkable. It raises barriers which are of no, or minimal hindrance, to white people. This article draws on examples and theories of racial bias within Artificial Intelligence technologies to identify dataism (a naive trust in data) to be a significant dimension of the problematic gaze. Using Stoddart's cruciform Christian theology of surveillance and the preferential optic for the (digitally) poor, in conjunction with Trozzo's theological critique of data and Pattison's theological notion of enfacement, proposals are made for dismantling the White surveillance gaze. These include acknowledging biases in White theology and imagining a redeemed White gaze as a paradigm of repentant and solidaristic surveillance. The article concludes with recommendations for enhanced practice by Christians who are developers, users, and subjects of surveillance technologies.

This chapter examines the intersection of surveillance and restorative justice. It acknowledges the analysis of personal information integral to criminal justice processes and critiques practices of actuarial justice. The chapter is also cognisant of the shaping effect upon all parties of cultures of surveillance in everyday life. The motif of ‘surveillance from the cross’ is deployed in order to foreground the importance of solidarity with those under unjust and discriminatory surveillance. By considering the sacramental potential of technologies, space is opened for a critical and positive theological evaluation of surveillance in relational contexts. The notion of relational information is therefore proposed to recognise the tension between relational knowledge and digital information. Practical steps towards greater recognition of surveillance in restorative justice are commended.

The article considers atypical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by Christian leaders. In a three-fold classification it first identifies a retreat from civic life in resistance to lock-down restrictions on places of worship, demanding reopening on extreme readings of rights of religious freedom, and refusal of mandatory mask-wearing. A second classification groups as 'rebuke' spiritual warfare approaches within the prosperity gospel tradition that take the virus to be demonic, from which there is a promise to be claimed of God's protection and healing. A third classification gathers a range of conspiracy theories recited by Christian preachers. In evaluating the responses, a parallel classification of entombing conspiracies, endorsing public health measures, and engaging in civic life is proposed. Drawing upon the common good as a theological critique it is concluded that extremist Christian views present a danger to global public health.

"The construction of whiteness: an interdisciplinary analysis of race formation and the meaning of a white identity." Practical Theology, 12(5), pp. 543–544

This article draws on Jesus' critique of holiness as purity to build a Christian theological challenge to unjust twenty-first-century surveillance. Categorical suspicion is directed against populations deemed to be risky. The Temple of Ezekiel's prophecy is set alongside the contemporary airport. Using the analogy of the management of the flows of people into and through sterile spaces, it is argued that purity paradigms have a functional equivalent in the twenty-first-century attempt to control a chaotic world through surveillance by social sorting. The importance of scrutinising those with the power to name categories and the dispersal of notions of 'risky persons' into broader social imagination form one direction of critique. The church is challenged as to its reinforcing of unjust stereotypes, particularly of Muslims, and the call of compassion to reach over boundaries, without ignoring the existence of actual dangerous people.

Contextualized in the city of Edinburgh, this paper deploys components of a liturgy of the Eucharist as a way of opening alternative criteria for the development of any city than those confined to an economic paradigm. It reviews the theological literature on urban planning, with reference to the spatial turn that recognizes the epiphanic potential of the built environment. Addressed to Christian professionals in urban planning, campaigners, and faith educators, the article is an exercise in public liturgical practical theology. It explores how a city might express its humility in light of its failures and engage with fears of the often already-marginalized. It considers how a city wrestles with multiple versions of the Common Good, and with resisting the marketization of social relationships. Corporeality and participation raise questions of social justice.