Last month, McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Samuel Tranter gave a paper at the Scott Holland Symposium 2026, exploring some of the theological precedents available to us as we respond to the advent of the ‘fourth Industrial Revolution’.
Dr Tranter’s talk noted that we find ourselves in a moment where both academy and wider publics are unsettled by the possibilities and perils represented by technological developments - most acutely, the moral and political effects of advances in artificial intelligence. Against this backdrop, he observed, religious traditions are once again being turned to as sources of wisdom in the midst of turmoil. Within this search for critical insight, many are turning to the resources of Catholic Social Thought. ‘CST’ has rightly seemed a deep source of moral reflection and theological vision, not least with the precedent of papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) and recent publication of Nova et Antiqua (2025).
Alongside this work of ressourcement in Catholic tradition, Dr Tranter’s paper began to ask what resources might be found in the parallel, though less defined, tradition of Anglican political theology. Connecting with the theme of the symposium, he raised the question of what in particular we might learn from the Christian Socialism of Scott Holland and his forebears, as they responded both theologically and with social and ecclesial imagination to the industrial revolutions of their times.
Tranter acknowledged the limitations of this tradition - in particular, what Kelly Brown Douglas criticises as their tendency to write ‘theology from above’, and what Rowan Williams among others describe as their ethical paternalism. Nevertheless, he identified key exploratory questions: How did these figures evaluate emerging and influential economic systems as embodiments (for good or ill) of a ‘moral economy’? How did they engage critically with the dominant utilitarian modes of moral and political reasoning? How did they respond to the effects of technological ‘progress’ with a theological account of the person-in-relation and the common good? And: How did they imagine and create institutions and initiatives that sought to nurture agency, foster co-operation, dignify labour, and seek justice for the poor?
This strand of research will in due course contribute both to Dr Tranter’s book project, and to a chapter in the T&T Clark Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Religion, and Ethics on AI, Political Theology, and Democracy, co-authored with Centre Director Prof Luke Bretherton.
