Social Theory and Practice

Volume 47, Issue 3, July 2021

Religious Diversity, Political Theory, and Theology: Public Reason and Christian Theology

Kevin Vallier
Pages 549-573

Christian Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason

Christian political theologians have usually taken one of two approaches to the purpose of political order: agonist or perfectionist. Either political order should seek a civic peace between opposing forces or advance the full human good. Both approaches face difficulties, so I propose a middle-way: Christian reconciliationism. This political theology holds that political order should seek reconciliation between diverse moral perspectives. With perfectionism, reconciliationism aims to establish the political order as a moral order, but with agonism, reconciliationism rejects attempts to use the political order to promote the full human good. It thereby avoids the vices of both approaches.