Trinitarian political theology and radical democracy

An Examination of Karl Rahner’s Trinitarian Theology

Karl Rahner’s short but influential work, The Trinity, is examined in this essay. I also consider some of Rahner’s other writings on the Trinity in order to better explicate the theological book under discussion. I locate Rahner’s Trinitarian writings within their ecclesiological and theological context, and then systematically expound The Trinity in order to demonstrate how Rahner attempts to ...

Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics After Liberalism

Political Theology and the Theology of Politics: Carl Schmitt and Medieval Christian Political Thought1

In societies where religion plays a strong and important role, the institutions of the society reflect the religion. Yet in societies where religion plays a more secondary role to say that all political concepts are secularized theological concepts is an overstatement. While Carl Schmitt does make a persuasive argument on the role of religion in political thought, he is also mistaken. In this a...

Political Parties and Democracy

A central claim of democratic theory is that democracy induces governments to be responsive to the preferences of the people. Political parties organize politics in every modern democracy, and some observers claim that parties are what induce democracies to be responsive. Yet, according to others, parties give voice to extremists and reduce the responsiveness of governments to the citizenry. Th...

Political Legitimacy and Democracy

The stability and functioning of any kind of political regime—including democratic or representative ones—relies on the combination of the capacity of rulers and government officials to use coercion and the development of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy can be described as people's recognition and acceptance of the validity of the rules of their entire political system and the decisi...