Comparative Theology and the Debate on Religion and Politics

Contemporary theology has to address two major issues: It has to find a self-reflexive attitude towards those of other religious faiths, and it has to find its place within the surroundings of a broadly secular society. Usually, comparative theology has a particular stronghold in the first of these two issues. However, comparative theology does not very often take a look at the second of these issues: How does comparative theology deal with predominantly secular societies, at least when it comes to Western societies? Is there anything that comparative theology might learn from the debate on religious faith and the legitimatory foundations of secular democracies?

In this paper presentation, I will reconstruct the debate on religious convictions in the public sphere and connect this debate to genuinely theological questions. A special emphasis will be lain on the question of context-transcendent criteria of (public) reason and their value for (comparative) theology.