Challenges of public theology for theological reflection in Latin America

Abstract

The so called “Public Theology” is one of the fresh ways of doing theology nowadays. As it is still being done, “on the way”, it is in search of theoretical models. This articles presentes two understandings of public theology: one, by American theologian David Tracy, and the other, by Rudolf von Sinner, a Swiss-German theologian rooted in Brazil. Tracy presents the publics of theology (church, academy, society) and Von Sinner, the idea of citizenship as an axis for a public theology in Brazil. After this there is a presentation of three possible theoretical models for a public theology in the context of Latin America: Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of Alterity, Edgar Morin’s Complex Thought and Gianni Vattimo’s idea of Weak Thought.