This paper is designed to explicate the concept of "public theology,"primarily by comparing and contrasting the idea with closely related, but substantially distinct, concepts of "civil religion" and "political theology". "Civil religion" is understood to be a celebration, to the point of idolatry, of cultural values held by a society-a serious danger in the emerging global civilization in which each must take other cultures seriously. "Political theology" is understood to be a religion-based conception of the divine or the heavenly as it is related to a specific society and established or enforced by a state or empire. In contrast to a system based on the idolization of a particular cultural's values or a regimes's enforced dogmas, "public theology" is rooted in the conviction that there is an ultimate and universal source of truth and justice that transcends both culture and state, and can be made known in open and free religious and philosophical debate about the basis of ethics. Further, this basis supports the valid principles, purposes and values of a culture or a regime, and aids the reform if they are not adequate to the formation of a global civilization or the kinds of institutions that contribute to it. Public theology shapes civil society and its culture, and is prior to both and more lasting than any political order.
