ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the line of interpretation that runs from Max Weber's Economy and Society, through the Frankfurt School, to the Theory of Communicative Action developed by Jürgen Habermas and, to a lesser degree, Karl-Otto Apel. It describes Moltmann's critique of modernity in the context of his use of both 'political' and 'public' as descriptive terms for the engagement of theology with social questions. Moltmann develops his point of view in dialogue with a number of different influences. Civil society, for Habermas, provides an avenue through which morality may filter through the social system and the life-world in a way that communicative action may still be possible. Leonard, Critical Theory in Political Practice. The theory intends to be rooted, not in a raw empiricism, but in a constructive approach to understanding social relationships. The work of Adorno and Horkheimer is only capable of informing a Christian theology of the cross to a certain extent.
