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After surveying the emergence of foundational theology with its appeal to public reason with its parallelism to the development of an independent social political ethics within Christian theology, this essay explores how the critique of foundationalism in pragmatism and the hermeneutical awareness of the historicity reason challenge conceptions of a public and neutral. rationality. Seeking to take into account this critique, certain theologians develop a non-foundational descriptive theology and certain philosophers and political ethicist advocate a contextual communitarian political ethics. These attempts do not provide a sufficient basis for a critique of the values and beliefs of one’s own community or nation. In contrast, the essay attempt to develop the notion of broad reflective equilibrium for theological and ethical reflection that takes diverse criteria into account and is at the same time is sensitive to the critique of foundationalism.