Radical democratic theory according to Ernesto Laclau is based on the idea that democracy is an unfinished project that must constantly undergo new processes of inclusion and reflection. This thesis is based on a special view of democratic representation: although it appears universalistic, it is based on a sublime singularity that sets its own limits and thus constitutively generates respective social hegemonies as mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. It is worth taking a closer look at the process of universalisation as an effect, as certain perspectives come into view here: the mediation of singularity to universality as a transformation process, the reflection on hegemonic exclusion through practices that create, stabilise and perpetuate it.
The contribution transfers the political concept of radical democracy to the question of religion and the church. Behind this is the category of the one Catholic or Christian church. Under the promise of God, the question of the church as a radically inclusive project is posed anew. A church or a religion that does not just want to represent a partial generality must constantly update and realise itself anew: it reflects and includes the plurality of interpretations of faith, is based on discursively interwoven structures and seeks to recognise what is excluded and incomplete.
Religious education builds a representative place this process takes place in. It shows a specific significance: the prophetic moment of religious education lies in discursively universalising perspectives, points of view and knowledge that would otherwise remain excluded. So how can a cooperative, inclusive religious education programme be conceived and designed that gives space to the other and thus serves less a static institution and more a dynamic community under the encouragement of the Gospel?