Infinite Persons and Mass Politics: The Case of the Chilean Falange Nacional

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Father Michael Thomas
PhD Candidate, Political Theory and Comparative Politics
Stanford University

Can theology defend democracy? In the twentieth century, prominent political theorists who aimed to protect democratic politics argued that Christian theology despaired of the political or even threatened to erase it. This presentation challenges these assumptions by unearthing the articles, speeches, and books published in the 1930’s and 1940’s by members of the Chilean political party, the Falange Nacional. The theorists and political actors within the Falange used theology to theorize citizens’ “infinite capacity” for God as a shield to protect democratic politics from the growing power of states and economies, disenchanting the state and the market. The Falange, which criticized fascism, Marxism, and liberal capitalism, eventually transformed into the Christian Democratic Party, one of the most consequential political parties of twentieth- century Chile. This presentation recovers the overlooked spiritual and intellectual roots of global Christian Democratic thought and decenters the political theology of twentieth-century theorists such as Carl Schmitt.

Father Michael Thomas is a PhD candidate at Stanford University specializing in political theory and comparative politics, with research interests that include the intersections of religion and democratic thought, particularly in nineteenth-century Latin America.