The closest “family” to LaCugna are the late‑20th‑century **social / relational Trinitarians** who tie Trinity tightly to salvation, church, and ethics, and who emphasize persons‑in‑communion over abstract substance.
### Most similar in style and concerns
– **John Zizioulas** – Develops a full **relational ontology** (“being as communion”) where hypostasis/person is constituted by relation, and human personhood and ecclesiology are mapped directly onto the triune communion.[1][2]
– **Jürgen Moltmann** – Stresses a **social Trinity** of mutually indwelling persons, critiques monarchical and substance models, and draws strong political/ethical conclusions about non‑dominating community and liberation.[3][1]
– **Leonardo Boff** – Reads the Trinity as a model of egalitarian, liberating community and uses social‑Trinitarian themes for base‑community and political praxis.[2][4][1]
– **Elizabeth Johnson** – Feminist trinitarian theologian who, like LaCugna, links Trinity, relationality, and liberation, and is frequently grouped with her in discussions of “relationality” and social Trinity.[4][2]
– **Colin Gunton & Robert Jenson** – Critique Western substance metaphysics, foreground **relation and history**, and are regularly named alongside LaCugna as modern Trinitarians who prioritize relationality over abstract simplicity.[5][2]
### Overlapping themes
These theologians, with LaCugna, tend to:
– Start from **God‑for‑us in history** rather than an abstract “immanent Trinity.”[6][4]
– Treat **relationality** as a key ontological category for speaking of God and human persons.[7][2]
– Use the Trinity as a **model for church and ethics** (mutuality, equality, non‑domination), not only as a metaphysical puzzle.[1][3][4]
If you’d like, I can sketch a small table comparing LaCugna with Zizioulas, Moltmann, and Boff on (1) economic focus, (2) relational ontology, and (3) social/ethical applications.
Sources
[1] Social trinitarianism – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[2] Participation as a Trinitarian Virtue – University of Toronto Press https://utppublishing.com/doi/
[3] A Simple Case For the Trinity – by Clint Schnekloth https://clintschnekloth.
[4] [PDF] The Trinity in Contemporary Theology: Questioning the Social Trinity https://ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/
[5] Incarnational Realism – Center for Barth Studies https://barth.ptsem.edu/
[6] Trinitarian Theology After Barth https://barth.ptsem.edu/
[7] [PDF] Understanding “Relationality” From A Trinitarian Perspective https://www.enochwan.com/
[8] The Relational Ontology of Augustine’s and LaCugna’s Trinity https://digitalcommons.csbsju.
[9] [PDF] REAL RELATIONS AND THE DIVINE – Theological Studies https://theologicalstudies.
[10] God for Us – Uniting Church Australia https://uniting.church/god-
[11] Book God For Us by Catherine LaCugna https://www.stevethomason.net/
[12] Functional Unitarianism in Christian Theology – Facebook https://www.facebook.com/
[13] A Cartoonist’s Guide to the Trinity https://cartoonistbible.com/
[14] A Feminist Critique of Monarchia in John Zizioulas’ Doctrine of the … https://love2justice.
[15] [PDF] TOWARD A BIBLICAL MODEL OF THE SOCIAL TRINITY https://etsjets.org/wp-