Subject profile
Faith, church and society are currently undergoing a profound transformation that is part of the larger context of social and cultural changes in an increasingly globalised world society. On the one hand, processes of secularisation, the breaking off of traditions, religious commitment and practice are accelerating; on the other hand, there are new spiritual movements, experiences of missing God and a radical pluralisation of individual religiosity and the religious landscape, combined with ambivalent phenomena of a "return of religion" in politics and the public sphere. The ecological crisis, social polarisation and the dynamics of violence in a global and fragmented world also have a spiritual dimension that needs to be addressed theologically. In dealing with these challenges, cultural and religious conflicts are coming to a head, not only between religions and different “civilizations” but primarily within them: between different styles of belief, ways of thinking, lifestyles and options for action.
The chair was established as the first DFG Heisenberg professorship in theology in the summer semester of 2016. Its task is to reflect on the current transformation processes in society, the church and the field of religion in a theological and interdisciplinary way. This is done from three perspectives:
- By addressing the problems and questions (especially theological ones) that arise in the current social upheavals and different academic disciplines and can only be dealt with in a transdisciplinary way.
- By accompanying the profound change in the understanding of faith, its forms of life and the social structures of the church, which requires the search for an appropriate language, new ways of communication and discernment, leading to a new shape of faith.
- By enabling encounter, conflict resolution and dialogue between different theologies, understandings of faith and styles of belief in a constructive way, to access the potentials of religious traditions and the Christian faith in a productive way.
The inter- and transdisciplinary work of the chair, bringing together religion-related research at the KU, was closely linked to the establishment of the KU Centre Religion, Church, Society in Change (ZRKG), which was set up on 01.10.2019 and whose founding director is Martin Kirschner. Due to the regional focus on Europe and Latin America, there are cooperations with the European Society for Catholic Theology and its German section, with ZILAS and the scholarship organisation for Latin America ICALA.