Source: Qantara
A new inter-religious research training group seeks to investigate how people began to think about religion and to determine how thinking about religion can be made into a fruitful undertaking in our modern age. Four academic institutions are working together on the post-graduate programme. By Stefan Toepfer
Do theologians belong to a kind of social university “precariat”, a group with an uncertain existence and future? It’s a question that springs to mind when one considers that although more attention is being paid to religion in the public sphere, “the interpretive competence of theology (theologies) and their academic character [are] increasingly being regarded as precarious.” That, at least, is the view expressed in an application for a new inter-religious, post-graduate research training group that is itself intended to counter just such a development.
The group is called “Theology as a science: historical and systemic analysis of the formation processes of self-reflection in faith traditions,” and is promoted by four academic institutions: the universities of Frankfurt and Mainz, the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt and the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien (College for Jewish Studies) in Heidelberg. Since April, 11 students have been receiving stipends to work on their doctorates; 12 mainly post-doctoral members are also involved.
Categories: Germany, Interfaith tolerance, Religion