University as a space for dialogue of religions: Debates about theology

Abstract

It should be noted that the experience of teaching theology in Western European countries has practically not been studied in modern Russia. The study of this experience is extremely necessary, as it allows you to borrow the best aspe cts of this experience (for example, the cooperative organization of cooperation between church and state in Germany) and not repeat erroneous decisions. Religious education in Western countries is currently facing a number of problems that are not yet known in Russia, but which are likely to await us in the near future. The concept of a postsecular society contains an effective substantiation of the need for theological education in modern Russia. The same concept convincingly shows that to the extent that a return to a secular society is impossible, a return to the dominant position of religious education in universities that was characteristic of the pre-secular era is also impossible. The wide and rather heated discussions characteristic of Russia today about the place of theology in university education can be considered fruitful only if the premise of these discussions is the conviction that we all exist in the new situation of a post-secular society, the main feature of which is inter-religious and interconfessional dialogue. Attempts to determine the place of theology in the system of sciences based on the ideas characteristic of a secular society should be considered deliberately unsuccessful.