Zivilcourage – ein »theologischer Begriff«?

Abstract

Civil courage or the courage of one’s conviction is commonly understood as a virtue. Its display in public is praised, its lack deplored. Nevertheless, civil courage is not a topic of contemporary theological ethics. This essay seeks to start filling this gap by exploring Karl Barth’s contention that civil courage is a “theological term”. Two parts will serve to approach this topic. In a first step, this contribution aims to shed light on the phenomenon of civil courage from different perspectives. What exactly do we understand as civil courage and how can it be situated within an ethical framework? What are the conditions for its formation and what significance can be attributed to its concrete context? A second step then attempts to locate civil courage from a theological perspective. Here, impulses by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer will be taken up and brought into the discussion. (Accepted, pre-published version)