The original vision of the founder of the Hermannsburg mission, Pastor Ludwig Harms (1808–1865) was deeply rooted in the period of romantic revival in Germany in the early 19th century. Whole congregations of missionaries and colonists should be sent overseas together. Although critical of colonialism, the mission and its settlers became later part of a colonial and even racist society in South Africa. Did the vision influence the social concept six generations later in the former mission field? Did it slow down the process of indigenization, lock up in racist concepts like “apartheid”? The essay provides many hints in that direction and exposes a specific variant of the interaction of migration, colonialism and mission.

An intercultural church, where people from different cultural backgrounds form one community and aims to create a new reality through mutually enriching and challenging interactions, is presented as one of the new ecclesiological alternatives in today’s multicultural situation. However, the fact that this intercultural church is an “intentional” faith-based communal project may raise the question of whether it is a utopian endeavor to dream of an ideal community in this world. Is the intercultural church a utopian ideal or a gospel of hope? What is the motivation and basis for which it is pursued? While considering the ambiguity of the term ‘utopian,’ this paper attempts to find the answer to this questions. And as a conclusion, it argues that an intercultural church should be understood not as a utopian ideal, but as a gospel of hope.

The article examines the Reformation as one of the sources of the secularization of art and simultaneously an impulse for new unintended developments with spiritual potential. It argues that the reformers’ attitudes towards art helped facilitate the emergence and development of new secular subjects and renewed attention to ordinary life and its artistic reflection. In this way, it fostered a new kind of aesthetics, which some consider to be distinctly Protestant. At the center of this aesthetic is the reversal of hierarchies, affirming elements of life usually considered low and unworthy of aesthetic attention. Some view this kind of “iconoclasm” as not only Protestant but essentially Christian, as it reflects crucial Christian doctrines, namely the incarnation, where one image of God was destroyed in His becoming human. This newly emerged aesthetic is seen as both a product and a part of the transition from religious images to art in its own right, raising new questions about whether art on its own can be a source of spiritual impulses and thus opening the way towards the sacralization of art.

Editorial

Book review on Gijsbert van den Brink, Rik Peels, Bethany Sollereder (eds.), Progress in Theology. Does the Queen of the Sciences Advance? Routledge Science and Religion Series, London – New York: Routladge, 2024, 308 pp.

The experience of post-Soviet Lithuania suggests that the reductive coercive industrial, mechanistic reconstruction of the human and social world need not prevail. It is especially instructive because the collapse of Soviet project was also a rupture – a period of overall spiritual, cultural, political openness and creativity. Christian faith played an important part in resistance prior to this renewal and resurged in manifold ways contrary to what might have been expected. But while this period was characterized by eschatological moods and promise, its realization felt short. As similar moods resurge, the article will look at this brief moment of openness to the future through the lens of the trinitarian reflection on the activity of the Holy Spirit. The article will contend that the notion of the “event” of the Holy Spirit as eschatological Gift is crucial to assess its potential for ongoing theological engagement, offering a view of human activity and creativity.

The present time can be characterized as an era of multiple crises (polycrisis). This article outlines the basic features of a theology of crisis. In contrast to the conventional crisis rhetoric, a theology of crisis seeks a distinctly theological approach to experiences of crisis, following the path of Dialectical Theology with reference to the biblical concept of the crisis of God. This concept is grounded both in creation theology and in christology – articularly in the theology of incarnation and the theology of the cross. In light of the crisis of God, the idea of God’s omnipotence must also be reinterpreted. Finally, as will be shown, a theology of crisis understood from an eschatological perspective is a theology of waiting.

The life story of David Flusser (1917 Vienna – 2000 Jerusalem) extends from interwar Czechoslovakia, where he grew up and studied, to the broad research and teaching activities of an erudite professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was a leading authority on Second Temple Judaism as well as early Christian writings. His contribution to the Jewish-Christian dialogue lies above all in his deep understanding of early Christianity, which he approached with great interest, openness and friendliness. For him, both Jesus and the apostle Paul are inspirational personalities who can only be properly understood in the context of the Jewish tradition of the time. The presented article focuses on how Flusser perceives their relationship to Jewish law (Torah) and how he sees Jewish attitudes to Jesus’ crucifixion.

The article recalls the publication and historical context of the Declaration on the Question of the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, which was adopted as an official statement by the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB) in 1995. The document dealt with the past and present of relations between Czechs and Germans, in particular with the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovak border regions after the Second World War. The ECCB’s declaration was intended to express the fact that the two nations caused each other considerable harm during this period. However, a common future is only possible through mutual reconciliation, forgiveness and a joint endeavour to overcome historical injustice. The creation of the declaration was a reaction to the context at the time, when the aim was to find a new way of co-operation between Czechs and Germans after the revolution of 1989. After forty years of communist rule in Czechoslovakia, mutual antipathy was once again widespread among the public. The Sudeten German Landsmannschaft was a key group in this respect. The authors of the Declaration on the Question of the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans faced criticism, mainly because of historical inaccuracies or an alleged unnecessary humiliation of the Czechs towards the Germans. Nevertheless, the document was largely favourably received by the public and politicians and was gratefully received by the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). Subsequently, the declaration was taken as inspiration for further work on the topic and, in cooperation with the EKD, a Protestant anthology on the subject was produced.

Although recent statistics indicate that the majority of the Igbo – an ethnic group living mainly in West African Nigeria – claim to be Christian (of various denominations), their religious identity is in fact more complex: the Igbo do not forget their traditional Odinala religion and practice it together with Christianity without intermingling (multiple religious identity) or in syncretism with Christianity. Odinala is, in short, a polytheistic religious system where the highest reverence belongs to the god Chukwu. The aim of this article is firstly to give an introduction to the traditional Igbo religion of Odinala and secondly its influence on the co-formation of the identity of the Igbo – we choose for the purpose of this article – Catholic Christian. Through the ontological categories of Odinala religion, the paper examines how Odinala shapes the Igbo worldview, how it co-constitutes Igbo identity and helps to establish the ontological category of the human person. The topic is developed through a field research method, reinforced by a comparison of relevant literature.