EINFÜHRUNG IN DIE NEUE REIHE:
„Die Reformation radikalisieren – Radicalizing Reformation“ 9
INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW SERIES:
“Radicalizing Reformation” 17
DIE REFORMATION RADIKALISIEREN – PROVOZIERT VON BIBEL UND KRISE
94 Thesen 24 (siehe hier)
RADICALIZING REFORMATION – PROVOKED BY THE BIBLE AND TODAY’S CRISES
94 Theses 48 (siehe hier)
„BEFREIUNG VOM MAMMON“ – ZUR EINFÜHRUNG 71
DIE SCHRECKENSHERRSCHAFT DER SÜNDE
Luise Schottroff 76
1. Die mit »Sünde« verbundenen Vorstellungen 78
1.1 Die Sünde als Weltherrscherin 78
1.2 Die Sklavenexistenz unter der Sünde 80
1.3 Der Dämon Sünde 82
2. Weltweite Sklaverei 82
3. Die Befreiung aus der Herrschaft der Sünde 89
Abstract: Luise Schottroff
The Terrorizing Dominion of Sin and Liberation through Christ according to Paul’s Letter to the Romans
Sin for Paul does have to do with concrete sinful actions but this is not his main point. The central passages about sin (hamartia) have instead another common denominator: They speak about relations of dominion, not in categories of deeds and guilt. When Paul talks about sin, he mainly thinks of its terrorizing domin-ion. The concepts he uses have connotations of the imperial emperor (that is, the Roman Empire with its law and greed), or of a slave master or of a demon. The lament in Roman 7:24 is the cry of a slave or of a person possessed by a demon, calling out for help. Furthermore, Paul’s discussion of slavery (douleia) embrac-es two aspects: both slavery and global empire. Paul’s central thesis is: Sin domi-nates all people like slaves.
Paul expects a total change of rule. He hopes for God’s final intervention, which has started with Jesus‘ resurrection. Paul has no direct political goals but expresses faith in the rule of Christ and his hope for a final change of dominion has deep political consequences. He speaks about faith in Jesus Christ alone be-ing Lord over the whole world, all people, and over the whole human being. Po-litical and religious claims for loyalty over against the emperor and the gods played a decisive role in the Roman Empire. In Romans 13:1-7 Paul formulates a statement of loyalty which encompasses political conflicts and which transcends that of the Roman authorities. This is evident from the fact that Romans 13:1-7 could not save Paul from being executed.
Faith leads the faithful to engage in living together already now concretely as liberated people in their communal life in the messianic communities. The com-munity of the faithful understands itself as the beginning of a new life for all. This mean that they have to explain their hope to others, helping others understand, and to show them how liberated people can live alternatively. They are to regard those who do not believe in Jesus as children of God. According to Paul the power of Christ is not directed against a possible misuse of freedom but against the loss of freedom
GOTT UND MENSCHEN HANDELN – WIE IST DAS VERHÄLTNIS?
Frank Crüsemann 95
1. Eine behauptete Alleinwirksamkeit Gottes 95
1.1 Luther 95
1.2 Die Pessachhaggada 97
2. Das Verhältnis von göttlichem und menschlichem Handeln in der Bibel – eine Skizze 99
2.1 Schöpfung und Erhaltung 99
2.2 Gottes Heil – nicht ohne menschliches Mitwirken 101
2.3 Macht und Beziehung 102
2.4 Und das Herz? 105
2.5 Folgerung 107
3. Exodus und Rechtfertigung – die Frage nach dem befreienden Gott 108
3.1 Israels Exodus im Neuen Testament 109
3.2 Die Rettung durch den Messias Jesus als Exodus 113
3.3 Folgerung: Der Exodus als prägende Gotteserfahrung beider Testamente116
Abstract: Frank Crüsemann
God and human acting – how is the relationship?
The question of the relationship between divine and human action leads profoundly into the structures of biblical faith in God. In post-biblical times the assertion of divine sole efficacy in central topics became hugely important. For Luther, as in the whole Reformation, God acts alone not only in creation but also in justification, understood as a new creation, without any human participation. In Judaism the deed of liberation, the deliverance from Egypt, is described this way in the Passover Haggadah, the liturgy for the home celebration.
But this does not do justice to the biblical texts. In contrast to the religions of the surrounding areas the invisible and imageless biblical God cannot be immediately experienced. God speaks and acts through human mediators. This is also true for everything we can designate as a saving act. And power in itself is in no way unconditionally divine. God can, to be sure, influence the core of the human person, the heart or the will (e.g. Phil. 2:13), but our own doing and our own work are always involved (Phil. 2:12). Objectively speaking, that can only be formulated paradoxically: “Everything is seen (by God beforehand), but the freedom of choice is still given” (mAv 3:15).
While usually divine and human acting are indistinguishably intertwined, the emphasis on the sole efficacy of God serves to underscore the point at which God’s own identity reliably shows itself. For this reason, the concluding part inquires into the relationship be-tween Exodus and justification. Viewed biblically, God’s liberating act, as exemplified in the Exodus, is the comprehensive theological category. In the Old Testament God’s caring concern for his enslaved people happens without the categories of guilt and forgiveness playing any particular role. But when Israel’s worship of the golden calf at Mount Sinai threatens to undo the Exodus; only God’s forgiveness can preserve the people and their freedom.
In the New Testament the reference to the Exodus recedes into the background, but still whole books present the rescue through the Messiah Jesus by analogy with the Exodus. This is especially true for the Letter to the Romans, which describes sin as a forceful world ruler and rescue as liberation. Neither in the Torah, nor in the Psalms, nor in the Synoptic Gospels is the liberating action of God reduced to dealing with guilt, although sin and forgiveness can be a fundamental aspect of bondage and liberation. But liberation from all forms of bondage, of sicknesses, demonic obsession, political oppression and so-cial exploitation cannot be reduced to the pattern of (original) guilt and forgiveness as Luther and the reformers attempted to do. When that happens, important biblical, especially political accents are in danger of being lost. From a biblical perspective, wherever liberation and freedom are involved God is at work, and God’s action can be discovered.
INDIVIDUELLES FEHLVERHALTEN UND INSTITUTIONELLE FEHLENTWICKLUNGEN
Rainer Kessler 119
1. Das biblische Buch Kohelet 119
2. Luthers Lektüre von Kohelet 125
3. Luther als Nationalökonom 127
4. Ökonomische Kritik und Theologie bei Luther 131
5. Nach Luther 134
Thesen 137
Abstract: Rainer Kessler
Individual Wrongdoing and Institutional Wrong Trends: Luther as Reader of Ecclesiastes
1. The Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
The Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes or Qohelet, according to the reading of Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger whom I follow is a philosophical treatise on happiness. The book can be dated to the 3rd century BCE. It was written by a Jewish wisdom teacher who knows the Jewish wisdom tradition as well as the Torah tradition and, as can be demonstrated, also prophetic traditions. Its author is also aware of the Hellenistic philosophical discussion on eudaimonía, i.e. good life and happiness resulting from it. He combines the Hellenistic quest for eudai-monía and the Jewish wisdom tradition. His answer is that happiness can only be found through the fear of God. (Cf. Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Kohelet (HThKAT), Herder: Freiburg et al. 2004; see also Alexander A. Fischer, Skepsis oder Furcht Gottes? Studien zur Komposi-tion und Theologie des Buches Kohelet (BZAW 247), Walter de Gruyer: Berlin / New York 1997).
In a socio-historical perspective Qohelet is interesting because it is the first book which is written before the background of the fully monetarised economy of the Hellenistic world. As Norbert Lohfink has demonstrated, the author uses the contemporary commercial language, e.g. 1:3 “What do people gain …” (He-brew mah-yitrôn; Norbert Lohfink, Kohelet (NEB), Echter-Verlag: Würzburg 1980, 20).
Besides the use of a certain language, the author recognises the deep change in economical thinking provoked by the domination of money economy. In 5:9 (Engl. 5:10), Qohelet states: “The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity.” Two observations are crucial for the understanding of this saying. First, the verb “to love” brings “the lover of money” in a strict contrast to the one who follows the Šema‛ Yiśra’el: “Hear, O Israel: … You shall love Yhwh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6:4-5). One can either love Yhwh or money, not both. Second, Qohelet states that the love of money intrinsically is insatiable. Money has no natural limit as real goods do. So “the lover of money will not be satisfied with money”, never.
2. Luther’s Reading of Qohelet.
In the year 1526 Luther gave a lecture on the book of Qohelet or, as he names it in German, “Der Prediger Salomo”, which appeared in printed form in 1532 (WA 20, 1-203). For Luther the book was written by King Solomon, so that it could be called Politica vel Oecomonica Salomonis (p. 8). It serves as a consolation and encour-agement for people who are responsible for the political and economical situa-tion of the state (Magistratus viri, p.8).
In his interpretation of Ecclesiastes, Luther mainly fights two positions. The first could be named the ascetic position. It is represented by some of the old phi-losophers as well as by the monastic movement (Monachi et Sophistae, p.37; credo … hic taxari Philosophos et Monachi, qui … deserebant mundum, p.159). For them, Qohelet’s central phrase “Vanity of vanities” (vanitas vanitorum) means that worldly goods and issues are bad or vain by themselves. In conse-quence, they avoid contact with material goods as far as possible. As an example, Luther mentions the Franciscan monks who refuse to touch money with their hands (qui abstinet a pecuniis ut Franciscani, p.11).
Luther fights this attitude. In his eyes, material goods and all the institutions of the world are a good gift by God the creator. He explicitly mentions authorities, gold, wife (Magistratus seu potestas divina ordinatio est. Aurum est bonum et divitiae a Deo dantur. Mulier res bona est et viro in adiutorium facta, p.10f). Qohelet’s words “all is vain” are not directed against the use of these things but against their misuse (ipse sibi contradiceret, si res ipsas damnaret ac non potius abusum rerum, p.11). Time and again he repeats that Solomon speaks of money and other material goods because they are not bad by themselves. It is only their abuse which has to be rejected (solum usum, quem habent impii, damnat, p. 138). According to Gen 3:19 (“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread”), man is created for work (de labore manum, qui est paeceptus divinitus, p.17), and he (or she) shall enjoy the fruits of the work of their hands (uti rebus, p.59).
Ascetism for Luther is more or less a position of the past, a position of some Greek philosophers and of Fransiscan mendicants. The other front where he fights is closer to the actual problems of his time, and it will gain importance in the future. Luther treats it under the labels of greed and avarice. He speaks of persons who never can get enough. He often quotes the saying about Alexander the Great who wanted to conquer more than one world (Alexandro non satis est unus mundus, p.100; Alexander spectat et cupit alium orbem, p.117; cp. also p.23). Material goods are not bad by themselves but greed and longing for them makes them bad (insaturabile habendi desiderium, p.12). Luther quotes Eccl 1:8: “The eye is not satisfied with seeing”, and comments on it: the heart can’t get enough (Est indicibilis ista vanitas et insatiabilitas cordis humani, p.23). Man is driven by a “restless and insatiable desire” (insatiabilis appetitus et vanitas cordis humani, quod non potest satiare rebus praesentibus, p.24).
Avarice is only the other side of greed. Qohelet says: “Again, I saw vanity un-der the sun: the case of solitary individuals …; … their eyes are never satisfied with riches. … This also is vanity and an unhappy business” (4:7-8). For Luther, this saying describes the avaricious person. He or she cannot enjoy their goods. They only watch at their gold and try to get more of it (Avarus enim non fruitur, tantum aspicit aurum nec tamen exaturantur oculi, p.79). Consequently, they re-main lonesome because they are not able to share (Avarus autem non patitur so-cium et damnat communionem rerum, p.80). And they never are satisfied (… avarus … habet pecunias et tamen non saturatur, p.100). Luther calls avarice a monster that grows by himself (monstrum, p.102). To underline his critical posi-tion against avarice, he cites a number of classical authors like Horatius (p.101f) or Salustius (p. 102). This is a hint that Luther treats the problem of money and gold and that of greed and avarice respectively in a traditional way. The observa-tion immediately leads us to the limits of Luther’s position and what I see as future research tasks.
3. Qohelet, Luther, and further develoopments
Qohelet stands at the beginning of monetarised economy. He already recognises that the greed for money is intrinsically insatiable. Luther stands at the begin-ning of a new epoch where gold and money start to play an increasingly bigger role. He rejects the ascetic answer. He clearly recognises that greed and avarice are closely connected with money economy. However, his criticism still remains in the old individualistic and moral categories of traditional moral philosophy.
Luther does not yet recognise the real character of money economy. He was limited by his situation as a German professor in Wittenberg which is far away from the Upper Italian and Flemish cities where commerce and monetarism de-veloped, and even farther away from Spanish, Portuguese (and later English) conquerors of the world who brought streams of gold to Europe. When he gives an example for people who permanently try to accumulate riches he starts with noblemen and places merchants at the second position (nobiles – mercatores, p.109f). That exactly is his world. He says that the avaricious person is not able to use money according to what money is for: to eat, drink, clothe. (Avarus non potest uti pecuniis eo usu, in quem sunt conditae, nempe ut edat, bibat vestiat ipse, p.102). Money, for Luther, is made to buy utility values. It has not yet turned into capital.
Consequently, his answers to the new challenge of increasing money economy remain moralistic and individualistic. For him, the greedy and avaricious person abuses gold and money. Luther does not see, however, that gold and money pro-duce avarice and greed. I won’t blame Luther for this. But I will blame protestant theology after Luther that it still remains in his individualistic views. The register volume to Karl Barth’s – who was no Lutheran – “Kirchlicher Dogmatik” even does not have an entry “Geld”. The new “Ethik” of Wilfried Härle from the year 2011 mentions money in just one place – as a measure for the equivalence of ex-change. Money as capital has all the traditional attributes originally ascribed to God: it is almighty, omnipresent (or universal), and infinite. However, money obviously is not a problem for theology and ethics.
LUTHERS STELLUNG ZUM INDIVIDUALISMUS DES MODERNEN GELDSUBJEKTS
Ulrich Duchrow 142
1. Entstehung und Entwicklung des Individualismus im Zusammenhang der Geld-Privateigentums-Wirtschaft 142
2. Luthers Kritik am Individuum, das sein Heil kalkuliert, und an einer Kirche, die damit Geld macht 149
3. Luthers institutionelle Kritik des frühkapitalistischen Systems 168
4. Wie kam es zum individualistischen Sündenfall im Protestantismus? 175
Abstract: Ulrich Duchrow
Luther and individualism in the monetary economy
1. Individualism was not invented during the period of the Reformation or even by the Reformation. Rather it developed in the context of a new economy, built on money and private property, starting in the Axial Age in the 8th century BCE, and spreading throughout Eurasia from Greece to China. “Monetisation tends to marginalise reciprocity, and permits an unprecedented appearance of in-dividual autonomy” (Richard Seaford). Its expansive character quickly merges with imperial expansionism. So the Hellenistic-Roman empires characterize the first climax of this civilization. However, all religions and philosophies of this Age criticize this development.
This changes with early capitalism starting in the Middle Ages. Augustine shifts the meaning of St Paul’s teaching of justification by faith, originally meant to unify Jews and Gentiles in messianic communities against the unjust and blasphemous Roman civilization, to the individual salvation of the “western I” (Kris-ter Stendahl). Anselm of Canterbury reinforces this by his calculating doctrine of satisfaction, which eventually leads to the buying of salvation through indulgences.
2. It is true that Luther originally wanted to find his salvation in the tradition of Augustinian calculating monasticism. But it is precisely here that Luther starts his critique of the tradition. In the 37th of his 95 theses he shows that faith puts the faithful into the messianic body of Christ, which is where salvation takes place. This corresponds to his understanding of sin as “incurvatus in se”.
Luther rejects the traditional understanding of “love your neighbor as yourself” making self-love the yardstick. Rather he claims: “Those who hate themselves truly love. This is because they love themselves outside of themselves, and do so in pure form when loving themselves in the neighbor.” With this theological in-sight he hits at the heart of the money civilization. Positively he shows that the humans are relational beings – not in the abstract but from the perspective of the marginalized, just as in liberation theology today (theologia crucis). Redemption happens in the messianic body of Christ, in the eucharistic communio. Even economic and political institutions are viewed as “serving each other”. Philosophically he also establishes the priority of relation over individual substance. Summarizing, he states that God created and recreates humans for the one purpose: to cooperate with God and among each other for the sake of the world, primarily the poor and the “least of these”.
3. This can be counter-checked by Luther’s deep institutional and psychological critique of early individualistic capitalism. As he regards sin from the per-spective of the contradiction between the “incurvatus in se” of the money subject and love in mutuality, he takes up Jesus’ call to decide between God and Mammon (the most common idol of his time, as he puts it in the Great Catechism). From this starting point he deeply criticizes the greedy money civilization and calls upon the church to live as a ‘contrast society’ by fulfilling God’s will.
4. How then did Protestantism become identified with individualism? Building on spiritualistic traditions from the Middle Ages certain groups of the Reformation developed a more and more individualistic spirituality. Luther attacks this tendency in his antinomistic writings, arguing that the Holy Spirit wants to be incarnate in the bodily fulfillment of God’s commands. Later Pietism, starting with Spener, focused more and more on the “reborn” individual as against institutionalized orthodoxy – in spite of its social concern. But the Enlightenment emphasis on individual reason also contributed to the adaptation of Protestantism to capitalist civilization. The Puritans and liberal Lutherans such as Friedrich Naumann represent the climax of adaptation to individualistic capitalism. So not Luther but his legacy is the cause of theological and ecclesiastical individualism, which is to be overcome.
DIE BEFREIENDE GRENZE
Daniel C. Beros 187
1. Zur Einführung 187
2. Politische Praxis aufgrund der fremden Gerechtigkeit des Kreuzes – Thesen und Bemerkungen 190
2.1 Sehen 190
2.2 Urteilen 199
2.3 Handeln 205
Abstract: Daniel C. Beros
The liberating Limit – The foreign Justice of Cross as Power of Life.
The article brings together a series of perceptions, reflections and elementary theological affirmations on the question of the human being. Its development is articulated as an exercise of exploration realized from a theological-anthropological ground perspective that it expresses in the reformer concept of iustitia aliena crucis. The aim of the same is the search of basic epistemological, hermeneutical and praxeological parameters, capable of promoting a really emancipating political practice in the current global context. The article presents and sustains the following theses:
1. As in the structural violence that suffers most of the humanity, which it ex-presses itself as exploitation, exclusion and death, as in the increasing destruction of the ecosystems and of the biodiversity of the earth, it reveals the threat that, though it is perceived in concrete and majority form in the margins of the „global south“, spreads on the world and the life itself: his complete destruction.
2. The historical developments that have caused and cause the mentioned structural violence, and the consequent threat of destruction of the life on earth, must be understood fundamentally as extreme consequence of the systematic cancellation and lost of the necessary limits to survive/live, that takes place in the frame of the globally hegemonic imperial-capitalist system.
3. By virtue of its theological expressiveness and of its implications I propose understanding the content of the above mentioned threat as a potential „annihilation of the world“ (annihilatio mundi), resorting to a concept of the Lutheran Orthodoxy in the frame of its eschatological doctrine „about the last things“ (De novissimis).
4. The reality of human existences that bear witness, communicate and pro-mote „life in all fullness for the whole creation“ has its condition of possibility and fundament in that, in the middle of the „false life“ (T. Adorno), the human beings are qualified for it because they had been made really participants of the story in which happens the „foreign“ justice of the Cross (iustitia aliena crucis) as creative power of life.
5. 1) Given that „the word did meat to itself“ (John 1,14) assuming in its bot-tomless mercy the manger, the margins and the Cross, the above mentioned justice happens in the history as power of life affirming graciously, unconditionally and freely – solus Christus, sola gratia – the dignity and the right to live of the victims of the violence exercised by the hegemonic power and its law of death – sola fide. 2.1) For the same reason the above mentioned justice happens in the history as unconditional condemnation of the hegemonic power and its law of death, so that the perpetrators and others „self-justified“ have become participants of this justice from their recognition and unconditional acceptance – sola gratia, sola fide. 2.2) It demonstrates itself in their real permanent conversion: which means, in a penitent way of change of historical loyalties and solidarities, of political active commitment with the recognition of the dignity and the right of the victims and the excluded ones in the public space and because of that the commitment with the defense of the human rights of all the persons – solus Christus.
6. 1) By entrance of the foreign justice in the reality across that „cruciform his-tory”, the „old“ powers, relations and identities go through, giving place to „new creatures“ (2 Co 5,17). 2.1) They remain as that from the renewing link that they have through the mutual testimony of the „Word of the Cross“ (1 Co 1,18). 2.2) Of this Word they receive again and again the gift of a life been founded precisely on the foreign justice of the Cross, that means, in other power, other relations and other identities, which do a promissory life – and eschatologically reconciled, full.
7. The Church of Jesus Christ is that community of followship in which it is born witness, experiences and celebrates the history in which, according to the divine word of promise, the foreign justice of the Cross happens always again, taking shape visibly thereby the liberating, reconciliating and the renovating work of the three in one God in the womb of the humanity.
8. So, the above mentioned community is constituted as itself as political medium in which the Holy Spirit works the mutual communication of the foreign justice of the Cross, and with it, the reconciled communion between its members – donating to the community, and through it, also to the world, the gifts and charismas which belongs to them.
9. It simultaneously gives place to the communion in the womb of the community and promote to its members in an inseparable way and as expression of their solidarity with (and together with) the victims of the violence produced in the space of the global system of prevailing power, to discover in cooperation with other persons – without the use of violence – how they make concrete interpersonal and institutionally forms of civil justice that, in all the life-orders, they re-main permanently opened for the critical and liberating irruption of the foreign justice of the Cross – in the intense hope that this justice and its reign burst definitively into in the world and in the whole creation as power of life in fullness.
MENSCH WERDEN DURCH SUBJEKT WERDEN
Hans G. Ulrich 213
1. Eine andere Reformation – auf dem Weg der Reformation 213
2. Reformation als Befreiung – in Gottes Gerechtigkeit 214
3. Befreiung durch Gottes Wort – Befreiung von Ideologien 218
4. Befreiung vom Gesetz – Befreiung von Dispositiven 220
5. Befreiung zur Wahrnehmung des Nächsten 223
6. Befreiung in Gerechtigkeit – die Botschaft der Reformation und ihre „Wirksamkeit“ 224
7. Auf der kritischen Spur der Reformation 225
8. Zusammenfassende Bemerkungenen 226
Abstract: Hans G. Ulrich
Becoming human by becoming God’s subject in relation to the Bible, Refo-mation, and present time
This essay persues the always given task, to ask for the very core of the Reformation’s re-discovery of the critical grammar of the Word of God, which will sustain the very reality of our human existence within God’s story, and which will therefore critically disclose any manmade conditions of human life and its captivating force. This includes an unleashing of scripture from its use for any purposes and the attentiveness to God’s word invading into human ideologies. The crucial focus as it came on to the agenda by the grammar of Reformation theology has to be seen in the concept of the „human subject“, and its „subjectivity”. The fundamental logic of Reformation theology was about the human being as „unfree” within God’s will, activity and story, and in this sense as „subjected“ – subjected to God’s actions. „Freedom“ is given with God’s very own actions of deliverance – fundamentally by the deliverance from the „godless fetters“ as from the ideologies of any time as the Barmen declaration has articulated it. To be subjected to God’s actions means to be borne by God’s faithfulness in justice liberating us, human beings, from the „struggle for recognition“, and from governing dispositives. Reformation theology acts within the medium of biblical traditions as a critical disclosure of any captivity in anonymous or hidden laws ruling the human condition. To remain within the tradition of Reformation theology means to pursue its critical track given with its ability to let any human affairs become transparent for God’s actions, as freedom, peace, justice, and the church.
AFRICAN PERSONHOOD AND CHILD THEOLOGY
Kenneth Mtata 229
1. Introduction 229
2. Personhood in African theology 230
3. New challenges 232
4. Colonial-missionary intellectual influence 234
5. African thinkers influence 239
6. Child Theology 244
7. Methodological issues 244
8. Pedagogical approaches to child theology 244
9. Epistemological approaches to child theology 246
10. Advocacy approaches to child theology 247
11. Personhood informed by childhood 249
12. Towards a theology informed by Childhood 251
13. Conclusion 252
Abstract: Kenneth Mtata
Afrikanisches Personsein und eine Theologie, die Kinder ernst nimmt
Dieser Beitrag hat eine Analyse der Veränderungen der Vorstellungen von Menschsein, die verschiedene Formen der afrikanischen Theologie geprägt haben, vorgelegt. Sie zeigt, dass jede Generation der afrikanischen Theologen und Theologinnen mit einem bestimmten Modell dessen arbeitete, was für das „authentische“ afrikanische Menschenbild gehalten wurde. In dieser theologischen Arbeit ging es darum, dieses authentische Sein, das durch kulturelle Herrschaft,
Segregation aus rassischen oder geschlechtlichen Gründen verletzt wurde, wiederzugewinnen. In diesem Beitrag wurde die Auffassung vertreten, dass alle die-se kontextuellen Theologien mit einem gemeinsamen anthropologischen gemeinschaftsbezogenen Rahmen arbeiteten. Dieser Rahmen erwies sich jedoch als unzureichend, da er aufgrund seines hierarchischen Wesens die Kindheit nicht berücksichtigte. Nach einem Überblick über einige wichtige methodische Überlegungen zu einer theologischen Anthropologie, die die Kindheit einbeziehen und sich zu Nutze machen würde, stellte ich im Anschluss eine kurze theologische Reflexion darüber vor, wie eine solche Theologie aussehen würde. Es wurde aufgezeigt, dass zu ihren Kennzeichen Relationalität, Wechselseitigkeit und Interdependenz gehören würden. Dies geht über das Anliegen der Gleichheit in an-deren Befreiungstheologien hinaus. Dies bleibt immer noch ein neuer Bereich, doch mit Potential für einen volleren Ausdruck und ein Wachsen wie bei Kindern.
LUTHERS „ENTDECKUNG“ DER KINDERRECHTE
Karin Ulrich-Eschemann 254
1. Kinderrechte als Menschenrechte 254
2. Was dient dem Wohl der Kinder? 256
3. Wie machtlose Kinder zu ihrem Recht kommen 259
4. Das Kind als Paradigma 261
5. Die Kinderrechte und Gottes Gerechtigkeit 266
Abstract: Karin Ulrich-Eschemann
Luther’s Discovery of Children’s Rights
Insofar as Luther’s theology within the context of his disclosing insights in our human existence it is not at least an instructive guide for the most urgent work on human rights and especially on the rights of children. This means again not to derivate the notion of human rights and the rights of children from theological traditions, but to highlight the theological context for a transparent understanding of childhood and children in their very own human condition in order to substan-tiate the rights of children. Children should not be seen in competitive compari-son to a normative kind of adulthood but have to be seen in their own full exist-ence although neither by idealizing their status nor by underestimating their in-dependence – and nevertheless their relatedness to the family in its primary re-sponsibility for children. The reflection on the very own status of children in their strength and weakness as it should be confirmed by equivalent rights does have its theological background in biblical texts and their tradition exposing children as God’s gift and as paradigmatic for the status of human beings within God’s story with human beings, and in relation to every child. Martin Luther has pivotally emphasized the significance of children within the perspective of God’s becoming human and has shown humanity as real in its transparency to God’s care and actions.
AUTORINNEN UND AUTOREN 268