”Dealing with what cannot be grasped”

”Things were starting to move” — that was the theme of Ulrich Schmiedel’s inaugural lecture at Lund University in September 2024, and it also became the theme of an issue of Uppdrag Mission. ”From your perspective, what do you see starting to move?” was the question that we asked some of Ulrich’s colleagues in different countries and some parish and diocese workers in the Church of Sweden. Annette Langner-Pitschmann, professor at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, sent us these impressions:

Theology should, in my opinion, offer what a given time actually needs. Now what our globalized world seems short of is good attitudes for dealing with difference. That others are other than we are, this we do not always experience as an enrichment, but rather as a threat.

Samuel Huntington, in his much-discussed slogan of the “Clash of Civilizations,” granted this feeling of repulsion the last word. This is where theology has a much more creative approach to offer than Mr. Huntington. After all, theology knows from its very first breath what it means to be completely overwhelmed by one’s counterpart. In one respect at least, the authors of the biblical texts agree with the thinkers of philosophical theology: God would not be God if we could ever know exactly who we are dealing with. Therefore, theology has always been good at taking linguistic detours, admitting the limits of its own thinking, developing a playful and sophisticated way of dealing with what cannot be grasped, and, at best, even maintaining a sense of humor in the process.

In my opinion, this is the contribution that a Global Public Theology can make: demonstrating visibly that one’s own lack of understanding in the face of difference and otherness can be seen not as a defeat but as a challenge – and that despite all the hardships, it is not only imperative but also worthwhile to take on the challenge again and again.