Theology Research News

Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (KU Leuven)

TRN brings news from KU Leuven’s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies to a worldwide audience. By sharing with you highlights of our present research (continuing a tradition going back to 1432!), TRN imparts to its readers our Faculty’s unique and distinguishing profile, with its multicultural and international character as well as its ambition for excellence in (inter)disciplinary research. We are proud of the research done by our researchers and eager to present it to you.

  1. Salaske on How Less is More When Doing Climate Justice

    11/20/2020

    Salaske on How Less is More When Doing Climate Justice

    During the recent Liberation Theology Workshop: Doing Climate Justice (October 22-24, 2020), Dr. Sebastian Salaske (University of Osnabrück) delivered a presentation on how acknowledging, agreeing upon, and adhering to limits can “do climate justice” and, what is more, have truly liberating effects. Salaske suggests that while it’s important to bring back a discussion about limits, we must realize that instead of reducing the quality of life, a sufficiency-oriented perspective could in fact have liberating effects. In his presentation, Salaske draws on two theories from the field of interdisciplinary sustainability research which explicitly look at such limits. The first is “consumption corridors”, described by Antonietta Di Giulio and Doris Fuchs. This theory attempts to integrate the good life and justice in sustainable development between the bounds of minimum human requirements and maximum environmental thresholds. The second theory, developed by Niko Paech, entails thinking of sustainable development as a program for economic reduction and necessarily coupled with sharing and self-production. Both these approaches, coupled with the theological insights of Jon Sobrino and Pope Francis, hold great promise for engendering a civilization of shared austerity that, counterintuitively, results in a liberation of both people and planet. Salaske is Academic Assistant for Dogmatics and Fundamental Theology at the Institute for Catholic Theology of the University of Osnabrück, Germany. You are provided with the opportunity to witness his presentation by means of a video

    30 min
  2. Gärtner on Climate Change, Corona, and Christianity: Current Opportunities for Religious Education

    11/18/2020

    Gärtner on Climate Change, Corona, and Christianity: Current Opportunities for Religious Education

    ESD, which is based upon a close link between ecological, social, and economic issues, presents a possible structure for rethinking religious education on climate change. Perhaps not coincidentally, the present corona crisis, which has visible and frightening economic and social effects, presents an opportunity for religious educators and institutions to grow past traditional and ineffective problem-solving processes and embrace the new opportunity represented by ESD. The ESD approach, however, due to ideological presuppositions, must be critically received in order to be fruitfully enacted within a religious environment. In this presentation, Gärtner shares thoughts and suggestions about opportunities for a renaissance of new political-religious education for adolescents. She places special focus on two questions: (1) the extent to which Christianity can introduce critical-political impulses into religious education in a way that motivates young people to act sustainably and keep sight of structural political dimensions, and (2) the extent to which a specifically religious logic can be considered legitimate in a world marked by ideological plurality. Gärtner is Professor of Practical Theology at TU Dortmund University. Her research focuses on Religious Education and Didactics. In recent years, she has concentrated, in particular, on fundamental issues of Religious Education as well as on the Didactics of Images and of Church History. She is currently conducting research projects on Teaching Methodology in Developmental research and work with youth organisations in day schools. You are provided with the opportunity to witness her presentation by means of a video

    14 min

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TRN brings news from KU Leuven’s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies to a worldwide audience. By sharing with you highlights of our present research (continuing a tradition going back to 1432!), TRN imparts to its readers our Faculty’s unique and distinguishing profile, with its multicultural and international character as well as its ambition for excellence in (inter)disciplinary research. We are proud of the research done by our researchers and eager to present it to you.