Theology professor: German theology no longer has worldwide impact

[Michie]

Berlin, Germany, Aug 9, 2020 / 03:01 pm MT (CNA).- Theology in Germany, with a few exceptions, is in a crisis. This is the conclusion reached by a German theology professor, who is the William K. Warren Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Ulrich Lehner earned a doctorate in theology at the University of Regensburg, and a habilitation doctorate in history at the Central European University.

Speaking with CNA Deutsch, the professor and author of numerous books, including God is not Nice, criticized not only a “qualitative regression of German theology”, while noting important exceptions, but also the way some of his colleagues work.

“I have followed many appointments in Germany and can only say: academic mediocrity is always hiring mediocrity,” said Lehner. He believes a “handful of professors” give their former students appointments, “regardless of the weaknesses they have”. It is noticeable that “especially those who are loyal to the Church never get a chance, because they are sorted out beforehand”.

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Theology professor: German theology no longer has worldwide impact

 

[Bob Crowley]

As a general comment, my old pastor once said to me of the Germans that "they're good thinkers".

He thought for example Rudolf Bultmann was somewhat cavalierly treated even by CS Lewis, partly because he was "German" (with all that connoted after World War II). The pastor was a conservative, but he commented "I think he (Bultmann) had something to say."

But it looks in general as though the German theological fraternity have bent the knee to political correctness, and are writing themselves out of the stakes of academic influence.

Some other nation might have to pick up where they've left off. The trouble is which nation?

 

[Xenophon]

"Even in the universities, even among the real scholars of philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practice, as a craft, is beginning to die out. One need only read German books: there is no longer the remotest recollection that thinking requires a technique, a teaching curriculum, a will to mastery..." - Nietzsche