Culture

Coined in the early 2000s, the term Anthropocene originally emerged from the natural sciences. It refers to a geochronological epoch shaped substantially by humans, which replaced the Holocene and in which humans themselves have become a force of nature. However, the concept is not limited to scientific and technological phenomena. Due to the entanglement between humans and nature implicit in the term itself, the Anthropocene also carries an ethical meaning that manifests itself above all in questions about human responsibility for nature. Despite various criticisms of its descriptive and normative adequacy, and despite its rejection by the International Commission on Stratigraphy in 2024, the term remains interdisciplinarily generative, especially with regard to theological, nature-ethical, nature-aesthetic, and cultural-philosophical questions

• Anthropology

This entry seeks to illustrate that as far as digital culture is the environment of our lives, it is the context of our theologising. It will begin by discussing why digital theological engagement is inevitable and thereafter discuss some of the doctrinal focus areas and debates within digital theology to date.

• Systematic Theology

As it pertains to religion, the term mission (Latin: missio = to send) usually describes the communication of one’s own beliefs and practices to people and groups with other religious traditions or world views. It occurs by means of various practices and media. Additionally, mission is often understood in terms of altruistic and caring service towards fellow human beings and the environment. While the term is often used both colloquially and in scholarship exclusively in relation to the Christian faith,[i] researchers on religion also apply it to other religious traditions. When viewed from the perspective of the history of religion, mission is, however, not a feature of all religious traditions.[ii]

[i] Bürkle, Horst, Art. Mission. I. Religionsgeschichtlich, in: LThK 7 ([Sonderdruck] ³2009), 288–289, 288.

[ii] Vgl. Sundermeier, Theo, Art. Mission. I. Religionsgeschichtlich, in: RGG⁴ 5 (2002), 1272–1273.