Grace

Disability is not only a socially and medically relevant experience, but also opens up a fundamental theological path to knowledge. Disability theology questions central tenets of doctrine by reinterpreting concepts such as wholeness, normality, and salvation in the light of dependence, relationship, and the lived experience of difference. It criticizes the equation of healing with salvation, normativity with wholeness, and autonomy with humanity, and instead opens up physically situated life, based on resonance and participation, as a place of divine presence. This raises not only ethical questions about inclusion, medical boundaries, and social participation, but also systematic theological questions: How, for example, can our view of God, anthropology, Christology, pneumatology, and eschatology be rethought in light of physical diversity, relational interdependence, and shared dependence? Disability theology thus presents itself as an interdisciplinary but dogmatically distinct field that is gaining relevance both within the church and ecumenically.

• Anthropology

Discipleship (imitation Christi) remains an unwieldy concept in Protestant theology, one that is often avoided in contemporary debates. In this article, however, discipleship is discussed as a Christian concept of empowerment, particularly in the horizon of religion experiences, theological vocabulary, and lived theology. In this way, discipleship can be understood as a key concept of an education inspired by liberation theology, which Ernst Lange  advocates and calls “a language school of freedom.”[i]

[i] Lange, Ernst, Sprachschule für die Freiheit. Bildung als Problem und Funktion der Kirche, in: Schloz, Rüdiger/Butenuth, Alfred (Eds.), Kirche für die Welt. Aufsätze zur Theorie kirchlichen Handelns, München/Gelnhausen 1992. German: “Sprachschule für die Freiheit.”

“Forgiveness” is one of the terms used in systematic theology to describe God’s salvific action toward humanity. More specifically, the term “forgiveness” refers to God’s dealings with humanity as sinners, that is, with their sinfulness and sin(s). Accordingly, in systematic theology, divine forgiveness refers to the forgiveness of sin(s). A possible connection between divine forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness is partly accepted and partly criticized in Protestant theology.

This article examines the ways in which revenge and retribution have been systematically analyzed and evaluated from a theological perspective, both historically and in the present day. It presents several key arguments and positions on this topic along two main lines of inquiry. This article concludes with insights for a theological perspective on revenge and retribution today.