Orbituary Prof. Dr. Hans Küng

by Birgit Hallmann

Beth Langstaff is still on medical leave for an indefinite period of time. We pray for her recovery.

University:
The University has been on Whitsun vacation. We are all very grateful that the COVID-19 vaccinations are making progress in Germany and also that, just in time for Pentecost, larger groups were able to gather again for service inside the church buildings even if many churches continued to celebrate “Pentecost outdoors."

Orbituary Prof. Dr. Hans Küng (†6. April 2021 in Tübingen)

On 6 April 2021, Tübingen lost one of its most prominent theologians of the post-war period: Hans Küng. Küng died at his home in Tübingen at the age of 93.

Prof. Dr. Hans Küng

Küng was in fact Swiss, not German, and he kept his Swiss accent his whole life. He was born in Sursee in 1928, the son of a shoemaker and a farmer’s daughter. At the age of 12, Hans felt a calling into the Catholic priesthood. After his ordination in 1954, he went on to do a doctoral degree, exploring Karl Barth’s doctrine of justification – an unusual topic for a Catholic theologian. He later recalled one conclusion that he reached through his studies of Barth – that the good news of the justification of the sinner through the grace of God by faith alone provided the foundation of his personal existence.

Hans Küng was called to Tübingen in 1960, becoming professor of fundamental theology at the age of 32. Together with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), he served as an adviser to the Second Vatican Council – he and Ratzinger were jokingly called the “teenager theologians” because they were so much younger than the rest of those attending. In the 1970s, Kung’s teachings – particularly the way in which he challenged the Roman Catholic doctrine of infallibility – led to conflict and confrontation with the Vatican. In 1979, the Catholic bishops in Germany stripped Küng of his teaching license (missio canonica), which meant that he could not remain a member of the Catholic faculty at the University of Tübingen.

Küng continued to lead his Institute of Ecumenical Research – now independent of the Catholic faculty –and to teach, to write, and to travel all over the world. In the 1990s, Küng founded the Global Ethic Project, which focused on dialogue between world religions (“No peace among nations without peace among religions…No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions”) and on a “world ethic” which stressed principles such as respect for all human life (“You shall not kill.”) and fair and righteous action (“You shall not steal.”). The Global Ethic Foundation, which grew out of this project, is one of our neighbours in Hintere Grabenstrasse.

“Over the past ten years, I have included Küng’s writings (such as his 2012 book, Jesus) and interviews in various Theological German classes. Students typically express their surprise when they encounter Küng—he is not at all what they are expecting. Even if we did not agree with Küng’s conclusions, he provoked us to think about difficult questions: Who was/is Jesus Christ? How should believers approach end-of-life issues? Is it possible for us as Christians to find common ground with other religions?” (Beth Langstaff)

Even as Hans Küng called for dialogue between world religions, he was unequivocal in his own commitment to the Christian faith. In a 2011 interview with Die Zeit, he stated that “Christianity is the lived-out community of faith, of hope, and of love, as we follow Christ [lit. in discipleship to Christ].” He closed a 1999 lecture (“Der lange Weg”) with his own personal declaration of faith that he was a follower not of the Buddha or Muhammed or Confucius, but of Jesus Christ:

“As a disciple of Christ,
the human being in today’s world
can truly and humanely live, act, suffer and die:
in good times and in bad, in life and in death, being held by God
and helping others."

“In der Nachfolge Jesu Christi

kann der Mensch in der Welt von heute

wahrhaft menschlich leben, handeln, leiden und sterben:

in Glück und Unglück, Leben und Tod gehalten von Gott

und hilfreich den Menschen."

See: https://www.global-ethic.org; Stiftung Weltethos für interkulturelle und interreligiöse Forschung, Bildung und Begegnung; http://www.weltethos.org/1-pdf/40-literatur/deu/der_lange_weg.pdf

First guests at the Institute in 2021

By Birgit Hallmann

The winter semester is coming to an end here in Tübingen. Last week the English-German Colloquium for New Testament discussed “online” the work of M. Pawlak, Uni Tübingen, about "Paul and Diatribe: Romans as Dialogical, but Not Dialogue."

This week, for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, we will be able to welcome again guests to the Institute.

Yuriy Mark and two of the leading Pastors of his Church in Mayen, will meet here for a Pastor´s retreat and for strengthen their relationship, and discuss church-related matters. Yuriy graduated, together with 5 other colleagues from TCMI in 1997, the first ever graduates from Ukraine. One of his professors at Haus Edelweiss was former Institute director Ronald E. Heine, who travelled across to Heiligenkreuz to teach History of Doctrine. After graduation, Yuriy started a bible college (Tavriski Christian Institute) back in Ukraine. In 2011 he entered the Doctor of Ministry programme at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Yuriy visited us in Tübingen previously in October 2017 for studies on his research work about  reconciliation between Christian communities in the Middle East, exploring how remembering and commemorating the victims of violence on all sides of a conflict might create the space for understanding and forgiveness between Christians. 

Yuriy Mark at the Institute,
Oct. 2017

Looking Back on 2020

by Beth Langstaff

It is hard to believe that it is a full year since I first came face to face with the realities of the coronavirus pandemic – a conversation in late January 2020, after a Theological English class, with a South Korean student who was planning to fly back to Seoul within a matter of days. In Germany, COVID-19 was barely on the radar at that time; in Asia, by contrast, it was already a full-blown crisis, and the student was worried about her family and about the risks of travelling during a pandemic.

The past year has been challenging – shifting to "home office," as it is called here in Germany; navigating online meetings and new technology (on more than one occasion, I had to get my daughter's help to unmute my microphone); postponing and cancelling planned events and visits.

But there have also been bright sides . . .

• Birgit Hallmann and I have continued our weekly staff meetings online via Zoom with occasional meetings outside (in warmer weather).

• Birgit and I have been invited to attend the weekly TCM staff prayer meeting; it has meant a great deal to share the challenges and concerns, the joys and griefs of the past months with this online community.

• Online teaching has meant that the NT Colloquium can include speakers and attendees from all over the world, from as far away as India and the United States, and to meet online with old friends of the Colloquium.

• We've had time in the calendar to work on projects such as the volume of papers from the Symposium on the Lord's Prayer.

There have also been farewells during 2020. We were very sad to hear the news of Ottie Mearl Stuckenbruck's passing in September. I last saw Ottie Mearl at the EES Board meeting in 2016; we were able to sit and talk together, looking through photos of the Institute’s work in Tübingen through the decades. I am so thankful for her encouragement and support, not least for the cards she sent me while I was on medical leave. A photo of Ottie Mearl and Earl hangs just inside the entrance to the Institute, and that portrait has prompted more than one student or visitor to ask about them. It is good to tell their story!

Happy New Year 2021

by Beth Langstaff

News from Tübingen

 Greetings from the snowy Black Forest, where I live. It has been a quiet Christmas; Germany is still on partial lockdown. Our family celebrated this year's Christmas Eve – Heiligabend – by gathering in our living room to watch an online church service. Here in our local church, the usual children's programme had to be cancelled, so we packed and delivered gift bags to the Sunday-school families instead.

The lockdown has meant that classes for the winter semester are all taking place online. The English-German Colloquium in New Testament has been meeting every two weeks via Zoom – and one advantage of a Zoom meeting is that we can welcome participants from all over the world, including from India, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, as well as Germany. It has been great to see old friends of the Colloquium again. Our last meeting of the year was a lecture by Dr. Claudia Bergmann from Erfurt on the intriguing topic: "A Dry World? The Lack of Beverages in the Ancient Jewish Texts about the Meal in the World to Come."

Loren and Lois Stuckenbruck visiting the Institute in March

NEWS FROM TÜBINGEN

By Beth Langstaff

We were very pleased to welcome Loren and Lois Stuckenbruck back to the Institute in the first week of March (our last visitors for quite a while, I suspect).    

Loren is Professor for New Testament at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich and a member of the EES Board. 

Loren and Lois also came bearing gifts—the two volumes of the recently published T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/tt-clark-encyclopedia-of-second-temple-judaism-volumes-i-and-ii-9780567661449/) which Loren edited along with Daniel Gurtner. This donation is a very valuable addition to the Stuckenbruck library.

While they were here, Lois and Loren also filmed a video of the new Institute facilities and of the library in particular, in which they very generously ask for donations to the Institute library to mark their respective birthdays. Loren is celebrating a “round birthday (einen runden Geburtstag)”, as one says in German, next week—his 60th.

password (Kennwort): Stuckenbruck

Happy birthday and many thanks to both Loren and Lois.

Germany has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Birgit Hallmann and I are both working from home. The summer semester is supposed to start on 20 April; as any classes as possible will be offered online via Zoom.