Lebenssinndeutung als Aufgabe der Theologie

This article picks up again on the rekindled debate on a theology that is able to deal with contemporary issues. It criticises the ecclesiastic-doctrinal constraints of so-called public theology as well as its continued thinking on the secular distinction between the church and the world. The publicness of theology, so it is argued, demands that it concern itself with generally accessible topics. In order to achieve this, theology has to raise awareness of the presence of the religious in the life-world. The struggle it however still has with its religious- and cultural-hermeneutical work is then shown by way of the rather unfortunate theological-ecclesiastical memories of the Reformation. One would like to apply the Reformation's fundamental insights to today's questions of life, but misjudges their religious depth in so doing. These are revealed precisely there where questions of life become questions about the whole meaning of life. A final section sketches out how the author envisages a theology that recognises its task as interpreting the meaning of life. A form of theology is thereby presented that either still ought to be or should, once again, be called liberal.