What Kind of Theology Does the Church of the Future Need? Reflections in a European Context

Abstract

While Christianity is growing worldwide, especially in various forms of charismatic and Pentecostal churches, membership in the Protestant churches and in the Catholic Church are declining throughout Europe. A theology for the church of the future, particularly a theology for pastoral ministry, needs an understanding of the church that is at once relevant to practical pastoral ministry and congregational work as well as awareness of the processes of change and upheaval. This paper argues that there is a need for a contemporary theology of diaspora. At the center of this paper is the question of how God can be spoken of in a theologically responsible way under present conditions without dissolving all theology into anthropology and ethics. The crisis of faith in modern Western secular societies is essentially a crisis of the language of faith. Theology in crisis and a theology for times of crisis—both have the task of waiting: waiting for God’s new entry into the world, for his coming, and for him to speak to us in a new way by making the language of the biblical tradition speak and appeal to us anew. Such a theology for times of crisis is precisely not resigned, but highly expectant, as can be learned from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Keywords

• theology of diaspora
• Christian talk of God
• God’s acting and omnipotence
• a theology of waiting