Spirit and life

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Spirit and life. Journal for Christian Spirituality (GuL) is a forum for spiritual theology, Christian mysticism and their spiritual practice. The magazine has been published every three months since 2011, each with 110 pages. From 1948 to 2010 6 issues of 80 pages each were published per year. Issue 1/2020 is the 494th issue since the magazine was published (including ZAM), the 2020 year is - due to the interruption of publication at the end of the Second World War - the 93rd year.

history

The magazine was founded in 1926 under the name Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik (ZAM) by Alois Ersin in Innsbruck . It was published by the publishing house Tyrolia (Innsbruck, Vienna, Munich) until 1939 and by Franz Wegner Verlag (Würzburg) from 1940 to 1944. In 1943/44 it was forcibly merged with the magazine for catholic theology (Innsbruck).

It has had its current title since 1947 and is published by the German Province of the Jesuits in conjunction with the Echter Verlag in Würzburg. The editors-in-chief were Heinrich Bleienstein from 1926 to 1944 , Friedrich Wulf from 1947 to 1979 , Josef Sudbrack from 1979 to 1986 , Paul Imhof from 1986 to 1993 and Franz-Josef Steinmetz from 1993 to 2005 . From 2005 to 2013 Andreas Schönfeld (born 1961) was editor-in-chief, and since July 2013 Christoph Benke .

The editorial office was based in Munich from 1928 to 2004, Cologne from 2005 to 2013, and since then it has been based in Vienna.

The number of subscribers is currently 1,800. This means that “Geist und Leben” is comparatively well placed in the category of theological journals. At the time of the Second Vatican Council (around 1961/1965) the number was around 3,000 subscribers. Between 2001 and 2005 the magazine lost approx. 400 subscriptions, but the number of subscribers has increased again since then due to the increased internet presence. The decline was mainly due to the demographic development, a wave of religious houses being closed, the declining number of priests and saving measures by libraries.

Concern and content

GuL is the only theological specialist journal for Christian spirituality of its kind in the German-speaking area. Its aim is to promote an “ integrative spirituality ” based on Catholic tradition , which creatively combines modern life and the spiritual heritage of Christianity. The program word “Spirit and Life” ( spiritus et vita ) is taken from the Gospel of John ( Joh 6,63  EU ) and stands for the integrative approach of the magazine. A special concern is the deepening of the Ignatian exercises and the promotion of Christian contemplation .

The conception of the booklet is based on current issues, thematic focuses and the liturgical annual cycle (Easter, Pentecost, Christmas). The spectrum of the journal includes theology of spiritual life, spiritual interpretation of scriptures, contemplation and exercise practice, Ignatian spirituality, spiritual psychology, history of spirituality, history of mysticism , theory of mystical experience, hagiography , forms of spirituality, religious theology, spiritual movements, religious, priestly, Lay and marriage spirituality, religious border areas ( esotericism ), differentiation of spirits , integration of Eastern practices, spiritual language culture , Christian art and literature.

Online edition

The journal is the first Catholic specialist journal to be available on the Internet in a fully digitized form. Since September 21, 2010 it has offered an online archive of all articles from 1926 to the current issue. The archive documents every issue with complete bibliographical information. Each contribution is available in the original text as a single PDF document for free download and with a copy function in Word format. The text archive contains almost 4500 PDF documents (457 booklets). In this way, the development of spirituality can be followed in the mirror of its themes from the Weimar Republic to the present. The digitization was carried out by the editorial team between 2007 and 2010. To this end, around 40,000 pages of text material were prepared, scanned and recorded in a database. The planning and implementation of the digitization project took a total of approx. 3200 working hours. The online version is recorded in the “Electronic Journal Library” of the University of Regensburg (EZB) and the “ Journal Database ” of the Berlin State Library (ZDB) (under ZDB ID 506125-8 ). The contents of the journals are also recorded in the theologicus index .

literature

  • Andreas Schönfeld: Integrative Spirituality. For the 80th year of “Geist und Leben”. In: Spirit and Life. Volume 80 (2007), issue 1, ISSN  0016-5921 , pp. 1–8 ( Geist-und-leben.de [PDF; 62 kB]).
  • Andreas Schönfeld: Christian Spirituality and the Internet. Digitization ZAM / GuL. In: Spirit and Life. Vol. 84 (2011), Issue 1, 1–14 ( Geist-und-leben.de [PDF; 236 kB]).
  • Andreas Schönfeld: www.geistundleben.de - archive. In: Spirit and Life. Vol. 83 (2010), issue 1, pp. 73–76 ( Geist-und-leben.de [PDF; 1.3 MB]).
  • Andreas Schönfeld (Ed.): Spirituality in Transition. Life from God's Spirit. Festschrift for the 75th year of “Geist und Leben”. Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-429-02473-0 (with a foreword by Karl Cardinal Lehmann ).
  • August Brunner : Spirit and Life. In: Spirit and Life. 20, pp. 3-11 (1947).
  • Friedrich Wulf: 50 years of “Spirit and Life”. In: Spirit and Life. 50, pp. 1-2 (1977).
  • Corona Bamberg : password spirit and life. In: Spirit and Life. 50, pp. 3-9 (1977).
  • Paul Imhof (ed.): God's closeness. Experience in mysticism and revelation. Festschrift for Josef Sudbrack SJ. Echter Verlag, Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-429-01295-3 .
  • Heinrich Schlier , Emmanuel von Severus , Josef Sudbrack a . a. (Ed.): Structures of Christian existence. Contributions to the renewal of the spiritual life. Festschrift for Friedrich Wulf SJ. Real publishing house, Würzburg 1968.
  • Ludger Egidius Schulte: A departure from the middle. On the renewal of the theology of Christian spirituality in the 20th century - in the mirror of the work of Friedrich Wulf SJ (1908–1990). Echter Verlag, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-429-01987-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz-Josef Steinmetz SJ. (No longer available online.) In: sankt-georgen.de. Jesuit community Sankt Georgen Frankfurt am Main, April 7, 2015, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on January 22, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Stefan Kiechle: Spirit and Life - under new management . In: Spirit and Life . tape 86 , no. 4 , October 31, 2013, ISSN  0016-5921 , p. 331 ( gul.kirchenserver.info ( memento of December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed November 25, 2013]).
  3. ↑ Stefan Kiechle : Spirituality or the proclamation of faith? Proven magazine in a new guise. In: Spirit and Life. Vol. 88 (2015), pp. 3–4.
  4. ^ Chronological archive ( Memento from April 25, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). In: echter.de, accessed on January 22, 2020 (the links listed there are available directly, not via the Mementolinks, see web links ).