Gert Otto

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Gert Otto (born January 10, 1927 in Berlin ; † March 13, 2005 in Mainz ) was a Protestant theologian .

Life

Gert Otto was committed to military service when he was sixteen. After being prisoners of war in Poland and the Soviet Union, he did not return until 1946 and, after graduating from high school in 1947, studied Protestant theology , pedagogy and German literature . After completing his doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1952, Otto first became a teacher at Spiekeroog and then a consultant in the catechetical office of the Hanover regional church in Loccum . In 1958 he became a lecturer at the University of Hamburg , where he completed his habilitation in 1960 (on the subject of school - religious instruction - church ). In 1963 he was appointed to a chair for practical theology at the University of Mainz , which he held until his retirement in 1992. He also served as a university preacher from 1976 to 1988 . From 1968 to 1982 Otto represented his faculty in the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .

The focus of his academic work and his publications were in the areas of homiletics (teaching of sermons) and religious education . In both cases he broke new ground in relation to a position from dialectical theology that had previously prevailed in the Protestant churches in Germany. He no longer wanted to understand religious instruction in the tradition of evangelical instruction , mainly represented by Martin Rang and Helmuth Kittel , as “church in school”, but rather determined it from the context of the school. He saw the task of the sermon not primarily in preaching, but in communication, which again emphasized the role of rhetoric as an auxiliary science of homiletics. Both approaches, which also belonged to the program of the magazine Theologia Practica founded by Otto in 1966 and edited for decades (since 1994 Practical Theology. Journal for Practice in Church, Society and Culture ), he combined with his definition of practical theology as “critical theory religious mediated practice in society ”. The “empirical turn” he initiated in practical theology soon became widely accepted. His immediate students also contributed to this, including Henning Luther , Hans-Joachim Dörger , Jürgen Lott , Albrecht Grözinger and Ursula Baltz-Otto (with whom he was married from 1984).

Otto's twin brother was the art teacher Gunter Otto .

Fonts

  • as editor: Practical Theological Handbook. Furche, Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-7730-0255-6 , therein Art .: Foreword, On the current discussion in practical theology, children's worship, confirmation and confirmation lessons, religious instruction.
  • Sermon as speech. About the interactions between homiletics and rhetoric (= Urban pocket books. T series. Vol. 628). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1976, ISBN 3-17-002985-1 .
  • Of spiritual speech. 7 rhetorical profiles (= Gütersloher Taschenbücher Siebenstern. Vol. 343). Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, Gütersloh 1979, ISBN 3-579-03764-1 .
  • Preach rhetorically. Truth as Communication: Examples of Preaching Practice. Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, Gütersloh, 1981, ISBN 3-579-02710-7 .
  • How does a sermon come about? A chapter of practical rhetoric. Kaiser, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-459-01426-1 .
  • Practical theology. 2 volumes. Kaiser, Munich 1986–1988;
  • Who could breathe without hope. Sermons. CMZ-Verlag, Rheinbach 1996, ISBN 3-87062-501-5 .
  • as editor: What does community - tomorrow mean? (= Practical theology. Vol. 31, no . 1, ISSN  0938-5320 ). Kaiser, Gütersloh, Kaiser 1996.
  • Search for clues. Presentation and interpretation of life stories. Thirteen essays. CMZ-Verlag, Rheinbach 1997, ISBN 3-87062-505-8 .
  • Everyday life - identity - religion. In letters and diaries (= reciprocal effects. Vol. 23/24). Spenner, Waltrop 1997, ISBN 3-927718-93-9 .
  • Rhetorical doctrine of preaching. A floor plan. ua, Mainz et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7867-2200-5 .
  • What is is not everything. Appropriate the world in dreams. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-7867-2331-1 .
  • “Where is the child that I was?” Life stories challenge us (= theology and literature. Vol. 16). Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-7867-2452-0 .
  • Death and grief need language. Edited by Ursula Baltz-Otto. Radius, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-87173-505-9 .

literature

  • Albrecht Grözinger , Henning Luther (Ed.): Religion and Biography. Perspectives on the lived religion [Festgabe for Gert Otto]. Kaiser, Munich 1987.
  • Albrecht Grözinger, Jürgen Lott (Hrsg.): Lived religion. In the focus of practical theological thinking and acting. Festschrift for Gert Otto on his 70th birthday. CMZ-Verlag, Rheinbach 1997.
  • Christian Grethlein : Critical Theory of Religious Practice: Gert Otto. In: Ders., Michael Meyer-Blanck (Hrsg.): History of practical theology. Shown using their classics. Leipzig 2000, pp. 433-469.
  • Jürgen Lott: Religious instruction as a “hermeneutic task”. Gert Otto and the debate about religion in school. In: Die Brücke 2007 ( online version ).
  • In memory of Gert Otto (= practical theology. Journal for practice in church, society and culture, vol. 42). Edited by Albrecht Grözinger. Kaiser, Gütersloh 2007.
  • Albrecht Grözinger:  Otto, Gert. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 1042-1054.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gert Otto: Practical theology as a critical theory of religiously mediated practice in society. Theses for understanding a formula. In: Theologia Practica 9 (1974), pp. 105-115.
  2. ↑ marriage certificate . A copy of the document is available from support and can be viewed by authorized persons. October 5, 1984 ( wikimedia.org [IMG; accessed April 26, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Gert Otto, Gunter Otto: Notes on G. von G. In: Albrecht Grözinger , Henning Luther (ed.): Religion and Biography. Perspectives on the lived religion [Festgabe for Gert Otto]. Kaiser, Munich 1987, pp. 13-29.
personal data
SURNAME Otto, Gert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 2005
Place of death Mainz